The NBC Symphony Orchestra was established as a commercial venture in 1937 by General David Sarnoff of NBC in order to coax the recently retired conductor Arturo Toscanini to come to America. General Sarnoff spared no expense in recruiting and training the orchestra. Artur Rodzinski, a noted disciplinarian and task master in his own right, […]
The mellophone is a brass instrument that is typically used in place of the French horn in marching bands. Like the horn, the mellophone has three valves. However, the valves are pressed with the right hand for mellophone, instead of the left for a concert horn. Also, although some of the mellophone fingerings are the […]
Otto Luening is an early pioneer of electronic music. His Tape Music, including A Poem in Cycles & Bells, Gargoyles for Violin & Synthesized Sound, and Sounds of New Music demonstrated the early potential of synthesizers and special editing techniques for so-called classical music. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It […]
Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer and orchestra conductor. Biography Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and studied at Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He was highly regarded as a conductor, composer, pianist, and educator. He is probably best known to the public as […]
In one of his 1960 “New York Philarmonic Young People’s Concerts” Leonard Bernstein talks about the Theremin, the Ondes Martenot and the Tape Recorder.
The theremin is played by carefully moving your hands near 2 antennas, one for volume and one for pitch. But how does it work?
Francesco Balilla Pratella wrote the “Manifesto of Futurist Musicians” in 1911.
Carlo Carrà wrote “The Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells” futursit manifesto in 1913.
Darius Milhaud (September 4, 1892 – June 22, 1974) was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. Milhaud was born in Aix-en-Provence and studied in Paris under Charles Widor and Vincent d’Indy. He emigrated to America in 1940, where […]
Claude Debussy (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918), composer of impressionistic classical music. Born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, France, Claude Debussy studied with Guiraud and others at the Paris Conservatoire (1872-84) and as an 1884 Prix de Rome winner, went to Rome, Italy (1885-7), though more important impressions came from his visits to Bayreuth (1888, […]
