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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Which type Of Piano Is For You?

You can't take a piano on a picnic, but that's almost a complete list of what you can't do with this most versatile of musical instuments.

The Piano traces its ancestors back to the earliest stringed instruments; the keyboard was added in the 12th century. Since the development of the true "pianoforte" in Italy in the 18th century, the piano has made itself right at home anywhere music is played. It blends well with other instruments, and it is the ideal solo instrument.

Learning to play the piano puts you in touch with melody, harmony and rhythm--and with the whole range of human emotions, from Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata to rollicking ragtime. Maybe you know all this. Maybe you're ready to buy a piano.

How do you go about deciding which is the best one for you?

First, keep in mind that you will be listening to, and looking at, your piano for a long time. The average lifetime of a piano is about 40 years, and you will probably have it long after you have sold your present furniture, house and car. Pianos depreciate very little. A used piano built 10 years ago and maintained well will cost almost as much as a comparable new piano.

So buy the best piano you can afford. Especially, don't try to economize on a piano for a child who's starting lessons. Making good music on a quality instrument is the best way to keep a young pianist interested.

Which type Of Piano Is For You?

Almost since the first piano was built, manufacturers have been trying to make it smaller. This has been no easy task, because good tone in a piano requires certain minimums in length of string and size of soundboard.

First, the size of the original grand piano was cut by the use of stronger frames and an innovative system of cross-stringing, Then, in the late 1800's, the upright or vertical piano was developed, sending the space-consuming bulk of the instrument up along the wall, rather than out across the floor.
This was so successful that today some larger professional-quality uprights can have equal or better tone quality than many small grands.

Eventually, even the upright was shortened, and in some cases ingenious scale design compensates in tone for the loss of size. Still, this rule of thumb generally applies: the larger the piano, the better the tone.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 beethoven


Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1804–08. This symphony is one of the most popular and well-known compositions in all of European classical music, and one of the most oft-played symphonies.[1] It comprises four movements: an opening sonata allegro, an andante, and a fast scherzo which leads attacca to the finale. First performed in Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1808, the work achieved its prodigious reputation soon afterwards. E.T.A. Hoffmann described the symphony as "one of the most important works of the time". It begins by stating a distinctive four-note "short-short-short-long" motif twice: ( listen (help·info)) The symphony, and the four-note opening motif in particular, are well known worldwide, with the motif appearing frequently in popular culture, from disco to rock and roll, to appearances in film and television. During World War II, the BBC used the four-note motif to introduce its radio news broadcasts because it evoked the Morse code letter "V" (· · · —, "victory").

Johann Sebastian Bach



Johann Sebastian Bach (pronounced [joˈhan/ˈjoːhan seˈbastjan ˈbax]) (31 March 1685 [O.S. 21 March] – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity.[1] Although he introduced no new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, an unrivalled control of harmonic and motivic organisation in composition for diverse instrumentation, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France.

Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, Bach's works include the Brandenburg concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Magnificat, The Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, the English Suites, the French Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo, the Cello Suites, more than 200 surviving cantatas, and a similar number of organ works, including the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

While Bach's abilities as an organist were recognized and highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, he was not particularly well-known as a composer. His adherence to Baroque forms and contrapuntal style was considered "old-fashioned" by his contemporaries, especially late in his career when the musical fashion tended towards Rococo and later Classical styles. A revival of interest and performances of his music began early in the 19th century, and he is now widely considered to be one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition.

Monday, June 15, 2009

un sospiro , liszt

Mozart-The Composer in Classical period


Mozart-The Composer in Classical period

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ amaˈdeus ˈmoːtsart], full name Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart[1] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over six hundred works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers. Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. Visiting Vienna in 1781 he was dismissed from his Salzburg position and chose to stay in the capital, where over the rest of life he achieved fame but little financial security. The final years in Vienna yielded many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and the Requiem. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons. Mozart always learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate—the whole informed by a vision of humanity "redeemed through art, forgiven, and reconciled with nature and the absolute".[2] His influence on all subsequent Western art music is profound. Beethoven wrote his own early compositions in the shadow of Mozart, of whom Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years".[3]

History of piano


The piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal. Although not portable and often expensive, the piano's versatility and ubiquity have made it one of the most familiar musical instruments. Pressing a key on the piano's keyboard causes a felt covered hammer to strike steel strings. The hammers rebound, allowing the strings to continue vibrating at their resonant frequency.[1] These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a sounding board that couples the acoustic energy to the air so that it can be heard as sound. When the key is released, a damper stops the string's vibration. Pianos are sometimes classified as both a percussion and a stringed instrument. According to the Hornbostel-Sachs method of music classification, it is grouped with Chordophones. The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which is seldom used except in formal language and derived from the original Italian name for the instrument, clavicembalo [or gravicembalo] col piano e forte (literally harpsichord with calm and strong). This refers to the instrument's responsiveness to keyboard touch, which allows the pianist to produce notes at different dynamic levels by controlling the speed with which the hammers hit the strings.

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