Classical

†1759 George Frederick Handel

George Frederick Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. The Great Mr Handel Full Movie (1942)  Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727.  He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel’s music forms one of the peaks of the “high baroque” style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a […]

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1689 Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas

December 30, 1689: English Baroque composer Henry Purcell’s beloved opera ‘Dido and Aeneas’ was first said to have premiered at Josias Priest’s girls’ school in London. Remembered as one of Purcell’s foremost theatrical works, it was also Purcell’s only true opera as well as his only all-sung dramatic work.   English Baroque composer Henry Purcell wrote his first opera based on the story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and the Prince of Troy, Aeneas, based on a libretto by Nahum Tate. It was first performed in 1689. Based on book IV of Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid, Henry Purcell may […]

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1800 Beethoven’s First Symphony

IN THE LIST OF COMPOSITIONS OFFERED BY BEETHOVEN TO HIS PUBLISHER THE FIRST SYMPHONY FIGURES AT THE PRICE OF £10. In hearing this Symphony, we can never forget that it is the first of that mighty and immortal series which seem destined to remain the greatest monuments of music, as Raffaelle’s best pictures are still the monuments of the highest point reached by the art of painting, notwithstanding all that has been done since. Schumann has somewhere made the just remark that the early works of great men are to be regarded in quite a different light from those of […]

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1847 Abide With Me

The first printing of the words by Henry Francis Lyte is said to have been in a leaflet printed at Berry Head, Brixham, Devonshire, in Sept., 1847, but otherwise not described; no copy has been found. An early printing of the words is in the Remains of the Late Rev. H. F. Lyte, M.A. (London, 1850), at p. 119; BM and JF.  The poem is there said to be derived from ”Abide with us” (St. Luke xxiv. 29) and at the foot reads: “Berry Head, September, 1847.” Tradition has it that Lyte wrote the words after preaching his last […]

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1750 Adeste Fideles

An excellent recent pamphlet contains important new discoveries regarding this hymn. The music and Latin words appear to have been written by John Francis Wade; at least, the three earliest known manuscripts dating from about 1750 are in his handwriting and signed by him. The first printing of the words is in The Evening Office of the Church, in Latin and English; UTS.  The words of Adeste Fideles in Latin and English are on the thirteenth unnumbered page in the ‘Troses” section, after p. 322. The English translation starts: ”Draw near ye faithful Christians, With Joy to Bethlehem come.” No […]

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1816 The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais‘s French comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775). The première of Rossini’s opera took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini’s Barber has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all “opere buffe”. After two hundred years, it remains a popular work.  

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1600 Euridice

The year 16oo is a traditional milestone in the history of Western music. As will be shown later, the quarrels over the respective merits of ancient and modern music were then at their height. It will also be pointed out that “modern music” then, and for the next two hundred years, referred to music of the Christian era as distinct from music of the ancient Greeks and Romans.6 But in the nineteenth century, with the periodization of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, the latter term comes to mean music since r6oo, the year which saw “the birth of modern opera.” At […]

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Florence Camerata Pioneeres “monody”

Style of accompanied solo song consisting of a vocal line, which is frequently embellished, and simple, often expressive, harmonies. It arose about 1600, particularly in Italy, as a response to the contrapuntal style (based on the combination of simultaneous melodic lines) of 16th-century vocal genres such as the madrigal and motet. Ostensibly in an attempt to emulate ancient Greek music, composers placed renewed emphasis on proper articulation as well as expressive interpretation of often highly emotional texts. These effects could be achieved only by abandoning counterpoint and replacing it by simply accompanied recitative. This new monodic style, pioneered by the […]

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Ave Maria

“Ellens dritter Gesang“, in English: “Ellen’s Third Song”, was composed by Franz Schubert in 1825 as part of his Op. 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott‘s 1810 popular narrative poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German. The opening words and refrain of Ellen’s song, namely “Ave Maria” (Latin for “Hail Mary”), may have led to the idea of adapting Schubert’s melody as a setting for the full text of the traditional Roman Catholic prayer “Ave Maria“. The Latin version of the “Ave Maria” is now so frequently used with Schubert’s melody that it has […]

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