Rachmaninoff's Throwback Composer

Musical conductors are individuals that help direct a musical performance. They will ensure that the band is in the right tempo and that each section of the ensemble enters the performance at the correct time. The conductors may use hand gestures or a baton in order to guide the band. Many people believe that musical conductors are beneficial and help improve a band’s performance. However, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky disapproves of the usage of musical conductors as he believes that they are useless. Through comparisons and sarcastic language, Stravinsky criticizes the egotistical personalities and deceitful nature of musical conductors.

For instance, “Exploitation of personalities”(Stravinsky), “Musical qualities are of secondary importance”(Stravinsky), and “A complete angler”(Stravinsky). Further, “Ego disease”(Stravinsky) and “If you are unable to listen to the music, you watch the corybantics”(Stravinsky). His diction and phrases display a critical tone throughout his essay. He criticized the conductor’s purpose, their egos, and their effect on the audience. Moreover, his tone is critical as well as cynical due to the fact that Stravinsky himself is a conductor held in high esteem within the music

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the author of six symphonies and the finest and most popular operas in the Russian repertory. Tchaikovsky was also one of the founders of the school of Russian music. He was a brilliant composer with a creative imagination that helped his career throughout many years. He was completely attached to his art. His life and art were inseparably woven together. "I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote, "for as soon as one piece of work is finished and one would wish to relax, I desire to tackle some new work without delay." The purpose of this paper is to give you a background concerning Tchaikovsky's biography, as well as to discuss his various works of

Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular of all composers. The reasons are several and understandable. His music is extremely tuneful, opulently and colourfully scored, and filled with emotional passion. Undoubtedly the emotional temperature of the music reflected the composer's nature. He was afflicted by both repressed homosexuality and by the tendency to extreme fluctuations between ecstasy and depression. Tchaikovsky was neurotic and deeply sensitive, and his life was often painful, but through the agony shone a genius that created some of the most beautiful of all romantic melodies. With his rich gifts for melody and special flair for writing memorable dance tunes, with his ready response to the atmosphere of a theatrical situation

I selected Antonio Vivaldi as from the list of composers due to his vast influence in the development of music, including current popular styles such as the double violin concertos and ritornellos, and his influence on future composers such as Bach. Vivaldi’s significance to the music world is further emphasized by the introduction and popularization of concepts such as his usage of rhythm to create escalating tension and the application of motivic elements as themes for his pieces. Vivaldi’s life was set out to pursue priesthood from a young age yet, ironically, an illness allowed him to follow his true passion as both a violinist and composer. Antonio Vivaldi remained pious throughout his life and it was his particular education as a priest

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven are two of the greatest composers ever to write music. Both men lived in the early 18th and 19th century, but their music and influences are still felt today. The men faced similar experiences, yet they both lead very different lives. All together the pieces that these men composed amounts to over 300 published, and unpublished works of art. The people of their time period often had mixed feelings about these men, some “complained that Mozart’s music presented them with too many ideas and that his melodies moved from one to the next faster than audiences could follow, yet the ideas themselves seem effortless and natural, clear and

The video Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto no.2 op.18 by Anna Fedorova was composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, who was a composer, conductor and also among the top pianists and was considered a great representative of Idealization in classical music in Russia. The piece made him famous as a concerto composer as it is among the most favorite pieces. This artist tirelessly worked hard before producing this piece of work as he knew how original and strong the Symphony work was. He made daily visits to Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who was an excellent violist and cellist and also travelled to Italy and Crimea, from where he brought with him sketches for this piano concerto. Anna Fedorova, the Ukrainian pianist, then performed it with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie with Martin Panteleev as the conductor.

During the nineteenth century, the musical canon emerged as a list of works permanently established as being of the highest quality. While music was commonly only heard once or twice, canons were significant enough to be heard over and over again. In Lecture 5, Beethoven's "Heroic" 3rd Symphony was shown to be critiqued as being too heavy and long, unendurable, and not entertaining. In "Museum Pieces," J. Peter Burkholder indicates that the only works appropriate to be performed were museum pieces, or musical works with lasting value, because of their distinctive musical personality, familiarity, and preservation of works of revered dead composers (Burkholder).

Born Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich on the 25th September, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the composer began his descent into classical music at the age of 9, before later moving on to study at the Petrograd conservatory. Throughout his life he compiled 15 symphonies, 15 string quartets and 36 film scores as well as many other compositions. Within his musical work and the course of his career Shostakovich managed to both adhere to traditions set within classical music as well as dissent from them, I will be exploring these.

The first part of this response is to try and identify why John Cage received so much criticism from lovers of traditional music and post war modernists. Cage adopts chance techniques in his compositions and this makes things go awry for him in regard to being referred to as a composer, most critics consider him more of a music philosopher than a composer. Especially after the 19-hour performance of vexations which sadly did not amuse many. The randomness of his compositions makes it hard for him to establish his authority as a composer.

Playing for kings and royalty, Beethoven’s talent was immediately recognized from a young age by his father and other fellow musicians. By his early 20’s, he had composed 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, and a full opera - clearly a stupendous feat by itself, but tragically, a couple years later, he had begun strenuously overworking himself to the point of becoming deaf through idiosyncratic acts like dumping cold water on his head in order to stay awake. However, this did not stop him; "Live alone in your art! Restricted though you be by your defective sense, this is still the only existence for you” (Beethoven). For the rest of his life, Beethoven sacrificed his hearing for his undeniable - and even obsessive - passion for music - ultimately leading to the creation of some of classical music’s greatest compositions of all time. Ergo, with enough dedication and that 1% of talent, anyone - from an everyday student to the legends of the past - can truly be a “genius”.

composer has had an influence on the music we hear today. However, perhaps one of the most

Ludwig van Beethoven can still be considered a household name, even though Classical, or more accurately Romantic, music is no longer popular. According to Budden, Beethoven has been regarded as one of the greatest composers who ever lived, a statement that many others would agree with. A fountainhead of Romantic music and a man of great musical innovation, Beethoven was truly a talented composer. Beethoven’s music evolved into his own style over the course of his life leaving a great impact on history, despite the loss of his hearing.

ATchaikovsky=s music is not only one of the cornerstones of Russian musical society and world music . . . It is at the same time a creative and technical encyclopedia to which every Russian composer has reference in the course of his own work,@ commented Dimitri Shostakovich.1 This was a typical view held by Tchaikovsky=s contemporaries. He was well known and well respected, especially in his later years. In addition, Tchaikovsky was recognized as the most expressive Romantic composer in Russia.2 He was often idolized and put on a pedestal, particularly during his tour of the United States in 1891 when he conducted concerts of his own works in some of the leading concert halls. Tchaikovsky brought national attention to

Napoleon becoming the Emperor was not the only reason he did not dedicate the Third Symphony to him. Beethoven was disappointed in Napoleon's turn towards imperialism. Beethoven had a repressive, anti-liberal attitude that drove him into an inner emigration.