IBM Lotus Symphony

If you’d asked audiences in 1825 to name the most popular composer of the day, it would not have been Beethoven, it would have been Gioachino Rossini. From the time Tancredi premiered in 1813, Rossini’s operas were the most popular and influential all over Europe, in part because he blended the elements of opera buffa and opera seria into works that appealed to audiences from a wide range of nationalities and class. Rossini was born on Leap Year Day in 1792 in Pesaro, Italy on the Adriatic…

On a snowy night in 1892, The Nutcracker (originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Balletmaster Lev Ivanov) made its first appearance at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. With a dazzling original score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and classical ballet choreography, The Nutcracker became a holiday tradition in the United States a few years after its first full-length American production by dancer/choreographer Willam Christensen for the San Francisco Ballet on December…

Through various periods, such as Baroque, Classical, and Romantic Era, classical music has been developed grandly in Europe. Compared to Europe, American music history is short; however, if Europe is where classical music is born and blossomed, America is where popular music has developed in earnest. In the twentieth century, the United States has developed unique genres that could not be found in Europe. This special genre is the jazz that is still playing an important role in American popular…

Ludwig van Beethoven Every era in History has its challenges for society. It is easy to observe what people of their time throughout centuries went through. Whatever an individual faces in life usually gets depicted in a composers work. Whether it is a personal life, tragedy, war, or diseases, each of these factors play a major role in how and using what genre music was composed. Other than such facts, a persons’ surrounding, companions, to be exact, have an immense impact on an individual. One…

MHO Essay It would be incorrect to say that the classical composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived a particularly long life, but in the short span of 35 years, he made an enormous impact on music, both classical and non-classical and has left his mark, not only on music but on history. In his lifetime, Mozart composed over 600 works, which included string quartets, concert arias, piano sonatas and operas. Mozart also composed many piano concertos, and many of them were, and still is extremely…

Alto Saxophone The Alto Saxophone is a, even though it is made of mostly metal, woodwind instrument concocted by Belgian inventor, Antoine Joseph (Adolphe) Sax. This musical instrument was developed in the 1840’s and was patented in June 1846. It is mostly used for classical and jazz music and is the one of the newer instruments used than any other. The Alto Saxophone works when air is pushed through a mouthpiece creating vibrations that run throughout the body of the instrument creating the…

The Romantic Era started and ended from 1820-1900. An overview would be the transition from classical to Romantic, of Beethoven, who broke the boundary rules and attached everything together between the two. Because it was Beethoven, he made it okay and possible to have changes and still acceptable. This talented and strong/brave individual changed music for the better and did what he felt and wanted, with his unique personality came his unique composed music. After Beethoven music changed to…

In the first part of Contrapunctus 1, the exposition, an organ introduces the main theme (subject) with the alto range. The theme’s melody starts low, rises to the highest pitch, then waivers around the first pitch of the theme. Performed in quadruple meter, the exposition’s main theme is mostly conjunct with one disjunct phrase in the middle. After the subject is introduced by the alto the soprano answers by repeating the subject at a higher pitch. Following the soprano’s answer the bass…

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian neoclassical composer born on June 17th, 1882. He was born near St. Petersburg, Russia. Stravinsky died of congestive heart failure on April 6th, 1971 in New York, New York. He moved many times in his lifetime, but ended up gaining citizenship in the United States. Stravinsky’s musical influence came from how successful his father was with the bass. His household was full of musical and theatrical influences. He took piano lessons and studies music…

On October 30 at 7:30 p.m., I attended an opera workshop of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance”. “The Pirates of Penzance” or “The Slave of Duty” was written by W.S. Gilbert and composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1879. The play is a comic opera which consist of two acts accompany by orchestra music. The performance was held at the Preforming Arts Center at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas. The play was directed by Cassi Torres McNabb, the Stage Manager was…