b. 1967 German countertenor Scholl studied at the Schola Cantorum in Basle. He has worked with many leading Baroque specialists, including William Christie, Philip Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood and Ton Koopman, singing oratorios and cantatas by J. S. Bach and Handel. His recordings include Handel’s Messiah and Solomon, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and B minor Mass. He ...
1939–1993 Slovak-Austrian soprano Popp was invited by Karajan to the Vienna State Opera shortly after making her debut in Bratislava in 1963 singing Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute), a role she later took to the Metropolitan Opera and recorded under Klemperer. Over two decades, she moved from light coloratura to lyric soprano, eventually taking on heavier dramatic ...
From the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, heroic roles were generally composed for castratos: male sopranos or altos who had been castrated before puberty to preserve their high voice. Throughout the Baroque and classical eras castratos were common on the stage. They disappeared, however, in the early nineteenth century as the practice of castration for musical purposes was ...
Many of the famous German Baroque organs are what is known as Werkprinzip (‘department principle’) organs, built up of several separate ‘departments’ (i.e. a manual or pedal keyboard and its chest), all linked into the single console at which the organist plays. This method of construction means that organs can be tailored to specific requirements and added to over ...
The Italian city of Cremona has been celebrated since the sixteenth century for the manufacture of stringed instruments. The first famous family of makers there was the Amati. Andrea Amati (c. 1505–80) founded a dynasty that included his sons Antonio (c. 1538–95) and Girolamo (1561–1630). But it is the latter’s son Nicolo (1596–1684) who is usually regarded as the most outstanding ...
In 1905, and probably for several decades before that, there were more pianos in the United States than there were bathtubs. In Europe, throughout the nineteenth century, piano sales increased at a greater rate than the population. English, French and German makers dispatched veritable armies of pianos to every corner of the Earth. It was the ...
Although the terms ‘fortepiano’ and ‘pianoforte’ were used indiscriminately by musicians of the time, for the sake of clarity the former term is now specifically used to indicate keyboard instruments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the latter to mean the modern instrument. The piano displaced the harpsichord musically and socially, taking over the latter’s ...
(Do-man’-e-ko Skär-lat’-te) 1685–1757 Italian composer and harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti was the son of Alessandro Scarlatti. He was born in Naples and lived there until 1704, when he joined his father in Rome. The following year he travelled to the cities of Florence and Venice; during his time in the latter he met the great composer of the era, Handel. Scarlatti ...
(Yan La’-de-slaf Doo’-sek) 1760–1812 Bohemian pianist and composer Dussek’s fame as a pianist was widespread, and he made the acquaintance of Queen Marie Antoinette and Emperor Napoleon. Because of his connections with the aristocracy he was at risk at the time of the French Revolution, and escaped to London, where he set up a music publishing business with his ...
(Yo’-han Sa-bäs’tyan Bakh) 1685–1750 German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a closely knit musical family of which he was rightly proud. His father Johann Ambrosius Bach (1645–95) had an identical twin brother, Johann Christoph (1645–93), who was like a second father to the young Sebastian. Johann was such a common name that almost all boys called Johann were known ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
CURATED
Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.