IBM Lotus Symphony

In 1883, Hans Von Bulow, one of Richard Wagner’s most significant conductors, took Strauss under his wing. The following year, Strauss wrote and conducted “Blasersuite” op. 4 in his public debut as a conductor that same year. The year after that, Strauss was recommended by Bulow for the position of Music director in Meiningen. By the time he was 21, Strauss was already well known by the public for his works. But in 1886, Strauss returned back to his hometown of Munich, and came back to work at…

studied conducting there and eventually worked as a harmony teacher in the Moscow Conservatory as recommended by his mentor, Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky was a Russian master composer whose works include classical ballet, operas, chamber music, concertos, symphonies and overtures. His Russian tunes…

Symphony no. 5 definitely stood out in all aspects of the piece to me. What I see as effective is how well the audience is drawn into the piece. From the moment this symphony begins, the audience is forced to direct their attention towards the music due to the full orchestra presenting the first tune in fortissimo and then directly moving to piano. The opening series of notes, in the pattern of short-short-short-long with fermatas on the last note, causes startling intrigue in the listener. Here…

second piece was Carmina Burana. Both of the pieces together lasted an hour and thirty minutes. The Performing Arts Center had amazing detail and layout. The location definitely set the mood for the performance. During the ballet there was also a symphony playing behind the dancers. They set the mood for what the dancers were trying to portray. The dynamics were not played at a certain pitch throughout the…

Beethoven was a great German composer in earlier Nineteen Century, who covered both Classical style and Romanticism. He started to sketch the Symphony No.6 in 1802, and instead of related the title with friends or sponsor’ name, he himself named it ’Pastoral’ to express his love with nature. The symphony is divided into five movements and featured like a program music. It was first performed in the Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808. Bela Bartok was one of the most important composers in…

of diversion. Mahler absorbed this and allowed it to infuse everything that followed in his career. Ross defines Mahler's entire musical mission as "to do for the symphony what Wagner had done for the opera". Mahler began to push the boundaries of what music represented, what it served as, and how it was notated. From his Fourth Symphony forward, Mahler rejected the romantic conventions of music that had ruled nineteenth century culture. Wagner helped shape what Mahler became, who ended up being…

In his lieder inspired by Klaus Groth’s “Es hing der Reif”, Brahms highlights both the dreamy and nightmarish aspects of fixating on love by floating in-between the relative keys of A minor and C major, introducing foreign “problematic” harmonies and chord members, and implying a strong sense of irony when concluding lines and stanzas. By never truly establishing a key until the very last lyrical statement, Brahms keeps the piece suspended in a dreamy uncertainty. This is evident even as early…

The Phoenix Symphony Illustrates Classical Music’s Toughest Wounds Tradition is bred out of a natural desire to preserve ideas among the threat of change. Yet, when the reaction to that threat imposes walls so thick, only the expert is capable of understanding, the practice does indeed become antiquated. Such is the situation for classical music, a genre stigmatized by an old-fashioned label. This isn’t news to most people. However, after the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2012,…

Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart are all composers that are universally known whether you like that specific genre of music or prefer listening to modern day artists. These particular composers have transcended the test of time because their music is taught in music classes currently and many composers have crafted their art by gaining inspiration from their music. Not many composers in this decade will have their musical accomplishments published in a textbook. However, there is one particular…

by Franz Joseph Haydn, are the two works of music compared in this paper. Both the musical pieces are from the classical era, but have different genres. “Surprise” is a symphony, and the second musical piece is a string quartet. A string quartet by definition, includes four instruments, a cello, a viola and two violins. A symphony might include many groups of instruments, i.e. brass violins, piano, and stringed instruments. “String Quartet in C Major, op. 76, no. 3, second movement”, has the…