The twentieth century has seen a wealth of special effects employed in music, in much the same way as they are used in film, beginning with the intonarumori (‘noise-intoners’) invented by Luigi Russolo. A football rattle (called a ‘bird scare’ by the composer) was required by Havergal Brian (1876–1972) for his Gothic Symphony No. 1 (1927). The sound of ...
Sound effects and instruments trouvés include found objects and specialist machines for making noises. Composers have made extensive use of both sound effects and found objects in orchestral music, especially in music for theatre, dance and opera. Sound Effects The wind machine was originally a theatrical sound effect, and is a cylinder of wooden slats with a canvas ...
Spectacle and optical illusion were involved in opera stage settings from the start. Even the comparatively intimate Baroque operas, while musically ‘balanced’ and ‘restrained’, relied heavily on visuals. In Romantic opera, the music itself acquired more drama and more atmosphere so that stage settings had to increase their impact to match. In Italy, for example, cunning use ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1978–81, 2009) As frontrunners of the ska revival, this superb Coventry band released the genre’s finest single, ‘Ghost Town’ (1981), on their own 2Tone label. Terry Hall and Neville Staples (both vocals), Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation (both guitar), Jerry Dammers (keyboards), Horace ‘Gentleman’ Panter (bass) and John Bradbury (drums) also had hits with ‘Rat ...
The drum kit is a collection of drums and cymbals played in all styles of rock, pop, jazz and blues. It is also widely used in urban music across the world, such as Afrobeat and reggae. Drum-Kit Construction A typical drum kit comprises a bass drum and hi-hat cymbal played with foot pedals, a snare drum, ...
Bass Drum The dominant feature of every military band is its big bass drum. Throughout the history of percussion instruments, this drum has been the mainstay of time-keeping, whether it is used for a marching army or in a late-twentieth century heavy metal band. Early versions of the bass drum (it was certainly known in Asia around 3500 BC) ...
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, ...
Varèse was particularly interested in the sounds of the modern urban world. His music takes a sound world derived from factories and industrialization and turns them into music. But it took the off-beat genius of Ligeti to compose a work entirely for special effects: his Poème symphonique (1962) has passed into musical folklore as the piece of music written for 100 ...
‘William Tell’ Rossini called the first performance of his grand opéra Guillaume Tell a ‘quasi-fiasco’. The overture, he said, was fine, the first act had some interesting effects, and the second was a triumph, but the third and fourth were disappointing. However, the theatre director was more concerned with audience reaction at the Théâtre de ...
The early Romantic era was a period that saw a move in all the arts towards greater expression and a loosening of structures and forms. In music this meant an expanding and freeing up of existing classical forms such as the symphony, and the development of newly expressive genres such as the symphonic poem. Opera took on bigger, more ...
The main opportunities for professional music-making in the Renaissance continued to be provided by the church and by royal and ducal courts, particularly those in Italy. They sponsored musical entertainment both on a large scale, such as the lavish Florentine intermedi, and on a more intimate level, in the form of the madrigal. The influence of humanism ...
January Le Pink Floyd Ballet Pink Floyd’s collaboration with ballet producer Roland Petit was first mooted in 1970, and Dave Gilmour and even Floyd’s manager Steve O’Rourke had talked enthusiastically about working with a 106 piece orchestra and the world-famous dancer Rudolf Nureyev. When performed for French TV on 14 January 1971 the dancers moved to ‘Set The Controls For ...
In the seventeenth century, a Turkish army was driven back from the walls of Vienna. As diplomatic relations replaced hostilities, Turkish embassies in Vienna used ‘janissary’ or military bands as part of their parade and a Turkish band was presented to the Polish king by the Sultan. In the eighteenth century a fashion for Turkish sounds such as shawms ...
Since Puccini’s death in 1924, opera houses have made little room for living composers. While the core repertory has remained more or less fixed, the need for novelty has necessitated the rediscovery of works long forgotten. This in turn has required singers able to cope with different technical and aesthetic problems; indeed, it is usually the prominence of ...
The late Baroque era (1700–50) was a time of major political change throughout Europe, involving a shift in the balance of power between sovereign states. Across the continent it was a period of almost continuous warfare, the effects of which were later felt in other parts of the world as a result of conflicting ambitions among the various trading ...
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David Bowie
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