Composed: 1867–68; 1873–77 Premiered: 1877, Weimar Libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire Act I Outside the temple of Dagon, the Hebrews fear that God has deserted them. The Philistine satrap, Abimélech, mocks them, saying that they should worship Dagon. When Samson speaks out Abimélech attacks him and is slain. The gates of the temple open, revealing the ...
1835–1921, French Camille Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy as both pianist and composer. He began composing when he was six. At 10, he gave his first piano recital, and entered the Paris Conservatory aged 13. At 17, in 1852, Saint-Saëns wrote his prizewinning Ode à Sainte-Cécile (‘Ode to Saint Cecilia’) and at 18, he produced ...
(Ka-mel’ San-San) 1835–1921 French composer Saint-Saëns was the founder of the National Society for French Music (1871) and influenced the development of the French style through his immense output and through his pupil Fauré. His music epitomizes French qualities of formal elegance, clarity of texture and craftsmanship, all allied to techniques of Romanticism. He was a prodigy, beginning his ...
Understanding how to use friction to produce sounds in glass goes back to Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who discussed the singing effect achieved by running a moistened finger around the rim of a glass. In 1743, the Irish musician Richard Puckeridge created an angelic organ, or seraphim, from glasses rubbed with wet fingers. The glasses were filled with water ...
Often regarded as the country cousin (and hence the bumpkin) of the organ family, the harmonium did add a touch of warmth to many nineteenth-century rural homes, where the purchase of a piano would have been an unaffordable luxury. But the two instruments often cohabited, too. Harmonium Compositions Today, unlike the piano, the harmonium is a ...
Keyboard percussion instruments include the western xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel, the log xylophones and marimbas of Africa and Central America, and the barred instruments played in the Indonesian gamelan. The orchestral xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel have thin wooden or metal rectangular bars laid out like a chromatic piano keyboard. The back row of bars – ...
Adolphe Sax’s most famous invention, the saxophone, was patented in 1846. This new family of instruments is a cross between the single-reed woodwind family and the keyed brass instruments of the early nineteenth century such as the ophicleides, which are said to have influenced him. Each member of the family combines the single reed and mouthpiece, familiar ...
The xylophone (the name means ‘sounding wood’) is a percussion instrument consisting of a series of wooden bars of ascending size, capable of producing a range of notes when struck. It originated possibly in Asia or Africa; an instrument thought to be of Chinese origin fell into the hands of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764). Early instruments consisted of blocks strung together ...
1850–1905, Italian The Italian tenor Francesco Tamagno was idolized for his powerful voice and dramatic delivery. Tamagno thrilled his many admirers with his effortless top C, which not all tenors were able to reach, and his passionate on-stage performances. His voice was described as ‘enduring brass’. Otello, the eponymous hero of Verdi’s penultimate opera, which he ...
(Ga-bre-el’ Fô-ra’) 1845–1924 French composer Fauré, a pre-eminent master of French song, studied with Saint-Saëns in 1866, and succeeded him as as chief organist at the Madeleine in 1896. Fauré was appointed Director at the Paris Conservatoire (1905–20) and also served as critic for Le Figaro. He was thus a powerful influence on twentieth-century French music, especially through ...
(Goos’-taf Ma’-ler) 1860–1911 Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler bestrode the world of music at the end of the nineteenth century. ‘My time will come’, he remarked about his often misunderstood compositions. For Mahler the conductor, due recognition did come during his lifetime, but another half-century had to pass before a fully sympathetic appreciation of his creative achievement was possible ...
b. 1926 Canadian tenor Vickers joined the Covent Garden company in 1957, singing Verdi’s Gustavus and Berlioz’s Aeneas. In 1958 he sang the title-role in the Giulini-Visconti production of Don Carlos, and Siegmund at Bayreuth, followed by Jason in Cherubini’s Medea in Dallas. He sang Siegmund and three other roles in Vienna in 1959. He made his Metropolitan ...
(Jool Mas-na’) 1842–1912 French composer Shortly after his first operatic success with Le roi de Lahore (‘The King of Lahore’, 1877) Massenet became professor at the Paris Conservatoire; he was subsequently elected to the French Academy instead of his rival Saint-Saëns. Massenet’s 28 operas include several enduring masterpieces: Manon (1884) remains one of the most popular French Romantic operas, while Werther ...
1842–1912, French The son of a businessman, Jules Massenet had a musical mother and was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11. He had a prolific career with varying degrees of success, but above all he became reputed for his orientalist excursions, his brilliant musical projection of the female character, and the ability ...
Bayreuth in Bavaria had had an opera house, the Margraves’ Opera House, for 130 years before King Ludwig II contributed towards the construction of the Festspielhaus – the Festival Theatre. The foundation stone was laid on 22 May 1872, and the 1,345-seat theatre opened four years later (it has since been repeatedly enlarged and now seats 1 ...
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