Music Wise

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) A short account of his life and contributions by Nils Bruijel Introduction Italian Baroque era composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) is considered to be the most innovative and imaginative composer of his day, and is the earliest composer to enjoy an international repertory status in our time. He may not have been the originator of opera as new music genre, but certainly was the first person to fully actualize its potential, with Schonberg (1998) referring to him as "Pioneer of Opera" (Burkholder et al., 2014, p: 315; Arnold, 1984, p: 1196;  Schonberg, 1998 ). In this short essay, I shall first give an account of Monteverdi's life and music and then discuss his contributions to the transition between the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Early years at Cremona (1567 - 1591) Monteverdi was born on May 15th, 1567 in Cremona , Northern Italy. The city, s ituated on the banks of the river Po,  was a center for violin building

Below I present a summary of my notes on Western Music History. It was also one of my assignments for the OCA Music Foundation course. I hope this is of some use to you. A Timeline of Western Music - Medieval through Renaissance Period Year Event Time spaces 313 The Edict of Milan is issued by Emperor Constantine I (ca. 272 – 337), legalizing Christianity. 392 Under Emperor Theodosius (ca. 346 – 395), Christianity becomes the official Roman Religion. 395 Separation of the Roman Empire into Western Empire ruled from Rome or Milan and the Eastern Empire, ruled from Constantinople. As a consequence, church liturgy and chant diversifies into ''dialects''. ca. 500-510 Boethius (ca. 480 – ca. 524) writes the treatise ''Institutione Musica'' (the Fundamentals of Music), dividing music into three types: 1. Musica Mundana, 2. Musica Humana 3. Musica Instrumentalis. Music for Boethius

1. Stuff done this week - So damn busy with fitness, family life, performing, work projects (I am responsible for the complete Microsoft Office roll out at my company; there is an MQ upgrade for April; just finished a Flash Player security patch upgrade). My academic work is suffering. I'm going slowly through the book Burkholder et al. (2014). I just try to remember: I'm doing this for me. There is no hurry. - Saturday the 1st of April, me and the band drove to Waardamme in Belgium for a performance at Cowboy Up . Looking back, I think we did a great job. Sometimes the execution of the music was rough, but the show was intense and real. We got some great compliments, and I'm sure we're allowed back next year! - Final work on our video for the song Cold Black Ground . Ramses Singeling used photographs he took from a trip to Spain and edited a Tarantino-style credit roll under our tune. The song is a murder ballad, the cold black ground is the classic folk metapho