SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Serge Diaghilev
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Few non-performing or non-composing figures have had as much effect on the development of twentieth-century music as Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929). Born in Russia, he became enamoured early of Russian national music, memorizing Ruslan i Lyudmila (‘Ruslan and Ludmilla’, 1842) by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804–57) as a child. Though he studied composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), Diaghilev abandoned it to concentrate ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Sâr’-ga Va-sil-ya’-vech Rakh-ma’-ne-nof) 1873–1943 Russian composer Rachmaninov studied with Arensky and Taneyev in Moscow, graduating with the Great Gold Medal in 1892. The same year, he composed his famous Prelude in C sharp minor. In 1897, the premiere of his First Symphony had a hostile reception and he ceased composing for three years. However, he was able to ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Sâr’-ga E-va-no’-vich Ta-na’-yof) 1856–1915 Russian composer Taneyev studied in Moscow with Nicolai Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, a lifelong friend. He gave the Moscow premieres of all Tchaikovsky’s piano concertos and in 1878 succeeded him at the Conservatory, becoming director, 1885–89. His music was, like Tchaikovsky’s, cosmopolitan, especially skilful in his use of Bachian counterpoint (about which he ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1799–1837, Russian Russian composers of the High Romantic era were able to enjoy a ready-made source of stories for operas in the works of Alexander Pushkin. His first success was the romantic poem Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820), which Glinka used for his opera of the same name, first performed in 1842. Pushkin produced not only poetry, but essays ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1891–1953, Russian One of the most accessible and well known of twentieth-century Russian composers, Prokofiev merged an experimental approach with melodic conventionality to create music that was distinct in its national style. A fine pianist and impetuous personality who studied orchestration at the St Petersburg Academy with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1909), Prokofiev wrote three childhood operas by the age of ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Composed: 1919 Premiered: 1921, Chicago Libretto by the composer, after Carlo Gozzi’s L’amore delle tre melarance Background Factions in the audience demand Tragedy, Romance, Comedy and Farce. The Cranks take control. Act I The prince is ill. If he dies, the heir to the King of Clubs would be Clarice. This must be avoided. It has ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Composed: 1941–42; 1946–47; rev. up to 1953 Final version (13 scenes) premiered: 1959, Moscow Libretto by the composer and Mira Mendelson after Tolstoy’s novel Part One 1806: Andrey Bolkonsky is weary of life. He overhears Natasha Rostova talking to her cousin Sonya about the beauty of life. Her words renew his belief in happiness. 1810, St Petersburg: Andrey meets ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Syir’-ga Pru-kôf’-yef) 1891–1953 Russian composer Prokofiev’s music oscillates between motor rhythm and lyricism, and between irony and expressive sincerity. This gives his compositions extreme variety: works composed closely in time, even adjacent movements in the same work, are of quite different characters. He began composing as a child, and had his first success (with his First Piano ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1874–1951 American conductor Born in Russia, Koussevitzky started out as a double bass recitalist, turning to conducting in 1908. He left Russia in 1917, and was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1924–49. His commissioning of many new works for Boston eventually led to the establishment of the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(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 ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1882–1971, Russian Stravinsky, who was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, and died in New York, is one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. A master of style, he could create sound palettes as extreme and varied as any written during his lifetime, even if these extremes stemmed from his refusal to associate ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The 1860s saw a number of major reorganizations in European politics. Italy became a united country under the king of (former) Piedmont-Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II, in 1861 and its new national government tried to retain the kingdom’s liberal ideals, such as removing instances of operatic and intellectual censorship. However, Italy’s liberalism was not aspired to by other ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

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 ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The opera house and, more specifically, opera audiences, were among the last to be receptive to the new musical language that developed during the twentieth century. Slow, as well as reluctant to vary their traditional musical tastes, perceptions and expectations, many viewed the opera house with nostalgia; as a symbol of the establishment, holding ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

One of the most startling developments in instrumental music during the first half of the nineteenth century was the rise of the virtuoso performer, particularly the composer-performer who wrote very difficult works to demonstrate his own flamboyant skills. Virtuoso performers were nothing new, of course – Mozart and Clementi were both dazzling pianists who wrote works for their own ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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