A Wisdom Archive on maurice ravel

The first celesta was invented in 1886 by the Parisian harmonium builder Auguste Mustel. Mustel's father, Victor Mustel, had developed the forerunner of the celesta, the typophone or the dulcitone, in 1860. This consisted of struck tuning-forks instead of metal plates, but the sound produced was considered too small to be of use in an orchestral situation. Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, from The Nutcracker ballet was one of the first symphonic works to feature the celesta. The instrument has since been used frequently in the orchestra, often to reflect a fa ...

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Absolute pitch - Absolute pitch as a special case of sensation. Absolute pitch is not limited to the realm of music, or even to humans. Songbirds and wolves have exhibited the ability. In fact, studies indicate that absolute pitch is more a linguistic ability than a musical one. Absolute pitch is an act of cognition, needing memory of the frequency, a label for the frequency (such as B-flat), and exposure to the common range considered a note. (A note in modern tuning can vary in its exact frequency.) It may be d ...

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Alzheimer's disease - Microscopy. There are several changes found in the brain in AD (in order of appearance): The deposition of an abnormal protein (amyloid beta) outside nerve cells in the form of amyloid. These are called diffuse plaques and amyloid also forms the core of more organized plaques called senile or neuritic plaques. Recently evidence has begun to accumulate implicating simpler, soluble forms of amyloid (oligomers) in the pathological process, and the presence of plaque amyloid does no ...

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1900s - Technology. Lawrence Hargrave makes the first stable wing design for a heavier-than-air aircraft Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first documented flight in a powered heavier-than-air aircraft Mass production of automobile Wide popularity of home phonograph Panama Canal is built by the United States 1900s - Science. Planck's law of black body radiation Einstein's theory of special relativity Einstein explains Brownian ...

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1875 - January - April. January 12 - Kwang-su becomes emperor of China. February 27 - Newton Booth, 11th Governor of California resigns, having been elected Senator. Lieutenant Governor of California Romualdo Pacheco becomes acting Governor. He is later replaced by elected governor William Irwin. March 3 - The first performance of Bizet’s Carmen at the Opéra Comique, Paris March 3 - The first organized indoor game of ice hockey was played between two pick-up teams at the Victoria S ...

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Claude Debussy - Piano. Deux Arabesques (1888) Suite bergamasque (1890) including Clair de Lune Rêverie (1890) Pour Le Piano (1899) Estampes (1903) L'Isle Joyeuse (1904) Images, sets one and two (1905, 1907) a very notable piece being Reflets dans l'eau Children's Corner Suite (1909) Préludes

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The harp is used sparingly in most classical music, usually for special effects such as the glissando, arpeggios, and bisbigliando. Italian and German opera uses harp for romantic arias and dances, an example of which is Musetta's Waltz from La bohème. French composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel composed harp concertos and chamber music widely played today. In the nineteenth century, the French composer and harpist Nicolas-Charles Bochsa composed hundreds of pieces of all kinds (opera transcriptions, chamber music, conc ...

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In South America, there are Mexican, Andean, Venezuelan, and Paraguayan harps. They are derived from the Baroque harps that were brought from Spain during the colonial period: wide on the bottom and narrow at the top, with perfect balance when being played but unable to stand independently for lack of a base. The Paraguayan harp is the most popular, and is Paraguay's national instrument. It has about 36 strings with narrower spacing and lighter tension than other harps, and so has a slightly (four to five notes) lower pitch. It does not nece ...

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The harp's origins may lie in the sound of a plucked hunter's bow string. The oldest documented references to the harp are from 4000 BC in Egypt (see Music of Egypt) and 3000 BC in Mesopotamia. While the harp is mentioned in most translations of the Bible, King David being the most prominent musician, the Biblical "harp" was actually a kinnor, a type of lyre with 10 strings. Harps also appear in ancient epics, and in Egyptian wall paintings. This kind of harp, now known as the folk harp, continued to evolve in many different cultures all over the world. It may ...

Read more here: » Harp: Encyclopedia II - Harp - Origins of the harp