Francis Poulenc was born in Paris, France on January 7, 1899 into a well–to–do family. His father, Emile Poulenc, was one of the directors of the pharmaceutical firm Rhone-Poulenc. Never one to be without money, Poulenc’s composing was often viewed as more of a hobby than a necessity. Poulenc never studied at the famed Paris Conservatory or any other musical institution, which later made it difficult for him to be accepted by his peers.
Poulenc studied piano with Ricardo Vines and composition with Charles Koechlin, although this study was limited and Poulenc was considered to be primarily a self-taught composer. During the 1920s, Poulenc became associated with a group known as Les Six that included Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Germaine Tailleferre, and Georges Auric (the Les Six received their name after being compared to Russia’s Big Five). Although these composers did not represent a particular school of music, they favored jazz and music hall styles and opposed the romantic and formal style of previous French composers including Claude Debussy. Poulenc, himself, was inspired by Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud and Erik Satie as well as Maurice Chevalier and French vaudeville.
While in his early 20’s, Poulenc began to have great success as a composer in several genres: orchestral, chamber music, ballets, concertos, film scores, and opera, as well as powerful choral and sacred music. During the 1930’s, he rediscovered his Catholic faith and began writing religious music, establishing himself as one of the great religious and choral music writers of the century. He endured the German occupation of Paris during WWII, which gave rise to his most impassioned and difficult work Figure Humaine, or The Face of Man, which was a covert work of protest. Some of his other major religious works include his Mass in G (1937), Stabat Mater (1950), and Gloria (1959). He also wrote the religious opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957) and a one-act tragedy for soprano, The Human Voice (1959).
The concert I attended, entitled Poulenc:Piano and Wind, contained three pieces of music composed by Francis Poulenc: Sonata for the Clarinet and Bassoon (1922), Trio for the Piano, Oboe, and Bassoon (1926), and Sextet for the Piano, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and Horn (1932-39). All three pieces, although different in their content and composition, contained a similar element common to most of Poulenc’s secular music. The main focus of each composition was its melody.
Gottschalk was a child prodigy, showing astonishing musical abilities at a young age. His father, against his mother’s wishes, sent him off to study music more intensively in Paris. During his time in Paris, Gottschalk studied piano with Charles Hallé, Camille Stamaty, and later studied composition with Pierre Maleden. Paris was just the beginning of the many places where he would compose some of his finest works.
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 was the world that Clara Wieck (who would later marry the famous composer, Robert Schumann) was born into. Most well known for being a famous concert pianist, and secondly for being a romantic composer, Clara intimately knew the workings of romantic music which would not only influence Clara but would later become influenced by her progressive compositions and performances, as asserted by Bertita Harding, author of Concerto: The Glowing Story of Clara Schumann (Harding, 14). Clara’s musical career is an excellent example of how romantic music changed from virtuosic pieces composed to inspire awe at a performer’s talent, to more serious and nuanced pieces of music that valued the emotion of the listener above all else.
Rousseau was often in trouble for fighting and stealing. As a result of living this way, he fled to Paris in 1741 seeking fame. He composed an opera called Les Muses galantes, which led to a correspondence with Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and other French philosophers, some of whom were engaged in producing the Encyclopedia. Rousseau contributed several pieces on music to this project. But, it was not unt...
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
The history of the Concert Band and Wind Ensemble will be reflected through a timeline of events, including an analysis of significant events, groups, composers, and advancements. When society envisions a Wind Ensemble, talented musicians, grand music halls, and difficult arrangements typically come to mind. However, a modern-day Wind Ensemble includes a variety of musicians, each with positive and negative aspects. In society today, music is greatly appreciated and accepted. It is considered an honor and a privilege to expose our ears to the music.
The organum, which thrived at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, was one of the earliest types of polyphony. It was very much similar to a trope, as it added vertical notes onto an existing melody or plainchant. There is quite the development of the organum between the 10th and 12th centuries. French composers, Leoninus, and Perotinus, were leading contributors to the evolution of the organum advancing the terms “free organum”, and “discant organum”. Through examining the works throughout Musica enchiriadis of the 10th century, and the compositions of Leoninus and Perotinusis in the 12th century, it is made clear that the the organum endured influential alterations both melodically and rhythmically.
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, nationalistic styles from Poland and unique innovations especially from Warsaw.
Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, born May 17th 1866 to Scottish born Jane Leslie Anton and Norman born Alfred Satie in Honfleur, France. Satie is a well-remembered figure of 20th Century composers and pianist, who had always described himself as “a medieval musician who had wandered by mistake into the 20th Century”(1). Satie had suffered family tragedies in his early childhood losing his mother, Jane, at the age of 6. He was sent to live with his grandparents in 1872, along with his siblings. When he lived with his grandparents he started his musical career. At the age of ten, he had piano lessons from Vinot, local organist from St. Catherine’s church. According to Rollo H. Myers’s book of Erik Satie, there are two prominent figures in Erik’s life, his uncle Adrien who, like his nephew, had an odd character and his first piano teacher Vinot. After his grandmother passed away in 1878, Erik and his brother were sent to live with their father, Alfred Satie, whom one year later, married Mademoiselle Eugénie Barnetsche who was a pianist and teacher. Erik took quite a dislike to his new stepmother when she tried to teach Satie what she believed to be the correct and more traditional way to learn music. This was too strict for Satie. It is clear from this point in his early musical career that Satie was not going to be the traditional composer and wanted to break the traditional learning barriers. He died on the 1st of July 1925 in Arcueil, France from cirrhosis of the liver.
Germain Pilon was one of the best French sculptures of his time period, thanks to his father who taught him how to sculpt in their own workshop. Some of Germain’s best work such as Tomb of Catherine de Medici, and Three Graces holding the heart of Henry II, he worked alongside Francisco Primaticcio who was known for his style that was a combination of stucco work and mural painting. Germain Pilon was known for his medalist and portrait sculptures using materials such as bronze, marble terracotta and wood. During the 1570’s Germain Pilon gained the tittle of ‘sculpture to the king’ for Charles IX. Even though no large scale work from the 1570s stayed intact during Germains rain to the king Charles IX, he was still one of the best sculptures of his time.
Although Beethoven had a rough life as a child and as he got older, he still was able to produce phenomenal compositions. He refused to conform to traditional musical standards and strived for perfection. Beethoven took composing music to a whole new level. “Beethoven opened up new realms of musical expression that profoundly influence composers throughout the nineteenth century.”
There are two pieces in our Renaissance Era musical feature this evening, the first by Pierre Phalèse called Passamezzo d'Italye - Reprise – Gaillarde. Phalèse began as a bookseller in 1545 and not long after he set up a publishing house. By 1575 he had around 189 music books. Much of his work was devoted to sacred music but there was a small amount of Flemish songs and instrumental works. Phalèse borrowed work from many composers and did not hesitate to include other composer’s music in his works. The sec...
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
Georges Bizet was born in Paris on October 25th, 1838. He was trained by his parents, who were musical, and admitted to the Paris Conservatoire just before his tenth birthday. There he studied counterpoint with Zimmerman and Gounod and composition with Halévy, and under Marmontel's tuition he became a brilliant pianist. Bizet's exceptional powers as a composer are already apparent in the products of his Conservatoire years, notably the Symphony in C, a work of precocious genius dating from 1855 (but not performed until 1935). In 1857 Bizet shared with Lecocq a prize offered by Offenbach for a setting of the one-act operetta Le Docteur Miracle; later that year he set out for Italy as holder of the coveted Prix de Rome.
Kamien, Roger. "Part VI: The Romantic Period." Music: An Appreciation. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. 257-350. Print.
The Classical Period brought forward new musical innovation. The sudden change in emotion and contrast in the music from the classical era is one of the many fascinating topics. However, the topic most talked about to this very day is Mozart’s Requiem. The mystery of which parts were composed by Mozart puzzles many. Even the rumor that surrounds Mozart’s cause of death is fascinating. Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus, added more controversy to this intriguing mystery.