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(Vocal/instrumental group, 1980–84) Marc Almond (vocals) and Dave Ball (keyboards) created a charismatic art pop act, landing a huge hit with ‘Tainted Love’ (1981). Several other dark disco tracks followed: ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’, ‘Torch’ and ‘What!’. Their debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981, 1982 in the US) explored the steamier side of life. Almond’s solo career ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

1659–95 English composer Henry Purcell was, without doubt, the most distinguished English composer of the seventeenth century. Equally at home writing for the church, the theatre or the court, he also set a number of bawdy catches for which it is likely he also wrote the words. Unfortunately, little is known about Purcell’s private life. His ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Ba-na-dat’-to Mär-chel’-lo) 1686–1739 Italian composer and satirist Marcello was a Venetian nobleman and younger brother of the composer Alessandro Marcello (1669–1750). Benedetto trained as a lawyer and held various public positions in Venice, including those of chamberlain and governor. He was not dependent upon music for a living and con­sequently styled himself dilettante. His compositions included concertos, sonatas, sinfonias ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Originally (and still occasionally) known as the ‘violoncello’, or ‘little violone’, the cello is tuned in fifths like the violin and viola, running bottom to top, C, G, d, a, the same tuning as a viola, but an octave lower. There were early experiments with a smaller five-stringed instrument (with an additional E string ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

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 ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Although ostensibly ‘English’, Dido and Aeneas owes its ancestry to Italian and French operatic influences. Although the recitatives follow the rhythms and inflexions of the English language, they were clearly modelled on Italian monody. Purcell followed the already established tradition of taking the plots of operas from ancient myth and legend. This one came from ancient Rome, as the ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Composed: 1834–37 Premiered: 1838, Paris Libretto by Léon de Wailly and Auguste Barbier, after Cellini Act I The Pope has commissioned Cellini to make a statue of Perseus. Balducci, the treasurer, is annoyed; he wants the commission to go to Fieramosca, who he also wants to marry his daughter Teresa; she is in love with Cellini. ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1965–75) At the dawning of the age of Aquarius, Soft Machine – their ever-changing line-up based around Robert Wyatt (drums) and Mike Ratledge (organ) – rivalled Pink Floyd as London’s prime exponents of psychedelic rock, mainly through use of complex time signatures, a stubbornly English lyricism and the creation of musical moods through open-ended improvisation. ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

Unlike rock music, electronic music is made partly or wholly using electronic equipment – tape machines, synthesizers, keyboards, sequencers, drum machines and computer programmes. Its origins can be found in the middle of the nineteenth century, when many of electronic music’s theories and processes were conceived. In 1863 German scientist Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1982–87) Manchester’s finest coalesced around the songwriting pair of former journalist Stephen Patrick Morrissey (vocals) and Johnny Marr (guitar). Andy Rourke (bass) and Mike Joyce (drums) completed a team who became the darlings of bed-sit melancholics everywhere, and exerted a huge influence on indie rock over the following decades. Their mesmerizing blend of 1960s beat music and ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

Electro is currently enjoying a huge renaissance, but, despite the current hype and mainstream acceptance of the music, it has always enjoyed a strong cult following. This is due to the music’s many different strands and its constant need for reinvention. At its most basic level, electro differentiates itself from house and techno by the fact that ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

Born out of a reaction to both punk and 2-Tone’s politics and anti-star stance, the British synth-pop wave of the early 1980s brought almost instant change to the UK pop scene. Moreover, the US success of the principal protagonists signalled the biggest ‘British Invasion’ since The Beatles and The Rolling Stones transformed American pop in the 1960s. Mixing a ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

This enduring British cult dance scene takes its name from the post-mod discos in the north-west of England where it developed, rather than the geographical location of the music-makers. Legendary disco venues like Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, Blackpool’s Mecca and The Wigan Casino, are still spoken about in reverential tones by soul and dance connoisseurs. The reason northern soul ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

This was a decade when the impact of dance culture on rock and vice versa sometimes led to exciting results: it opened with ‘Thriller’ and closed with the Madchester scene of Happy Mondays. Punk had subsided to become the less threatening new wave movement, which, along with the new romantics, dominated the early days of the decade. As ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

In pre-Schoenberg tonal music, the ear finds its way around a composition by recognizing even quite disguised repetitions and variants and by sensing tensions between keys. Neither of these is possible in a piece of strict serial music. With a bit of practice, the ear can recognize the inversion of a phrase but not very readily a pattern of ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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