Maria Anna Mozart

Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.1 in D Minor is split into three movements of varying texture and feel. Full of tension and release, the piece reflects both Brahms’s other works and his life during the time of its composition. Although initially received in 1859 to an overwhelmingly negative reaction, (Lunday 127) the concerto grew in popularity with the help of Clara Schumann and remains a popular composition to this day (Staines 97). Throughout the piece, the delicate balances of…

“With a tense melodic line and taut harmonies, the composition is considered by many to be the most popular of all 20th-century orchestral works,” NPR Music. Adagio for Strings, was written by Samuel Barber in 1936. Originally written as the second movement of Barbers String Quartet, Op. 11, Adagio for Strings has been used frequently in times of mourning. The beauty of this piece is the strong emotions that it invokes from those that hear it. Written during a time, when the world was in a…

was a schoolmaster; his mother, Elizabeth, whose maiden name was Vietz, was in domestic service at the time of her marriage.” Franz was their fourth surviving son. His elder brothers were Ignaz, Karl, and Ferdinand, and there was a younger sister, Maria Theresa. The family was musical and cultivated string quartet playing in the home, most of the men in the family playing the viola but were also trained in many other instruments. Just like most of his family he started at a young age, father…

In the past, I want to firstly address that I personally have attended some music concerts on Sacramento State’s campus. However, I had never before attended to a symphonic wind ensemble concert. Before the concert began, I had noticed a large amount of chairs on stage as I found this quite interesting. As it was about to begin, a large amount of musicians wearing black appeared on the stage and were performing a small warmup. As performers, they were a guest group. Once the lights were turned…

Peter and the Wolf was written in 1936 by Sergei Prokofiev as a children's story. This work includes both music and text. The symphony is the accompaniment to the narrator, who reads the spoken parts during the work. Prokofiev was born in Sochovka, Russia on April 23, 1891. The music Prokofiev is most famous for, is the music he composed for Peter and the Wolf. Prokofiev’s composing days began during his youth, eventually leading him to study music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1918,…

Over the summer I listened to the music used in two ballets shown during the Here/Now Festival, and which will also be performed during the 2017-18 season. As a non-musician, I perceive two thematic strands in the first of the four pieces from Dan Deacon’s America to be utilized in The Times Are Racing. Let’s call them A and B. The pattern in this section is ABA. However, the same music is used in the fourth and final section of the album (and ballet); but the pattern there is BA. This A strand…

Concert Report: Mivos Quartet The Mivos Quartet performed at the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on the campus of UC San Diego on the evening of October 12, 2016. The four-membered string ensemble - consisting of Olivia de Prato and Lauren Cauley on the violin, Victor Lowrie on the viola, and Mariel Roberts on the cello - played three modern composition in a concert that lasted about one hour. The quartet opened their performance with a piece titled Serashi Fragments composed by Lei Liang in 2005.…

There are three main types of orchestral programme music, symphonic poem also, known as the tone poem, the concert overture, and the programme symphony. The symphonic poem is musical piece written for symphonic orchestra, usually as a single long movement. Richard Strauss is one of the well-known composers who wrote many descriptive symphonic poems. One of these is Til Eulenspiegel Op. 28 (1894 - 1895) which tells of a mischievous character of German legend. Strauss uses a musical theme to…

Elizabeth Perez 1 Dr. Elizabeth Swanson Music of The 21st Century 5 April 2017 THE MUSIC of BENJAMIN BRITTEN The tradition of classical music performance became stronger during the post war years. Audiences grew, government support in many nations rose, schools of…

Already hearing holiday and Christmas songs everywhere? No doubt Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is heard in a lot of malls, stores and establishments. It is considered to be one of the Christmas songs in the past two decades that has reached a height of popularity. According to Adam Ragusea, a journalism professor at Mercer University, Mariah Carey’s song is a classic because of the chords, as reported by Vox. Ragusea said there are 13 distinct chords that makes Mariah…