Claudio Abbado

Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Abbado. Recorded live at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy in 2002. Featuring soloist Gil Shaham. Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1833. His father taught him music as a young boy. At the age of 6, he started creating his own method of writing music. Brahms befriended many famous composers during his life, most notably the Schumanns. He composed over a 100 works during his lifetime. Most famous were his Symphonies, Violin Concerto, and Hungarian Dances. He died in 1897 of liver cancer. He was buried next to Beethoven and Franz Schubert. The first…

Claudio's feelings are clearly shown when Don John unfolds his tale of Hero's lack of sexual virtue. At the conclusion of which Claudio simply utters: May this be so? Claudio is willing to accept the word of the least trusted member of his acquaintance rather than believe in the virtuous nature of his betrothed lady. Had Claudio's love for Hero been all he had imagined it to be, he would have dismissed Don John's claims and believed Hero's assertion of innocence, despite evidence to the…

Claudio Monteverdi is an Italian composer from the Baroque period who was influential in the transition between Renaissance and Baroque music. Despite composing in all musical styles and genres of his time, Monteverdi defied past generation 's standards of composition. For example, he did not follow the rules governing the resolution of dissonances in that period. Like other composers of the Baroque period, Monteverdi had a big impetus to imitate reality through his music; he tried to humanize…

Claudio Monteverdi - The original Renaissance man Baldasario Monteverdi was a doctor and apothecary, as well as an amateur surgeon and a barber in the mid-1500s during the Renaissance period. His Marriage to a Goldsmith's daughter brought him a son, Claudio, In 1597. Though May 15, 1597 is usually reported as Claudio Monteverdi's birthday, the actual day of his birth is unknown. May 15th is the first record of him at the time of his baptism In the Catholic Church. This is an indication of the…

Orfeo, officially L’Orfeo, was a momentous opera piece that was composed by Claudio Monteverdi. Written in five acts, the storyline that follows the underlying music delves into many aspects of humanity. Happiness, love, religion, death, and loss, concomitant with heartbreak, are the main themes expressed and explored which yield foresight into the time period Monteverdi himself lived in, as well as the influence of the Venice, the floating city. The opera was revolutionary for its time…

When comparing Claudio Monteverdi’s compositional techniques in his madrigal “Dorinda, ah dirò” to what was traditionally expected in the prima practice, one notices a nonchalant treatment of dissonances, as well as an overall quickened sense of rhythm and far too many liberations in melodic writing. While observing Monteverdi’s madrigal, one notices several instances of note-against note dissonances. The first instance (example 1.1) displays dissonances of a seventh and a ninth between the…

There is a magical quality about the Berlin Philharmonic. All of their concerts and recordings for the last fifty years have been filled with that amazing quality that sets them apart from their European and North American counterparts. Most well-rounded musicians are familiar with the energy that Karajan injected into the Berlin Philharmonic. What he did with with it has had a lasting effect on his successors. It's nothing short of astonishing. Claudio Abbado was the first of Karajan’s…