Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group , distributed by Warner Records (formerly Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch has developed into a label that records critically acclaimed music from a wide range of genres. Robert Hurwitz was president of the company from 1984 to 2017.
162-485: Nonesuch was founded in early 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP. To achieve this, he licensed European recordings of classical music as it would be too expensive to record new material. Originally the label concentrated heavily on chamber and baroque music , often with (then) unique repertory, and typically sold at less-than-premium prices. Upon its formation, Nonesuch operated as
324-477: A harpsichord , and were often led by the lead violinist (now called the concertmaster ). Classical era musicians continued to use many of the instruments from the Baroque era, such as the cello, contrabass, recorder, trombone, timpani, fortepiano (the precursor to the modern piano ) and organ. While some Baroque instruments fell into disuse e.g. the theorbo and rackett, many Baroque instruments were changed into
486-433: A melodica , then recorded it. He then sets the melody to two separate channels, and slowly moves them out of phase, creating an intricate interlocking melody. This piece is very similar to Come Out in rhythmic structure, and is an example of how one rhythmic process can be realized in different sounds to create two different pieces of music. Reich was inspired to compose this piece from a dream he had on May 22, 1966, and put
648-424: A Black Pentecostal street-preacher known as Brother Walter. Reich built on his early tape work, transferring the last three words of the fragment, "it's gonna rain!", to multiple tape loops that gradually move out of phase with one another. The 13-minute Come Out (1966) uses similarly manipulated sound collage recordings of a single spoken line given by Daniel Hamm, one of the falsely accused Harlem Six , who
810-447: A community remix contest in which over 250 submissions were received, and Steve Reich and Christian Carey judged the finals. Reich spoke in a related BBC interview that once he composed a piece he would not alter it again himself; "When it's done, it's done," he said. On the other hand, he acknowledged that remixes have an old tradition e.g. famous religious music pieces where melodies were further developed into new songs. Reich premiered
972-696: A cyclical phase piece similar to others composed during the period. Four Organs was performed as part of a Boston Symphony Orchestra program, and was Reich's first composition to be performed in a large traditional setting. In 1970, Reich embarked on a five-week trip to study music in Ghana, during which he learned from the master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie. Reich also studied Balinese gamelan in Seattle in 1973 and 1974. From his African experience, as well as A. M. Jones 's Studies in African Music about
1134-404: A fast eighth note pulse , while the four organs stress certain eighth notes using an 11th chord. This work therefore dealt with repetition and subtle rhythmic change. In contrast to Reich's typical cyclical structure, Four Organs is unique among his work in using a linear structure—the superficially similar Phase Patterns , also for four organs but without maracas, is (as the name suggests)
1296-416: A highly regarded interpreter of other writers’ songs, her Nonesuch debut was distinguished by being her first album to primarily feature self-penned compositions. In the decade that followed, k.d. lang , Randy Newman , Shawn Colvin , and Ry Cooder joined the label as did the rock band Wilco , which released four studio albums on the label, starting with its breakthrough disc Yankee Hotel Foxtrot , which
1458-399: A large five-part canon . The music for Thick Pucker arose from street recordings Reich made walking around San Francisco with Nelson, who filmed in black and white 16mm. This film no longer survives. A fourth film from 1965, about 25 minutes long and tentatively entitled "Thick Pucker II", was assembled by Nelson from outtakes of that shoot and more of the raw audio Reich had recorded. Nelson
1620-537: A letter to the editor of the New York Times speaking out against the decision; several noteworthy composers, Elliott Carter and Aaron Copland among them, sent a letter to the vice president of the parent company, Warner Communications, in protest. Sterne was replaced by the founder's younger brother, Keith Holzman, a production chief who, for the next five years, operated the label from Los Angeles. Former Blue Thumb Records founder Bob Krasnow , who assumed
1782-516: A living construct that can evolve with the times". Despite its decline in the last third of the 20th century, there remained at the end of the century an active core of composers who continued to advance the ideas and forms of modernism, such as Pierre Boulez , Pauline Oliveros , Toru Takemitsu , George Benjamin , Jacob Druckman , Brian Ferneyhough , George Perle , Wolfgang Rihm , Richard Wernick , Richard Wilson , and Ralph Shapey . Two musical movements that were dominant during this time were
SECTION 10
#17327901236161944-593: A movement. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains (1988). Reich's style of composition has influenced many contemporary composers and groups, especially in the United States. Writing in The Guardian , music critic Andrew Clements suggested that Reich is one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered
2106-745: A piece, WTC 9/11 , written for String Quartet and Tape (a similar instrumentation to that of Different Trains ) in March 2011. This was a response to the September 11 attacks and used recordings from emergency services and from family members who were in New York during the attacks. It was premiered by the Kronos Quartet , at Duke University , North Carolina, US. On March 5, 2013, the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Brad Lubman, at
2268-528: A popular track for use in movie trailers and commercials. Nonesuch has also recorded the film work of Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood , including writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson ’s Oscar-nominated There Will Be Blood (2007) and The Master (2012). Among other Nonesuch movie soundtrack offerings are Jon Brion ’s score for Anderson’s 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love , Stephin Merritt ’s songs for Pieces of April (2003), Thomas Newman ’s score for
2430-639: A process that climaxed in the early 20th century with very large orchestras used by late romantic and modernist composers. A wider array of percussion instruments began to appear. Brass instruments took on larger roles, as the introduction of rotary valves made it possible for them to play a wider range of notes. The size of the orchestra (typically around 40 in the Classical era) grew to be over 100. Gustav Mahler 's 1906 Symphony No. 8 , for example, has been performed with over 150 instrumentalists and choirs of over 400. New woodwind instruments were added, such as
2592-518: A remarkable marriage of boldly distinctive melodic lines weaving in counterpoint yet creating a coherent harmonic logic . The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works and enables Classical musicians to perform music from many centuries ago. Although Classical music in the 2000s has lost most of its tradition for musical improvisation , from the Baroque era to the Romantic era, there are examples of performers who could improvise in
2754-442: A return to the original cycle ("Pulses"). This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger ensembles . The increased number of performers resulted in more scope for psychoacoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". Reich remarked that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes than any other work he had written. Steve Reich and Musicians made
2916-548: A sample of Reich's Electric Counterpoint (1987) in the 1990 track Little Fluffy Clouds the British ambient techno act the Orb exposed a new generation of listeners to his music. In 1999 the album Reich Remixed featured remixes of a number of Reich's works by various electronic dance-music producers, such as DJ Spooky , Kurtis Mantronik , Ken Ishii , and Coldcut among others. Reich's Cello Counterpoint (2003)
3078-411: A series of concerts given in New York art galleries. A similar, lesser known example of this so-called process music is Pendulum Music (1968), which consists of the sound of several microphones swinging over the loudspeakers to which they are attached, producing feedback as they do so. "Pendulum Music" has never been recorded by Reich himself, but was introduced to rock audiences by Sonic Youth in
3240-403: A subsidiary label of Elektra Records , which Holzman had launched in 1950. In 1970, Holzman sold Elektra and Nonesuch to Kinney National Company , which became Warner Communications and later part of Time Warner's Warner Music Group . In 2004, Warner Music Group became an independently owned, publicly traded company. The 1968 catalogue already listed over 200 albums. During the first years,
3402-451: A text would play an increasingly important role in Reich's music. The technique ... consists of taking pre-existing melodic patterns and stringing them together to form a longer melody in the service of a holy text. If you take away the text, you're left with the idea of putting together small motives to make longer melodies – a technique I had not encountered before. In 1974 Reich published
SECTION 20
#17327901236163564-423: A variety of creative fields. As a solo artist, he has also joined the classical ranks of the label, releasing the first of three discs of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas, written for the violin but transposed by Thile for mandolin. Nonesuch has been building a catalog of Broadway cast recordings, including several works by multiple Tony and Grammy Award-winning composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim . The label has released
3726-406: A wider range of chromatic possibilities in hard-to-tune keyboard instruments. Although J.S. Bach did not use equal temperament, changes in the temperaments from the then-common meantone system to various temperaments that made modulation between all keys musically acceptable made possible his Well-Tempered Clavier . Baroque instruments included some instruments from the earlier periods (e.g.,
3888-516: A year following graduation, Reich studied composition privately with Hall Overton before he enrolled at Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti (1958–1961). Subsequently, he attended Mills College in Oakland, California , where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud (1961–1963) and earned a master's degree in composition. At Mills, Reich composed Melodica for melodica and tape , which appeared in 1986 on
4050-410: Is a departure from Reich's other work in its formal structure; the setting of texts several lines long rather than the fragments used in previous works makes melody a substantive element. Use of formal counterpoint and functional harmony also contrasts with the loosely structured minimalist works written previously. The musicologist Ronit Seter described it as "one of a very few non-Israeli works where
4212-658: Is a musical documentary, named for the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron , where a mosque now stands and Abraham is said to have been buried. According to musicologist Ronit Seter, the work "share[s] the confrontational, yet peaceful message" conveyed by contemporaneous Israeli composers. Reich and Korot collaborated on the opera Three Tales , which concerns the Hindenburg disaster , the testing of nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll , and other more modern concerns, specifically Dolly
4374-523: Is frequently seen from the perspective of individual or groups of composers , whose compositions, personalities and beliefs have fundamentally shaped its history. Rooted in the patronage of churches and royal courts in Western Europe , surviving early medieval music is chiefly religious , monophonic and vocal, with the music of ancient Greece and Rome influencing its thought and theory. The earliest extant music manuscripts date from
4536-437: Is in this time that the notation of music on a staff and other elements of musical notation began to take shape. This invention made possible the separation of the composition of a piece of music from its transmission ; without written music, transmission was oral, and subject to change every time it was transmitted. With a musical score , a work of music could be performed without the composer's presence. The invention of
4698-463: Is often characterized by formality and complexity in its musical form and harmonic organization , particularly with the use of polyphony . Since at least the ninth century it has been primarily a written tradition, spawning a sophisticated notational system, as well as accompanying literature in analytical , critical , historiographical , musicological and philosophical practices. A foundational component of Western culture , classical music
4860-405: Is one of the only female composers mentioned." Abbey Philips states that "[d]uring the 20th century the women who were composing/playing gained far less attention than their male counterparts." Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( / r aɪ ʃ / RYSHE ; better-known as Steve Reich , born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in
5022-604: Is required. Performance of classical music repertoire requires a proficiency in sight-reading and ensemble playing, harmonic principles, strong ear training (to correct and adjust pitches by ear), knowledge of performance practice (e.g., Baroque ornamentation), and a familiarity with the style/musical idiom expected for a given composer or musical work (e.g., a Brahms symphony or a Mozart concerto). The key characteristic of European classical music that distinguishes it from popular music , folk music , and some other classical music traditions such as Indian classical music ,
Nonesuch Records - Misplaced Pages Continue
5184-405: Is that the repertoire tends to be written down in musical notation , creating a musical part or score . This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, where two or more musicians (whether singers or instrumentalists) are involved, how the various parts are coordinated. The written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them: fugues , for instance, achieve
5346-708: Is the first of Reich's works to draw explicitly on his Jewish background. The work is in four parts, and is scored for an ensemble of four women's voices (one high soprano , two lyric sopranos and one alto ), piccolo , flute, oboe , English horn , two clarinets , six percussion (playing small tuned tambourines without jingles, clapping, maracas , marimba , vibraphone and crotales ), two electronic organs , two violins, viola , cello and double bass, with amplified voices, strings, and winds. A setting of texts from Psalms 19:2–5 (19:1–4 in Christian translations), 34:13–15 (34:12–14), 18:26–27 (18:25–26), and 150:4–6, Tehillim
5508-401: Is typically defined as the era between the formation and the dissolution of common-practice tonality . The term usually spans roughly two-and-a-half centuries, encompassing the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. Baroque music is characterized by the use of complex tonal counterpoint and the use of a basso continuo , a continuous bass line. Music became more complex in comparison with
5670-487: The Baroque flute , Baroque oboe , recorder and the bassoon . Brass instruments included the cornett , natural horn , natural trumpet , serpent and the trombone . Keyboard instruments included the clavichord , the tangent piano , the harpsichord , the pipe organ , and, later in the period, the fortepiano (an early version of the piano). Percussion instruments included the timpani , snare drum , tambourine and
5832-524: The Carolingian Empire (800–888), around the time which Western plainchant gradually unified into what is termed Gregorian chant . Musical centers existed at the Abbey of Saint Gall , the Abbey of Saint Martial and Saint Emmeram's Abbey , while the 11th century saw the development of staff notation and increasing output from medieval music theorists . By the mid-12th century France became
5994-626: The First Viennese School , sometimes called the "Viennese classics", a coupling that remains problematic by reason of none of the three being born in Vienna and the minimal time Haydn and Mozart spent in the city. While this was an often expressed characterization, it was not a strict one. In 1879 the composer Charles Kensington Salaman defined the following composers as classical: Bach , Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber , Spohr and Mendelssohn . More broadly, some writers used
6156-769: The Renaissance , including the more complex voicings of motets . During the earlier medieval period , the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant , was monophonic , using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the high medieval era , becoming prevalent by the later 13th and early 14th century. Notable Medieval composers include Hildegard of Bingen , Léonin , Pérotin , Philippe de Vitry , Guillaume de Machaut , Francesco Landini , and Johannes Ciconia . Many medieval musical instruments still exist, but in different forms. Medieval instruments included
6318-581: The Royal Festival Hall in London gave the world premiere of Radio Rewrite , Reich's work inspired by the band Radiohead . The programme also included Double Sextet , Clapping Music , featuring Reich himself alongside percussionist Colin Currie , Electric Counterpoint , with electric guitar by Mats Bergström as well as two of Reich's ensemble pieces. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra
6480-492: The Western world , and conversely, in many academic histories the term "Western music" excludes non-classical Western music. Another complication lies in that "classical music" is sometimes used to describe non-Western art music exhibiting similar long-lasting and complex characteristics; examples include Indian classical music (i.e. Carnatic Music Hindustani music and Odissi Music ), Gamelan music, and various styles of
6642-449: The art song , symphonic poem and various piano genres were important vessels. During this time virtuosity was celebrated, immensity was encouraged, while philosophy and nationalism were embedded—all aspects that converged in the operas of Richard Wagner . By the 20th century, stylistic unification gradually dissipated while the prominence of popular music greatly increased. Many composers actively avoided past techniques and genres in
Nonesuch Records - Misplaced Pages Continue
6804-474: The castanets . One major difference between Baroque music and the classical era that followed it is that the types of instruments used in Baroque ensembles were much less standardized. A Baroque ensemble could include one of several different types of keyboard instruments (e.g., pipe organ or harpsichord), additional stringed chordal instruments (e.g., a lute), bowed strings, woodwinds, and brass instruments, and an unspecified number of bass instruments performing
6966-421: The contrabassoon , bass clarinet and piccolo and new percussion instruments were added, including xylophones , snare drums , celestas (a bell-like keyboard instrument), bells , and triangles , large orchestral harps , and even wind machines for sound effects . Saxophones appear in some scores from the late 19th century onwards, usually featured as a solo instrument rather than as in integral part of
7128-527: The fall of the Western Roman Empire by 476 to about 1400. Monophonic chant, also called plainsong or Gregorian chant , was the dominant form until about 1100. Christian monks developed the first forms of European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the Church. Polyphonic (multi-voiced) music developed from monophonic chant throughout the late Middle Ages and into
7290-680: The flute , the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute . As well, early versions of the organ and fiddle (or vielle ) existed. Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut (loud, shrill, outdoor instruments) and bas (quieter, more intimate instruments). A number of instrument have roots in Eastern predecessors that were adopted from
7452-461: The guitar , the cittern , the bandora , and the orpharion . Keyboard instruments with strings included the harpsichord and the clavichord . Percussion instruments include the triangle , the Jew's harp , the tambourine , the bells, the rumble-pot, and various kinds of drums. Woodwind instruments included the double-reed shawm (an early member of the oboe family), the reed pipe , the bagpipe ,
7614-416: The impressionist beginning around 1890 and the expressionist that started around 1908. It was a period of diverse reactions in challenging and reinterpreting older categories of music, innovations that lead to new ways of organizing and approaching harmonic, melodic, sonic, and rhythmic aspects of music, and changes in aesthetic worldviews in close relation to the larger identifiable period of modernism in
7776-437: The lyre (a stringed instrument similar to a small harp ) eventually led to several modern-day instruments of a symphonic orchestra. However, Donald Jay Grout notes that attempting to create a direct evolutionary connection from the ancient music to early medieval is baseless, as it was almost solely influenced by Greco-Roman music theory, not performance or practice. Medieval music includes Western European music from after
7938-498: The music of the Ewe people, Reich drew inspiration for his 90-minute piece Drumming , which he composed shortly after his return. Composed for a nine-piece percussion ensemble with female voices and piccolo , Drumming marked the beginning of a new stage in his career, for around this time he formed his ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians , and increasingly concentrated on composition and performance with them. Steve Reich and Musicians
8100-402: The premier recording of this work on ECM Records . Reich explored these ideas further in his frequently recorded pieces Music for a Large Ensemble (1978) and Octet (1979). In these two works, Reich experimented with "the human breath as the measure of musical duration ... the chords played by the trumpets are written to take one comfortable breath to perform". Human voices are part of
8262-598: The progressive rock band King Crimson , the electronic music duos Autechre and Matmos , the new-age guitarist Michael Hedges , the art-pop and electronic musician Brian Eno , the experimental art/music group the Residents , the electronic group Underworld , the composers associated with the Bang on a Can festival (including David Lang , Michael Gordon , and Julia Wolfe ), and numerous indie rock musicians including songwriters Sufjan Stevens and Matthew Healy of
SECTION 50
#17327901236168424-460: The standard concert repertoire are male composers, even though there have been a large number of women composers throughout the history of classical music. Musicologist Marcia Citron has asked "[w]hy is music composed by women so marginal to the standard 'classical' repertoire?" Citron "examines the practices and attitudes that have led to the exclusion of women composers from the received ' canon ' of performed musical works". She argues that in
8586-465: The systematic notational practices of Ancient Greece centuries before. The musicologist Gustave Reese notes, however, that many Greco-Roman texts can still be credited as influential to Western classical music, since medieval musicians regularly read their works—regardless of whether they were doing so correctly. However, there are some indisputable musical continuations from the ancient world . Basic aspects such as monophony , improvisation and
8748-537: The transverse flute , the recorder , the dulcian , and the crumhorn . Simple pipe organs existed, but were largely confined to churches, although there were portable varieties. Printing enabled the standardization of descriptions and specifications of instruments, as well as instruction in their use. Vocal music in the Renaissance is noted for the flourishing of an increasingly elaborate polyphonic style. The principal liturgical forms which endured throughout
8910-431: The 1750s and 1760s, it fell out of use at the end of the century. Brass instruments included the buccin , the ophicleide (a replacement for the bass serpent , which was the precursor of the tuba ) and the natural horn . Wind instruments became more refined in the Classical era. While double-reed instruments like the oboe and bassoon became somewhat standardized in the Baroque, the clarinet family of single reeds
9072-416: The 1800s, women composers typically wrote art songs for performance in small recitals rather than symphonies intended for performance with an orchestra in a large hall, with the latter works being seen as the most important genre for composers; since women composers did not write many symphonies, they were deemed not to be notable as composers. In the "... Concise Oxford History of Music , Clara S[c]humann
9234-573: The 1975 , and instrumental ensembles Tortoise , The Mercury Program , and Godspeed You! Black Emperor (who titled an unreleased song "Steve Reich"). John Adams commented, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride." He has also influenced visual artists such as Bruce Nauman , and many notable choreographers have made dances to his music, Eliot Feld , Jiří Kylián , Douglas Lee and Jerome Robbins among others; he has expressed particular admiration of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker 's work set to his pieces. In featuring
9396-457: The 2000s and re-released, with new packaging, in CD format. Classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world , considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music , as the term "classical music" can also be applied to non-Western art musics . Classical music
9558-501: The Baroque tendency for complexity, and as a reaction the simpler and song-like galant music and empfindsamkeit styles were developed. In the shorter but pivotal Classical period (1730–1820) composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn , and Ludwig van Beethoven created widely admired representatives of absolute music , including symphonies , string quartets and concertos. The subsequent Romantic music (1800–1910) focused instead on programmatic music , for which
9720-612: The Billboard classical and world music charts.) Hurwitz established a jazz roster at the label, which included Zorn, Wayne Horvitz , and the World Saxophone Quartet . He built upon the world music reputation of Nonesuch, represented up to that point by the Explorer Series, with his signing of Brazilian singer and composer Caetano Veloso , who, like Reich and Adams, has maintained an ongoing relationship with
9882-468: The Classical era forms (even as those were being codified), with free-form pieces like nocturnes , fantasias , and preludes being written where accepted ideas about the exposition and development of themes were ignored or minimized. The music became more chromatic, dissonant, and tonally colorful, with tensions (with respect to accepted norms of the older forms) about key signatures increasing. The art song (or Lied ) came to maturity in this era, as did
SECTION 60
#173279012361610044-453: The Classical era, the composer-performer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto. During the Romantic era, Ludwig van Beethoven would improvise at the piano. Almost all of the composers who are described in music textbooks on classical music and whose works are widely performed as part of
10206-695: The French classique , itself derived from the Latin word classicus , which originally referred to the highest class of Ancient Roman citizens . In Roman usage, the term later became a means to distinguish revered literary figures; the Roman author Aulus Gellius commended writers such as Demosthenes and Virgil as classicus . By the Renaissance , the adjective had acquired a more general meaning: an entry in Randle Cotgrave 's 1611 A Dictionarie of
10368-538: The French and English Tongues is among the earliest extant definitions, translating classique as "classical, formall [ sic ], orderlie, in due or fit ranke; also, approved, authenticall, chiefe, principall". The musicologist Daniel Heartz summarizes this into two definitions: 1) a "formal discipline" and 2) a "model of excellence". Like Gellius, later Renaissance scholars who wrote in Latin used classicus in reference to writers of classical antiquity ; however, this meaning only gradually developed, and
10530-659: The HBO mini-series Angels in America (2007), and Carter Burwell ’s score for the Coen brothers ’ True Grit (2010). The relationship with the Coens has continued with the 2013 release of the soundtrack to Inside Llewyn Davis , produced by T Bone Burnett and the Coen brothers. In the late 1990s, after Elektra underwent restructuring at the executive level, Nonesuch was shifted under
10692-481: The Holocaust ", and he credited the piece with earning Reich a place among the great composers of the 20th century. In 1993, Reich collaborated with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot , on an opera, The Cave , which explores the roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam through the words of Israelis, Palestinians , and Americans, echoed musically by the ensemble. The work, for percussion, voices, and strings,
10854-829: The Voyager spacecraft. In 2008, one of the first Explorer Series albums, Music from the Morning of the World (1967), comprising early field recordings that the British musicologist David Lewiston had made in Bali in 1966, was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. Many of the original analog recordings of the Nonesuch Explorer Series albums were remastered during
11016-473: The achievements of classical antiquity. They were thus characterized as "classical", as was the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully (and later Christoph Willibald Gluck ), being designated as "l'opéra française classique". In the rest of continental Europe , the abandonment of defining "classical" as analogous to the Greco-Roman World was slower, primarily because the formation of canonical repertoires
11178-448: The aforementioned Mahler and Strauss as transitional figures who carried over from the 19th century. Postmodern music is a period of music that began as early as 1930 according to some authorities. It shares characteristics with postmodernist art – that is, art that comes after and reacts against modernism . Some other authorities have more or less equated postmodern music with the "contemporary music" composed well after 1930, from
11340-602: The age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the Baroque period and earlier, as well as music of the 20th century. Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff in order to play jazz . While attending Cornell University , he minored in music and graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Reich's B.A. thesis was on Ludwig Wittgenstein ; later he would set texts by that philosopher to music in Proverb (1995) and You Are (variations) (2006). For
11502-487: The arts of the time. The operative word most associated with it is "innovation". Its leading feature is a "linguistic plurality", which is to say that no single music genre ever assumed a dominant position. The orchestra continued to grow during the early years modernist era, peaking in the first two decades of the 20th century. Saxophones that appeared only rarely during the 19th century became more commonly used as supplementary instruments, but never became core members of
11664-713: The basso continuo,(e.g., a cello, contrabass, viola, bassoon, serpent, etc.). Vocal oeuvres of the Baroque era included suites such as oratorios and cantatas . Secular music was less common, and was typically characterized only by instrumental music. Like Baroque art , themes were generally sacred and for the purpose of a catholic setting. Important composers of this era include Johann Sebastian Bach , Antonio Vivaldi , George Frideric Handel , Johann Pachelbel , Henry Purcell , Claudio Monteverdi , Barbara Strozzi , Domenico Scarlatti , Georg Philipp Telemann , Arcangelo Corelli , Alessandro Scarlatti , Jean-Philippe Rameau , Jean-Baptiste Lully , and Heinrich Schütz . Though
11826-604: The biggest-selling disc in the label's history and spawned many successful solo recordings from the stars of those original Ry Cooder -led sessions in Havana, Cuba. In 1994, Hurwitz hired David Bither, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Elektra Records, to head the international department at Nonesuch Records. But Bither quickly showed a far greater interest and talent in A&;R and, soon after coming to
11988-424: The book Writings About Music , containing essays on his philosophy, aesthetics, and musical projects written between 1963 and 1974. An updated and much more extensive collection, Writings On Music (1965–2000) , was published in 2002. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage. Tehillim (1981), Hebrew for psalms ,
12150-529: The book by Michael Cunningham . Mishima was also the first Nonesuch album from now longtime Nonesuch artists Kronos Quartet . Kronos went on to collaborate with British composer Clint Mansell on his scores for the Darren Aronofsky films Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), and Noah (2014); the Requiem soundtrack included the piece " Lux Aeterna ," which subsequently became
12312-524: The brief English Madrigal School . The Baroque period (1580–1750) saw the relative standardization of common-practice tonality , as well as the increasing importance of musical instruments , which grew into ensembles of considerable size. Italy remained dominant, being the birthplace of opera , the soloist centered concerto genre, the organized sonata form as well as the large scale vocal-centered genres of oratorio and cantata . The fugue technique championed by Johann Sebastian Bach exemplified
12474-730: The cast recordings of several Broadway revivals of Sondheim's musicals. Among them are the 1998 production of Gypsy (music by Jule Styne , lyrics by Sondheim); 2002's Into the Woods ; 2010's A Little Night Music ; and Irish director John Doyle's reimaginings of Sweeney Todd (2006) and Company (2007). The label also released the soundtrack to Tim Burton ’s film adaptation of Sweeney Todd , starring Johnny Depp , in 2007. Nonesuch has also released recordings of less well-known Sondheim works like Saturday Night (his first) and The Frogs , as well as first recordings of his new musical Bounce and its later incarnation, Road Show . From
12636-716: The chairmanship of Elektra Records in 1983, brought in the 34-year-old Bob Hurwitz in 1984, at the time the head of the US division of the Warner Bros. Records -distributed jazz label ECM Records , to run Nonesuch Records. Within the first two years under Hurwitz's leadership, Nonesuch released albums by such "new music" pioneers as Steve Reich ( The Desert Music , 1985), John Adams ( Harmonielehre , 1986), Philip Glass ( Mishima , 1985), John Zorn ( The Big Gundown , 1985), and Kronos Quartet ( Kronos Quartet , 1986). (Kronos Quartet's 1992 album Pieces of Africa topped both
12798-409: The common practice period, such as traditional tonality, melody, instrumentation, and structure. Some music historians regard musical modernism as an era extending from about 1890 to 1930. Others consider that modernism ended with one or the other of the two world wars. Still other authorities claim that modernism is not associated with any historical era, but rather is "an attitude of the composer;
12960-572: The court of Imperial China (see yayue for instance). Thus in the later 20th century terms such as "Western classical music" and "Western art music" came in use to address this. The musicologist Ralph P. Locke notes that neither term is ideal, as they create an "intriguing complication" when considering "certain practitioners of Western-art music genres who come from non-Western cultures". Complexity in musical form and harmonic organization are typical traits of classical music. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) offers three definitions for
13122-481: The development of medieval musical thought. However, scholars, medieval music theorists and composers regularly misinterpreted or misunderstood the writings of their Greek and Roman predecessors. This was due to the complete absence of surviving Greco-Roman musical works available to medieval musicians, to the extent that Isidore of Seville ( c. 559 – 636 ) stated "unless sounds are remembered by man, they perish, for they cannot be written down", unaware of
13284-589: The direction of musical history". Reich was born in New York City to Jewish parents, the Broadway lyricist June Sillman and Leonard Reich. When he was one year old, his parents divorced, and Reich divided his time between New York and California. He is the half-brother of writer Jonathan Carroll . He was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the "middle-class favorites", having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At
13446-423: The discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the speech's rhythmic and tonal patterns. Melodica (1966) takes the phase looping idea of his previous works and applies it to instrumental music. Steve Reich took a simple melody, which he played on
13608-436: The dominance of text in musical settings are prominent in both early medieval and music of nearly all ancient civilizations. Greek influences in particular include the church modes (which were descendants of developments by Aristoxenus and Pythagoras), basic acoustical theory from pythagorean tuning , as well as the central function of tetrachords . Ancient Greek instruments such as the aulos (a reed instrument ) and
13770-715: The ear". In May 2011 Steve Reich received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music . In 2012, Steve Reich received the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2013 Reich received the US$ 400,000 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in contemporary music for bringing a new conception of music, based on the use of realist elements from
13932-432: The earliest influences on his work were vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Alfred Deller , whose emphasis on the artistic capabilities of the voice alone with little vibrato or other alteration was an inspiration to his earliest works. John Coltrane 's style, which Reich has described as "playing a lot of notes to very few harmonies", also had an impact; of particular interest was the album Africa/Brass , which "was basically
14094-544: The early 15th century, Renaissance composers of the influential Franco-Flemish School built off the harmonic principles in the English contenance angloise , bringing choral music to new standards, particularly the mass and motet . Northern Italy soon emerged as the central musical region, where the Roman School engaged in highly sophisticated methods of polyphony in genres such as the madrigal , which inspired
14256-525: The end of the century. Prominent composers of this era include Ludwig van Beethoven , Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Frédéric Chopin , Hector Berlioz , Franz Schubert , Robert Schumann , Felix Mendelssohn , Franz Liszt , Giuseppe Verdi , Richard Wagner , Johannes Brahms , Alexander Scriabin , Nikolai Medtner , Edvard Grieg , and Johann Strauss II . Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss are commonly regarded as transitional composers whose music combines both late romantic and early modernist elements. At
14418-413: The end of the era, of nationalism in music (echoing, in some cases, political sentiments of the time), as composers such as Edvard Grieg , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , and Antonín Dvořák echoed traditional music of their homelands in their compositions. In the Romantic era, the modern piano , with a more powerful, sustained tone and a wider range took over from the more delicate-sounding fortepiano. In
14580-417: The entire Renaissance period were masses and motets, with some other developments towards the end, especially as composers of sacred music began to adopt secular forms (such as the madrigal ) for their own designs. Towards the end of the period, the early dramatic precursors of opera such as monody, the madrigal comedy , and the intermedio are seen. Around 1597, Italian composer Jacopo Peri wrote Dafne ,
14742-583: The epic scales of grand opera , ultimately transcended by Richard Wagner 's Ring cycle . In the 19th century, musical institutions emerged from the control of wealthy patrons, as composers and musicians could construct lives independent of the nobility. Increasing interest in music by the growing middle classes throughout western Europe spurred the creation of organizations for the teaching, performance, and preservation of music. The piano, which achieved its modern construction in this era (in part due to industrial advances in metallurgy ) became widely popular with
14904-560: The first electronic work to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1970. Under Sterne, Nonesuch helped spark a ragtime revival in the United States with the release of a series of Scott Joplin piano rags performed by Joshua Rifkin . Sterne also launched the groundbreaking Explorer Series, building the foundation for the field of world music. Sterne's abrupt termination in December 1979 prompted some two dozen Nonesuch artists to write
15066-522: The first work to be called an opera today. He also composed Euridice , the first opera to have survived to the present day. Notable Renaissance composers include Josquin des Prez , Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina , John Dunstaple , Johannes Ockeghem , Orlande de Lassus , Guillaume Du Fay , Gilles Binchois , Thomas Tallis , William Byrd , Giovanni Gabrieli , Carlo Gesualdo , John Dowland , Jacob Obrecht , Adrian Willaert , Jacques Arcadelt , and Cipriano de Rore . The common practice period
15228-441: The focus was clearly set on early music, i.e. music that was composed before 1800. Some artists were frequently appearing: There was some later music as well. Günter Wand conducted Ludwig van Beethoven 's Missa solemnis , Carl Schuricht conducted Anton Bruckners 7th Symphony , and Pierre Boulez with Orchestre National de la R.T.F played The Rite of Spring . Teresa Sterne led Nonesuch Records from 1965 until 1979; she
15390-488: The former court musician John Banister began giving popular public concerts at a London tavern; his popularity rapidly inaugurated the prominence of public concerts in the London. The conception of "classical"—or more often "ancient music"—emerged, which was still built on the principles of formality and excellence, and according to Heartz "civic ritual, religion and moral activism figured significantly in this novel construction of musical taste". The performance of such music
15552-500: The hurdy-gurdy and recorder) and a number of new instruments (e.g., the oboe, bassoon, cello, contrabass and fortepiano). Some instruments from previous eras fell into disuse, such as the shawm, cittern , rackett , and the wooden cornet. The key Baroque instruments for strings included the violin , viol , viola , viola d'amore , cello , contrabass , lute , theorbo (which often played the basso continuo parts), mandolin , Baroque guitar , harp and hurdy-gurdy. Woodwinds included
15714-633: The label for decades. Among Nonesuch world-music successes during the 1980s was the release of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares , a recording of the Bulgarian State Television female choir, and the American debut of the Gipsy Kings , which was certified platinum with over one million in sales. Nonesuch enjoyed even greater success on the world music front in the late 1990s with the release of Buena Vista Social Club , which became
15876-475: The label with Hurwitz in 2016 and sole president in 2017. Kris Chen, formerly of XL Recordings, was hired as senior vice president in September 2016. In March 2017, it was announced that the band Fleet Foxes would make its Nonesuch debut with the release of Crack-Up , its first album in six years, that June. In the late 1960s, the Explorer Series made the label a pioneer in the field of world music before
16038-488: The label, as well as iconoclastic folk interpreter Sam Amidon . The Chocolate Drops, a group exploring the African-American roots of old-time music, won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for its Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig . Mandolinist and composer Chris Thile of Punch Brothers was named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow , receiving one of 23 “genius” grant awards to extraordinary practitioners in
16200-465: The label, made a number of important signings that expanded the company's musical landscape while holding to the same ideals that had been long established from the company's earliest days. Bither's first signing, Emmylou Harris , signaled a new direction for the label. Harris, previously signed to Warner Bros. Records and Elektra Records, whose 2000 album Red Dirt Girl garnered a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album . Though she had long been
16362-441: The late 1990s. Reich also tried to create the phasing effect in a piece "that would need no instrument beyond the human body". He found that the idea of phasing was inappropriate for the simple ways he was experimenting to make sound. Instead, he composed Clapping Music (1972), in which the players do not phase in and out with each other, but instead one performer keeps one line of a 12-eighth-note-long (12-quaver-long) phrase and
16524-475: The late 20th century through to the early 21st century. Some of the diverse movements of the postmodern/contemporary era include the neoromantic, neomedieval, minimalist, and post minimalist. Contemporary classical music at the beginning of the 21st century was often considered to include all post-1945 musical forms. A generation later, this term now properly refers to the music of today written by composers who are still alive; music that came into prominence in
16686-409: The lens of modernism , with some abandoning tonality in place of serialism , while others found new inspiration in folk melodies or impressionist sentiments. After World War II, for the first time audience members valued older music over contemporary works, a preference which has been catered to by the emergence and widespread availability of commercial recordings. Trends of the mid-20th century to
16848-670: The likes of Jean Sibelius and Vaughan Williams infused their compositions with nationalistic elements and influences from folk songs. Sergei Prokofiev began in this tradition but soon ventured into modernist territories. At the same time, the impressionist movement, spearheaded by Claude Debussy , was being developed in France, with Maurice Ravel as another notable pioneer. Modernist classical music encompasses many styles of composition that can be characterised as post romantic, impressionist, expressionist, and neoclassical. Modernism marked an era when many composers rejected certain values of
17010-430: The major European musical center: The religious Notre-Dame school first fully explored organized rhythms and polyphony , while secular music flourished with the troubadour and trouvère traditions led by poet-musician nobles. This culminated in the court sponsored French ars nova and Italian Trecento , which evolved into ars subtilior , a stylistic movement of extreme rhythmic diversity. Beginning in
17172-538: The medieval Islamic world . For example, the Arabic rebab is the ancestor of all European bowed string instruments , including the lira , rebec and violin . The musical Renaissance era lasted from 1400 to 1600. It was characterized by greater use of instrumentation , multiple interweaving melodic lines, and the use of earlier forms of bass instruments . Social dancing became more widespread, so musical forms appropriate to accompanying dance began to standardize. It
17334-457: The mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures , slow harmonic rhythm , and canons . Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." For example, his early works experiment with phase shifting, in which one or more repeated phrases plays slower or faster than
17496-610: The mid-1970s. It includes different variations of modernist , postmodern , neoromantic , and pluralist music . Performers who have studied classical music extensively are said to be "classically trained". This training may come from private lessons from instrument or voice teachers or from completion of a formal program offered by a Conservatory, college or university, such as a Bachelor of Music or Master of Music degree (which includes individual lessons from professors). In classical music, "...extensive formal music education and training, often to postgraduate [Master's degree] level"
17658-416: The middle class, whose demands for the instrument spurred many piano builders. Many symphony orchestras date their founding to this era. Some musicians and composers were the stars of the day; some, like Franz Liszt and Niccolò Paganini , fulfilled both roles. European cultural ideas and institutions began to follow colonial expansion into other parts of the world. There was also a rise, especially toward
17820-410: The modern day, instruments may be classified as brass, strings, percussion, and woodwind. Brass instruments in the Renaissance were traditionally played by professionals who were members of Guilds and they included the slide trumpet , the wooden cornet , the valveless trumpet and the sackbut . Stringed instruments included the viol , the rebec , the harp-like lyre , the hurdy-gurdy , the lute ,
17982-401: The most notable achievements of Sterne's time at the label were the release of George Crumb 's Ancient Voices of Children , inspired by the poems of Federico García Lorca , which sold more than 70,000 units; the recording of new works by Elliott Carter , including his first and second string quartets; and the commissioning and release of Charles Wuorinen 's Time's Encomium , which became
18144-416: The movable-type printing press in the 15th century had far-reaching consequences on the preservation and transmission of music. Many instruments originated during the Renaissance; others were variations of, or improvements upon, instruments that had existed previously. Some have survived to the present day; others have disappeared, only to be re-created in order to perform music on period instruments. As in
18306-560: The musical palette in Music for a Large Ensemble but the wordless vocal parts simply form part of the texture (as they do in Drumming ). With Octet and his first orchestral piece Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards (also 1979), Reich's music showed the influence of Biblical cantillation , which he had studied in Israel since the summer of 1977. After this, the human voice singing
18468-625: The next generation of composers, Adam Guettel has made three recordings for Nonesuch: the cast recording of his first musical, Floyd Collins (1996), the Original Cast Recording of his Tony Award-winning The Light in the Piazza ; and his song cycle Myths and Hymns (earlier mounted off Broadway under the title Saturn Returns ). Among the champions of Adam Guettel's work is five-time Tony Award-winning singer and actress Audra McDonald , who has showcased his compositions, among
18630-524: The orchestra, the existing Classical instruments and sections were retained ( string section , woodwinds, brass, and percussion), but these sections were typically expanded to make a fuller, bigger sound. For example, while a Baroque orchestra may have had two double bass players, a Romantic orchestra could have as many as ten. "As music grew more expressive, the standard orchestral palette just wasn't rich enough for many Romantic composers." The families of instruments used, especially in orchestras, grew larger;
18792-570: The orchestra. The Wagner tuba , a modified member of the horn family, appears in Richard Wagner 's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen . It also has a prominent role in Anton Bruckner 's Symphony No. 7 in E Major and is also used in several late romantic and modernist works by Richard Strauss, Béla Bartók , and others Cornets appear regularly in 19th century scores, alongside trumpets which were regarded as less agile, at least until
18954-526: The orchestra. While appearing only as featured solo instruments in some works, for example Maurice Ravel 's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky 's Pictures at an Exhibition and Sergei Rachmaninoff 's Symphonic Dances , the saxophone is included in other works such as Sergei Prokofiev 's Romeo and Juliet Suites 1 and 2 and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. In some compositions such as Ravel's Boléro , two or more saxophones of different sizes are used to create an entire section like
19116-671: The original recording of his collaboration with Fatboy Slim , Here Lies Love . That recounting of the life and loves of former Filipino leader Imelda Marcos , was turned into an Off-Broadway musical at The Public Theater in the spring of 2013. Among more recent Nonesuch signings, the most commercially successful has been The Black Keys , the former Akron, Ohio-based duo who parlayed cult status as no-frills blues rockers into an arena-sized following and received multiple Grammy Awards for their 2010 album Brothers and their 2012 release El Camino . Forward-thinking traditional groups Carolina Chocolate Drops and Punch Brothers also joined
19278-567: The other performer shifts by one eighth note beat every 12 bars, until both performers are back in unison 144 bars later. The 1967 prototype piece Slow Motion Sound was not performed although Chris Hughes performed it 27 years later as Slow Motion Blackbird on his Reich-influenced 1994 album Shift . It introduced the idea of slowing down a recorded sound until many times its original length without changing pitch or timbre, which Reich applied to Four Organs (1970), which deals specifically with augmentation. The piece has maracas playing
19440-701: The other sections of the orchestra. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th century works, usually playing parts marked "tenor tuba", including Gustav Holst 's The Planets , and Richard Strauss 's Ein Heldenleben . Prominent composers of the early 20th century include Igor Stravinsky , Claude Debussy , Sergei Rachmaninoff , Sergei Prokofiev , Arnold Schoenberg , Nikos Skalkottas , Heitor Villa-Lobos , Karol Szymanowski , Anton Webern , Alban Berg , Cécile Chaminade , Paul Hindemith , Aram Khachaturian , George Gershwin , Amy Beach , Béla Bartók , and Dmitri Shostakovich , along with
19602-513: The other speeds up very slightly until the two parts line up again, but one sixteenth note apart. The second player then resumes the previous tempo. This cycle of speeding up and then locking in continues throughout the piece; the cycle comes full circle three times, the second and third cycles using shorter versions of the initial figure. Violin Phase , also written in 1967, is built on these same lines. Piano Phase and Violin Phase both premiered in
19764-602: The others, causing it to go "out of phase." This creates new musical patterns in a perceptible flow. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, as on the early compositions It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), and the use of simple, audible processes , as on Pendulum Music (1968) and Four Organs (1970). Works like Drumming (1971) and Music for 18 Musicians (1976), both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music , rock , and contemporary electronic music , would help entrench minimalism as
19926-499: The piece is influenced by Bartók 's and Alfred Schnittke 's string quartets, and Michael Gordon 's Yo Shakespeare . The instrumental series for the concert hall continued with Dance Patterns (2002), Cello Counterpoint (2003), and multiple works centered around variations: You Are (Variations) (2004), Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings (2005), and the Daniel Variations (2006). You Are looks back to
20088-462: The piece together in one day. Melodica was the last piece Reich composed solely for tape, and he considers it his transition from tape music to instrumental music. Reich's first attempt at translating this phasing technique from recorded tape to live performance was the 1967 Piano Phase , for two pianos. In Piano Phase the performers repeat a rapid twelve-note melodic figure, initially in unison. As one player keeps tempo with robotic precision,
20250-528: The potential of a wider array of instruments was developed). Chamber music grew to include ensembles with as many as 8-10 performers for serenades . Opera continued to develop, with regional styles in Italy, France, and German-speaking lands. The opera buffa , a form of comic opera, rose in popularity. The symphony came into its own as a musical form, and the concerto was developed as a vehicle for displays of virtuoso playing skill. Orchestras no longer required
20412-677: The predominant music of ancient Greece and Rome , as it was a reminder of the pagan religion it had persecuted and by which it had been persecuted . As such, it remains unclear as to what extent the music of the Christian Church, and thus Western classical music as a whole, was influenced by preceding ancient music . The general attitude towards music was adopted from the Ancient Greek and Roman music theorists and commentators. Just as in Greco-Roman society, music
20574-522: The present day include New Simplicity , New Complexity , Minimalism , Spectral music , and more recently Postmodern music and Postminimalism . Increasingly global, practitioners from the Americas, Africa and Asia have obtained crucial roles, while symphony orchestras and opera houses now appear across the world. Both the English term classical and the German equivalent Klassik developed from
20736-836: The realm of daily life and others drawn from the traditional music of Africa and Asia. In September 2014, Reich was awarded the "Leone d'Oro" (Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music) from the Venice Biennale . In March 2016, Reich was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Royal College of Music in London. The American composer and critic Kyle Gann has said that Reich "may ... be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer". Reich's style of composition has influenced many other composers and musical groups, including John Adams , Michael Nyman , Aphex Twin , Björk , Sonic Youth , Stereolab ,
20898-464: The rhythmic aspects of the number twelve more interesting than the pitch aspects. Reich also composed film soundtracks for Plastic Haircut (1963), Oh Dem Watermelons (1965), and Thick Pucker (1965), three films by Robert Nelson . The soundtrack of Plastic Haircut , composed in 1963, was a short tape collage, possibly Reich's first. The Watermelons soundtrack used two 19th-century minstrel tunes as its basis, and used repeated phrasing together in
21060-687: The scores of Philip Glass . His first Nonesuch recording, the soundtrack to Paul Schrader ’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters in 1984, began a decades-long relationship with the label that would include several stand-out soundtracks, like those of Godfrey Reggio ’s wordless films Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi , the Errol Morris documentary The Thin Blue Line , Martin Scorsese ’s 1997 film Kundun , and The Hours , based on
21222-548: The setting of the Hebrew text feels natural", reflecting Reich's extensive research into modern Hebrew-Israeli speech, ancient Psalmic prosody and Jewish cantillation traditions. Different Trains (1988), for string quartet and tape, uses recorded speech, as in his earlier works, but this time as a melodic rather than a rhythmic element. In Different Trains , Reich compares and contrasts his childhood memories of his train journeys between New York and California in 1939–1941 with
21384-490: The sheep , cloning , and the technological singularity . Reich used sampling techniques for pieces like Three Tales and City Life from 1994. Reich returned to composing purely instrumental works for the concert hall, starting with Triple Quartet in 1998 written for the Kronos Quartet that can either be performed by string quartet and tape, three string quartets or 36-piece string orchestra. According to Reich,
21546-400: The simple songs of all previous periods. The beginnings of the sonata form took shape in the canzona , as did a more formalized notion of theme and variations . The tonalities of major and minor as means for managing dissonance and chromaticism in music took full shape. During the Baroque era, keyboard music played on the harpsichord and pipe organ became increasingly popular, and
21708-405: The style of their era. In the Baroque era, organ performers would improvise preludes , keyboard performers playing harpsichord would improvise chords from the figured bass symbols beneath the bass notes of the basso continuo part and both vocal and instrumental performers would improvise musical ornaments . Johann Sebastian Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations. During
21870-646: The term "classical music" includes all Western art music from the Medieval era to the early 2010s, the Classical Era was the period of Western art music from the 1750s to the early 1820s —the era of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn , and Ludwig van Beethoven . The Classical era established many of the norms of composition, presentation, and style, and when the piano became the predominant keyboard instrument. The basic forces required for an orchestra became somewhat standardized (though they would grow as
22032-442: The term "classical" to generally praise well-regarded outputs from various composers, particularly those who produced many works in an established genre. The contemporary understanding of the term "classical music" remains vague and multifaceted. Other terms such as "art music", "canonic music", "cultivated music" and "serious music" are largely synonymous. The term "classical music" is often indicated or implied to concern solely
22194-613: The term had even been coined. The series, which Nonesuch released from 1967 to 1984, consisted of field recordings made primarily in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. For American non-travelers, it was the first exposure to musical idioms such as music produced by a gamelan . In 1977, a few of the recordings were chosen for the Voyager Golden Record , and sent into outer space aboard
22356-547: The three-LP release Music from Mills . Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center along with Pauline Oliveros , Ramon Sender , Morton Subotnick , Phil Lesh and Terry Riley . He was involved with the premiere of Riley's In C and suggested the use of the eighth note pulse, which is now standard in performance of the piece. Reich's early forays into composition involved experimentation with twelve-tone composition , but he found
22518-411: The turn of the century, music was characteristically late romantic in style with its expressive melodies, complex harmonies, and expansive forms. This era was marked by the works of several composers who pushed forward post-romantic symphonic writing . Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss continued to develop the western classical tradition with expansive symphonies and operas, while
22680-548: The umbrella of Warner Music International. In the early 2000s, Nonesuch briefly operated under Atlantic Records , and has operated under Warner Bros. Records since in 2004. In September 2015, it was announced that Bob Hurwitz would step down as president of Nonesuch Records. After serving as co-president of the label with David Bither in 2016, Hurwitz became the chairman emeritus on January 1, 2017, when Bither became sole president. David Bither, who had served as senior vice president of Nonesuch for 20 years, became co-president of
22842-405: The versions still in use today, such as the Baroque violin (which became the violin ), Baroque oboe (which became the oboe ) and Baroque trumpet, which transitioned to the regular valved trumpet. During the Classical era, the stringed instruments used in orchestra and chamber music such as string quartets were standardized as the four instruments which form the string section of the orchestra:
23004-466: The very different trains being used to transport contemporaneous European children to their deaths under Nazi rule. The Kronos Quartet recording of Different Trains was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1990. The composition was described by Richard Taruskin as "the only adequate musical response—one of the few adequate artistic responses in any medium—to
23166-417: The violin family of stringed instruments took the form generally seen today. Opera as a staged musical drama began to differentiate itself from earlier musical and dramatic forms, and vocal forms like the cantata and oratorio became more common. For the first time, vocalists began adding ornamentals to the music. The theories surrounding equal temperament began to be put in wider practice, as it enabled
23328-417: The violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Baroque-era stringed instruments such as fretted, bowed viols were phased out. Woodwinds included the basset clarinet , basset horn , clarinette d'amour , the Classical clarinet , the chalumeau , the flute, oboe and bassoon. Keyboard instruments included the clavichord and the fortepiano . While the harpsichord was still used in basso continuo accompaniment in
23490-552: The vocal writing of Tehillim and The Desert Music while the Daniel Variations , which Reich called "much darker, not at all what I'm known for", are partly inspired by the death of Daniel Pearl . In 2002 Reich was invited by Walter Fink to the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival , as the 12th composer featured. In December 2010 Nonesuch Records and Indaba Music held
23652-477: The word "classical" in relation to music: The last definition concerns what is now termed the Classical period , a specific stylistic era of European music from the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. The Western classical tradition formally begins with music created by and for the early Christian Church. It is probable that the early Church wished to disassociate itself from
23814-549: The works of a number of other contemporary composers, on her 1998 Nonesuch solo debut album, Way Back to Paradise , and later recordings How Glory Goes (2000), Build a Bridge (2006), and Go Back Home (2013). Her 2002 album Happy Songs featured music of the 1930s and ’40s by songwriters like Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, and the Gershwins. As with its catalog of Broadway cast recordings, Nonesuch has assembled an equally selective roster of movie soundtracks, chief among them
23976-537: Was considered central to education; along with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, music was included in the quadrivium , the four subjects of the upper division of a standard liberal arts education in the Middle Ages . This high regard for music was first promoted by the scholars Cassiodorus , Isidore of Seville , and particularly Boethius , whose transmission and expansion on the perspectives of music from Pythagoras , Aristotle and Plato were crucial in
24138-452: Was during this period that he wrote works such as Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973) and Six Pianos (1973). In 1974, Reich began writing Music for 18 Musicians . This piece involved many new ideas, although it also recalls earlier pieces. It is based on a cycle of eleven chords introduced at the beginning (called "Pulses"), followed by a small section of music based on each chord ("Sections I-XI"), and finally
24300-432: Was either minimal or exclusive to the upper classes. Many European commentators of the early 19th century found new unification in their definition of classical music: to juxtapose the older composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn , and (excluding some of his later works ) Ludwig van Beethoven as "classical" against the emerging style of Romantic music . These three composers in particular were grouped into
24462-476: Was for a while subordinate to the broader classical ideals of formality and excellence. Literature and visual arts—for which substantial Ancient Greek and Roman examples existed—did eventually adopt the term "classical" as relating to classical antiquity, but virtually no music of that time was available to Renaissance musicians, limiting the connection between classical music and the Greco-Roman world . It
24624-579: Was in 18th-century England that the term 'classical' "first came to stand for a particular canon of works in performance." London had developed a prominent public concert music scene, unprecedented and unmatched by other European cities. The royal court had gradually lost its monopoly on music, in large part from instability that the Commonwealth of England 's dissolution and the Glorious Revolution enacted on court musicians. In 1672,
24786-567: Was named 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize with jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins . On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music , recognizing Double Sextet , first performed in Richmond March 26, 2008. The citation called it "a major work that displays an ability to channel an initial burst of energy into a large-scale musical event, built with masterful control and consistently intriguing to
24948-406: Was not happy with the resulting film and never showed it. Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist Terry Riley , whose work In C combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a slowly shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work, It's Gonna Rain . Composed in 1965, the piece used a fragment of a sermon about the end of the world given by
25110-461: Was not widely used until Mozart expanded its role in orchestral, chamber, and concerto settings. The music of the Romantic era , from roughly the first decade of the 19th century to the early 20th century, was characterized by increased attention to an extended melodic line, as well as expressive and emotional elements, paralleling romanticism in other art forms. Musical forms began to break from
25272-758: Was premiered on November 4, 2018 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Susanna Mälkki at Walt Disney Concert Hall , marking Reich's return to writing for orchestra after an interval of more than thirty years. Reich has lived with his wife Beryl Korot in a home in upstate New York since 2006. In 2005, Reich was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal. Reich was awarded with the Praemium Imperiale Award in Music in October 2006. On January 25, 2007, Reich
25434-401: Was released on Nonesuch after it was rejected by Reprise Records . Laurie Anderson has put out three discs with the label, and Nonesuch reissued her seminal Big Science album, an avant-garde project that became an unlikely pop hit in 1982. David Byrne released a solo album, Grown Backwards , on the label, as well as a live concert album with Caetano Veloso, Live at Carnegie Hall, and
25596-655: Was responsible not only for all of the artists & repertory decisions but also for overseeing the increasingly distinctive look of the record jackets. Sterne oversaw several firsts for the label, including early electronic releases. Nonesuch commissioned Morton Subotnick 's 1967 album Silver Apples of the Moon (made on the Buchla 100 ), and in 1966 released a 2-LP set of Moog sounds with 16-page booklet called The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music by Beaver & Krause (which spent 26 weeks in Billboard's Top 100 chart). Among
25758-466: Was severely injured by police. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police to allow him to receive medical aid for his injury from the police beating. Out of Hamm's spoken line "I had to, like, open the bruise up and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them," Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually
25920-525: Was specialized by the Academy of Ancient Music and later at the Concerts of Antient Music series, where the work of select 16th and 17th composers was featured, especially George Frideric Handel . In France, the reign of Louis XIV ( r. 1638–1715 ) saw a cultural renaissance, by the end of which writers such as Molière , Jean de La Fontaine and Jean Racine were considered to have surpassed
26082-417: Was the inspiration for a series of commissions for solo cello with pre-recorded cellos made by Ashley Bathgate in 2017 including new works by Emily Cooley and Alex Weiser . Reich often cites Pérotin , J. S. Bach , Debussy , Bartók , and Stravinsky as composers whom he admires and who greatly influenced him when he was young. Jazz is a major part of the formation of Reich's musical style, and two of
26244-447: Was the sole ensemble to interpret his works for many years, and they remain a "living laboratory" for his music. The ensemble still remains active with many of its original members. After Drumming , Reich moved on from the "phase shifting" technique that he had pioneered, and began writing more elaborate pieces. He investigated other musical processes such as augmentation (the temporal lengthening of phrases and melodic fragments). It
#615384