distinguished by a florid vocal line of stratospheric extremes. A showy, impressive showcase for coloratura soprano, it is often performed at auditions and in competitions. Personalities | Igor Stravinsky | Modern Era | Opera Techniques | Hogarth’s Engravings | Modern Era | Opera Techniques | Cabaletta | Early Romantic | Opera ...
(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 ...
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 ...
By the time of the First World War Romanticism’s hegemony was breaking down, as evidenced by a moving away from traditional harmony and rhythm in expressionistic music of Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and Béla Bartók (1881–1945). The inter-war period saw the return of smaller-scale music that harked back to Classicism, while in America, jazz was fast ...
solo and chamber music. In the twentieth century, the clarinet came into its own as an orchestral instrument. It was vitally important to composers such as Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), Stravinsky, Béla Bartók (1881–1945) and George Gershwin (1898–1937). New playing techniques and extreme expressive demands were also ideally suited to the clarinet’s wide pitch range and variety of tonal colours. ...
trumpets. Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803–69), César Franck (1822–90) and Georges Bizet (1838–1875) were early champions of the cornet, and it was also used successfully by Edward Elgar (1857–1934) and Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971). The trumpet was slower to develop into a suitably flexible instrument, so cornets were often used as substitutes, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. Unfortunately ...
vision they have in mind. They might think of a brand-new combination of instruments, or either add or take away instruments from an existing ensemble. The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) once had a dream in which he saw a flute, a clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets and two trombones playing in a group. This then formed ...
the piccolo has been an integral part of the orchestral woodwind section. The alto flute, created by Boehm around 1854, has been particularly attractive to twentieth-century composers. Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) used it to great effect in the The Rite of Spring and Toru Takemitsu (1930–96) was a particular fan. Flageolet Another member of the flute family, the flageolet ...
Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924), Manuel de Falla (1976–1946), Henry Cowell (1897–1965), Frederick Delius (1862–1934), Jean Françaix (b. 1912), Bohuslav Martino (1890–1959), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Carl Orff (1895–1982), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), and later, Luciano Berio (1925–2003), Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001), Elliott Carter (b. 1908) and György Ligeti (b. 1923). Introduction | Keyboards Instruments | Clavichord | Keyboards ...
was its liberation of composers from the hitherto-insuperable limitations of a pianist’s 10 fingers. Among noted figures who took advantage of this to write directly for the new instrument were Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882–1973), Herbert Howells (1892–1983), and the American Conlon Nancarrow (1912–97), who decided to devote his entire output to the medium, as it ...
The most widely used tuned percussion in early twentieth-century classical music are the timpani. These instruments, often called ‘kettledrums’, are metal hemispheres with a tense membrane (formerly leather, now plastic) across the top and are tuned to play a single note. An instrument with military origins (as the timpani/trumpets combination in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, 1607, reminds us), timpani ...
The trumpet is one of the most ancient instruments still played today. Clear depictions of trumpets survive in Egyptian paintings and two trumpets – one of silver, the other of gold and brass – found in the tomb of Tutankhamun date back to at least 1350 BC. There are many examples of Roman and Greek trumpets which, like the ...
, it has never caught on as an orchestral instrument, mainly due to its slightly dull attack and wayward intonation. Nevertheless, it was also used by Strauss and Stravinsky, and a number of film composers. Introduction | Brass Instruments ...
A brass instrument with the tubing curled in an elliptical loop ending in a small bell and fingered using four valves, this is a type of tuba probably based on the saxhorn. When writing the Ring, Wagner wanted a brass instrument to bridge the gap between the French horns and the trombones. The 1853 sketch for Das Rheingold specifies ...
five centuries ago, classical music, like Western society, has never managed to wholly divorce itself from the influence of the Western church. Secular composers such as Igor Stravinsky and György Ligeti have reserved some of their greatest utterances for religious forms such as the requiem mass, a genre that stretches back to the Middle Ages. The original ...
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