1894–1981 Austrian conductor Music director of several German opera houses before World War II, Böhm was director of the Vienna State Opera 1943–45 and 1954–56. He championed Berg’s Wozzeck, and gave many performances of operas by Richard Strauss, who dedicated Daphne to him. He was also renowned for his interpretations of Mozart and Wagner. Introduction | Modern Era ...
(Ga-ôrg’ Böm) 1661–1733 German composer Böhm was a Lutheran organist-composer who studied with members of the Bach family before becoming organist at Lüneburg. At an early age he travelled to Hamburg, where he encountered Johann Adam Reincken (1623–1722), one of the most influential North German organists. Böhm contributed to the principal forms popular with the organists of this region, notably ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1935–40s) After the dissolution of The Cumberland Ridge Runners around 1935, Karl Davis (vocal, mandolin, 1905–79) and Hartford Taylor (vocal, guitar, 1905–63) maintained their popularity on the WLS National Barn Dance and other Chicago radio shows until the late 1940s. Echoing an earlier WLS mandolin-guitar duet, Mac & Bob (Lester McFarland and ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1954) Aged 12, Norwegian Arly Karlsen bought his first guitar, and played with numerous bands in his native country during the 1970s, before forming The Western Swingers with Arne Løland and Liv Jurunn Heia. Their 1983 debut album, Sin Egen Stil, sold over 20,000 copies in Norway, and they ...
1928–2007, German A master of electronic composition, Stockhausen forged a unique path by creating and reinventing musical forms while recasting the fundamentals of musical content. One of his works lasts 24 hours. Another mixes electronic sounds with the voice of a boy soprano. As composer-conductor Pierre Boulez said: ‘He invented a new kind of relationship between music’s components. He ...
(Hints Kärl Groo-bâr) b. 1943 Austrian composer Gruber studied with Alfred Uhl (1909–92) and Hanns Jelinek (1901–69). He began by working in a serial idiom but soon, along with his composer colleagues Kurt Schwertsik and Otto M. Zykan, devised a more eclectic musical language (under the designation ‘MOB and tone art’ – Tonart being German for tonality), drawing in ...
b. 1944 Welsh composer Jenkins played for more than a decade in the progressive rock band Soft Machine before attracting wider attention as a composer of music for advertising. A movement composed for De Beers diamond merchants, and scored for strings in Baroque concerto grosso style, became the Allegretto of his suite Palladio, while his best-known single track ...
(Kärl’-hints Shtôk’-hou-zen) 1928–2007 German composer Stockhausen studied with Frank Martin (1890–1974) and then with Messiaen in Paris, where he met Boulez. Stockhausen’s use of serialism differs from Boulez’s: whereas the latter wanted to find a means of creating relations between diverse elements, the former was concerned to provide a smooth path between extremes. This can be clearly seen in ...
1879–1961 English conductor Beecham conducted the operas of Richard Strauss at Covent Garden before World War I, and advocated the works of Delius. He founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932 and the Royal Philharmonic in 1946. His conducting was admired for its rhythmic liveliness and elegant phrasing. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Karl Böhm | Modern ...
(An’-ton Brook’-ner) 1824–96 Austrian composer Bruckner’s Masses and symphonies, alongside those of Mahler, brought the Romantic symphonic tradition to its zenith. In contrast to Mahler’s angst and irony, Bruckner’s symphonies express triumphant faith, their almost cathedral-like proportions infused with exciting orchestral power and poetry. Born in the small town of Ansfelden near Linz, where his father was ...
1930–66 German tenor In a career lasting little more than a decade, Wunderlich established himself as Germany’s leading lyric tenor. After his Stuttgart Opera debut in 1955, he was spotted by conductor Karl Böhm, under whom he later recorded Mozart (Tamino in The Magic Flute), Strauss and Berg (Andres in Wozzeck). His other records included Schubert’s Die schöne ...
(Rich’-ärd Varg’-na) 1813–83 German composer Wagner is one of the most influential and controversial composers in the history of classical music. He was born in Leipzig and educated there and in Dresden. His later years were spent in Bayreuth, the home of the festival theatre and the yearly summer festival he founded, which still flourish today. The idea of Bayreuth ...
In 1891, when the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote his famous words ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life’, he had somehow managed to overlook the artistic realities of the late nineteenth century. By that time, after some 50 years of the High Romantic era, music and opera had brought real life on stage and ...
The political structure of Europe changed greatly during the second half of the nineteenth century. Germany and Italy became united countries under supreme rulers. The Habsburgs’ Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna, became fragmented into Austria-Hungary. The borders of this new confederation contained the cauldron of difficulties that eventually developed into the confrontations which culminated in World War I in ...
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 ...
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