Frédéric Chopin
Improvisation stands at the centre of Chopin's creative processes. However, this does not imply impulsive rambling: Nicholas Temperley writes that "improvisation is designed for an audience, and its starting-point is that audience's expectations, which include the current conventions of musical form." The works for piano and orchestra, including the two concertos, are held by Temperley to be "merely vehicles for brilliant piano playing ... formally longwinded and extremely conservative". After the piano concertos (which are both early, dating from 1830), Chopin made no attempts at large-scale multi-movement forms, save for his late sonatas for piano and for cello; "instead he achieved near-perfection in pieces of simple general design but subtle and complex cell-structure." Rosen suggests that an important aspect of Chopin's individuality is his flexible handling of the four-bar phrase as a structural unit.
Classical music
Similarly, movies and television often revert to standard, clichéd snatches of classical music to convey refinement or opulence: some of the most-often heard pieces in this category include Bach´s Cello Suite No. 1, Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain (as orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov), and Rossini's William Tell Overture.
Sonata pian' e forte
Sonata pian' e forte was written by Giovanni Gabrieli, an Italian composer and organist in 1597. This is the earliest known piece of music to call for specific brass instruments.
Ernst R. Kroeger
Ernest R. Kroeger (August 10, 1862 – April 7, 1934) was an American composer. He is mainly known for the pedagogical works he composed for piano; he also taught music in St. Louis, Missouri. Today his papers are held at the Missouri Historical Society.
Slavonic Dances
The Slavonic Dances () are a series of 16 orchestral pieces composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1878 and 1886 and published in two sets as Op. 46 and Op. 72 respectively. Originally written for piano four hands, the "Slavonic Dances" were inspired by Johannes Brahms's own "Hungarian Dances" and were orchestrated at the request of Dvořák's publisher soon after composition. The pieces, lively and full of national character, were well received at the time and today are considered among the composer's most memorable works, occasionally making appearances in popular culture. “Contrary to what the title might suggest, the dances are not so much inspired by Slavic folk music generally, but specifically by styles and forms from Bohemia. In these pieces, Dvořák never actually quotes folk melodies, but evokes their style and spirit by using traditional rhythmic patterns and structures in keeping with traditional folk dances.”
Piano Sonata No. 2 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61 was composed in 1943 in Samara, where he had been evacuated due to the Siege of Leningrad, and was premiered by Shostakovich himself on June 6, soon after moving to Moscow. It was his first piano composition since the 1933 Preludes op.34.
Hedwige Chrétien
Hedwige (Gennaro)-Chrétien (Compiègne, France, July 15, 1859 – 1944) was a French composer. She was appointed a music professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1889 where she had previously been a student from 1874, studying with Ernest Guiraud. In 1881, she won first prize in harmony, counterpoint and fugue. She also won first prize in piano and in composition in other "concours" which she entered. She was a prolific composer, yet not much else is known about her life. Her compositions, about 150 in all, consist of pieces for piano, orchestral and chamber works, songs, two ballets and two one-act operas.
Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny (German: [ˈtʃɛɐ̯ni]; 21 February 1791 – 9 August 1857) was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works. His books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching.
Horn Sonata (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Horn Sonata in F major, Op. 17 in 1800 for the virtuoso horn player Giovanni Punto. It was premiered with Punto as the soloist, accompanied on the piano by Beethoven himself in Vienna on April 18, 1800.
Hugo Frey (musician)
Hugo Frey (26 August 187313 February 1952) was an American pianist, violinist, composer, songwriter, conductor, and arranger. He was a prolific editor for piano sheet music, the primary audience being the "living room" pianist, providing simplified arrangements of some of the more difficult pieces.
Florentina Mallá
Florentina Mallá (14 July 1891 – 7 June 1973) was a Czech composer and pianist. She studied piano with Josef Jiránek at the Prague Conservatory, graduating in 1913 and later studied composition privately with Vítězslav Novák. She suspended her work as a composer during the communist years. Her works include didactic piano compositions, a sonatina and preludium for piano and about fifty songs. She died in Prague.
Erkki Melartin
Although Melartin was chiefly a lyricist, the symphony was central to his musical output. He wrote six symphonies (1902–1924) and was the first Finnish composer to bear Mahler's influence. The fourth symphony uses a vocalise like that of Carl Nielsen's "Sinfonia Espansiva". The fifth is a "Sinfonia brevis" ending in a fugue and chorale, while the sixth, harmonically more advanced than the other five, advances stepwise from a C minor first movement – with evocations of Mahler's second symphony – to an E-flat major finale. His musical output also includes an opera, "Aino" (based on the character from the Finnish national epic), a violin concerto, four string quartets, and many piano pieces. His works therefore are divided mainly into large-scale works for orchestra, and chamber pieces for much smaller groups and soloists. Despite working in the same time period as Jean Sibelius he was not influenced by the more famous composer's style, and his work has been largely overshadowed by that of Finland's most revered composer.
Frédéric Chopin
All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. His keyboard style is highly individual and often technically demanding; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin invented the concept of instrumental ballade. His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes and sonatas, some published only after his death. Influences on his compositional style include Polish folk music, the classical tradition of J. S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert, the music of all of whom he admired, as well as the Paris salons where he was a frequent guest. His innovations in style, musical form, and harmony, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period.
Elizabeth Alexander (composer)
Elizabeth Alexander (born August 6, 1962) is an American composer. Her works include orchestral, chamber, piano and vocal works. She is best known for her over 80 choral pieces, which have been performed internationally by thousands of choirs. Alexander is also known for her liturgical works, and themes centering on social justice.
City Scape
City Scape is an orchestral piece composed by Jennifer Higdon in 2002 and commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. On November 14, 2002, the piece was premiered under the direction of Robert Spano. This piece dedicated to Robert Spano calls for a concerto grosso, in which 35 instruments are used; yet many of these instruments have featured solos that are scattered throughout the piece. The piece lasts a total of 31 minutes.
Piano Sonata No. 6 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10, No. 2, was dedicated to the Countess Anne Margarete von Browne, and written from 1796 to 1798.
Frédéric Chopin
Some of Chopin's well-known pieces have acquired descriptive titles, such as the Revolutionary Étude (Op. 10, No. 12), and the Minute Waltz (Op. 64, No. 1). However, with the exception of his Funeral March, the composer never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number, leaving all potential extramusical associations to the listener; the names by which many of his pieces are known were invented by others. There is no evidence to suggest that the Revolutionary Étude was written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind; it merely appeared at that time. The Funeral March, the third movement of his Sonata No. 2 (Op. 35), the one case where he did give a title, was written before the rest of the sonata, but no specific event or death is known to have inspired it.
Trois mouvements perpétuels
Mouvements perpétuels, FP 14a, is a short three-movement suite for solo piano by the French composer Francis Poulenc, premiered in Paris in December 1918, when Poulenc was aged 19 and a protégé of Erik Satie. The work is dedicated to the artist Valentine Hugo and was first performed by Poulenc's piano teacher, Ricardo Viñes. From January 1918 to January 1921 Poulenc was a conscript in the French army, but his duties allowed him time for composition. He wrote the pieces at the piano of the local elementary school at Saint-Martin-sur-le-Pré.
William Berwald
William Berwald (1864–1948) was an American composer and conductor of German origin. He published some 400 compositions and won numerous prizes, including the Manuscript Music Society in 1901, the Clemson Gold Medal in 1913, the Prosser Etude prize in 1915, and the Estey Organ Prize in 1928. Among his works are pedagogical pieces for piano.
Piano Sonata No. 7 (Mozart)
The work was composed during a journey to Mannheim and Paris in 1777-78. The sonata was completed in a few days in early November 1777. The andante movement is a "portrait" of his pupil Rose Cannabich, the 13-year-old daughter of the Mannheim Kapellmeister Christian Cannabich. Upon reviewing a copy of the manuscript, Mozart's father Leopold wrote that it was "a strange composition. It has something in it of the 'rather artificial' Mannheim style, but so very little that your own good style is not spoilt".
What piece by the composer of Piano Sonata No.7 is used as a cliche to show refinement?
Piano Sonata No. 7 >> composer
Mozart
What piece by #1 is used as a cliche to convey refinement?
Eine kleine Nachtmusik