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Children’s songs have evolved from mothers’ lullabies to teachers’ nursery rhymes to the singalong numbers of TV and film. Through all of their incarnations, they have retained the same stylistic values: a melodic, upbeat mood; a catchy, easily repeatable chorus; and lyrics that tell a story. Many popular musicians have released child-friendly songs. The 1960s, in particular ...

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

Jazz, blues, spirituals and gospel music, were rooted in the work songs of black labourers of the South. As Chet Williamson wrote ‘These were songs and chants that kept a people moving and advancing through dreadful oppression. These are the voices of those who harvested the fields, drove the mules, launched the boats, and hammered ...

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

To this day, many still contend that a written song is not a folk song. Purists claim that only a traditional song, shaped and honed by the environmental context that produced it and handed down by word of mouth through the generations, can justly claim to be true folk music. Indeed, the great Scots folklorist, writer ...

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

Straddling genres from pop to rock, country to dance, novelty songs tell humorous stories using satire, wackiness or a topical link with television, film or a popular craze. Though often musically dubious, they have enjoyed massive, but generally fleeting, success in the modern era. Music and comedy have been bed fellows since the days ...

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

Being perched at the top of the charts on 25 December has represented a prestigious achievement for musicians since the dawn of the pop era, while the shopping frenzy of the festive period makes it one of the most potentially profitable times to release a record. It wasn’t always that way: the original Yuletide songs were church carols that endure ...

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

The relationship between politics and folk music has always been fuel for lively debate. Some argue that the two should not mix, and that aligning traditional song with politics demeans it. Front-line singers such as Dick Gaughan and Roy Bailey, however, argue that folk songs are inextricably linked with politics, and perform plenty of strident material to ...

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

Singing cowboy Tex Ritter enjoyed two distinctive careers, the first as ‘America’s most beloved cowboy’ (a title bestowed on him by a Hollywood publicist), and second as a recording artist and stage performer, albeit still making occasional film appearances. He also recorded one of the most memorable western themes of all time – ‘High Noon’. A Screen Icon Born ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

Though art music since the war tended more often to define itself in opposition to rock and commercial pop music, signs of mutual regard were already emerging in the 1960s. While it is Stockhausen’s face that stands out from the crowd on the front cover of the Beatles’ 1967 album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it was Berio ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The government-enforced isolation of Native Americans in the United States has fostered cultural independence, in contrast to the marked musical acculturation between the Hispanic-speaking and Amerindian societies in South America. But in modern times, North American groups have tended to set aside tribal differences and seek a pan-tribal cultural unity. The ‘Ghost Dance’, a religious cult led by Jack ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the most popular literary figure in Europe in the 1820s. His adventurous tales set in chivalrous times captured an atmosphere of romance and mysticism, and exploited the vogue for Scottish subjects which was enveloping Europe. Rossini’s La donna del lago (‘The Lady of the Lake’, 1819), was the first successful opera derived from Scott’s works. ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The extended polemic between Lullistes and Ramistes was provoked by the former group’s disgust for the Italianate elements in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, and their arising concern that the repertoire and tradition established by Lully was under threat. In contrast, Rameau’s supporters championed his innovative music that included more elaborate solo songs and increasingly complex use of the orchestra. ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

At a time when expression was more important than maintaining classical forms, freer structures that enabled the communication of a single mood or idea became particularly popular with pianists as an alternative to sonatas. Schubert, for example, is best revealed in his short lyric pieces in which his melodic expansiveness is not constrained. His Moments Musicaux (‘Musical Moments’, ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The influence of jazz on concert music stretches back almost to the emergence of jazz itself from roots in gospel, ragtime and blues. One of the most popular black American dances of the 1890s was taken up by Debussy in his ‘Golliwog’s Cakewalk’ (from the piano suite Children’s Corner, 1906–08). Ragtime found its way into Satie’s ballet Parade and ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

From the late sixteenth century, castratos were engaged as singers by the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Although castration had been forbidden by Pope Gregory XIII, some children who had suffered mutilation were trained as castrato singers. Their voices were found to be much stronger, and their vocal ranges wider, than those of falsettists, whom they gradually ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

When Vassar Clements formed a band called Hillbilly Jazz in 1975, Bill Monroe’s former fiddler pulled the cover off the hidden connection between country music and jazz. The two genres had more in common than most people thought. After all, Jimmie Rodgers recorded with Louis Armstrong early in their careers; jazz legend Charlie Christian debuted on Bob Wills’ radio ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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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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