SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Karlheinz Stockhausen
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(Kärl’-hints Shtôk’-hou-zen) 1928–2007 German composer Stockhausen studied with Frank Martin (1890–1974) and then with Messiaen in Paris, where he met Boulez. Stockhausen’s use of serialism differs from Boulez’s: whereas the latter wanted to find a means of creating relations between diverse elements, the former was concerned to provide a smooth path between extremes. This can be clearly seen in ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1928–2007, German A master of electronic composition, Stockhausen forged a unique path by creating and reinventing musical forms while recasting the fundamentals of musical content. One of his works lasts 24 hours. Another mixes electronic sounds with the voice of a boy soprano. As composer-conductor Pierre Boulez said: ‘He invented a new kind of relationship between music’s components. He ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who have come together to play music. In theory, an ensemble could contain any number of instruments in any combination, but in practice, certain combinations just don’t work very well, either for musical reasons or because of the sheer practicality of getting particular instruments and players ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

Musique concrète (‘concrete music’) was the term coined by Pierre Schaeffer (1910–95) in 1948 to describe his new approach to composition, based on tape recordings of natural and industrial sounds. The term was chosen to distinguish the new genre from pure, abstract music (musique abstrait). Schaeffer was a radio engineer and broadcaster. Having gained a qualification from L’École Polytechnique ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

The saxophone occupies an unusual position in that it is a bespoke instrument that has barely changed since its creation. Although it does not occupy the position in the orchestra its creator had envisaged, Adolphe Sax’s invention has played a central part in music ever since it burst on to the scene in the 1840s. Sax’s father, Charles, ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

Slit drums, or log drums, are found in many pre-industrialized cultures in Africa, Australasia, Central and South America, and the Far East. They are formed by hollowing a block of wood through a lengthwise slit, and are sounded by the players’ stamping feet or by being beaten with sticks. Slit drums are really idiophones as ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

The story of classical music is not bound up simply with the traditions of any one country: it is tied up with the cultural development of Europe as a whole. This section attempts to pick out the composers from each successive age who, looked at from one point of view, exerted the greatest influence on their contemporaries and subsequent ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

Unlike rock music, electronic music is made partly or wholly using electronic equipment – tape machines, synthesizers, keyboards, sequencers, drum machines and computer programmes. Its origins can be found in the middle of the nineteenth century, when many of electronic music’s theories and processes were conceived. In 1863 German scientist Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

Wagner’s Ring cycle is made up of four works – Das Rheingold (‘The Rhinegold’, 1851–54), Die Walküre (‘The Valkyrie’, 1851–56), Siegfried (1851–57; 1864–71) and Götterdämmerung (‘Twilight of the Gods’, 1848–52; 1869–74). Although there have been other, even more ambitious projects in the history of opera – Rutland Boughton’s cycle of choral dramas based on the Arthurian legends and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Various saxophones and clarinets, flute, piano, b. 1945) ‘I’ve been isolated and kicked out of jazz as a black man who is not “black” enough, a jazz guy who is not “jazz” enough,’ said Chicago native Braxton, looking back on a highly iconoclastic career that has been documented on more than 130 recordings. After military ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Vocal group, 1969–79) An experimental German outfit, Can were significantly influential on both rock and dance music. The band was founded by students of avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen: Holger Czukay (bass) and Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), with Michael Karoli (guitar), Jaki Liebezeit (drums) and, briefly, David Johnson (flute). American singer Malcolm Mooney joined for Can’s debut album Monster ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

b. 1963, Swedish One of the most thrilling Wagnerians of the twenty-first century (and now rivalling even the legacy of twentieth-century legend Kirsten Flagstad), Stemme is adored by Wagner fans for the seeming ease with which she commands the score and the stage. Her repertoire also includes contemporary music and major Strauss and Puccini roles. Introduction | Modern Era | ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(O-lev-ya’ Mes-se-an’) 1908–92 French composer Messiaen’s music is unmistakably personal, drawn from a wide range of interests rather than influences. A church organist from his twenties, he was aware of the ‘church modes’ (scales used in Western music before the development of the key system) and investigated other modes, including rhythmic ones. He studied Asian and ancient Greek ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

b. 1930 American composer and lyricist Sondheim studied with Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) and Babbitt. Early work as a lyricist for Jules Styne’s (1905–89) Gypsy (1959) and Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957) brought his name to public attention, but it was not until Follies (1971) that he achieved recognition as a composer. His work is marked by a biting wit ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Ambient music has existed since the late-nineteenth century. Although Brian Eno was the first artist to use the term ‘ambient’ to describe his music on his 1978 album, Music For Airports, composers like Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, with their notion of composing pieces to complement listening surroundings, broke with musical conventions and expectations. Frenchmen Erik Satie ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer
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