1876–1973 Spanish cellist The Spanish Casals, a musician of intense and visionary power, is responsible for the present-day appreciation of the cello as a solo instrument. His career as an international soloist was complemented by his membership of the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals piano trio and by his conducting. His recording of the unaccompanied suites by J. S. Bach brought these works ...
Acoustic Guitar Throughout its history, the guitar has – perhaps more than any other instrument – managed to bridge the gap between the often disconnected worlds of classical, folk and popular music. Its roots go back to Babylonian times; by the 1500s it was prevalent in Spain, and is still sometimes called the Spanish guitar. Medieval versions – ...
Classical-guitar legend Andrés Segovia (1894–1987) was born in the city of Linares, Spain and reared in Granada. He received musical instruction at an early age and was tutored in piano and violin but warmed to neither. When he heard the guitar in the home of a friend, however, he was hooked. Disregarding the objections of his family and ...
1921–57 British horn-player The son and grandson of horn-players, Brain was principal in Beecham’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and in the Philharmonia Orchestra. He played with brilliance and delicacy, recording the Mozart concertos under Herbert von Karajan (1908–89). He can be heard anonymously in many Philharmonia recordings of the 1950s. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Pablo Casals ...
In the Renaissance, both four- and five-course (eight- or 10-stringed) guitars were played, both of them notably smaller than the modern instrument and with only a shallow waist. In the Baroque period, players seem to have switched over to an instrument with six courses (six or 12 strings), which remains the standard guitar configuration. The instrument at this ...
The Modern Age was characterized by rapid and radical change and political turmoil. By 1918 the Russian tsar, the Habsburg emperor and the German kaiser had lost their thrones. The two Russian revolutions of 1917 resulted in a Communist government led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was fragmented to allow self-determination to the newly formed countries of Czechoslovakia ...
1877–1962 French pianist In his early years, Cortot combined the piano with conducting, directing the first performance in Paris of Götterdämmerung at the age of 24. As a pianist he specialized in Romantic music, especially Schumann and Chopin, and in music by contemporary French composers. He co-founded the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals piano trio in 1906. Introduction | Modern Era ...
1882–1951 American pianist Born in Austria, Schnabel studied in Vienna, moving to Berlin in 1900. He gave concerts with his wife, the contralto Therese Behr, and appeared with many other performers including Casals, Feuermann and Fournier. He was an outstanding, deeply intellectual interpreter of the sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert, and an inspiring teacher. ...
Joseph Vernon Turner was born on 18 May 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of school after sixth grade and worked with blind singers on the streets. The blues was in the air in Kansas City and when Turner joined in with the street singers he would make up blues lyrics. Turner was functionally illiterate and never learned ...
If swing in its most characteristic form was a hot and hard-driving music, William ‘Count’ Basie showed that there was a cooler and softer side to the music, an alter ego that even at swift tempos could move with a relaxed, almost serene restraint that subliminally mirrored the streamlined design forms of the Machine Age, in which ...
In the 1960s and early 1970s, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was the primary alternative to Miles Davis’s domination of the field. Hubbard came up in the hard-bop era, blew free jazz with Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, and established a body of exemplary compositions, recordings and improvisations with the best of the 1960s Blue Note artists: Art Blakey ...
(E’-gor Strvin’-ske) 1882–1971 Russian composer Stravinsky was a Russian composer, naturalized to French citizenship, then ultimately became American. He was one of the most formative influences on twentieth-century music. He came from a musical background (his father was principal bass singer at the Imperial Opera in St Petersburg) and studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, from whom he acquired a mastery ...
1880–1953 French violinist Thibaud studied at the Paris Conservatoire and began his European career with the Concerts Colonne. He is best known for his membership of the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals trio, but was also a distinguished interpreter of the sonata and concerto repertory. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Leif Ove Andsnes | Contemporary | Classical ...
California native Joe Pass (1929–94) developed a thoroughly precise jazz technique that propelled him to virtuoso status alongside pianist Oscar Peterson and vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, with whom he made a series of essential recordings for the Pablo label in the Seventies. Pass was raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He took up guitar after being inspired by singing cowboy Gene Autry. ...
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 ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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