b. 1944 New Zealand soprano Having come to England to study at the London Opera Centre, Te Kanawa made her Covent Garden debut as the Countess (Mozart’s Figaro) in 1971. Appearances quickly followed at Glyndebourne, the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Salzburg Festival. She became increasingly associated with the music of Richard Strauss, especially the roles ...
The term contenance angloise (‘English manner’), was first coined by the poet Martin Le Franc in his poem ‘Le Champion des Dames’ (c. 1440–42), in which he described new French music and implied that Du Fay and Binchois had ‘taken on the contenance angloise and followed Dunstaple’. Although the poet did not define the term, the text immediately before this ...
The medieval psaltery was a flat box with strings running across its top; it was plucked either by the fingers or by a quill held in each hand. The harp-psaltery, or rote, took the form of a right-angled triangle with the apex pointing into the musician’s lap. Although played like a harp, in construction it was more similar ...
(Oz’-valt fun Vol’-ken-shtin) c. 1376–1445 South Tyrolean poet Oswald von Wolkenstein has been called the most important poet writing in German between Walther von der Vogelweide and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). He is known to have been a singer and was also very active in the political sphere. Well over 100 poems can be attributed to him, but it ...
(Fe-lep’ da Mon’-ta) 1521–1603 Flemish composer In his early years Monte travelled in Italy and, although his maturity was spent at the Habsburg court, he became one of the most prolific composers of Italian madrigals, publishing more than 1,100 of them. His career lasted for over 50 years, making him a good measure of changing tastes in ...
Meistersinger (the singular and plural forms are identical) were German men predominantly from the lower and middle classes who were members of town guilds formed to encourage the composition and performance of songs known as Meisterlieder. The genre had its origins in the fourteenth century and flourished for three centuries. It was essentially an oral tradition: not all Meistersinger could read ...
The Renaissance lute had a flat front and a rounded back made out of a series of curved strips of wood (usually yew or sycamore) fitted together. At the centre of the front was the soundhole, called the ‘rose’, which was round and intricately decorated. The instrument’s neck was glued and nailed to the top block of the body, ...
The archlute had two peg boxes, one at the end of the neck and one just under half way up. The strings to be stopped ran to the lower one and were plucked by the fingernails of the right hand. One-and-a-half times as long, the unstopped strings ran to the higher one and were not touched by the player ...
The cittern was a plucked stringed instrument of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was strung with wire and played not with the right fingers but by using a quill plectrum, rather like the cittole and gittern of the medieval era. The body was flat both back and front, with a pear-shaped face. The fingerboard lay on the front ...
Although types of lute can be found in many societies, both ancient and modern, the structure and indeed name of the Renaissance lute derived from an Arabic instrument, al-ud (‘the ud’). Like the Western Renaissance lute, the ud consisted of a large curved soundbox, a short neck ending in a peg box and a series of ...
Tim Farriss (b. 1957) was born in Perth, Western Australia, and found fame with his brothers Andrew and Jon as a member of the band INXS, originally known as the Farriss Brothers Band. The oldest of the Farriss children, Tim was classically trained on the guitar for four years, starting at the age of eight. He ...
Alternative-rock guitarist Peter Buck (b. 1956) was born in Berkeley, California. After dropping out of college, he moved to Athens, Georgia, where he met singer Michael Stipe while working in a record shop. The pair discovered that they had similar tastes in music: punk rock, Patti Smith and Television. Together with Mike Mills (bass) and ...
As a member of the first family of country music, Maybelle Carter (1909–78) distinguished herself far beyond her role as accompanist to her brother-in-law A.P. Carter and his wife Sara (Maybelle’s cousin) in the Carter Family, the first recording stars of country music. Maybelle was born Maybelle Addington in Nickelsville, Virginia. In 1926 she married Ezra J. ...
Peter Tosh (1944–87), born Winston Hubert McIntosh, was the guitarist in the original Wailing Wailers. His mercurial temperament, provocative advocacy of the Rastafari movement and untimely death drew attention from his role in the most important band in the history of reggae. Tosh grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. His height (6ft 5in/2m) and temperament earned him the nickname ...
Of all the guitar players of the last 40 years, none produce music as confounding yet beautiful as Allan Holdsworth (b. 1946). His blinding speed, fluid legato, impossible intervallic leaps, perplexing chord voicings and unpredictable melodies have made his style one of the most mystifying to guitarists everywhere. Allan Holdsworth was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire ...
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