(Tenor saxophone, 1927–91) Stan Getz was one of many white tenor saxophonists influenced by Lester Young, but as he matured he developed a distinctive sound of his own. After working with Jack Teagarden, Stan Kenton, Jimmy Dorsey and Benny Goodman, Getz became one of the ‘Four Brothers’ in Woody Herman’s Second Herd. From the 1950s onwards ...
Jazz and fusion guitarist Stanley Jordan (b. 1959) caught listeners’ attention with his touch technique, an advanced form of two-handed tapping, for playing guitar. By quickly tapping (or ‘hammering’) his finger down behind the appropriate fret with varying force, Jordan produced a unique legato sound not usually associated with tapping. Jordan was born in Chicago, Illinois. He ...
A crucial centre for the emergence of the symphony was the electoral court at Mannheim, where the orchestra achieved an international reputation under its director Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz (1717–57). Elsewhere in Europe, orchestral music figured significantly in the mixed programmes of the public concerts that formed a feature of musical life in many cities from the early 1700s. ...
(Sta’-ne-slwaf Mon-yoosh’-ko) 1819–72 Polish composer Moniuszko was the foremost composer of operas in nineteenth-century Poland, and his national importance is equivalent to that of Bedřich Smetana(1824–84) in the Czech lands and Glinka in Russia. He studied in Minsk (1830–37) and Berlin (1837–40) and began to write stage works in the mid-1840s. His opera Halka was staged in Warsaw in 1858 to ...
(Al-yek’-san’-der Kon-stan-te-no’-vich Gla’-zoo-nof) 1865–1936 Russian composer Glazunov was heir to the nationalism of ‘The Five’ and the cosmopolitanism of Tchaikovsky. He studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and completed many of Borodin’s works after he died, notating the overture to Prince Igor from memory. In the 1880s and 1890s he enjoyed international fame for works such as the tone-poem Stenka Razin (1885), the ballet ...
1852–1924 British composer Born in Dublin where he studied the organ, Stanford moved to London at the age of 10 to study the piano with Ernst Pauer. At Cambridge he was organist of Trinity College (1873–92) and founder-conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society, where he gave the premieres of many of Brahms’ works. He also studied in Leipzig ...
(Piano, arranger, composer, 1911–79) Stan Kenton pushed big-band jazz in new directions throughout his career, and in the process divided critical opinion more radically than any other bandleader. He formed his first band in 1940, which became the Artistry in Rhythm Orchestra in 1942. Imaginative arrangements and excellent soloists ensured the band’s success. It gave way ...
(Piano, 1919–78) Lennie Tristano began his career as a performer in promising style in his native Chicago, but later focused much of his time and creative energy on teaching his own musical ideas. He was born weak-sighted and was blind from the age of 10. He gathered a group of important acolytes around him during the late 1940s in ...
(Piano, accordion, vibraphone, composer, arranger, b. 1926) Stan Tracey is one of the UK’s most original and talented jazz musicians, yet he has always remained underrated by critics; Sonny Rollins is quoted as asking ‘Does anyone here realize how good he really is ?’. Londoner Tracey was playing professionally from the age of 16, ...
(Guitar, b. 1959) In the early 1980s, Chicago native Jordan developed a revolutionary approach to the guitar, in which he sounded notes by tapping on the fretboard with the fingers of both hands. This technique allowed Jordan to play completely independent lines on the guitar simultaneously. His dazzling polyphony soon captured the attention of Blue Note Records, ...
Bill Monroe invented the ‘high, lonesome’ sound of bluegrass vocals, but The Stanley Brothers perfected it. Ralph and Carter Stanley refined those vocals into close, three-part harmonies that were unprecedented at the time and which have had a lasting influence ever since. If Bill Monroe And The Blue Grass Boys set the standard for bluegrass picking, The ...
fl. 1700–34, Italian The soprano Durastanti’s first known appearance was at Venice in 1700. By 1707 she was employed by the Marquis Ruspoli in Rome, where she first met Handel, who composed several superb cantatas for her. Durastanti worked in Venice from 1709 until 1712, where she sang in nine operas by Lotti and the title role ...
1819–72, Polish Stanisław Moniuszko began by writing a series of operettas before producing Halka (1846–47), his best-known work, and the first of his three operas. After a revised version was given its first performance in Warsaw in 1858, Halka was hailed as the first important Polish national opera and Moniuszko acquired a place at the forefront of Polish ...
Composed: 1846–47 Premiered: 1858, Warsaw Libretto by Włodzimierz Wolski Act I Guests are celebrating the betrothal of Janusz, a nobleman, to Stolnik’s daughter Zofia. They are interrupted by the voice of Halka, a serf whom Janusz promised to marry. She is now pregnant and yearns to be near him. Janusz fears that this news would ruin his ...
Wagner’s music drama Tristan und Isolde, written between 1856 and 1859 and first produced at the Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865, broke the established mould of opera and took it to the threshold of ‘modern’ music. Tristan was based on an Arthurian legend, and featured a regular theme in Wagner’s operas – the plight ...
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