1888–1989 American composer Born in Siberia of Russian-Jewish parents (his real name was Israel Balin) who emigrated to New York when he was a child, Berlin was self-taught and sold his first successful song (‘Sadie Salome, Go Home’) before his 20th birthday. ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ in 1911 was an international hit. In all, he wrote over 1,000 ...
(Piano, songwriter, 1888–1989) Born Israel Beilin in Siberia, Berlin’s family relocated in 1893 to New York, where he broke into vaudeville. He published his first song in 1907 and in 1911 had his first major hit with ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. One of America’s most prolific melodicists, Berlin wrote hundreds of tunes that became standards, including ...
(Music publisher, producer, manager, 1884–1985) Publisher Irving Mills was early to recognize the potential in black music. He formed Mills Music, Inc. with his brother in 1919 and enjoyed a business relationship with Duke Ellington from 1926–39 that brought a procession of Ellington songs into the Mills catalogue. He also formed the Mills Blue Rhythm Band in ...
This section encompasses styles that were, at least initially, designed to work in tandem with other forms of expression, deepening or enhancing their impact. The scores of musical theatre are woven into stories played out by the characters on stage. A film soundtrack is composed to interlock with the action on a cinema screen, while cabaret songs ...
(Al’-ban Bârg) 1885–1935 Austrian composer Berg came from a cultured background, but had little serious musical training until, at 19, he began studying with Schoenberg. His progress was rapid, but although he was Schoenberg’s most naturally talented and most devoted pupil, Mahler’s influence on him remained strong. His first published work, the Piano Sonata op. ...
The most strikingly original and authoritative voice on cornet since Louis Armstrong, Leon ‘Bix’ Beiderbecke set the example for a generation of aspiring white jazz players during the 1920s. His meteoric rise to fame was followed by a dramatic fall from grace that led to his ultimate death from alcoholism at the age of just 28 in 1931. A Self-Taught Genius ...
Being perched at the top of the charts on 25 December has represented a prestigious achievement for musicians since the dawn of the pop era, while the shopping frenzy of the festive period makes it one of the most potentially profitable times to release a record. It wasn’t always that way: the original Yuletide songs were church carols that endure ...
From the eclectic musical melting pot of ragtime, Gilbert & Sullivan, early jazz, Viennese operetta, blackface minstrel shows and authentic Deep-South blues emerged the Broadway show tune. ‘Show’ and ‘tune’, of course, are the essential indicators of musical style. The music created for Broadway musicals – and, subsequently, for the musical form whatever its ...
The relationship between politics and folk music has always been fuel for lively debate. Some argue that the two should not mix, and that aligning traditional song with politics demeans it. Front-line singers such as Dick Gaughan and Roy Bailey, however, argue that folk songs are inextricably linked with politics, and perform plenty of strident material to ...
A forerunner of jazz, ragtime was derived from brass-band music and European folk melodies, African-American banjo music and spirituals, minstrel songs, military marches and European light classics. The ‘raggy’ style, or ragged-time feeling, of this jaunty, propulsive, toe-tapping piano music refers to its inherent syncopation, where loud right-hand accents fall between the ...
Contemporary music whose ancestry lies in the Western classical tradition finds itself in a curious position. Nothing illustrates this better than the fact that we are not entirely sure what to call it. The label ‘classical’ seems anachronistic, especially when applied to composers who have challenged some of the fundamental assumptions of the classical tradition. ‘Concert music’ is similarly problematic ...
Although the art of the classical singer has traditionally been perceived as the pursuit of technical perfection and tonal beauty, the twentieth century enabled a re-evaluation of what that art should be. Due in part to the technological advances and harrowing events of the times, much of the music was innovative, challenging, moving, powerful and, ...
Glinka, the ‘father of Russian music’, was the first composer to forge a distinctively Russian style. Previously, during the reigns of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, music at the Imperial court had been directed by leading Italian opera composers such as Baldassare Galuppi (1706–85), Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816) and Domenico ...
The history of opera is dominated by Italian and Austro-German composers. It is in Italy and Germany that we find the greatest number of opera houses. La Scala in Milan lays claim to be the most famous opera house in the world, and its opening night every season is a major event in the country’s social calendar. The theatre, ...
Futurism was an artistic movement of the early twentieth century. Its influences spread to all areas of the arts, including literature and the visual arts as well as music. The main force behind the movement was the Italian writer Filippo Marinetti, who published the definitive manifesto of the Futurists in 1909. With declared enthusiasm for modernity and new inventions ...
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.
