A Wisdom Archive on Mendelssohn

Symphony - The 18th century symphony. The form that we now recognise as the symphony took shape in the early 18th century. It is commonly regarded to have grown from the Italian overture, a three-movement piece used to open operas, often used by Alessandro Scarlatti among others. Another important progenitor of the symphony was the ripieno concerto — a relatively little explored form resembling a concerto for strings and continuo, but with no solo instruments. The earliest known ripieno concerti are by G ...

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Johann Sebastian Bach - Early years. Johann Sebastian Bach was a member of one of the most extraordinary musical families of all time. For more than 200 years, the Bach family had produced dozens of worthy performers and composers during a period in which the church, local government and the aristocracy provided significant support for professional music making in the German-speaking world, particularly in the eastern electorates of Thuringia and Saxony. Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a talented v ...

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Camille Saint-Saëns' long life spanned nearly the entire duration of the Romantic period of music. He was part of the heyday of the movement and witnessed its death and the dawn of 20th-century music. Camille Saint-Saëns - Child Prodigy. He was born in Paris to a government clerk who died only three months after his son's birth. His mother, Clémence, sought the aid of her aunt, Charlotte Masson, who moved in and introduced Camille to the piano. One of the most talented musical child prodigies of all tim ...

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The most frequently encountered trombones today are the tenor and bass, though as with other Renaissance instruments such as the recorder, the trombone has been built in every size from piccolo to contrabass. These several instruments are described below. Trombone - Tenor trombone. The tenor trombone has a fundamental note of B♭ (though tenor trombones in C were almost equally popular during the mid-19th century in Britain and France) and is usually treated as a non-transposing instrument (see below). As ...

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Bach's compositional style is characterized by contrapuntal textures, linear tonic/dominant harmonic progressions and consistent motor rhythms, which combine to create a sense of forward momentum. As with most other Baroque composers, Bach's music is motivically dense; melodic and rhythmic patterns introduced at the beginning of a work are continually transformed by contrapuntal and melodic inversion, augmentation, diminution, and stretto. Several notable composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn began writing in a ...

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The word symphony is derived from the Greek syn (together) and phone (sounding), by way of the Latin symphonia. The term was used by the Greeks, firstly to denote the general conception of concord, both between successive sounds and in the unison of simultaneous sounds; secondly, in the special sense of concordant pairs of successive sounds (i.e. the "perfect intervals" of modern music; the 4th, 5th and octave); and thirdly as dealing with the concord of the octave, thus meaning the art of singing in octaves, as o ...

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Orff refused to publicly speak about his past. What is known, however, is that Orff was born in Munich and came from a Bavarian family that was very active in the German military. His father's regiment band supposedly had often played the compositions of young Orff. Moser's Musik Lexicon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914. He then served in the military during World War I. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmstadt, later to return to Munic ...

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JS Bach’s works are indexed with BWV numbers, an initialism for Bach Werke Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue). The catalogue, published in 1950, was compiled by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue is organised thematically, rather than chronologically: BWV 1–224 are cantatas, BWV 225–48 the large-scale choral works, BWV 250–524 chorales and sacred songs, BWV 525–748 organ works, BWV 772–994 other keyboard works, BWV 995–1000 lute music, BWV 1001–40 chamber music, BWV 1041–71 orchestral music, and BWV 1072–1126 canons ...

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The trombone consists of a cylindrical tube bent into an elongated "S" shape in a complex series of tapers, the smallest being at the mouthpiece receiver, and the largest being at the throat of the bell, before the flare for the bell begins. (Careful design of these tapers is crucial to the intonation of the instrument.) As with other brass instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through closed lips producing a vibration that c ...

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Trombone - Bells. Trombone bells (and sometimes slides) may be constructed of different brass mixtures to achieve slightly different timbres. The most common material is yellow brass, comprising 70% copper and 30% zinc, though other materials used include gold brass (85% copper, 15% zinc) and red brass (90% copper, 10% zinc). These different materials affect the tone quality of the instrument and change the timbre quite considerably. Some manufacturers now offer interchangeable bells so that the player can select ...

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Camille Saint-Saëns - Relationships to other composers. During his life, Saint-Saëns was either a friend or enemy to Europe's most distinguished musicians. He stayed close to Franz Liszt until Liszt's death and maintained a fast friendship with his pupil Gabriel Fauré until the end of his life. But despite being a strong advocate for French music, Saint-Saëns openly despised many of his fellow French composers such as Franck, d'Indy, and Jules Massenet. Saint-Saëns also hated the music of Claude Debussy; he ...

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