Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Essays

  • Scott Joplin

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    Scott Joplin (1868-1917) Scott Joplin, commonly known as the "King of Ragtime" music, was born on November 24, 1868, in Bowie County, Texas near Linden. Joplin came from a large musical family. His father, Giles Joplin was a musician who had fiddled dance music while serving as a slave at his master's parties. His mother, Florence Givens Joplin, born free and out of slavery, sang and played the banjo, and four of his brothers and sisters either sang or played strings. Joplin's talent was revealed

  • George Gershwin (1898-1937)

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    was George who later altered his last name to Gershwin when he entered the professional world of music. Most of his family was not musically talented, but his brother Ira became a wonderful well-known musician. Most of Gershwin's early childhood was spent playing sports, which he was good at, and it interested him. It wasn't until Gershwin was 12 years old when he first felt his calling as a musician. It all started when his family purchased an upright piano and Gershwin quickly learned to play

  • Brass Bands: A Decline in Popularity

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    has numerous genres of instrumental music, but perhaps the least recognized of these is the brass band. Through better understanding its origin, how it was received in American society, and what other band genres existed and emerged during its development, we can begin to understand the brass band’s lack of recognition in the States. After providing background on the genre of the brass band, its function in society, past and present societal beliefs on music, and the development of other band genres

  • Edgard Varese: Organizer of Sound

    2437 Words  | 5 Pages

    composer born in 1883, was a leader in the realm of electronic music, and one of a group of musicians important in the time immediately following WWII. These, often called, avant-garde musicians challenged the public and other musicians to think about music in new ways, including incorporating electronic elements into acoustic compositions, creating entirely electronic compositions and reinventing the way acoustic music was composed. Credited with inventing the term, “organized sound

  • Music of the Romantic Period

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joseph Kerman, et al. Beethoven, Ludwig van. In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40026pg4 (accessed February 6, 2011). Claude Debussy, a well known French composer, is perhaps the greatest composer of the late Romantic style of music emerging around the beginning of the twentieth century. Debussy is well known for bringing the impressionist style of painting into the realm of music and he was at first flattered with the comparison

  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    every musician after him, from Mozart to Schoenberg. J. S. Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, March 21, 1685. Bach’s uncles were all professional musicians ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the town piper in Eisenach, a post that entailed organizing all the secular music in town as well as participating in church music at the direction of the church organist (p. 309, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol

  • Bajo Sexto Essay

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    then. It is also to have been said it could be the ancestor to both the bass guitar and the twelve string guitar. Since it plays both bass and guitar it is used for folk music. It is popular in the northern part of Mexico, which plays norteno music and also Tex-Mex. The bajo sexto has started to appear in other genres of music like Cumbia, Banda and Narco corridos. Since it has become very popular, Mexican states have started

  • Giacomo Puccini- Artist

    1804 Words  | 4 Pages

    Puccini’s music instills hope and passion into any one who listens to it. Other composers may have this artistic illness too, but never in the contagious way that Puccini’s work infects the musician in each one of us. Giacomo Puccini (also known as Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) was born in Lucca on December 22, 1858 to a family with longstanding musical traditions in his hometown (Julian Budden). Considered one of the most successful Italian operatic composers, Puccini began learning music from

  • Jean-Baptiste Lully

    1771 Words  | 4 Pages

    miller’s daughter. Lully was born in Florence, Italy and lived there until age 11. While in Italy he studied dance and music; he played violin and guitar. In March of 1646 he moved to France to tutor Mlle de Montpensier in Italian. There he studied composition and harpsichord. Lully was able to hear the King’s grande bande perform, witness balls where the best French dance music was played. When Mlle de Montpensier was exiled from Paris, Lully was released from her service and gained the attention

  • Analysis of Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-Flat major op.61

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frederic Chopin, a Polish Nationalistic composer of the Romantic period, is a famous musician. Chopin’s compositions are individualistic to his talent and love of the piano. Chopin lived in Warsaw as a child and spent a great deal of his life living Paris amongst other artists of the Romantic period. He was influenced by people surrounding him and even more from his childhood in Poland. The Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-Flat major opus 61, is musically representative of Chopin and the Romantic period

  • The Influence of George Frideric Handel on Music

    1153 Words  | 3 Pages

    Introduction Over time, the world has seen many outstanding musicians, and so much fantastic music. Each highly remembered composer or musician changed the way we think and see the world. They give us new ideas, and music is a wonderful way to convey moods and emotions. Each also slightly changed music itself. Handel was one of the greatest of these people. He was a superior composer who largely influenced and expanded music. Background George Frideric Handel was born in Germany, but found his future

  • Coleman Hawkins

    1974 Words  | 4 Pages

    Coleman Hawkins “I think he was the most interesting jazz musician I’ve ever seen in my life. He just looked so authoritative . . . I said, ‘Well, that’s what I want to do when I grow up.’”(DeVeaux, 35) Cannonball Adderley said these words when he first saw Coleman Hawkins with the Fletcher Henderson band at the City Auditorium in Tampa, Florida. Just as Hawkins influenced one of the greatest alto players in history, he has influenced many people to become phenomenal saxophone players. Lester

  • The Musical World of Aaron Copland

    1750 Words  | 4 Pages

    to the pieces of the great musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart. When he was fifteen, he attended a concert by composer Ignacy Paderewski. The dream of becoming a composer sprouted inside him after attending the concert (3). While he is attending Boys’ High School in 1917, he began to study composition and music theory through taking corresponding courses taught by Rubin Goldmark (2). Rubin Goldmark was a very conservative American composer, who discouraged modern music. After his graduation from

  • Giovanni Gabrieli Research Paper

    964 Words  | 2 Pages

    work with antiphonal call and response type writing. Many people did not like that he was pulling away from the traditional style of composing at this time. Giovanni could have stopped his urge to change the music everybody knew, but he did not. Without composers like Giovanni the music that we all know today could potentially be very different. Giovanni Gabrieli bridged the gap between the Baroque and Renaissance era with this antiphonal style of writing. Giovanni was one of five children born

  • Life of Ludwig van Beethoven

    1190 Words  | 3 Pages

    Life of Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven, also known as “ The General of Musicians,” was born on December 16, 1770. However, this date is not exact because it is believed that Beethoven’s father lied about his son’s age in order to portray him as an infant prodigy. As a result, Beethoven is convinced he was born on December 16, 1772 at the Rheingasse home, which belonged to the Fischers, who were close friends of the family (Orga 8). Johann van and Maria Magdalena Beethoven bore

  • A Brief Biography of Richard Wagner

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wanger lived in a reactionary and unsettled time, this restlessness is given a creative voice in his music and the condition of the romantic era man, removed from nature and isolated from communion with humanity is expressed in all of his music but especially in his operas. The morality of Wagner’s work has always been controversial, at best thought a work of a clearly flawed and tortured genius and at worst it is suspected to be steeped in subtle but deep racial hatred. For the purposes of this

  • Biography of Clara Schumann

    2216 Words  | 5 Pages

    For almost half a century, the musical world was defined by order and esteemed the form of music more highly than the emotion that lay behind it. However, at the turn of the 19th century, romantic music began to rise in popularity. Lasting nearly a century, romantic music rejected the ideas of the classical era and instead encouraged composers to embrace the idea of emotionally driven music. Music was centered around extreme emotions and fantastical stories that rejected the idea of reason. This

  • Jean-Baptiste Lully

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    instrumental music” (Straughan (a)) He soon took over compositions of entire ballets. (Straughan (a)) “Some time before 1656, he also took over responsibility for the string ensemble called the Petits violons, which he transformed into a group widely renowned for their discipline and artistic excellence.” (Straughan (a)) A clever diplomatist and thorough courtier, he completely won the royal favour, and in March, 1672, he succeeded in ousting Abbe Perrin from the directorship of the Academy of Music, also

  • Academic Music Librarians

    1324 Words  | 3 Pages

    Academic Music Librarians An academic music librarian is a woman or man, just over 49 years old, well educated, working in an academic or conservatory library. This presents a snapshot of those working in the field of academic music librarianship. More specifically, the academic music librarian is a woman 10% more of the time than she is a man. The academic music librarian is approximately 49 years of age with two thirds of academic music librarians falling between the ages of 37 and 61 (Lesniaski

  • The Life and Works of Modest Mussorgsky

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    the religious instructor. In 1854 his piano lessons with Herke stopped and he has yet to learn harmony or composition and entered Preobrazhensky Regiment of Guards upon leaving Cadet School of Guards (Sadie, 1980). Mussorgsky was not born into a music family as Mozart and Beethoven have been, but he displayed talent in piano playing, and because he did not receive proper education for techniques causing his works to appear amateurish and; his compositions are mainly influenced by various different