b. 1963, Swedish One of the most thrilling Wagnerians of the twenty-first century (and now rivalling even the legacy of twentieth-century legend Kirsten Flagstad), Stemme is adored by Wagner fans for the seeming ease with which she commands the score and the stage. Her repertoire also includes contemporary music and major Strauss and Puccini roles. Introduction | Modern Era | ...
an issue for Di Stefano, who sang the role of the emperor in Turandot at Caracalla in Rome aged 71. Introduction | Modern Era | Opera Personalities | Nina Stemme | Modern Era | Opera Techniques | Bel Canto | Early & Middle Baroque | Opera ...
The saxophone occupies an unusual position in that it is a bespoke instrument that has barely changed since its creation. Although it does not occupy the position in the orchestra its creator had envisaged, Adolphe Sax’s invention has played a central part in music ever since it burst on to the scene in the 1840s. Sax’s father, Charles, ...
‘The Woman Without a Shadow’ Like Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten had a tempestuous genesis. The idea itself stemmed from the period immediately after the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, but Hofmannsthal’s continual flood of ideas compounded by Strauss’s curmudgeonliness ensured the project stalled regularly. The start of the First World War did nothing to help, and ...
Following Salome was no easy task, and Strauss felt strongly that he needed to tackle an entirely different subject – by preference a light, comic work. He had been in correspondence with the playwright Hofmannsthal and approached him with an idea for such a work. Hofmannsthal had other ideas, and was insistent that Strauss should take up his ...
Composed between 1917 and 1922 and first performed in Berlin on 14 December 1925, this work features Berg’s own libretto, based on the Georg Büchner play Woyzeck. Written a century earlier, the play recounts the true story of a soldier, barber and drifter who is executed for murder. Büchner may have read about Johann Christian Woyzeck as ...
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 ...
Nobody who has heard Led Zeppelin would ever need their memory jogged. As somebody once said of the band’s music: ‘Hoary blues motifs were pumped up to enormous proportions, clubbed senseless by Bonham’s colossal wallop, panicked to distraction by Page’s crazed air-raid riffs, pummelled by Jones’s slum-demolishing bass-lines, and strangled by Plant’s lascivious shrieks of lust.’ ...
(Yo’-han Sa-bäs’tyan Bakh) 1685–1750 German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a closely knit musical family of which he was rightly proud. His father Johann Ambrosius Bach (1645–95) had an identical twin brother, Johann Christoph (1645–93), who was like a second father to the young Sebastian. Johann was such a common name that almost all boys called Johann were known ...
The five members of Radiohead are the same today as they were on the day they formed. Thom Yorke (born 7 October 1968, vocals, guitar, piano), Jonny Greenwood (born 5 November 1971, lead guitar, effects), Ed O’Brien (born 15 April 1968, guitar, vocals), Phil Selway (born 23 May 1967, drums) and Colin Greenwood ...
Although many would contend that 1980s pop was typified by an empty, aspirational overload of bad haircuts and cynical blandness, the decade produced many of pop’s most individual artists. In addition, it was arguably defined by 1985’s Live Aid – a global charity event unmatchable in its reach, and definitive in its marking of the period. The ...
In the UK, hardcore split into two camps in the early 1990s. One half would lead to jungle, but within breakbeat hardcore, a faction of DJs and ravers felt that the music was getting too gloomy. Producers and DJs such as Slipmatt, Seduction, Vibes, Brisk and Dougal effectively led an exodus of white ravers away ...
Latin America is particularly rich and varied in its musical traditions, with each country boasting a broad and very distinct collection of genres whose development has been shaped by indigenous rhythms, migration patterns from Europe and the influx of slavery. At the uppermost tip of Latin America is Mexico, a country whose musical sub-genres are too many to ...
The political structure of Europe changed greatly during the second half of the nineteenth century. Germany and Italy became united countries under supreme rulers. The Habsburgs’ Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna, became fragmented into Austria-Hungary. The borders of this new confederation contained the cauldron of difficulties that eventually developed into the confrontations which culminated in World War I in ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.