Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.
January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 336 days remain until the end of the year.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music. Earlier editions were published under the titles A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians; the work has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called Grove Music Online, which is now an important part of Oxford Music Online.
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.
Carl Dahlhaus was a German musicologist who was among the leading postwar musicologists of the mid to late 20th-century. A prolific scholar, he had broad interests though his research focused on 19th- and 20th-century classical music, both areas in which he made significant advancements. However, he remains best known in the English-speaking world for his writings on Wagner. Dahlhaus wrote on many other composers, including Josquin, Gesualdo, Bach and Schoenberg.
Stanley John Sadie was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980), which was published as the first edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Along with Thurston Dart, Nigel Fortune and Oliver Neighbour he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation.
La favorite is a grand opera in four acts by Gaetano Donizetti to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d'Arnaud with additions by Eugène Scribe based on the story of Leonora de Guzman. The opera concerns the romantic struggles of the King of Castile, Alfonso XI, and his mistress, the "favourite" Leonora, against the backdrop of the political wiles of receding Moorish Spain and the life of the Catholic Church. It premiered on 2 December 1840 at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris.
Richard Filler Taruskin was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as musical analysis that combines sociological, cultural, and political perspectives has incited much discussion, debate and controversy. He regularly wrote music criticism for newspapers including The New York Times. He researched a wide variety of areas, but a central topic was Russian music from the 18th century to the present day. Other subjects he engaged with include the theory of performance, 15th-century music, 20th-century classical music, nationalism in music, the theory of modernism, and analysis. He is best known for his monumental survey of Western classical music, the six-volume Oxford History of Western Music. His awards include the first Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society in 1978 and the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy in 2017.
Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, commonly known by its acronym RILM, is a nonprofit organization that offers digital collections and advanced tools for locating research on all topics related to music. Its mission is "to make this knowledge accessible to research and performance communities worldwide….to include the music scholarship of all countries, in all languages, and across all disciplinary and cultural boundaries, thereby fostering research in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences." Central to RILM's work and mission is the international bibliography of scholarship relating to all facets of music research.
Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza, is a genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in Victorian England and in the New York theatre of the mid-19th century. It is a form of parody in which a well-known opera or piece of classical theatre or ballet is adapted into a broad comic play, usually a musical play, usually risqué in style, mocking the theatrical and musical conventions and styles of the original work, and often quoting or pastiching text or music from the original work. Victorian burlesque is one of several forms of burlesque.
Joseph Wilfred Kerman was an American musicologist and music critic. Among the leading musicologists of his generation, his 1985 book Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology was described by Philip Brett in The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as "a defining moment in the field". He was Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Anne Midgette is an American music critic who was the first woman to write classical music criticism regularly for The New York Times. She was the chief classical music critic of The Washington Post from 2008 to 2019, prior to which she wrote for The New York Times from 2001 to 2007. A specialist in opera and composers of contemporary classical music, Midgette advocates the importance of online criticism and has previously maintained a classical music blog.
Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi was an Italian opera composer. Born in Cremona, Lombardy, he studied with Pasquale Cafaro and Niccolò Jommelli, and worked mainly in London, Paris and in all the major Italian operatic centers of Venice, Naples, Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence.
Anna Karenina is an opera in three acts by Scottish composer Iain Hamilton. The libretto, based on Leo Tolstoy's 1877 novel, Anna Karenina was written by the composer. Anna Karenina was premiered on May 7, 1981, at the London Coliseum by the English National Opera in a performance conducted by Howard Williams with Lois McDonall in the title role. The director was Colin Graham and the designers were Ralph Koltai and Annena Stubbs. Its running time is approximately two and a quarter hours.
RILM Music Encyclopedias(RME) is an electronic collection of music reference works from 1775 to the present from Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale. RME expands every year by three to five titles.
Mark Swed is an American music critic who specializes in classical music. Since 1996 he has been the chief classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times where his writings have made him a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Prior to his LA Times post, Swed was the chief music critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and The Wall Street Journal, and has contributed other writings to a variety of publications including The Orchestra, an iPad application. He has a particular interest in contemporary classical music.
Trevor Noël Goodwin was an English music critic, dance critic and author who specialized in classical music and ballet. Described as having a "rare ability to write about music and dance with equal distinction", for 22 years Goodwin was Chief music and dance critic for the Daily Express. He held criticism posts at many English newspapers, including the News Chronicle, Truth and The Manchester Guardian among others; from 1978 to 1998 he also reviewed performances for The Times. Goodwin wrote an early history of the Scottish Ballet and was coauthor for two books: London Symphony: Portrait of an Orchestra with Hubert J. Foss and a Knight at the Opera with Geraint Evans.
