SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Van Morrison
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(Vocals, b. 1945) After leaving Irish beat group Them, Van Morrison relocated to the States in 1967 to launch a solo career. His debut single ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ was a hit in America but not Britain. His second album Astral Weeks (1968) was a massively influential work, which added Celtic and jazz influences to his R&B and soul ...

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

(Jo-van’-e An’-ne-moo-chya) c. 1500–71 Italian composer Animuccia, who lived and worked in Rome in the 1550s and 1560s, was one of the earliest composers of music for the Catholic Counter-Reformation. For Filippo Neri and his Oratorians he composed two books of laudi spirituali, simple devotional songs with Latin or Italian texts. His first book of Masses (1567) was, ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-ne Gab-re-a’-le) c. 1553–1612 Italian composer Gabrieli was taught by his uncle Andrea Gabrieli and, like him, was first employed in Munich with Lassus. After Andrea’s death Giovanni became principal composer for St Mark’s, Venice, and he wrote much of his music with its choir (and building) in mind. His musical debt to his uncle is evident in ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-ne Gas-tol’-de) c. 1550s–1622 Italian composer Gastoldi spent much of his career in Mantua, where in the early 1590s he composed music for a production of Battista Guarini’s famous play, Il pastor fido (‘The Faithful Shepherd’); although the production was scrapped, Gastoldi published some of his music in 1602. He is best known, however, for his ballettos ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-e Per-loo-e’-je da Pa-les-tre’-na) 1525/6–94 Italian composer Palestrina is named after a small town near Rome, where he is thought to have been born. He was educated in Rome; in 1537 he was a choirboy at the basilica of S Maria Maggiore, one of the city’s principal churches and an important musical establishment. By 1544 he was back in Palestrina ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Eddie Van Halen redefined the sound of heavy metal at the end of the 1970s. His high-velocity solos, distinguished by his finger-tapping technique and tremolo-bar effects, on Van Halen’s 1978 debut album heralded a new era in hard-rock guitar that rejected the clichés of a jaded genre. His solo on Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ in 1982, which effectively ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

Many were those in 1972 who would have snorted at the idea that an artist so obsessed with superficiality and chart success would sustain a multi-decade career characterized by career-jeopardising innovation. Hours… (1999) saw Bowie co-writing with Tin Machine guitarist and subsequent frequent collaborator Reeves Gabrels. The album had originated in a commission to score a computer game called Omikron: The ...

Source: David Bowie: Ever Changing Hero, by Sean Egan

(Jo-van’-e Bo-non-che’ne) 1670–1747 Italian composer Bononcini came from a musical family in Modena; his father Giovanni Maria was the maestro di cappella of Modena Cathedral and his younger brother, Antonio Maria, was a talented cellist and composer. The younger Giovanni was also a cellist and studied music in Bologna. He worked in Milan, then Rome – where he wrote ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-ne Bat-tes’-ta Pâr-go-la’-ze) 1710–36 Italian composer Pergolesi studied in Naples with Francesco Durante (1684–1755). He received his first commission in 1731 and the following year was appointed maestro di cappella to the equerry of the Viceroy of Naples. Pergolesi composed comic and serious opera, sacred music and a small quantity of instrumental music. He is chiefly remembered for two works of ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Lood’-wig van Bat’-ho-fan) 1770–1827 German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the greatest composers in history – perhaps the greatest. Standing at the crossroads between the classical and Romantic eras, he created music that belongs not just to its period but to all time. He excelled in virtually every genre of his day, and had enormous influence on the ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-ne Bat-tes’-ta Mär-te’-ne) 1706–84 Italian theorist and composer Padre Martini, as he was always known, was the most influential theorist and musical thinker of his time. He was born in Bologna, traditionally a centre of learning, where he studied with his father and leading musicians before entering a monastery. He returned to Bologna as organist and then as ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-ne Pi-se-el’-lo) 1740–1816 Italian composer Paisiello was trained in Naples and had early successes as an opera composer there and in north Italy. He served as court composer to Catherine the Great in St Petersburg, 1776–84; there, in 1782, he wrote Il barbiere di Siviglia, his most admired comic opera. He returned to Italy and spent most of ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Mekh’-a-il E-va-no’-vich Glin’-ka) 1804–57 Russian composer Known as the ‘father of Russian music’, Glinka was the initial force behind nineteenth-century Russian nationalism. He grew up in a cosseted environment, and his early exposure to music was confined largely to the folksongs sung by his nurse, the traits of which were later absorbed into his melodic style. After a couple of ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jo-van’-ne Bat-tes’-ta Ve-ot’-te) 1755–1824 Italian violinist and composer The most influential violinist between Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) and Paganini, Viotti is considered the founder of modern violin playing. He studied with Gaetano Pugnani and played in the royal chapel orchestra at Turin for five years (in the back desk of the first violins), before going on tour with his teacher. Viotti moved ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1842–1900 English composer Sullivan was a Chapel Royal chorister, the first-ever Mendelssohn scholar and a student of William Sterndale Bennett. He was already a composer of distinction when, in 1867, he collaborated with the playwright W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) in Cox and Box (1866). Their Trial by Jury (1875) set the seal on a historic partnership that spawned ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...

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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.

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