United States or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His appointment as Supervisor General of the Imperial conservatories of Russia was one of the highest distinctions that could be conferred in the land of the Czar. The correct pronunciation of the name as given by the composer is Rokh-mahn-ee-noff. It is a seemingly impossible task to define the number of attributes of really excellent pianoforte playing.
Purcell's teacher will be remembered long after the composer of anthems has been crowded out of biographical dictionaries. I have said that our knowledge of Purcell consists very largely of speculations, hypotheses and inferences. These have led the biographers into wasting some highly moral reflections on Purcell's early doings.
'As you please, said the dramatist, and added 'poor beggar! inwardly as he went upstairs. The composer sat in a sick half-dream and faintly heard a piano sounding in a distant room. It played the prelude of one of his songs. Now and then the sound of a female voice just touched his ears.
She had "created" Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide and the composer had said of her, "If it had not been for the voice and elocution of Mlle. Arnould, my Iphigénie would never have been performed in France." In her youth she had interested not only Marie Antoinette but also the King, and she had been the object of Mme. de Pompadour's suspicion and Mme. du Barry's rage.
Harmonists insist on so much closer compliance with rules for smoothness in vocal compositions than in instrumental work, that the usual composer gives himself very little liberty here. Bullard, however, has found the right occasion for wild dissonances, and has dared to use them. The effect is one of terrific power.
Well, we shall see. It is not the father's intention to make her a great composer. He says, "I don't wish her to write operas, or arias, or concertos, or symphonies, but grand sonatas for her instrument and for mine." I gave her to-day her fourth lesson on the rules of composition and harmony, and am pretty well satisfied with her.
George E. Woodberry is the very apotheosis of American brag, it has a redeeming technic. The music, for soprano solo, mixed chorus, and orchestra, reaches the very peaks of inspiration. I doubt if any living composer or many dead masters could grow so epic, as most of this. In a way it is academic. It shows a little of the influence of Wagner, as any decent music should nowadays.
To think I might yet be a hopeless bachelor had it not been for them, is to overflow with gratitude to the Giver of Helen's Babies. The Abbé Constantin Ludovic Halevy, born in Paris on January 1, 1834, was a nephew of Jacques François Halevy, the famous operatic composer.
In June, 1858, Wagner was seized with a desire for luxury and quiet, and betook himself to Venice, where he wrote the second act of "Tristan." Then came the trouble between Wagner and the Wesendoncks which caused the composer to leave Zurich finally, on August 17, 1859. Minna returned to Dresden while Wagner went to Paris, where Minna joined him for a time, before the last break came.
Mozart is not perhaps the greatest composer that ever lived, but Handel only is greater than he; and to be second to Handel, seems now to us the highest conceivable praise. Yet, in some departments, Mozart was even greater than his predecessor. It is not our intention to characterise his excellences as a composer.
Word Of The Day