Opera buffa

Music teachers all over the world today argue and discuss what genre is best to teach students to. A large portion of teachers usually narrows it down between two decisions in genre choice and those are Jazz and Classical. While both genres give exceptional lessons they both have differences at what’s important for a student to learn. Mastery of both of these genres would prepare someone for almost any musical situation a musician could come across but people still assume one is better than the…

Among the many legends in humanities, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stands out for the hundreds of pivotal compositions established throughout his short-life. At age 3, Mozart began his musical education in his childhood home in Salzburg, Austria. His father, Leopold Mozart, a German composer and teacher, acknowledged the rapid advancement of his son’s talent. “‘The miracle which God let be born in Salzburg’ was Leopold’s description of his son” (Sadie 2017). Leopold influenced his son by not only…

Un Bel Di Vedremo: “is a soprano aria from the opera Madama Butterfly (1904) by Giacomo Puccini to a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is sung by Cio-Cio San, when she imagines and performs the return of Pinkerton on a white ship, signalled by a thread of smoke on the far horizon.” (Wikipedia, Un Bel Di Vedremo). It is an extraordinary soprano aria sung by Madama Butterfly in the moment act of Giacomo Puccini's appalling opera, Madama Butterfly. The lyrics was composed by Luigi…

Italian opera. This style of opera is known to be closely related because the focus is exclusively on the solo voice and on a lyrical, beautiful voice line. The lines orchestrated in the Italian opera are harmonic and more simplistic than of what a German opera orchestrates. As stated, "For Italians, music and voice are almost one and the same." The Italian opera composer aims not at musical and dramatic subtlety but, rather, at banner headlines of emotion as stated. In this particular opera…

He wrote several operas about mythological creatures and historical figures, for operas were the ones to be published. However, his smaller works, especially his sonatas, are mainly focused on God and Christianity (“Claudio”). Humanism was declining, but history and tales of old were still popular. Monteverdi…

The boundless achievements of Leonard Bernstein qualify's as a standout among the most essential figures ever. As a television character, he acquainted established music with an era of viewers. As the arranger for WEST SIDE STORY, Bernstein upset the sound of Broadway. As a conductor, he has reveled idealization of traditional music beaus far and wide an uncommon circumstance for an American maestro. Constantly in people in general this effective and complex man has been seen as both a…

The score guides the audience through times of adversity that the protagonist faces in each trial, further deepening the audience’s emotional understanding of the challenges facing the protagonists to show the amount of strength to overcome such struggle. During the moments where the protagonists face sets of trials, the score becomes an extension of the script, guiding the audience to empathize with the protagonists’ feelings of nervousness and determination. In an interview with critic Bill…

This concert report will be on Esperanza Spalding Live at Austin City Limits. The venue mimics that of a outdoor auditorium by having a huge mural of downtown Austin behind stage, and if just seeing it for the first time from a video, one would think it was outdoors. The venue was pretty large, the size of a large auditorium, and the acoustics were good and there was little to no echoing.Though most of Spalding’s songs fall under the genre of jazz, she would rather not be called a jazz artist…

Classical style which is full of poise, to the Romantic style which is emotion. Beethoven was a composer who wrote for very wealthy patrons, he also earned lots of money from lots of public concerts. He wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, one opera, five piano concertos, and lots of chamber works including some amazing string quartets. Beethoven was a difficult and very unsociable, he was isolated because of deafness which developed in his twenties and he never got married. Beethoven…

Richard Wagner, a Romantic German composer, is one of the leading opera composers of his time; he often defined his stage works using the term bühnenfestspiel, or festival stage play. He is known for writing several such works, including Lohengrin, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Tristan und Isolde. In these works Wagner is credited with the use of many compositional devices and philosophies. In particular, he is recognized for employing the idea of a “gesamtkunstwerk,” or collective art, in…