1869–1944 English conductor After studying at the Royal Academy of Music and working with opera companies, Wood established the Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts in 1895. These concerts, now held at the Royal Albert Hall, have become an enduring British tradition. He was noted for his adventurous choice of repertory and his professionalism. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical ...
1491–1547 King of England and composer From his coronation in 1509 until his death in 1547 Henry VIII led his country in a permanent split from the Catholic church, and he depleted the savings accumulated by his parsimonious father in a series of wars he lost against France. On the brighter side, he was a generous patron of music. ...
The lead guitarist in Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood, has straddled the line between dissonance and resonance, noise and melody. His arsenal of effects, virtuosity and unconventional phrasing have been key features in this very English band’s development. No wonder Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour is a fan. ‘They’ve done some very good things. I can see why people make ...
Blues-rock guitarist Peter Green was born Peter Greenbaum in Bethnal Green, London in 1946. He began playing guitar at the age of 10. Among his early influences were Hank Marvin, Muddy Waters and B.B. King. After Green played bass in several semi-pro outfits, keyboardist Peter Bardens invited him to play lead in his band. Three months later ...
1596–1662 English composer Henry Lawes served in the Chapel Royal of Charles I and, in the early part of his career, composed theatre music known as masques. By the early 1630s, Lawes had cultivated a friendship with the poet John Milton, with whom he collaborated on two masques, Arcades (1630), the music for which has not ...
1659–95 English composer Henry Purcell was, without doubt, the most distinguished English composer of the seventeenth century. Equally at home writing for the church, the theatre or the court, he also set a number of bawdy catches for which it is likely he also wrote the words. Unfortunately, little is known about Purcell’s private life. His ...
Bagpipe Somewhere, perhaps in Mesopotamia, about 7,000 years ago, a shepherd may well have looked at a goat skin and some hollow bones and had an idea for a new musical instrument: the bagpipe. In the early Christian era, the instrument spread from the Middle East eastward into India and westward to Europe. By the seventeenth ...
Many musical cultures have made use of wooden concussion sticks. Their history goes back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they are played by the Aboriginal people of Australia. This group of instruments includes pairs of sticks struck together like claves (3 cm/1 in wide, 20 cm/8 in long), which are cylindrical wooden dowels widely used in Latin-American, ...
The term ‘woodwind’ refers collectively to the orchestral instruments whose sound is generated by reeds or by passing air across (as opposed to directly into) a mouthpiece: this covers the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon. All woodwind instruments sound different pitches in the same way as brass instruments – using enclosed columns of air, based on the principles ...
The flute most familiar to us from its use in orchestral and solo music is more properly known as a ‘transverse’ or ‘side-blown’ flute. The flute family is distinct from the other woodwind instruments in that it does not use a reed to generate sound. Instead, a stream of air striking the edge of an opening in the side of ...
Transverse flutes worldwide, though they vary cosmetically and in size, have few variations on a common design: a parallel-bored tube with blowing aperture and a row of finger holes on the front (and occasionally a thumb hole). Most are made from locally available tubular materials, particularly bamboo. End-blowing means that, in a bamboo or reed flute, ...
Cut a clean end to a length of bamboo, reed or other tube, place it near the mouth and direct a narrow stream of breath at its edge, and with a little practice, a pitched note can be produced. Blow a little harder and that note will jump to a series of ascending harmonics. It is not ...
In East Asia and South America, some end-blown flutes have a feature that requires a different embouchure from neys and kavals. A ‘U’-shaped notch is cut in the rim on the opposite side to the player. It is bevelled on the inside or the outside of the tube to make a thin edge at which the breath is directed. The ...
Whistles, or duct flutes, have a device to channel the player’s breath, so a narrow air stream hits a sharpened edge, causing the necessary turbulence to vibrate the air column without the player using any special embouchure. Usually this duct is created by inserting a block, known as a fipple, into the end of the ...
The first known examples of the recorder date from the Middle Ages. It became hugely popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and then, surpassed by the concert flute, it largely fell out of use in the professional arena. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, it was redesigned by Arnold Dolmetsch and subsequently enjoyed a ...
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David Bowie
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