brother willing to forsake his unique immortality so that the other may live, but their complex situation creates strong portraits of inner conflict and tension between other characters, Rameau conveys the magical forces of Hades, the Elysian fields and the tempting celestial pleasures Pollux must forsake if he takes Castor’s place in death. The famous lament ‘Que tout ...
Rameau’s magnificent Hippolyte et Aricie is a rare example of a major composer’s first attempt at opera also being one of his greatest achievements. However, Rameau was nearly 50 years old and already a respected and experienced musician when he composed it, and had evidently been contemplating the project for several years. The impressive literary quality of Pellegrin’s libretto ...
she prefers him to either of the others. The two are united, along with the European and North American cultures, at a feast of peace. Personalities | Jean-Philippe Rameau | Late Baroque | Opera ...
(Zhan Fi-lep’ Ra-mo’) 1683–1764 French composer and theorist Rameau was born in Dijon, where he was first taught music by his father. During his early years he held organist’s posts in several places, including Avignon and Clermont-Ferrand, Paris (where he published his first harpsichord pieces in 1706), Dijon (1709), Lyons (c. 1713), and once more at Clermont-Ferrand (1715). He ...
1683–1764, French A respected theorist and composer of keyboard music, Rameau did not compose his first opera until he was 50 years old. Consistently adventurous in his operas, he equally inspired passionate admiration and hostility from Parisian audiences and was a comparably powerful figure between the 1730s and 1750s. The Wanderlust Years Rameau was born at Dijon in ...
The bagpipe consists of drones, or reedpipes, which are connected to a windbag. The windbag is held under the arm and is squeezed by the elbow to pass air into the pipes. The windbag is inflated by a blowpipe or bellows, and the melody is played by means of a chanter, a pipe with fingerholes. Although the ...
of ebony, ivory or boxwood. It was popular in England during the seventeenth century and was particularly associated with the pastoral character. Both George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) used the flageolet and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) wrote for it in his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782). In addition to the standard flageolet, there existed ...
capable of producing a range of notes when struck. It originated possibly in Asia or Africa; an instrument thought to be of Chinese origin fell into the hands of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764). Early instruments consisted of blocks strung together with cords, or resting on a bed of straw. In the modern instrument, the blocks are arranged in the pattern ...
b. 1943 English conductor Gardiner founded the Monteverdi Choir in 1964 and the Monteverdi Orchestra in 1968, when he conducted the Monteverdi Vespers at the Promenade Concerts in London. He was artistic director of the Göttingen Handel Festival 1981–90 and music director of the Lyons Opera 1983–88. He has given many performances of French Baroque opera, including the first ...
Roseingrave’s publication of a selection of Scarlatti’s sonatas (1739). He organized subscription concerts in Newcastle and Durham, where both his own music and that of other composers, including Rameau, was performed. In 1752 he published An Essay on Musical Expression, which deals with both performance practice and emotional responses to music. Recommended Recording: Concerti grossi, Brandenburg ...
1714–87, German Famous above all as the composer of Orfeo ed Euridice, Christoph Willibald von Gluck was, more than anyone, responsible for purging opera of what he dubbed the ‘abuses’ of opera seria in favour of ‘beautiful simplicity’, emotional directness and dramatic truth. From Bohemia to Vienna Born in the small town of Erasbach in the Upper ...
from one into the other, a system he refined and reused in the orchestral work Couleurs croisées (‘Crossed Colours’, 1969). Recommended Recording: Couleurs croisées, La seconde apothéose de Rameau, Orchestre Philharmonique de la Communauté Française, Musiques Nouvelles (cond) Pierre Bartholomée (Cyprès) Introduction | Contemporary | Classical Personalities | Einojuhani Rautavaara | Contemporary | Classical ...
sheds important light on late-Baroque performance practice. Recommended Recording: Flute Concertos, Rachel Brown, Brandenburg Consort (dir) Roy Goodman (Hyperion) Introduction | Late Baroque | Classical Personalities | Jean-Philippe Rameau | Late Baroque | Classical ...
at the Opéra in Paris, singing Titon in Titon et Aurore by Jean-Joseph Mondonville (1711–72). Subsequently he built up a considerable repertoire of roles in operas by Lully, Rameau, Grétry and Gluck, among others. One of his greatest roles was as Gluck’s Orpheus – a role in which he was considered ‘a true to life actor, ...
, Les indes galantes, Platée and Zoroastre. The technique and quality of Fel’s singing, along with that of other singers such as her pupil Sophie Arnould, allowed Rameau to compose a more prominent number of demanding ariettes in his later operas. Fel also sang in works by Lully, Campra and Jean-Joseph de Mondonville (1711–72). She retired in ...
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