51-579: Forgotten Melodies , Opp. 38, 39 and 40 is a set of three cycles of short pieces for solo piano by the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner . The cycles were produced between 1917 and 1921, while Medtner was living in Moscow; the first and third cycles were published in 1922, and the second in 1923, all by the German publishing house Zimmerman. Miller writes of the cycles that 'very little, if anything at all, in
102-410: A string section , wind and brass sections used in a standard orchestras to electronic instruments such as synthesizers . Some common group settings include music for full orchestra (consisting of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion), concert band (which consists of larger sections and greater diversity of woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments than are usually found in the orchestra), or
153-584: A chamber group (a small number of instruments, but at least two). The composer may also choose to write for only one instrument, in which case this is called a solo . Solos may be unaccompanied, as with works for solo piano or solo cello, or solos may be accompanied by another instrument or by an ensemble. Composers are not limited to writing only for instruments, they may also decide to write for voice (including choral works, some symphonies, operas , and musicals ). Composers can also write for percussion instruments or electronic instruments . Alternatively, as
204-507: A circular issued by the United States Copyright Office on Copyright Registration of Musical Compositions and Sound Recordings, a musical composition is defined as "A musical composition consists of music, including any accompanying words, and is normally registered as a work of the performing arts. The author of a musical composition is generally the composer, and the lyricists if any. A musical composition may be in
255-629: A combination of both methods. For example, the principal cello player in an orchestra may read most of the accompaniment parts in a symphony, where she is playing tutti parts, but then memorize an exposed solo, in order to be able to watch the conductor . Compositions comprise a huge variety of musical elements, which vary widely from between genres and cultures. Popular music genres after about 1960 make extensive use of electric and electronic instruments, such as electric guitar and electric bass . Electric and electronic instruments are used in contemporary classical music compositions and concerts, albeit to
306-434: A composition for different musical ensembles is called arranging or orchestration , may be undertaken by the composer or separately by an arranger based on the composer's core composition. Based on such factors, composers, orchestrators, and arrangers must decide upon the instrumentation of the original work. In the 2010s, the contemporary composer can virtually write for almost any combination of instruments, ranging from
357-453: A composition, Prokofiev occasionally assigned a new opus number to the revision; thus Symphony No. 4 is two thematically related but discrete works: Symphony No. 4, Op. 47, written in 1929; and Symphony No. 4, Op. 112, a large-scale revision written in 1947. Likewise, depending upon the edition, the original version of Piano Sonata No. 5 in C major, is cataloged both as Op. 38 and as Op. 135. Despite being used in more or less normal fashion by
408-486: A lesser degree than in popular music. Music from the Baroque music era (1600–1750), for example, used only acoustic and mechanical instruments such as strings, brass, woodwinds, timpani and keyboard instruments such as harpsichord and pipe organ . A 2000s-era pop band may use an electric guitar played with electronic effects through a guitar amplifier , a digital synthesizer keyboard and electronic drums . Piece
459-509: A number of important early-twentieth-century composers, including Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and Anton Webern (1883–1945), opus numbers became less common in the later part of the twentieth century. To manage inconsistent opus-number usages — especially by composers of the Baroque (1600–1750) and of the Classical (1720—1830) music eras — musicologists have developed comprehensive and unambiguous catalogue number-systems for
510-416: A performer. Copyright is a government-granted monopoly which, for a limited time, gives a composition's owner—such as a composer or a composer's employer, in the case of work for hire —a set of exclusive rights to the composition, such as the exclusive right to publish sheet music describing the composition and how it should be performed. Copyright requires anyone else wanting to use the composition in
561-458: A single author, this is not always the case. A work of music can have multiple composers, which often occurs in popular music when all members of a band collaborate to write a song or in musical theatre, when one person writes the melodies, a second person writes the lyrics and a third person orchestrates the songs. A piece of music can also be composed with words, images or, since the 20th century, with computer programs that explain or notate how
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#1732788089048612-405: A single work, or "Opp." when referring to more than one work. Opus numbers do not necessarily indicate chronological order of composition. For example, posthumous publications of a composer's juvenilia are often numbered after other works, even though they may be some of the composer's first completed works. To indicate the specific place of a given work within a music catalogue , the opus number
663-657: A specific mode ( maqam ) often within improvisational contexts , as does Indian classical music in both the Hindustani and the Carnatic system. As technology has developed in the 20th and 21st century, new methods of music composition have come about. EEG headsets have also been used to create music by interpreting the brainwaves of musicians. This method has been used for Project Mindtunes, which involved collaborating disabled musicians with DJ Fresh, and also by artists Lisa Park and Masaki Batoh. The task of adapting
714-641: A work or set of works upon publication. After approximately 1900, they tended to assign an opus number to a composition whether published or not. However, practices were not always perfectly consistent or logical. For example, early in his career, Beethoven selectively numbered his compositions (some published without opus numbers), yet in later years, he published early works with high opus numbers. Likewise, some posthumously published works were given high opus numbers by publishers, even though some of them were written early in Beethoven's career. Since his death in 1827,
765-542: Is "compulsory" because the copyright owner cannot refuse or set terms for the license. Copyright collectives also typically manage the licensing of public performances of compositions, whether by live musicians or by transmitting sound recordings over radio or the Internet. Even though the first US copyright laws did not include musical compositions, they were added as part of the Copyright Act of 1831 . According to
816-402: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Opus number In music , the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition , or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer 's publication of that work. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositions with similar titles; the word is abbreviated as "Op." for
867-403: Is a "general, non-technical term [that began to be] applied mainly to instrumental compositions from the 17th century onwards....other than when they are taken individually 'piece' and its equivalents are rarely used of movements in sonatas or symphonies....composers have used all these terms [in their different languages] frequently in compound forms [e.g. Klavierstück]....In vocal music...the term
918-428: Is most frequently used for operatic ensembles..." Composition techniques draw parallels from visual art's formal elements . Sometimes, the entire form of a piece is through-composed , meaning that each part is different, with no repetition of sections; other forms include strophic , rondo , verse-chorus , and others. Some pieces are composed around a set scale , where the compositional technique might be considered
969-551: Is paired with a cardinal number ; for example, Beethoven 's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor (1801, nicknamed Moonlight Sonata ) is "Opus 27, No. 2", whose work-number identifies it as a companion piece to "Opus 27, No. 1" ( Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major , 1800–01), paired in same opus number, with both being subtitled Sonata quasi una Fantasia , the only two of the kind in all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. Furthermore,
1020-421: Is the case with musique concrète , the composer can work with many sounds often not associated with the creation of music, such as typewriters , sirens , and so forth. In Elizabeth Swados ' Listening Out Loud , she explains how a composer must know the full capabilities of each instrument and how they must complement each other, not compete. She gives an example of how in an earlier composition of hers, she had
1071-618: Is the rendering audible of two or more simultaneous sounds in such a manner that their combination is pleasant. This is what we call harmony and it alone merits the name of composition. Since the invention of sound recording , a classical piece or popular song may exist as a recording. If music is composed before being performed, music can be performed from memory (the norm for instrumental soloists in concerto performances and singers in opera shows and art song recitals), by reading written musical notation (the norm in large ensembles, such as orchestras, concert bands and choirs ), or through
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#17327880890481122-725: The Köchel-Verzeichnis (K- and KV-numbers), which enumerate the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , respectively. In the classical period , the Latin word opus ("work", "labour"), plural opera , was used to identify, list, and catalogue a work of art. By the 15th and 16th centuries, the word opus was used by Italian composers to denote a specific musical composition, and by German composers for collections of music. In compositional practice, numbering musical works in chronological order dates from 17th-century Italy, especially Venice . In common usage,
1173-572: The Piano Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2, in C-sharp minor is also catalogued as "Sonata No. 14", because it is the fourteenth sonata composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Given composers' inconsistent or non-existent assignment of opus numbers, especially during the Baroque (1600–1750) and the Classical (1750–1827) eras, musicologists have developed other catalogue-number systems; among them the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV-number) and
1224-434: The lead sheet , which sets out the melody , lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration (choosing the instruments of a large music ensemble such as an orchestra which will play the different parts of music, such as the melody, accompaniment , countermelody , bassline and so on) is typically done by the composer, but in musical theatre and in pop music , songwriters may hire an arranger to do
1275-422: The 1750s onwards, there are many decisions that a performer or conductor has to make, because notation does not specify all of the elements of musical performance. The process of deciding how to perform music that has been previously composed and notated is termed "interpretation". Different performers' or conductor's interpretations of the same work of music can vary widely, in terms of the tempos that are chosen and
1326-470: The 2000s, composition is considered to consist of the manipulation of each aspect of music ( harmony , melody, form, rhythm and timbre ), according to Jean-Benjamin de Laborde (1780 , 2:12): Composition consists in two things only. The first is the ordering and disposing of several sounds...in such a manner that their succession pleases the ear. This is what the Ancients called melody . The second
1377-612: The 20th century, such as John Cage , Morton Feldman and Witold Lutosławski . A more commonly known example of chance-based, or indeterminate, music is the sound of wind chimes jingling in a breeze. The study of composition has traditionally been dominated by examination of methods and practice of Western classical music, but the definition of composition is broad enough to include the creation of popular music and traditional music songs and instrumental pieces, and to include spontaneously improvised works like those of free jazz performers and African percussionists such as Ewe drummers . In
1428-989: The Mendelssohn heirs published (and cataloged) them as the Italian Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 , and as the Reformation Symphony No. 5 in D major and D minor, Op. 107 . While many of the works of Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) were given opus numbers, these did not always bear a logical relationship to the order in which the works were written or published. To achieve better sales, some publishers, such as N. Simrock , preferred to present less experienced composers as being well established, by giving some relatively early works much higher opus numbers than their chronological order would merit. In other cases, Dvořák gave lower opus numbers to new works to be able to sell them to other publishers outside his contract obligations. This way it could happen that
1479-536: The case of Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47); after his death, the heirs published many compositions with opus numbers that Mendelssohn did not assign. In life, he published two symphonies ( Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11 ; and Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 ), furthermore he published his symphony-cantata Lobgesang , Op. 52, which was posthumously counted as his Symphony No. 2; yet, he chronologically wrote symphonies between symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, which he withdrew for personal and compositional reasons; nevertheless,
1530-466: The cases of César Franck (1822–1890), Béla Bartók (1881–1945), and Alban Berg (1885–1935), who initially numbered, but then stopped numbering their compositions. Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) and Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) were also inconsistent in their approaches. Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) was consistent and assigned an opus number to a composition before composing it; at his death, he left fragmentary and planned, but numbered, works. In revising
1581-531: The composer's work. Contract law, not copyright law, governs these composer–publisher contracts, which ordinarily involve an agreement on how profits from the publisher's activities related to the work will be shared with the composer in the form of royalties . The scope of copyright in general is defined by various international treaties and their implementations, which take the form of national statutes , and in common law jurisdictions, case law . These agreements and corresponding body of law distinguish between
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1632-524: The dramatic musical genres of opera or ballet, which were developed in Italy. As a result, the plural opera of opus tends to be avoided in English. In other languages such as German, however, it remains common. In the arts, an opus number usually denotes a work of musical composition , a practice and usage established in the seventeenth century when composers identified their works with an opus number. In
1683-417: The eighteenth century, publishers usually assigned opus numbers when publishing groups of like compositions, usually in sets of three, six or twelve compositions. Consequently, opus numbers are not usually in chronological order, unpublished compositions usually had no opus number, and numeration gaps and sequential duplications occurred when publishers issued contemporaneous editions of a composer's works, as in
1734-415: The first four symphonies to be composed were published after the last five; and (c) the last five symphonies were not published in order of composition. The New World Symphony originally was published as No. 5, later was known as No. 8, and definitively was renumbered as No. 9 in the critical editions published in the 1950s. Other examples of composers' historically inconsistent opus-number usages include
1785-455: The form of a notated copy (for example sheet music) or in the form of a phonorecord (for example cassette tape, LP, or CD). Sending a musical composition in the form of a phonorecord does not necessarily mean that there is a claim to copyright in the sound recording." Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines a musical work to mean "a work consisting of music, exclusive of any words or action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with
1836-509: The music." In India The Copy Right Act, 1957 prevailed for original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work until the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1984 was introduced. Under the amended act, a new definition has been provided for musical work which states "musical works means a work consisting of music and included any graphical notation of such work but does not included any words or any action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with
1887-406: The non-lyrical elements. Many jurisdictions allow for compulsory licensing of certain uses of compositions. For example, copyright law may allow a record company to pay a modest fee to a copyright collective to which the composer or publisher belongs, in exchange for the right to make and distribute CDs containing a cover band 's performance of the composer or publisher's compositions. The license
1938-420: The orchestration. In some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all and instead compose the song in their mind and then play, sing or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable sound recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music . Although a musical composition often uses musical notation and has
1989-405: The person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist . In many cultures, including Western classical music , the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation , such as a sheet music "score" , which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music , songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called
2040-414: The playing or singing style or phrasing of the melodies. Composers and songwriters who present their own music in a concert are interpreting their songs, just as much as those who perform the music of others. The standard body of choices and techniques present at a given time and a given place is referred to as performance practice , whereas interpretation is generally used to mean the individual choices of
2091-428: The rights applicable to sound recordings and the rights applicable to compositions. For example, Beethoven 's 9th Symphony is in the public domain , but in most of the world, recordings of particular performances of that composition usually are not. For copyright purposes, song lyrics and other performed words are considered part of the composition, even though they may have different authors and copyright owners than
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2142-475: The same opus number was given to more than one of his works. Opus number 12, for example, was assigned, successively, to five different works (an opera, a concert overture, a string quartet, and two unrelated piano works). In other cases, the same work was given as many as three different opus numbers by different publishers. The sequential numbering of his symphonies has also been confused: (a) they were initially numbered by order of publication, not composition; (b)
2193-408: The same ways to obtain a license (permission) from the owner. In some jurisdictions, the composer can assign copyright , in part, to another party. Often, composers who are not doing business as publishing companies themselves will temporarily assign their copyright interests to formal publishing companies, granting those companies a license to control both the publication and the further licensing of
2244-555: The sets of string quartets by Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827); Haydn's Op. 76, the Erdödy quartets (1796–97), comprises six discrete quartets consecutively numbered Op. 76 No. 1 – Op. 76 No. 6; whilst Beethoven's Op. 59, the Rasumovsky quartets (1805–06), comprises String Quartet No. 7, String Quartet No. 8, and String Quartet No. 9. From about 1800, composers usually assigned an opus number to
2295-414: The singer or musician should create musical sounds. Examples range from 20th century avant-garde music that uses graphic notation , to text compositions such as Karlheinz Stockhausen 's Aus den sieben Tagen , to computer programs that select sounds for musical pieces. Music that makes heavy use of randomness and chance is called aleatoric music and is associated with contemporary composers active in
2346-507: The tuba playing with the piccolo. This would clearly drown the piccolo out. Each instrument chosen to be in a piece must have a reason for being there that adds to what the composer is trying to convey within the work. Arranging is composition which employs prior material so as to comment upon it such as in mash-ups and various contemporary classical works. Even when music is notated relatively precisely, as in Western classical music from
2397-399: The un-numbered compositions have been cataloged and labeled with the German acronym WoO ( Werk ohne Opuszahl ), meaning "work without opus number"; the same has been done with other composers who used opus numbers. (There are also other catalogs of Beethoven's works – see Catalogues of Beethoven compositions .) The practice of enumerating a posthumous opus ("Op. posth.") is noteworthy in
2448-468: The usage of a particular scale. Others are composed during performance (see improvisation ), where a variety of techniques are also sometimes used. Some are used from particular songs which are familiar. The scale for the notes used, including the mode and tonic note, is important in tonal musical composition. Similarly, music of the Middle East employs compositions that are rigidly based on
2499-476: The way of Russian influences is discernible here; the general atmosphere would appear to be that of classical mythology.' The cycles contain a number of well-known showpieces for the piano, including the Danza Festiva , Op. 38, No. 3, a popular encore amongst pianists. Cycle I, Op. 38 (1919–22) Cycle II, Op. 39 (1919–20) Cycle III, Op. 40 (1919–20) This article about a classical composition
2550-454: The word opus is used to describe the best work of an artist with the term magnum opus . In Latin, the words opus (singular) and opera (plural) are related to the words opera (singular) and operae (plural), which gave rise to the Italian words opera (singular) and opere (plural), likewise meaning "work". In contemporary English, the word opera has specifically come to denote
2601-408: The works of composers such as: Musical composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music , either vocal or instrumental , the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers . Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters ; with songs,
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