The viola ( vee-OH-lə, alsovy-OH-lə, Italian: [ˈvjɔːla, viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument that is bowed or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4.
Rebecca Clarke was an English classical composer and violist best known for her chamber music featuring the viola. She was born in Harrow and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London, later becoming one of the first female professional orchestral players. Stranded in the United States at the outbreak of World War II, she settled permanently in New York City and married composer and pianist James Friskin in 1944. Clarke died at her home in New York at the age of 93.
Paola Massarenghi was an Italian composer. Only one of her works survives, Quando spiega l'insegn'al sommo padre, a spiritual madrigal. It was printed in Arcangelo Gherardini's Primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci. The publication, from Ferrara in 1585, is dedicated to Alfonso Fontanelli, and while other contributors are listed in the dedication, Massarenghi was left out. Massarenghi probably came from a wealthy family, since they were able to get Duke Ranuccio I Farnese to help get a musical education for Massarenghi's younger brother, Giovanni Battista Massarenghi, also a composer.
Cesarina Ricci de Tingoli was an Italian composer.
Ludvig Norman was a Swedish composer, conductor, pianist, and music teacher. Together with Franz Berwald and Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, he ranks among the most important Swedish symphonists of the 19th century.
Rosa Giacinta Badalla was an Italian composer from the Milan area and Benedictine nun. The first record of her is in the lists of the monastery of Saint Radegonda in Milan from 1678. Claudia Sessa, Claudia Rusca, and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani were also active at Milanese convents during the same period.
Cacilda Campos Borges Barbosa was a Brazilian pianist, conductor and composer. She was one of the pioneers of electronic music in Brazil.
Nadezhda Nikolayevna Rimskaya-Korsakova (Russian: Надежда Николаевна Римская-Корсакова née Purgold was a Russian pianist and composer as well as the wife of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. She was also the mother of Russian musicologist Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov.
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight is a 1914 poem by American poet Vachel Lindsay. It portrays Abraham Lincoln walking the streets of Springfield, Illinois, stirred from his eternal sleep, a man, who even in death, is burdened by the tragedies of the modern world. At the time the poem was written, Lindsay was oppressed by knowledge of the blood and death exacted by World War I.
Xin Huguang was a modern Chinese composer. Born in Shanghai, her family came from Jiangxi in China's south. In 1948 she went to Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi, to commence musical studies. In 1951 she enlisted at the Conservatory of the Central Music University in Beijing. Her classmate Mei Li Qi Ge introduced her to Mongolian folk music and this idiom informed her composing. She commenced collecting tapes and written articles on the subject. She met her future husband Bao Yu Shan, from Ke Zuo Zhong Qi in Mongolia while he was studying saxophone at the Conservatory. At the completion of her studies she composed Ga Da Mei Lin as a symphonic tone poem. The premier performance caused a stir as few could credit a 23-year-old female graduate with its composition. In that year she went with her husband to teach and compose music in Mongolia where she remained for the next 26 years. In 1982 she returned to Beijing to continue her work. In 1991 she visited America. She had three sons, the third of which, San Bao, was also a composer.
David Owen Norris, is a British pianist, composer, academic, and broadcaster.
Matthew Jones is a British violist, violinist and composer primarily known for his international performance work as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He also holds a Viola Professorship and is Head of Chamber Music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and runs an in-demand performance health consultancy practice. He is fluent in Italian.
Rebecca Clarke composed the Sonata for Viola and Piano, attributed to the year 1919, when the composer was 33 years old. Clarke had moved to the United States in 1916, after being disowned by her father. She had been supporting herself with some success as a soloist.
Antoinette Kirkwood was an English composer born in London. She studied piano and composition with Dorothy Howell at the Royal Academy in London and often accompanied her mother, who was a lieder singer. For four years beginning in 1969, she was a member of the Executive Committee of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain, now the British Association of Composers and Songwriters. Radio Éireann broadcast her Symphony, op 8, composed in 1953. This “very notable achievement” established that Kirkwood “can write a memorable tune in a definite key” that will captivate the listener
Clara Anna Korn (1866–1941) was an American pianist, composer and music writer. She was born in Germany, but her family moved to the United States and she grew up in New Jersey. She studied at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City with B.O. Klein, Antonín Dvořák and Horatio Parker.
Ellen Coleman (1886–1973) was an English conductor and composer. ·
Pamela Harrison was an English pianist, music teacher and composer.
Philip Dukes is a British classical viola soloist.
This is a summary of 1918 in music in the United Kingdom.
