The Banjo, Op. 15, is a composition for piano by the American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Composed in 1853, it is one of Gottschalk's best-known works. The piece features captivating imitations of mid-nineteenth-century African-American banjo techniques and includes demonstrations of techniques, such as up-picking and strumming, which are not found in other sources from the period. [1] [2]
During the summer of 1853, Gottschalk undertook several compositions; among them was the first version of The Banjo. After taking the piece through a major overhaul, Gottschalk submitted it for publication in 1854 as his Opus 15.
The accuracy of Gottschalk's banjo imitations in the piece makes it a unique record of the sound of pre-Civil War African-American banjo playing, and it contains evidence of techniques not found in other sources, including combinations of "downstroking" and "up-picking" found in West African plucked lute performance. This unusual accuracy has enabled at least one modern banjo player to recreate the banjo music that Gottschalk transcribed, which invited speculation that Gottschalk may have taken his banjo imitations from actual transcription of an unnamed African-American banjo player. Unlike most banjo music in the popular minstrel shows of the time that more closely followed the melody of dance music, [3] most of "The Banjo" consists of variations of a repeating phrase as is done by musicians in the Senegambia region in West Africa, the source for the banjo's ancestors. [2]
The Banjo, written in two-four time in the key of F-sharp major, begins with a variant of the ending theme doubled in octaves. Then the piece explores a strikingly West African-style series of variations on a basic repeating phrase. When the melody from the introduction comes back in, it barely has time to establish itself before a difficult passage in sixteenths takes over. Thundering octaves then take the melody back to the introduction and the whole thing is repeated.
Throughout the piece the melodies develop until Gottschalk brings the piece to an end with a brilliant pair of variations, containing Stephen Foster's Camptown Races. [4]
The Banjo was first performed in March 1855 by Gottschalk himself. Since then it has become a favorite encore of piano virtuosi around the world. French pianist Cyprien Katsaris created his own transcription of the piece, during performances he plays several wrong notes, adding to the humour of the piece. [5]
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part. However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances.
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include classical compositions such as Ravel's Boléro and the Carol of the Bells, and popular songs such as Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), Henry Mancini's theme from Peter Gunn (1959), The Who's "Baba O'Riley" (1971), and The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (1997).
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.
The Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, now also called the Saint Anthony Variations, is a work in the form of a theme and variations, composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1873 at Tutzing in Bavaria. It consists of a theme in B♭ major based on a "Chorale St Antoni", eight variations, and a finale. The work was published in two versions: for two pianos, written first but designated Op. 56b; and for orchestra, designated Op. 56a.
Six moments musicaux, Op. 16, is a set of solo piano pieces composed by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff between October and December 1896. Each Moment musical reproduces a musical form characteristic of a previous musical era. The forms that appear in Rachmaninoff's incarnation are the nocturne, song without words, barcarolle, virtuoso étude, and theme and variations.
The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, is a work for solo piano written by Johannes Brahms in 1861. It consists of a set of twenty-five variations and a concluding fugue, all based on a theme from George Frideric Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in B♭ major, HWV 434. They are known as his Handel Variations.
The term Creole music is used to refer to two distinct musical traditions: art songs adapted from 19th-century vernacular music; or the vernacular traditions of Louisiana Creole people which have persisted as 20th- and 21st-century la la and zydeco in addition to influencing Cajun music.
Beethoven Symphonies, S.464, are a set of nine transcriptions for solo piano by Franz Liszt of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies 1–9. They are among the most technically demanding piano music ever written.
Cyprien Katsaris is a French-Cypriot virtuoso pianist, teacher and composer. Amongst his teachers were Monique de la Bruchollerie, a student of Emil von Sauer, who had been a pupil of Franz Liszt. He is known for his refined sound, extreme command of voicing, and virtually effortless physical mastery of technique.
Souvenir de Porto Rico, Op. 31, is a musical composition for piano by American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk written from 1857 during a tour in Puerto Rico. Dedicated to the Dutch piano virtuoso and salon music composer Ernest Henry Lubeck, and published in Mainz circa 1860 with the subtitle of Marche des Gibaros, it is based on the Christmas folk song Si me dan pasteles, denmelos calientes, performed by local peasants known as Jíbaros. The piece makes use of Latin-American and Afro-American melodies and rhythms almost fifty years before early ragtime and jazz would popularize its use.
Night music is a musical style of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók which he used mostly in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble or orchestra compositions in his mature period. It is characterized by "eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies".
The Nocturne in E minor, Op. posth. 72 No. 1, WN 23, was composed by Frédéric Chopin for solo piano in 1826. It was Chopin's first composed nocturne, although it was the nineteenth to be published, in 1855, along with two other early works: a funeral march in C minor and three écossaises. The composition features an unbroken line of quaver triplets in the left hand set against a slow melody of minims, crotchets, quaver duplets and triplets. It consists of 57 bars of common time with the tempo given as Andante, = 69 bpm.
Michael Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1938–39) is one of his most popular and frequently performed works.
Le Bananier in C minor, Op. 5, is a composition for piano by American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Dedicated to the famous pianist Alexandre Goria, it was written in France around 1846 as one of the four "Louisiana Creole pieces" that Gottschalk composed between 1844 and 1846. Based on the Creole folk melody En avan' Grenadie, it was alternatively published with the subtitle Chanson nègre, and was widely popular in Paris at the time of its release.
Bamboula, Op. 2, is a fantasy composition for piano written by American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk during a delirium of typhoid fever in the French town of Clermont-sur-l'Oise in the summer of 1848. Dedicated "à sa Majesté Isabelle II, Reine des Espagnes", it is the first of the so-called set of four "Louisiana Creole pieces" that Gottschalk composed between 1848 and 1851.
Le Mancenillier, Op. 11, is a Creole-based composition for piano written by American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk in Switzerland in the fall of 1848. Dedicated to "Madame Mennechet de Barival", it was published in Paris with the subtitle Sérénade by his publisher 'Escudiers' in April 1851. It is the fourth and last piece dubbed by musicologist Gilbert Chase the Louisiana Trilogy, written between 1844 and 1846 when Gottschalk had not yet come of age.
Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux was a French composer, pianist, piano teacher, musicologist and music critic. He is best-known for his 60 Grandes Études, Op. 63.
Traditional sub-Saharan African harmony is a music theory of harmony in sub-Saharan African music based on the principles of homophonic parallelism, homophonic polyphony, counter-melody and ostinato-variation. Polyphony is common in African music and heterophony is a common technique as well. Although these principles of traditional African music are of Pan-African validity, the degree to which they are used in one area over another varies. Specific techniques that used to generate harmony in Africa are the "span process", "pedal notes", "rhythmic harmony", "harmony by imitation", and "scalar clusters".
The three-hand effect is a means of playing on the piano with only two hands, but producing the impression that one is using three hands. Typically this effect is produced by keeping the melody in the middle register, with accompanying arpeggios in the treble and bass registers.
The Sei pezzi per pianoforte, P 044, is a set of six solo piano pieces written by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi between 1903 and 1905. These predominantly salonesque pieces are eclectic, drawing influence from different musical styles and composers. The pieces have various musical forms and were composed separately and later published together between 1905 and 1907 in a set under the same title for editorial reasons; Respighi had not conceived them as a suite, and therefore did not intend to have uniformity among the pieces. The set, under Bongiovanni, became his first published work. Five of the six pieces are derived from earlier works by Respighi, and only one of them, the "Canone", has an extant manuscript.
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