AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

1876–1971 American composer Ruggles wrote only a handful of works, of which the most important are the orchestral Men and Mountains (1924) and Sun-Treader (1926), Portals (1926) for strings and Angels (1924) for brass ensemble. They exhibit a boldly powerful, big-boned atonal style that at times approaches his friends Ives and Varèse, but remains independent. He worked slowly ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

1897–1965 American composer From his childhood, Cowell was interested in ‘New Musical Resources’ – also the title of an influential book he published in 1930 – experimenting in his teens with tone-clusters (groups of adjacent notes played on the piano with the fist, palm or forearm) and, not long after, with plucking or strumming the piano’s strings. ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

Recording: The Pines of Rome, The Fountains of Rome, Roman Festivals, Boston SO (cond) Seiji Ozawa (Deutsche Grammophon) Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Carl Ruggles | Modern Era | Classical ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

Aida, set in Ancient Egypt, was not composed to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, as has often been suggested. Nor was it commissioned by the Khedive of Egypt to mark the opening of the Cairo Opera House that same year. It happened that the French Egyptologist, Auguste Mariette, keeper of monuments to ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

First performed at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden on 1 December 1951, this adaptation of Herman Melville’s short story saw E. M. Forster writing large portions of prose while Eric Crozier focused on the dramatic execution. Accordingly, Billy Budd was one of the most meticulously researched and well-written librettos of any Benjamin Britten opera. Typically for ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

‘The Flying Dutchman’ Initially a one-act opera, Der Fliegende Holländer was later expanded to three. Wagner was anxious to make sure it was performed in the way he wished, and wrote detailed production notes for the directors and singers. He also conducted the first performance at the Hofoper or Court Opera in Dresden on 2 January 1843. Although Wagner ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

‘The Secret Marriage’ Composed: 1792 Premiered: 1792, Vienna Libretto by Giovanni Bertati, after George Colman and David Garrick Act I Carolina, Geronimo’s daughter, is secretly married to Paolino, her father’s clerk. The couple are trying to find a way to tell Geronimo of their marriage; he would not approve of such a lowly match. Paolino comes ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1984–87 Premiered: 1987, Houston Libretto by Alice Goodman Act I On 21 February 1972, representatives of the Chinese armed forces are waiting at an airfield outside Beijing in order to greet President Richard Nixon on his arrival. The presidential Boeing, The Spirit of ’76, taxies to a halt. Nixon disembarks with his wife, Pat, ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

In comparison to Manon, Werther is the romantic dreamer, totally lost as he sees his beloved Charlotte marry another man. But his music – a seductive, rocking melody where he and Charlotte at once express the strength of their love and the necessity to deny it in the face of social pressure – etches itself on the audience’s ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(An’-to-nyen Dvôr’zhak) 1841–1904 Czech composer Dvořák was the pre-eminent composer of the Czech national revival. Arguably his achievement was less fundamental than Smetana’s, but he developed a strong international profile and for millions his style epitomizes ‘Czechness’ in music. The Czech influence in his work is hard to demonstrate and he almost never quoted folksong, but the appeal of his ...

• Personalities
• Jazz & Blues
• Twenties

Although he is often cited as the first ‘folk’ bluesman to record, Blind Lemon Jefferson was actually much more than that: he was America’s first male blues pop star. On the strength of his recordings for the Paramount label – some of which are said to have sold upwards of 100,000 copies – Jefferson became a celebrity throughout the ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1882–1937, Polish Szymanowski was the most important Polish composer of the twentieth century, even though his childhood home was in a territory annexed by the Russian Empire. While his early years were spent composing and playing piano, he later pursued his studies in Warsaw and Berlin, before returning to the family home that was subsequently destroyed by ...

• Personalities
• Blues
• Blues Rock
• Guitar Heroes
• Rock

Blues-rock guitarist Peter Green was born Peter Greenbaum in Bethnal Green, London in 1946. He began playing guitar at the age of 10. Among his early influences were Hank Marvin, Muddy Waters and B.B. King. After Green played bass in several semi-pro outfits, keyboardist Peter Bardens invited him to play lead in his band. Three months later ...

• Classical
• Late Baroque

More sophisticated diplomatic relations between states in the late Baroque era resulted in a time of relative peace – for a short period at least – during which the arts flourished. As in the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, writers, artists and musicians turned to the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome for their standards and their in­spiration. At ...

• Styles & Forms
• Country
• Roots of Country

Country music is identified with the American South and West, but its roots were established on the Atlantic seaboard, from Cape Breton to New England, then filtered into the lower-central USA through the 2,400-km 1,500-mile) Appalachian mountain range. Eventually it proliferated everywhere. And if such a reach seems so vast as to defy a single culture ...