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(Rapper, b. 1968) As one-hit wonders go Vanilla Ice is the exception – as he had two! Born Robert Van Winkle in Florida, this white rapper was crafty enough to transform the Queen/Bowie collaboration ‘Under Pressure’ into the self-advertising rap-pop of ‘Ice Ice Baby’, a UK/US chart-topper in 1990. Despised by the rap hardcore for daring to have ...

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

Meistersinger (the singular and plural forms are identical) were German men predominantly from the lower and middle classes who were members of town guilds formed to encourage the composition and performance of songs known as Meisterlieder. The genre had its origins in the fourteenth century and flourished for three centuries. It was essentially an oral tradition: not all Meistersinger could read ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Although researchers continue to make discoveries about the way music was performed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, little is known about one of its most crucial aspects: how did singers actually sound ? Many medieval theorists and writers mention performers with voices ‘like those of angels’, and words such as ‘sweetness’ occur again and again; equally, the ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

One of the greatest achievements any guitar player can attain is an immediately recognizable signature tone and style. And though many guitarists have realized this goal, few have done it as emphatically as Police guitarist Andy Summers (b. 1942). From the chord stabs of ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’ to the arpeggios of ‘Message In A Bottle’ ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

What distinguishes Peri’s Euridice from other musical dramas staged at the time, and allows it to claim the status of the first opera, is the composer’s use of a new style of singing, intended to imitate speech in song. It was partly the outcome of attempts to recreate the direct and expressive declamation of ancient Greek and Roman ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

With the arrival of the new musical drama in the Baroque era, the voice became one of the most powerful instruments in the musical repertory during this period and nowhere was this better demonstrated than in France. Under Louis XIV, who took full power in 1661 and reigned until 1715, France experienced a renaissance of artistic and literary ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Despite initial comparisons to her fellow Londoner, the late Amy Winehouse, and other female soul acts – Adele has been likened to everyone from the late Whitney Houston to a combination of Joni Mitchell and Carole King – there’s no denying she is now widely thought of as a unique talent. ‘I keep getting called “the new Amy Winehouse” and ...

Source: Adele: Songbird, by Alice Hudson

The human voice is our primeval musical instrument, with our earliest ancestors finding expression through their voices before thought was ever given to other sources of sound. Vocal music has been sung from the beginnings of recorded history; the Sumerians sang in their temples 5,000 years ago. In the West, traditions of singing have evolved from the plainchant ...

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

(Fi’-then-ti Mar’-ti-ni So-le) 1754–1806 Spanish composer Martín y Soler had moved to Naples by 1777, when his Ifigenia in Aulide was staged there. By the early 1780s, his operas were being given in north Italy and he moved to Venice; from this time on he wrote only comic operas. Three years later he was in Vienna, where he had ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Opera was essentially an Italian genre: it had been born in Florence, come to its first maturity in Venice and developed next in Naples and Rome. However, Italian art of all sorts was admired across Europe, and opera soon took root in France, Austria, Germany, England and Spain, even in distant Sweden and Russia. ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

From the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, heroic roles were generally composed for castratos: male sopranos or altos who had been castrated before puberty to preserve their high voice. Throughout the Baroque and classical eras castratos were common on the stage. They disappeared, however, in the early nineteenth century as the practice of castration for musical purposes was ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

On Rossini’s advice, the already established tenor Adolphe Nourrit (1802–39) took singing lessons in order to acquire an Italianate flexibility of tone. His subsequent performance in the premiere of Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe at the Paris Opéra in 1826 was a triumph, and in the same year he was made principal tenor of the Opéra. He appeared in ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Through a long history of tradition, the language of opera is Italian. The early history of the art-form is rooted in the language – Mozart’s greatest operas are set to Italian librettos – and the wealth of Italian opera composers in the early nineteenth century (Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Cherubini, Spontini, Mercadante) is testimony to the ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Eugène Scribe (1791–1861) began his career as a dramatist for the Parisian popular stage, writing vaudevilles and comedies. This experience was crucial to his development of the French opera libretto, as he injected a new realism, pace and drama into serious and comic opera, and brought the two genres closer together. During his lifetime he wrote librettos ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Piano, 1908–92) Samuel Blythe Price was born in Honey Grove, Texas. His recording debut came in 1929. In 1938 he moved to New York and became the pianist for Decca Records blues sessions. In this capacity – in addition to making his own recordings – he accompanied Blue Lu Barker, Johnny Temple and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, among ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel
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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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