When Johann Sebastian Bach sent a set of six concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg — a German official — the Margrave probably never even looked at the music. Bach […]
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Even though Schubert’s Marche Militaire has the word „march“ in the title, it was never actually meant for anyone to march to. Several other composers wrote march music without bands […]
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Many composers used European dance forms in their work. Dvorak, Haydn, Chopin and Beethoven are just a few of the composers featured here.
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Benjamin Britten was asked to compose music for a film that explained the instruments of the orchestra to children. Britten borrowed a tune by one of his favorite composers, Henry […]
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Both Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughn Williams loved using folk music in their music. They were inspired by a „folk song revival“ started by an English musician named Cecil Sharp […]
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There are many pieces of classical music — besides „The Flight of the Bumblebee“ — that are about bees, birds, and other winged creatures. Composers use various instruments to imitate […]
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Zoltán Kodály was not the only composer to use folk tunes in the music he wrote. Here are some others.
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Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov spent years as a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Many of his students became famous composers themselves: Anatol Liadov, Alexander Glazunov, and Igor Stravinsky. A lot of […]
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The beginning of the second movement of Beethoven’s 8th Symphony imitates a metronome — a mechanical device that ticks steadily to help musician keep to the beat of the music. […]
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Around the year 1600, Italian composers started writing theater pieces that use music all the way through them. Instead of speaking, characters in operas sing their lines. From Claudio Monteverdi, […]
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