1635–88, French Philippe Quinault was a well-known playwright when he decided to switch to the writing of opera libretti. The techniques of plays and operas – spoken and sung drama – diverged considerably, but Quinault succeeded in transferring his skills from one genre to the other. It was risky, but the star prize was collaboration with Lully, ...
(Fe-lep’ de Ve-tre’) 1291–1361 French theorist and composer As a result of his treatise Ars nova (c. 1322) Philippe de Vitry was the most musically influential figure of his day. It described new developments in mensural notation, allowing composers more rhythmic flexibility and therefore compositional variety. Unfortunately, no songs known to be by Vitry have survived, but a number ...
(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 ...
(Fe-lep’ Vâr-da-lo’) c. 1480s–1530s French composer Although French by birth and the composer of chansons and motets, Verdelot travelled to Italy early in his life, and is best known as one of the founders of the madrigal. He seems to have composed most, if not all, his madrigals in the 1520s, the genre’s first decade. Many of ...
(Zhan Fi-lep’ Ra-mo’) 1683–1764 French composer and theorist Rameau was born in Dijon, where he was first taught music by his father. During his early years he held organist’s posts in several places, including Avignon and Clermont-Ferrand, Paris (where he published his first harpsichord pieces in 1706), Dijon (1709), Lyons (c. 1713), and once more at Clermont-Ferrand (1715). He ...
1683–1764, French A respected theorist and composer of keyboard music, Rameau did not compose his first opera until he was 50 years old. Consistently adventurous in his operas, he equally inspired passionate admiration and hostility from Parisian audiences and was a comparably powerful figure between the 1730s and 1750s. The Wanderlust Years Rameau was born at Dijon in ...
Rameau’s magnificent Hippolyte et Aricie is a rare example of a major composer’s first attempt at opera also being one of his greatest achievements. However, Rameau was nearly 50 years old and already a respected and experienced musician when he composed it, and had evidently been contemplating the project for several years. The impressive literary quality of Pellegrin’s libretto ...
‘The Gallant Indians’ Composed in 1735, Les indes galantes is an opéra-ballet in which each act has its own setting and self-contained plot. Its four entrées include a scene set in a Turkish garden, Incas worshipping the sun in a Peruvian desert, a flower festival at a Persian market and a village ceremony in a North American forest. ...
Castor et Pollux was considered Rameau’s greatest achievement after he revised it in 1754. The storyline revolves around the generosity of one twin brother willing to forsake his unique immortality so that the other may live, but their complex situation creates strong portraits of inner conflict and tension between other characters, Rameau conveys the magical forces of Hades, ...
‘Alceste, or the Triumph of Alcide’ Composed in 1674, Lully’s Alceste, ou le triomphe d’Alcide, a tragédie lyrique with a prologue and five acts, had a double link with ancient Greek culture. The libretto, by Philippe Quinault, was based on Alcestis, a tragedy by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides that in turn derived ...
1659–95, English Henry Purcell was one of the greatest Baroque composers and, as the diarist John Evelyn put it after his death, was ‘esteemed the best composer of any Englishman hitherto’. Often compared to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91), Purcell exercised a similar mastery over many different types of composition – dramatic, sacred, vocal and instrumental. Tragically ...
1632–87, French Jean-Baptiste Lully was a French composer with an Italian background. He was born in Florence on 28 November 1632. His original name, later gallicized, was Giovanni Battista Lulli. In 1646, aged 14, he was placed with a noble household in Paris as a singer, dancer and violinist, and he became familiar with ...
The revival and imitation of ancient theatrical genres in sixteenth-century Italy bore fruit in seventeenth-century England and France in the works of the great dramatists of those countries: William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine. In Italy, however, the sixteenth-century innovations in spoken drama were followed in the next century not by a great national ...
With the arrival of the new musical drama in the Baroque era, the voice became one of the most powerful instruments in the musical repertory during this period and nowhere was this better demonstrated than in France. Under Louis XIV, who took full power in 1661 and reigned until 1715, France experienced a renaissance of artistic and literary ...
The first half of the nineteenth century was essentially a period of insurgence in Europe, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the series of uprisings that rocked the continent around 1848. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was also underway, beginning in Britain, then spreading south through the rest of Europe. With these two strands of revolution came ...
AUTHORITATIVE
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...
CURATED
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.