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
Music box production quantities. They are sought by collectors who have the space for their large or very large cabinets. In 1974–75, German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen composed "Tierkreis", a set of twelve pieces on the signs of the zodiac, for twelve music boxes. Music box A music box or musical box is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or "lamellae") of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called "carillons à