The Beggar's Opera piece satirised Italian opera, which had become popular in London. According to "The New York Times": "Gay wrote the work more as an anti-opera than an opera, one of its attractions to its 18th-century London public being its lampooning of the Italian opera style and the English public's fascination with it." Instead of the grand music and themes of opera, the work uses familiar tunes and characters that were ordinary people. Some of the songs were by opera composers like Handel, but only the most popular of these were used. The audience could hum along with the music and identify
Royal Winter Music Royal Winter Music Royal Winter Music is the name given to two solo works for classical guitar by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. Both works are inspired by characters from Shakespeare. The first work (described as a sonata) was completed in 1976, and is in six movements. The first part, "Richard of Gloucester" gives the overall work its name (from Richard's opening monologue "Now is the winter of our discontent"). The first piece was premiered by Julian Bream (at whose request Henze had written it) in Berlin on 20 September 1976. The second sonata, written in 1979, continues the