Name	Piano
Image capt	Steinway grand piano
Background	keyboard
Hornbostel sachs	314.122-4-8
Hornbostel sachs desc	Simple chordophone with keyboard sounded by hammers
Inventors	Bartolomeo Cristofori
Developed	Early 18th century
Range

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal. Although not portable and often expensive, the piano's versatility and ubiquity have made it one of the world's most familiar musical instruments.

Pressing a key on the piano's keyboard causes a felt-covered hammer to strike steel strings. The hammers rebound, allowing the strings to continue vibrating at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a sounding board that more-efficiently couples the acoustic energy to the air. The sound would otherwise be no louder than that directly produced by the strings. When the key is released, a damper stops the string's vibration. See the article on Piano key frequencies for a picture of the piano keyboard and the location of middle-C. In the Hornbostel-Sachs system of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones.

The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which derives from the original Italian name for the instrument, clavicembalo [or gravicembalo] col piano e forte (literally harpsichord capable of playing at the normal level, and more strongly). The musical terms "piano" and "forte" are usually interpreted as "soft" and "loud", but this is not strictly what they mean in Italian. Here, "Piano" means a plane or level, suggesting the normal playing level. "Forte" means a stronger, more powerful level of playing—louder than usual. This refers to the instrument's responsiveness to keyboard touch, which allows the pianist to produce notes at different dynamic levels by controlling the inertia with which the hammers hit the strings.

History

Early history

, France, 1781. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca. 1700) with ornately decorated soundboard.]]

The piano is founded on earlier technological innovations. The first string instruments with struck strings were the hammered dulcimers. During the Middle Ages, there were several attempts at creating stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings. By the 17th century, the mechanisms of keyboard instruments such as the clavichord and the harpsichord were well known. In a clavichord the strings are struck by tangents, while in a harpsichord they are plucked by quills. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord in particular had shown the most effective ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and keyboard.

The invention of the modern piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments. He was an expert harpsichord maker and was well acquainted with the previous body of knowledge on stringed keyboard instruments. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano. An inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700; another document of doubtful authenticity indicates a date of 1698. A friend of the family by the name of Sebastian LeBlanc suggested the idea to switch the black and white keys The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.

While the clavichord allowed expressive control of volume and sustain, it was too quiet for large performances. The harpsichord produced a sufficiently loud sound, but had little expressive control over each note. The piano was likely formed as an attempt to combine loudness with control, avoiding the trade-offs of available instruments.

Cristofori's great success was solving, with no prior example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammer must strike the string, but not remain in contact with it (as a tangent remains in contact with a clavichord string) because this would dampen the sound. Moreover, the hammer must return to its rest position without bouncing violently, and it must be possible to repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori's piano action was a model for the many different approaches to piano actions that followed. Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings, and were much quieter than the modern piano—but compared to the clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic nuance via the keyboard) they were much louder and had more sustain.

Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer, Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it (1711), including a diagram of the mechanism. This article was widely distributed, and most of the next generation of piano builders started their work because of reading it. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings at once.

Silbermann showed Johann Sebastian Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but Bach did not like it at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded. Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an agent in selling Silbermann's pianos.

Piano-making flourished during the late 18th century in the Viennese school, which included Johann Andreas Stein (who worked in Augsburg, Germany) and the Viennese makers Nannette Streicher (daughter of Stein) and Anton Walter. Viennese-style pianos were built with wood frames, two strings per note, and had leather-covered hammers. Some of these Viennese pianos had the opposite coloring of modern-day pianos; the natural keys were black and the accidental keys white. It was for such instruments that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas, and replicas of them are built today for use in authentic-instrument performance of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer, more ethereal tone than today's pianos or English pianos, with less sustaining power. The term fortepiano is nowadays often used to distinguish the 18th-century instrument from later pianos.

In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes that led to the modern form of the instrument. This revolution was in response to a consistent preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound, and made possible by the ongoing Industrial Revolution with technological resources such as high-quality steel, called piano wire, for strings, and precision casting for the production of iron frames. Over time, the tonal range of the piano was also increased from the five octaves of Mozart's day to the 7¼ or more octaves found on modern pianos.

Early technological progress owed much to the firm of Broadwood. John Broadwood joined with another Scot, Robert Stodart, and a Dutchman, Americus Backers, to design a piano in the harpsichord case—the origin of the "grand". They achieved this in about 1777. They quickly gained a reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of their instruments, with Broadwood constructing ones that were progressively larger, louder, and more robustly constructed. They sent pianos to both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, and were the first firm to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six octaves by 1810 (Beethoven used the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by 1820. The Viennese makers similarly followed these trends, however the two schools used different piano actions: Broadwoods were more robust, Viennese instruments were more sensitive.

By the 1820s, the center of innovation had shifted to Paris, where the Pleyel firm manufactured pianos used by Frédéric Chopin and the Érard firm manufactured those used by Franz Liszt. In 1821, Sébastien Érard invented the double escapement action, which incorporated a repetition lever (also called the balancier) that permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position. This facilitated rapid playing of repeated notes, and this musical device was pioneered by Liszt. When the invention became public, as revised by Henri Herz, the double escapement action gradually became standard in grand pianos, and is still incorporated into all grand pianos currently produced.

Other improvements of the mechanism included the use of felt hammer coverings instead of layered leather. Felt, which was first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826, was a more consistent material, permitting wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and string tension increased. The sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by the Steinway firm in 1874, allowed a wider range of effects.

One of the major technical innovations that helped to create the sound of the modern piano was the use of a strong iron frame. Also called the "plate", the iron frame sits atop the soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark against the force of string tension. The increased structural integrity of the iron frame allowed the use of thicker, tenser, and more numerous strings. In a modern grand the total string tension can exceed 20 tons. The single piece cast iron frame was patented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, combining the metal hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on behalf of Samuel Hervé) and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820, but also claimed by Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later worked for the Chickering & Mackays firm who patented the first full iron frame for grand pianos in 1843. Composite forged metal frames were preferred by many European makers until the American system was fully adopted by the early 20th century.

Other important advances included changes to the way the piano was strung, such as the use of a "choir" of three strings rather than two for all but the lowest notes, and the implementation of an over-strung scale in which the strings are placed in two separate planes, each with its own bridge height. (This is also called "cross-stringing". Whereas earlier instruments' bass strings were a mere continuation of a single string plane, over-stringing placed the bass bridge behind and to the treble side of the tenor bridge area. This crossed the strings, with the bass strings in the higher plane.) This permitted a much narrower cabinet at the "nose" end of the piano, and optimized the transition from unwound tenor strings to the iron or copper-wrapped bass strings. Over-stringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway, Jr. in 1859.

Duplex scaling, patented in 1872 by Theodore Steinway, enhanced the voice of each note by using sympathetic vibration. Short lengths of non-speaking wire were bridged by the aliquot throughout much of upper range of the piano, always in locations that caused them to vibrate in conformity with their respective overtones—typically in doubled octaves and twelfths. Somewhat similar systems were developed by Blüthner (Aliquot stringing, 1873), as well as Taskin (1788), and Collard (1821). Each used more distinctly ringing, undamped vibrations to modify tone.

Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use. The square piano (not truly square, but rectangular) was cross strung at an extremely acute angle above the hammers, with the keyboard set along the long side. This design is attributed to Gottfried Silbermann or Christian Ernst Friderici on the continent, and Johannes Zumpe or Harman Vietor in England, and it was improved by changes first introduced by Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold in France and Alpheus Babcock in the United States. Square pianos were built in great numbers through the 1840s in Europe and the 1890s in America, and saw the most visible change of any type of piano: the iron-framed, over-strung squares manufactured by Steinway & Sons were more than two-and-a-half times the size of Zumpe's wood-framed instruments from a century before. Their overwhelming popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price, although their tone and performance were limited by narrow soundboards, simple actions and string spacing that made proper hammer alignment difficult.

The tall, vertically strung upright grand was arranged like a grand set on end, with the soundboard and bridges above the keys, and tuning pins below them. The term was later revived by many manufacturers for advertising purposes. Giraffe, pyramid and lyre pianos were arranged in a somewhat similar fashion in evocatively shaped cases.

The very tall cabinet piano was introduced about 1805 and was built through the 1840s. It had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very large sticker action. The short cottage upright or pianino with vertical stringing, made popular by Robert Wornum around 1815, was built into the 20th century. They are informally called birdcage pianos because of their prominent damper mechanism. Pianinos were distinguished from the oblique, or diagonally strung upright made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet during the late 1820s. The tiny spinet upright was manufactured from the mid-1930s until recent times. The low position of the hammers required the use of a "drop action" to preserve a reasonable keyboard height.

Modern upright and grand pianos attained their present forms by the end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the instrument continue to receive attention.

History and musical performance

Much of the most widely admired piano repertoire, for example, that of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, was composed for a type of instrument (the pianoforte) that is rather different from the modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. Even the music of the Romantics, including Liszt, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms, was written for pianos substantially different from modern pianos.

Modern piano

Types

Modern pianos come in two basic configurations (with subcategories): the grand piano and the upright piano.

Grand

grand piano in the White House]]

In grand pianos, the frame and strings are horizontal, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. The action lies beneath the strings, and uses gravity as its means of return to a state of rest.

There are many sizes of grand piano. A rough generalization distinguishes the concert grand (between about 2.2 m and 3 m/9.84 feet long) from the parlor grand or boudoir grand (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and the smaller baby grand (around 1.5 m).

All else being equal, longer pianos with longer strings have larger, richer sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings. Inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partials or harmonics) sound sharp relative to whole multiples of the fundamental frequency. This results from the piano's considerable string stiffness; as a struck string decays its harmonics vibrate, not from their termination, but from a point very slightly toward the center (or more flexible part) of the string. The higher the partial, the further sharp it runs. Pianos with shorter and thicker strings, i.e. small pianos with short string scales, have more inharmonicity. The greater the inharmonicity, the more the ear perceives it as harshness of tone.

Inharmonicity requires octaves to be "stretched", or tuned to a lower octave's corresponding sharp overtone rather than to a theoretically correct octave. If octaves are not stretched, single octaves sound in tune, but double—and notably triple—octaves are unacceptably narrow. Stretching a small piano's octaves to match its inherent inharmonicity level creates an imbalance among all the instrument's intervallic relationships, not just its octaves. In a concert grand, however, the octave "stretch" retains harmonic balance, even when aligning treble notes to a harmonic produced from three octaves below. This lets close and widespread octaves sound pure, and produces virtually beatless perfect fifths. This gives the concert grand a brilliant, singing and sustaining tone quality—one of the principal reasons that full-size grands are used in the concert hall. Smaller grands satisfy the space and cost considerations needs of domestic use.

Upright

Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact because the frame and strings are vertical. The hammers move horizontally, and return to their resting position via springs, which are prone to wear and tear. Upright pianos with unusually tall frames and long strings are sometimes called upright grand pianos. Some authors classify modern pianos according to their height and to modifications of the action that are necessary to accommodate the height.

Studio pianos are around 42 to 45 inches tall. This is the shortest cabinet that can accommodate a full-sized action located above the keyboard.

Console pianos have a compact action (shorter hammers), and are a few inches shorter than studio models.

The top of a spinet model barely rises above the keyboard. The action is located below, operated by vertical wires that are attached to the backs of the keys.

Anything taller than a studio piano is called an upright.

Other types

player piano]]

The 19th century saw the introduction of the toy piano.

In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, which plays itself from a piano roll without the need for a pianist. A machine perforates a performance recording into rolls of paper, and the player piano replays the performance using pneumatic devices. Modern equivalents of the player piano include the Bösendorfer CEUS and the Yamaha Disklavier, using solenoids and MIDI rather than pneumatics and rolls.

A silent piano is an acoustic piano having an option to silence the strings by means of an interposing hammer bar. They are designed for private silent practice.

Edward Ryley invented the transposing piano in 1801. It has a lever under the keyboard as to move the keyboard relative to the strings so a pianist can play in a familiar key while the music sounds in a different key.

The prepared piano, present in some contemporary art music, is a piano with objects placed inside it to alter its sound, or has had its mechanism changed in some other way. The scores for music for prepared piano specify the modifications, for example instructing the pianist to insert pieces of rubber, paper, metal screws, or washers in between the strings. These either mute the strings or alter their timbre.

Electric pianos use electromagnetic pickups to amplify the sound of the strings. Playing a note loudly causes the electric signal to clip, and the player can incorporate the distortion into his or her expressive range.

Digital pianos use digital sampling technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note. Digital pianos can be sophisticated, with features including working pedals, weighted keys, multiple voices, and MIDI interfaces. However, when one depresses the damper pedal (see below) on such an instrument, there are no strings to vibrate sympathetically. The synthesis software of some higher end digital pianos, such as the Yamaha Clavinova series, or the KAWAI MP8 series, incorporates physical models of sympathetic vibration.

With the advent of powerful desktop computers, highly realistic pianos have become available as affordable software modules. Some of these modules, such as the 2004 Synthogy's Ivory, use multi-gigabyte piano sample sets with as many as 90 recordings, each lasting many seconds, for each of the 88 (some have 81) keys under different conditions. Additional samples emulate sympathetic resonance, key release, the drop of the dampers, and simulations of piano techniques like re-pedaling to augment these conditions. Some other software modules, such as Modartt's 2006 Pianoteq, use no samples whatsoever and are a pure synthesis of all aspects of the physicalities that go into the creation of a real piano's sound.

Today, piano manufactures take advantage of innovative pianos that play themselves via a CD or MP3 player. Similar in concept to a player piano, the PianoDisc or iQ systems allow pianos to "play themselves" when the software interprets a certain file format. Such additions are quite expensive, often doubling the cost of a piano. These pianos are available in both upright and grand.

Keyboard

grand piano]] Almost every modern piano has 36 black keys and 52 white keys for a total of 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A₀ to C₈). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A₀ to A₇), while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both directions.

Some Bösendorfer pianos, for example, extend the normal range down to F₀, with one other model going as far as a bottom C₀, making a full eight octave range. These extra keys are sometimes hidden under a small hinged lid that can cover the keys to prevent visual disorientation for pianists unfamiliar with the extra keys. On others, the colors of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white).

The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance from the associated strings; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone. Only a very small number of works composed for piano actually use these notes. More recently, the Stuart and Sons company has also manufactured extended-range pianos, with the first 102 key piano. On their instruments, the frequency range extends from C₀ to F₈, which is the widest practical range for the acoustic piano. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.

Small studio upright acoustical pianos with only 65 keys have been manufactured for use by roving pianists. Known as gig pianos and still containing a cast iron harp, these are comparatively lightweight and can be easily transported to and from engagements by only two people. As their harp is longer than that of a spinet or console piano, they have a stronger bass sound that to some pianists is well worth the trade-off in range that a reduced key-set offers.

The toy piano manufacturer Schoenhut started manufacturing both grands and uprights with only 44 or 49 keys, and shorter distance between the keyboard and the pedals. These pianos are true pianos with action and strings. The pianos were introduced to their product line in response to numerous requests in favor of it.

Special editions are keyboards with the 6-plus-6 system e. g. the Jankó keyboard.

Pedals

Standard pedals

from left to right: una corda, sostenuto, and sustain pedal]] Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the player's knee instead of pedals.) Most grand pianos in the US have three pedals: the soft pedal (una corda), sostenuto, and sustain pedal (from left to right, respectively), while in Europe, the standard is two pedals: the soft pedal and the sustain pedal. Most modern upright pianos also have three pedals: soft pedal, practice pedal and sustain pedal, though older or cheaper models may lack the practice pedal. Again, in Europe the standard for upright pianos is two pedals: the soft and the sustain pedals.

The sustain pedal (or, damper pedal) is often simply called "the pedal", since it is the most frequently used. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. It lifts the dampers from all keys, sustaining all played notes. In addition, it alters the overall tone by allowing all strings, even the ones not directly played, to reverberate.

The soft pedal or una corda pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. In grand pianos it shifts the entire action/keyboard assembly to the right (a very few instruments have shifted left) so that the hammers hit two of the three strings for each note. In the earliest pianos whose unisons were bichords rather than trichords, the action shifted so that hammers hit a single string, hence the name una corda, or 'one string'. The effect is to soften the note as well as change the tone. In uprights this action is not possible; instead the pedal moves the hammers closer to the strings, allowing the hammers to strike with less kinetic energy. This produces a slightly softer sound, but no change in timbre.

On grand pianos, the middle pedal is a sostenuto pedal. This pedal keeps raised any damper already raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it possible to sustain selected notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before those notes are released) while the player's hands are free to play additional notes (which aren't sustained). This can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations.

On many upright pianos, there is a middle pedal called the "practice" or celeste pedal. This drops a piece of felt between the hammers and strings, greatly muting the sounds. Often this pedal can be shifted while depressed, into a "locking" position.

There are also non-standard variants. On some pianos (grands and verticals), the middle pedal can be a bass sustain pedal: that is, when it is depressed, the dampers lift off the strings only in the bass section. Players use this pedal to sustain a single bass note or chord over many measures, while playing the melody in the treble section. On the Stuart and Sons piano as well as the largest Fazioli piano, there is a fourth pedal to the left of the principal three. This fourth pedal works in the same way as the soft pedal of an upright piano, moving the hammers closer to the strings.

Unusual pedals

The rare transposing piano, of which Irving Berlin possessed an example, has a middle pedal that functions as a clutch that disengages the keyboard from the mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to the left or right with a lever. The entire action of the piano is thus shifted to allow the pianist to play music written in one key so that it sounds in a different key.

There were three piano companies to include extra pedals other than the standard two or three. Two of these companies offered a piano with four pedals (Crown and Schubert Piano Co.), and Wing and Son of New York offered a five pedal piano from approximately 1893 through the 1920s. There is no mention of the company past the 1930s. Labeled left to right the pedals are Mandolin, Orchestra, Expression, Soft, and Forte (Sustain). The Mandolin pedal produces a sound similar to a vibrato feel by bouncing a set of small hammers against the strings, enabling the piano to mimic a mandolin, guitar, banjo, zither and harp. The Orchestra (Orch) pedal used a similar approach, lowering a set of metal tipped felt strips in between the hammers and the strings. This extended the life of the hammers when the Orch pedal was used, a good idea for practicing, and created an echo-like sound that mimicked playing in an orchestral hall.

The pedalier piano, or pedal piano, is a rare type of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ. There are two types of pedal piano: the pedal board may be an integral part of the instrument, using the same strings and mechanism as the manual keyboard, or, less frequently, it may consist of two independent pianos (each with its separate mechanics and strings), which are placed one above the other, a regular piano played by the hands and a bass-register piano played by the feet. This was developed primarily as a practice instrument for organists, although there is a small repotoire written specifically for the instrument.

Construction

Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for strength and longevity. This is especially true of the outer rim. It is most commonly made of hardwood, typically maple or beech, and its massiveness serves as an essentially immobile object from which the flexible soundboard can best vibrate. According to Harold A. Conklin, the purpose of a sturdy rim is so that "the vibrational energy will stay as much as possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in the case parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound."

Yet Bösendorfer, the Austrian manufacturer of extremely high quality pianos, constructs their rim from spruce, the very same wood that the soundboard is made from. Their idea is to concertedly involve the cabinet in the projection and coloration of sound. The loss of energy into the Bösendorfer case alters the instrument's tone, giving it perhaps less power but a complex and unusually resonant sound.

The finest hardwood rims are made by laminating thin (hence flexible) strips of hardwood, bending them to the desired shape immediately after the application of glue. This system was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880. The thick wooden posts on the underside (grands) or back (uprights) of the piano stabilize the rim structure, and are made of softwood for stability. The requirement of structural strength, fulfilled by stout hardwood and thick metal, makes a piano heavy; even a small upright can weigh 136 kg (300 lb), and the Steinway concert grand (Model D) weighs 480 kg (990 lb). The largest piano built, the Fazioli F308, weighs 691 kg (1520 lb).

The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area of the piano where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, (typically hard maple or beech), and is laminated for strength, stability and longevity. Piano strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high carbon steel. They are manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings of a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to increase their mass whilst retaining flexibility. If all strings throughout the piano's compass were individual (monochord), the massive bass strings would overpower the upper ranges. Makers compensate for this with the use of double (bichord) strings in the tenor and triple (trichord) strings throughout the treble.

plate of a Steinway grand piano]] The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It is advantageous for the plate to be very massive. Since the strings vibrate from the plate at both ends, vibrations absorbed by the plate result in energy loss to the desired (efficient) sound transmission channel, namely the bridge and the soundboard. While some manufacturers use cast steel in their plates, most prefer cast iron. Cast iron is easy to cast and machine, has flexibility sufficient for piano use, is much more resistant to deformation than steel, and is especially tolerant of compression. Plate casting is a delicate art, since dimensions are crucial and the iron shrinks by about one percent during cooling.

Including an extremely large piece of metal in a piano is potentially an aesthetic handicap. Piano makers overcome this by polishing, painting, and decorating the plate. Plates often include the manufacturer's ornamental medallion. In an effort to make pianos lighter, Alcoa worked with Winter and Company piano manufacturers to make pianos using an aluminum plate during the 1940s. Aluminum piano plates, however, were not widely accepted, and were discontinued.

The numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are generally hardwood, e.g., maple, beech, or hornbeam. However, since World War II, makers have used some plastics. Early plastics were incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but proved disastrous because they crystallized and lost their strength after only a few decades of use. The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in place of cloth, but ultimately abandoned the experiment due to an inherent "clicking" that invariably developed over time. (Teflon is "humidity stable" whereas the wood adjacent to the Teflon swells and shrinks with humidity changes, causing problems.) More recently, the Kawai firm built pianos with action parts made of more modern materials, such as carbon fiber reinforced plastic. These have, so far, performed reasonably, but it may take decades to know if they can match the longevity of wood.

The part of the piano where materials may matter the most the soundboard. In quality pianos, this is made of solid spruce (that is, spruce boards glued together along the side grain). Spruce provides a high ratio of strength to weight. The best piano makers use quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce of close annular grain, and make sure that it has been carefully dried over a long period of time before they make it into soundboards. Cheap pianos often have plywood soundboards.

In the early years of piano construction, keys were commonly made from sugar pine. Today they are likely to be made of spruce or basswood. Spruce is normally used in high-quality pianos. The black keys were traditionally made from ebony and the white keys were covered with strips of ivory, but since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected by treaty, plastics are now almost exclusively used. Also, ivory tends to chip more easily than plastic. Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. The Yamaha firm invented a plastic called "Ivorite" that they claim mimics the look and feel of ivory; it has since been imitated by other makers.

Care and maintenance

, 1868). The man at the piano is Franz Schubert.]]Pianos need regular tuning to keep them up to pitch, which is usually the internationally recognized standard concert pitch of A4 = 440 Hz. The hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening, and other parts also need periodic regulation. Aged and worn pianos can be rebuilt or reconditioned. Often, by replacing a great number of their parts, they can be made to perform as well as new pianos. Older pianos are often more settled and produce a warmer tone.

Piano moving should be done by trained piano movers using adequate manpower and the correct equipment for any particular piano's size and weight. Pianos are heavy yet delicate instruments. Over the years, professional piano movers have developed special techniques for transporting both grands and uprights, which prevent damage to the case and to the piano's mechanics.

Tuning

The relationship between two pitches, called an interval, is the ratio of their absolute frequencies. Two different intervals are perceived as the same when the pairs of pitches involved share the same frequency ratio. The easiest intervals to identify, and the easiest intervals to tune, are those that are just, meaning they have a simple whole-number ratio. The term temperament refers to a tuning system that tempers the just intervals (usually the perfect fifth, which has the ratio 3:2) to satisfy another mathematical property; in equal temperament, a fifth is tempered by narrowing it slightly, achieved by flattening its upper pitch slightly, or raising its lower pitch slightly. A temperament system is also known as a set of bearings.

Tempering an interval causes it to beat, which is a fluctuation in perceived sound intensity due to interference between close (but unequal) pitches. The rate of beating is equal to the frequency differences of any harmonics that are present for both pitches and that coincide or nearly coincide.

Piano tuning is the act of adjusting the tensions of the piano's strings, thereby aligning the intervals among their tones so that the instrument is in tune. The meaning of the term in tune in the context of piano tuning is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches. Fine piano tuning carefully assesses the interaction among all notes of the chromatic scale, different for every piano, and thus requires slightly different pitches from any theoretical standard. Pianos are usually tuned to a modified version of the system called equal temperament (see Piano key frequencies for the theoretical piano tuning). In all systems of tuning, each pitch is derived from its relationship to a chosen fixed pitch, usually A440.

Physics

When the key is struck, a chain reaction occurs to produce the sound. First, the key raises the wippen, which forces the jack against the hammer roller (or "knuckle"). The hammer roller then lifts the lever carrying the hammer. The key also raises the damper; and immediately after the hammer strikes the wire it falls back, allowing the wire to resonate. When the key is released the damper falls back onto the strings, stopping the wire from vibrating. The vibrating piano strings themselves are not very loud, but their vibrations are transmitted to a large soundboard that moves air and thus converts the energy to sound. The irregular shape and off-center placement of the bridge ensures that the soundboard vibrates strongly at all frequencies. (See Piano action for a diagram and detailed description of piano parts.)

There are three factors that influence the pitch of a vibrating wire.

Length: All other factors the same, the shorter the wire, the higher the pitch.

Thickness: All other factors the same, the thinner the wire, the higher the pitch.

Tension: All other factors the same, the tighter the wire, the higher the pitch.

A vibrating wire subdivides itself into many parts vibrating at the same time. Each part produces a pitch of its own, called a partial. A vibrating string has one fundamental and a series of partials. The most pure combination of two pitches is when one is double the frequency of the other.

For a repeating wave, the velocity, v, equals the wavelength, λ, times the frequency, f.

v = λf

On the piano string, waves reflect from both ends. The superposition of reflecting waves results in a standing wave pattern, but only for wavelengths λ = 2L, L, L/2, … = 2L/n, where L is the length of the string. Therefore the only frequencies produced on a single string are f = nv/(2L). Timbre is largely determined by the content of these harmonics. Different instruments have different harmonic content for the same pitch. A real string vibrates at harmonics that are not perfect multiples of the fundamental. This results in a little inharmonicity, which gives richness to the tone but causes significant tuning challenges throughout the compass of the instrument.

Well-known piano makers

Well-known piano makers are (in alphabetical order): Bechstein, Blüthner, Bösendorfer, Broadwood, Fazioli, Feurich, Förster, Heintzman, Kawai, Mason & Hamlin, Petrof, Pleyel, Samick, Schimmel, Steingraeber & Söhne, Steinway & Sons, Stuart & Sons and Yamaha. 's The Well-Tempered Clavier on a grand piano.]]

Role

The piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz, film, television, and most other complex western musical genres. A large number of composers are proficient pianists—and because the piano keyboard offers an easy means of complex melodic and harmonic interplay—the piano is often used as a tool for composition.

Pianos were, and still are, popular instruments for private household ownership. Hence, pianos have gained a place in the popular consciousness, and are sometimes referred to by nicknames including: "the ivories", "the joanna", "the eighty-eight", "the black(s) and white(s)", and "the little joe(s)". Playing the piano is sometimes referred to as "tickling the ivories".

See also

;General

Jazz piano

Musica Obscura

Piano extended technique

Piano transcription

Piano trio

PianoForte Foundation

Street piano

String piano

;Technical

Agraffe

Aliquot stringing

Piano acoustics

Sounding board

;Related lists

List of classical pianists (recorded)

List of films about pianists

List of piano brand names

List of piano makers

Piano compositions category

;Related instruments

Electric piano

Electronic keyboard

Electronic piano

Harmonichord

Keyboard instruments

Keytar

Organ and Pipe organ

Notes

References

The authoritative New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (available online by subscription), contains a wealth of information. Main article: "Pianoforte".

The Encyclopædia Britannica (available online by subscription) also includes much information on the piano. In the 1988 edition, the primary article can be found in "Musical Instruments".

The Piano Book by Larry Fine (4th ed. Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: Brookside Press, 2001; ISBN 1-929145-01-2) gives the basics of how pianos work, and a thorough evaluative survey of current pianos and their manufacturers. It also includes advice on buying and owning pianos.

Giraffes, black dragons, and other pianos: a technological history from Cristofori to the modern concert grand by Edwin M. Good (1982, second ed., 2001, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press) is a standard reference on the history of the piano.

The Early Pianoforte by Stewart Pollens (1995, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) is an authoritative work covering the ancestry of the piano, its invention by Cristofori, and the early stages of its subsequent evolution.

Further reading

External links

The Piano Page

History of the Piano Forte, Association of Blind Piano Tuners, UK

The Frederick Historical Piano Collection

The Pianofortes of Bartolomeo Cristofori, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Category:Composite chordophones Category:Italian inventions Category:Keyboard instruments Category:Percussion instruments

Name	Yann Tiersen
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Yann Pierre Tiersen
Born	June 23, 1970
Origin	Brest, Brittany, France
Instrument	Piano, Violin, Accordion, Guitar, Toy piano, Voice and various others.
Genre	Minimalist, Avant-Garde
Occupation	Musician, Songwriter
Years active	1995–present
Label	VirginANTI-Mute Records
Url	Official website

Yann Pierre Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a French musician and composer. His music is recognized by its use of a large variety of instruments in relatively minimalist compositions, often with a touch of either European classical music or French folk music, using primarily the piano, accordion or violin together with instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, ondes martenot, harpsichord and typewriter. His musical style, particularly when using toy and folk instruments is similar to Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Pascal Comelade, but his more serious work is reminiscent of Frédéric Chopin, Erik Satie, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman.

Biography

Tiersen was born in Brittany, France, in 1970 and received classical training at several musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne. In the early 1980s as a teenager he was influenced by the post-punk culture of bands like The Stooges and Joy Division. He has Belgian and Norwegian origins.

Before releasing scores under his own name, Tiersen recorded background music for a number of plays and short films, such as La Vie Rêvée des Anges (1998, Erick Zonca), Alice et Martin (1998, André Téchiné), Qui Plume la Lune? (Christine Carrière, 1999).

He rose to domestic fame upon the release of his third album, Le Phare, but remained relatively unknown outside France until the release of his score for Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain in 2001, which was a mixture of both new and previously released material.

Tiersen favors the piano, accordion, and violin, but is also known for his experimentation and use of obscure and found instruments like the ondes martenot and the typewriter.

Yann Tiersen's list of collaborators continues to grow album after album (see discography below for details). While composing his fifth album, L'absente, Tiersen lent his musical talent to Françoiz Breut and Les Têtes Raides for their own albums. His 2005 album, Les Retrouvailles, featured vocals from Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Jane Birkin, and Elizabeth Fraser, formerly of Cocteau Twins. Tiersen also played piano on Staples' solo album, Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04. In 2004 he also released a collaborative CD with American singer-songwriter Shannon Wright.

His live performances vary greatly. Sometimes he is accompanied by an orchestra and many guest collaborators, like Dominique A. Other times, he offers the more frequent minimalistic sessions, usually accompanied only by a drummer/bassist and a guitarist, with Tiersen switching seamlessly between piano, accordion, and violin for his lighter songs, and electric guitar for his louder pieces (where his Avant-Garde Music meet some rock sonorities).Lately, however, he has almost banished piano, accordion and violin and focused more on his electric guitar instead, as visible in his 2009-2010 Live Tours.

Yann Tiersen was married to Belgian actress Natacha Régnier, but they have since been divorced. They have a daughter, Lise born in 2002.

Dust Lane 2010

October 2010 saw the release of Tiersen’s sixth studio album titled Dust Lane. The album was two years in the making and was largely recorded in Ushant, France.

Discography

Studio albums

La Valse des Monstres (1995)

Rue des Cascades (1996)

*featured performer: Claire Pichet.

Le Phare (1998)

*featured performers: Claire Pichet, Dominique A.

L'Absente (2001)

*featured performers: orchestral group Synaxis, Lisa Germano, Sacha Toorop, Dominique A, Neil Hannon, Natacha Régnier, Têtes Raides

Les Retrouvailles (2005)

*featured performers: Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Jane Birkin, Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, Christophe Miossec, Dominique A.

Dust Lane (2010)

Soundtracks

Amélie Original Soundtrack (2001)

Good Bye Lenin! Original Soundtrack (2003)

*featured performer: Claire Pichet.

Tabarly (2008)

Live albums

(1999)

*Black Session radio performance

*featured performers: Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), Bertrand Cantat (of Noir Désir), Françoiz Breut, The Married Monk, Têtes Raides and a string quartet.

C’était ici (2002)

*live compilation album

*featured performers: 35-member orchestral group Synaxis, conducted by Guillaume Bourgogne. Claire Pichet, Christine Ott, Christian Quermalet, Marc Sens, Nicholas Stevens, Jean-François Assy, Renaud Lhoest, Oliver Tilkin, Ronan le bars, Têtes Raides, Dominique A, Lisa Germano.

On Tour (2006)

*featured performers: Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins , Diam's , Katel, DD la Fleur

Singles and EPs

Tout est Calme (1999)

*collaboration with The Married Monk

*other featured performers: the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Lisa Germano, Neil Hannon (of The Divine Comedy), Dominique A, Françoiz Breut, Têtes Raides, Sacha Toorop (of Zop Hopop), the actress Natacha Regnier, Christian Quermalet (of The Married Monk), Marc Sens (a Serge Tessot-Gay collaborator), Christine Ott and a string quartet.

3 titres inédits au profit de la FIDH (part of the On Aime, On Aide collection, composed to raise funds for the FIDH, sold exclusively at Fnac) (2003)

PALESTINE (vinyl EP) (2010)

Collaborations

Bästard (EP) (1999)

*collaboration with Bästard

Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright (2004)

*collaboration with Shannon Wright.

This Immortal Coil (2010)

Contributions

One Trip, One Noise (by Noir Désir) (1997)

*"A ton étoile" (arrangements, strings, vibraphone, bell, mandolin, electric guitar and bass)

Vingt à Trente Mille Jours (by Françoiz Breut) (2000)

*"Porsmouth" (vibraphone), "Vingt à trente mille jours" (vibraphone), "L'heure bleue" (violin), "Le verre pilé" (vibraphone); arrangements

Gratte-poil (by Têtes Raides) (2001)

*"Cabaret des nues" (violin)

The Married Monk (by The Married Monk) (2001)

*"Roma Amor" (strings, vibraphone), "Holidays" (strings) and "Cyro's Request" (vibraphone)

''Les oiseaux de passage (tribute to Georges Brassens)

*cover of "Le parapluie" with Natacha Régnier

Absent Friends (by The Divine Comedy) (2004)

*"Sticks & Stones" (accordion); "Anthem for Bored Youth" (accordion), a track appearing only on the French limited edition

The Endless Rise of the Sun (by Smooth) (2006)

*"The Endless Rise of the Sun" (keyboards)

Raides à la ville (by Katel) (2006)

*"La Vielle" (violin)

13m² (by David Delabrosse) (2006)

*production and arrangements

Solitude Nomade (by Christine Ott) (2009)

*"Pensées sauvages" (violin)

Finistérien (by Miossec) (2009)

*music and arrangements

Li(f)e (by Sage Francis) (2010)

*production and arrangements on "The Best Of Times"

DVDs

La Traversée (2005) (by Aurélie du Boys, about the recording and composition of Les Retrouvailles in Ouessant)

On Tour (2006) (by Aurélie du Boys, about the tour)

References

External links

Yann Tiersen's official homepage

Yann Tiersen Sheet Music Archive compiled by Vladimir Yatsina

Concert photos by Laurent Orseau (Black Session)

Concert photos by Laurent Orseau (La Route du Rock 1998)

Music Video for La Noyée from the Amelie soundtrack

Music Video for Comptine d'un autre été: l'après midi from the Amelie soundtrack

Article on Yann Tiersen at Everything2.com

Article on Yann Tiersen and piano at Scribd

Yann Tiersen in Lebanon Event Review

Category:French film score composers Category:People from Brest Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:French musicians

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. His operas include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Letters, Riddles and Writs, Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs, Facing Goya, , Love Counts, and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond, and he has written six concerti, four string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band, with and without whom he tours as a performing pianist. Nyman has stated his preference for writing opera to other sorts of music.

Biography

Nyman was born in Stratford, London, and was educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow. He studied at King's College, London under communist composer Alan Bush., and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music in September, 1961, and studied with Bush and Thurston Dart, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music. He won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.

In 1969, he provided the libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Down by the Greenwood Side and directed the short film Love Love Love (based on, and identical length to, The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love") before settling into music criticism, where he is generally acknowledged to have been the first to apply the term "minimalism" to music (in a 1968 article in The Spectator magazine about the English composer Cornelius Cardew). He wrote introductions for George Frideric Handel's Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 and conducted the most important interview with George Brecht in 1976.

Nyman drew frequently on early music sources in his scores for Greenaway's films: Henry Purcell in The Draughtsman's Contract and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (which included Memorial and Miserere Paraphrase), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber in A Zed and Two Noughts, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Drowning by Numbers, and John Dowland in Prospero's Books, largely at the request of the director.

Nyman says he discovered his aesthetic playing the aria, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" from Mozart's Don Giovanni on his piano in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis, which "dictated the dynamic, articulation and texture of everything I've subsequently done." He has scored numerous films, the majority of them European art films, including several of those directed by Peter Greenaway. His few forays into Hollywood have been Gattaca, Ravenous (with musician Damon Albarn), and The End of the Affair. He wrote settings to various texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for "Letters, Riddles and Writs", part of Not Mozart. He has also produced a soundtrack for the silent film Man with the Movie Camera. Nyman's popularity increased after he wrote the score to Jane Campion's award-winning 1993 film The Piano. The album became a classical music best-seller. He was nominated for both a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

Among Nyman's other works are the opera Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs (1987), for soprano, alto, tenor and instrumental ensemble (based on Nyman's score for the ballet La Princesse de Milan); Ariel Songs (1990) for soprano and band; MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse) (1993) for band and orchestra; concertos for saxophone, piano (based on The Piano score), violin, harpsichord, trombone, and saxophone & cello recorded by John Harle and Julian Lloyd Webber; the opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1986), based on a case-study by Oliver Sacks; and four string quartets. In 2000, he produced a new opera on the subject of cloning on a libretto by Victoria Hardie titled Facing Goya, an expansion of their one-act opera Vital Statistics. The lead, a widowed art banker, is written for contralto and the role was first created by Hilary Summers. His newest operas are (2003) and Love Counts (2005), both on libretti by Michael Hastings.

He has also composed the music for the children's television series Titch which is based on the books written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins.

Many of Nyman's works are written for his own ensemble, the Michael Nyman Band, a group formed for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's Il Campiello. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified lineup of string quartet, three saxophones, trumpet, horn, bass trombone, bass guitar and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works.

Nyman also published an influential book in 1974 on experimental music called Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Catalan, Spanish and French translations), which explored the influence of John Cage on classical composers.

In the 1970s, Nyman was a member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia — the self-described World's Worst Orchestra — playing on their recordings and in their concerts. He was the featured pianist on the orchestra's recording of Bridge Over Troubled Waters on the Martin Lewis-produced 20 Classic Rock Classics album on which the Sinfonia gave their unique interpretations to the pop and rock repertoire of the 1950s-1970s. Nyman created a similar group called Foster's Social Orchestra, which specialized in the work of Stephen Foster. One of their pieces appeared in the film Ravenous and an additional work, not used in the film, appeared on the soundtrack album.

He has also recorded pop music, with the Flying Lizards; a version of his Bird List from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's The Falls (1980) appears on their album Fourth Wall as "Hands 2 Take."

On 7 July 2007, Nyman performed at Live Earth in Japan. On 2008 Nyman realized, in collaboration with the cultural association Volumina, Sublime, an artist's book that unified his music with his passion for photography.

In a collaboration with friends Max Pugh and Marc Silver, Nyman is now beginning to exhibit his films and photography. Nyman’s videoworks are filmed with a hand-held camera. Usually spontaneous, they work as visual diaries of his inquisitive mind. Most often taken before and after concerts and as part of his international travels, video works feature everyday moments or episodes that Nyman has chanced upon and chosen to record; lingering on unfolding events, capturing the unexpected, or focusing on the less seen. Some works are left relatively unedited whilst other video works undergo further experimentation with split screens and visual repetition.

Soundtracks to some of the video works use location sounds, whilst others recycle existing scores from his archive, or a combination of both to create sound/ score montages.

In October 2009, Nyman released The Glare, a collaborative collection of songs with David McAlmont, which cast his work in a new light. The album - recorded with the Michael Nyman Band - finds McAlmont putting lyrics based on contemporary news stories to 11 pieces of Nyman music drawn from different phases of his career.

"David did the research and chose most of the musical pieces," Nyman explains. "I suggested a few pieces,too but I really didn't do very much, although I think it's a true collaboration. You can identify who was responsible for what, but both aspects create a perfect synergy in which neither element can exist without the other."

Although the album was recorded in just two days, there was a huge amount of preparation and rewriting before they entered the studio. "They're third generation songs and when you listen to them, you ask 'Is it Nyman?' 'Is it soul?' 'Is it rock'n'roll?' It's all and none of them," the composer says. "I think we've created a new musical language. I'm no good at writing pop cliché - when I try, it invariably comes out sounding quite different."

The project has a long gestation for the pair first met in 2004 at a exhibition opening and talked about working together. Nothing came of it for almost five years until they got together again via Facebook, met up for lunch - and the idea for The Glare was born.

"I was surprised and delighted by what we've came up with," Nyman says. "So much so, that when I now play these pieces solo, it sounds like something's missing and the music needs David's voice and approach. That's a remarkable thing, because I've been playing these pieces for years. Of all the many collaborations I've been involved in, none has ever given me more pleasure and I'm desperate to take it on the road and play these."

Personal life

He was married to Aet Nyman and has two daughters, Molly and Martha. His first string quartet quotes "Unchained Melody" in homage to Aet, who appears in Greenaway's The Falls, for which he also composed music. Molly is a composer in her own right; in collaboration with Harry Escott she has written several film scores including for The Road to Guantanamo by her father's frequent collaborator, Michael Winterbottom. Martha is a development researcher for the BBC.

Career highlights

1961–67 – Studies at the Royal Academy of Music and King's College London.

1968–78 – Works as music critic (becoming first person to apply the word "minimalist" to music).

1976 – Founds the Campiello Band (now the Michael Nyman Band) and embarks on eleven-film collaboration with Peter Greenaway.

1981 – Releases first Michael Nyman Band album.

1993 – Soundtrack for The Piano wins an Ivor Novello Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and American Film Institute award and goes on to sell over three million copies.

2002–2005 – Composer-in-Residence at Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany, who performed three Nyman operas and more tunes for his daughters.

2007 – Performed on 7 July from Kyoto, Japan as part of the Live Earth global environmental awareness musical event.

Honours

Nyman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

Nyman was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLitt) from The University of Warwick on 30 January 2007. At the ceremony The University of Warwick Brass Society and Chamber Choir, conducted by Paul McGrath, premiered a specially composed procession and recession fanfare composed by Nyman.

Works

1963 – Introduction and Allegro Concertato for Wind Quartet (lost)

1963 – Divertimento for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet

1965 – Canzona for Flute

1974 – Bell Set No. 1 (multiple metal percussion)

1976 – 1–100 (4–6 pianos)

1976 – (First) Waltz in D (variable)

1976 – (Second) Waltz in F (variable)

1977 – In Re Don Giovanni (ensemble)

1978 – The Otherwise Very Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz (multiple pianos)

1979 – "The Masterwork" Award Winning Fish-Knife (ensemble)

1980 – A Neat Slice of Time (choir)

1981 – Think Slow, Act Fast (ensemble)

1981 – Five Orchestral Pieces for Opus Tree (band*) (based on Anton Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 10)

1981 – M-Work (band)

1981 – 2 Violins

1982 – Four Saxes (Real Slow Drag) (saxophone quartet)

1983 – A Handsome, Smooth, Sweet, Smart, Clear Stroke: Or Else Play Not At All

(orchestra)

1983 – Time's Up (chamber ensemble)

1983 – I'll Stake My Cremona to a Jew's Trump (electric violin and viola, both players also simultaneously singing)

1983 – Love is Certainly, at Least Alphabetically Speaking (soprano and band)

1984 – The Abbess of Andouillets (choir)

1985 – Nose-List Song (soprano and orchestra) [this and the above three works are from an unfinished opera setting of Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which Nyman has repeatedly cited as his all-time favorite book]

1985 – Childs Play (2 violins; harpsichord)

1985 – String Quartet No. 1

1986 – Taking a Line for a Second Walk (for orchestra (Basic Black) or piano duet)

1986 – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (opera; libretto by Christopher Rawlence; adapted from the Oliver Sacks case study by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris)

1986 – And Do They Do (modern dance, 1986)

1987 – Vital Statistics (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)

1988 – String Quartet No. 2

1989 – Out of the Ruins (choir)

1989 – La Traversée de Paris (soprano and band)

1989 – The Fall of Icarus (band)

1989 – L'Orgie Parisienne Arthur Rimbaud setting (soprano or mezzo soprano and orchestra)

1989 - La Sept (band)

1990 – Shaping the Curve (soprano saxophone, string quartet or piano)

1990 – Six Celan Songs (contralto and orchestra)

1990 – Polish Love Song (soprano and piano)

1990 – String Quartet No. 3

1990 – The Kiss and Other Movements

1991 – The Michael Nyman Songbook A collection of songs based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, and Arthur Rimbaud and recorded with vocalist Ute Lemper.

1991 – Where the Bee Dances (soprano saxophone and orchestra)

1991 – Fluegelhorn and Piano

1992 – Time Will Pronounce (violin, cello, and piano)

1992 – For John Cage (brass ensemble)

1992 – Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence (alto and string orchestra or countertenor and viol consort)

1992 – The Convertibility of Lute Strings (solo harpsichord)

1992 – Anne de Lucy Songs (soprano and piano)

1992 – Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's Husband)

1992 – The Upside-Down Violin (orchestra/ensemble)

1993 – MGV: Musique à grande vitesse (band and orchestra)

1993 – The Piano Concerto (piano and orchestra)

1993 – Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs (1993; opera-ballet setting William Shakespeare's The Tempest)

1993 – Yamamoto Perpetuo (violin solo)

1993 – Songs for Tony (saxophone quartet)

1994 – To Morrow (soprano or soprano saxophone, organ)

1994 – 3 Quartets (ensemble)

1994 – Concerto for Trombone (trombone, orchestra, and steel filing cabinets)

1995 – String Quartet No. 4

1995 – Tango for Tim (In memoriam Tim Suster) (harpsichord)

1995 – The Waltz Song (unison voices)

1995 – Viola and Piano

1995 – Grounded (mezzo-soprano, saxophones, violin, piano)

1995 – HRT [High Rise Terminal] (chamber ensemble)

1995 – Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings

1995 – Double Concerto for Saxophone and Cello (saxophone, cello, and orchestra)

1996 – After Extra Time (ensemble)

1996 – Enemy Zero (game music)

1997 – Enemy Zero - Original Soundtrack

1997 – Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks (orchestra)

1997 – The Promise (piano)

1997 - Gattaca

1998 - Titch (worked on the main opening/closing piano theme).

1998 – Cycle of Disquietude (Coisas, Vozes, Lettras) (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and band)

1998 – Orfeu (band)

1998 – De Granada A La Luna (band)

1999 – The Commissar Vanishes (band)

2000 – Facing Goya (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)

2001 – a dance he little thinks of (orchestra)

2003 – Violin Concerto (violin and orchestra)

2003 – (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)

2005 – Love Counts (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)

2006 – gdm for Marimba and Orchestra (concerto)

2006 – Acts of Beauty' (song cycle)

2007 – A Handshake in the Dark (choral piece with orchestra; text by Jamal Jumá [world premiere 8 March 2007, Barbican, London, performed by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, John Storgards conducting])

2007 – Interlude in C (expansion of a theme from The Libertine for Accent07 touring ensemble)

2007 – Eight Lust Songs song cycle

2008 – Yamamoto Perpetuo for Solo Flute (arranged by Andy Findon)

2009 – Sparkie: Cage and Beyond opera with Carsten Nicolai

2009 – The Musicologist Scores (band)

2010 – 2Graves

2010 – Vertov Sounds

*originally recorded by Nyman, Ned Sublette, Susan Krongold, Barbara Benary, Jon Gibson, Richard Cohen, Virgil Blackwell, Peter Zummo, and Peter Gordon at The Kitchen, and intended for Peter Greenaway's short film, The Tree.

Nyman's music re-used

Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from The Piano) is the music on which Italian rock noir band Belladonna's song "Let There Be Light" is based. Released in December 2010, the track features Michael Nyman himself on piano.

Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from The Piano) was used as backing music for one of the bank advertisements for Lloyds TSB broadcast on television. It has also been featured in episodes of 20/20.

Music from Ravenous has been used at least once on WFYI's Across Indiana, in a segment titled "On the Trail of John Hunt Morgan", produced by Scott Andrew Hutchins.

Nyman's soundtrack for Carrington is mostly based on his own String Quartet No. 3.

A Cock and Bull Story contains music from The Draughtsman's Contract, as well as Nyman's arrangements of classical music used in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (it does not use any music from Nyman's Tristram Shandy opera).

Nyman's music for Peter Greenaway's films has been used in the Japanese television program Iron Chef.

Popular "Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds" (from The Draughtsman's Contract) constituted the main theme of Spanish TV program Queremos Saber, presented by Mercedes Milà in the nineties.

Nyman features in '9 Songs' (Michael Winterbottom, 2004) playing at the Hackney Empire on his 60th birthday.

Nyman's MGV: Musique à grande vitesse was used in November 2006 for a new one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet in London, DGV (danse à grande vitesse) by Christopher Wheeldon.

Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" was covered by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Nyman had refused it to be released in the first time, now he authorizated its release.

Time Lapse was used in Sky's 2008 'Heroes' advert

Selections from Nyman's catalogue formed part of the soundtrack for James Marsh's 2008 documentary, Man on Wire, a film about Philippe Petit, a Frenchman, who in 1974 illegally strung a tightrope between the top of the WTC buildings and danced between them for 45 minutes, thus committing the "artistic crime of the 20th century".

Nyman's piece "Time Lapse" is now used in secondary school music lessons.

Recordings

Man and Boy: Dada - MN Records 102

- Virgin EMI CDVED957

String Quartets 1–3 - Decca 4730912

Decay Music EMI CVE964 2004

Notes

External links

Michael Nyman official site

Michael Nyman's homepage at Chester Music

The Power of the Cadence: Michael Nyman in conversation with Robert Davidson

'The Case Against Nyman Revisited' Recent article on Michael Nyman's use of pre-existing music

Michael Nyman à grande vitesse, review article in The Oxonian Review

Michael Nyman judged The Film of the Month competition in June 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People

An Evening with Michael Nyman, BAFTA event video

Listening

Michael Nyman audio at Internet Archive

Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Alumni of King's College London Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Contemporary classical music performers Category:English classical pianists Category:English composers Category:English film score composers Category:English musicologists Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Minimalist composers Category:People from Stratford Category:Postmodern composers Category:1944 births Category:Living people

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (, English see fn.), baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of Mozart's death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. His influence on subsequent Western art music is profound. Beethoven wrote his own early compositions in the shadow of Mozart, of whom Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

Biography

Family and early years

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart at 9 Getreidegasse in Salzburg, capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg, in what is now Austria but, at the time, was part of the Bavarian Circle in the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling to survive past birth was Maria Anna (1751–1829), called "Nannerl". Wolfgang was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart" as an adult, but there were many variants.

His father Leopold (1719–1787) was from Augsburg. He was deputy Kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a minor composer, and an experienced teacher. In the year of Mozart's birth, his father published a violin textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, which achieved success.

; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold]]When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father; and her three-year-old brother would look on, evidently fascinated. Years later, after his death, she reminisced:

He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was always striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. [...] In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier. [...] He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. [...] At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.

These early pieces, K. 1–5, were recorded in the Nannerl Notenbuch.

Biographer Maynard Solomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Wolfgang was keen to make progress beyond what he was being taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were on his own initiative and came as a great surprise to Leopold. Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evident. He was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest years and taught his children languages and academic subjects as well as music.]]

1762–1773: Years of travel

During Mozart's youth, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition, in 1762, at the court of the Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip, Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765. The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768.

These trips were often arduous. Travel conditions were primitive; the family had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility. They endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764) then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765).

After one year in Salzburg, father and son set off for Italy, leaving Wolfgang's mother and his sister at home. This travel lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Wolfgang met G. B. Martini, in Bologna, and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. In Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel. He wrote it out in its entirety from memory, only returning to correct minor errors—thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican.

In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions. He returned with his father later twice to Milan (August–December 1771; October 1772 – March 1773) for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba (1771) and Lucio Silla (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son in Italy, but these hopes were never fulfilled.

Toward the end of the final Italian journey, Mozart wrote the first of his works to be still widely performed today, the solo cantata Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165.

1773–1777: The Salzburg court

After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, composing symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, serenades, and a few minor operas. Several of these early works are still performed today. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three—K. 216, K. 218, K. 219—are now staples of the repertoire. In 1776 he turned his efforts to piano concertos, culminating in the E-flat concerto K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.

Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontent with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150 florins a year; Mozart also longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theater was closed, especially since the other theater in Salzburg was largely reserved for visiting troupes.

Two long expeditions in search of work (both Leopold and Wolfgang were looking) interrupted this long Salzburg stay: they visited Vienna, from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich, from 6 December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera La finta giardiniera.

1777–1778: The Paris journey

In August 1777, Mozart resigned his Salzburg position and, on 23 September, ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich. Since Archbishop Colloredo would not give Leopold leave to travel, Mozart's mother Anna Maria accompanied him.

Mozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters in a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778 to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment. He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables. The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother took ill and died on 3 July 1778. There had been delays in calling a doctor—probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds.

While Wolfgang was in Paris, Leopold was pursuing opportunities for him back in Salzburg, and, with the support of local nobility, secured him a post as court organist and concertmaster. The yearly salary was 450 florins, but Wolfgang was reluctant to accept. After leaving Paris on 26 September 1778, he tarried in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she made it plain that she was no longer interested in him. Mozart finally reached home on 15 January 1779 and took up the new position, but his discontent with Salzburg was undiminished.

Among the better known works that Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata K. 310/300d and the "Paris" Symphony (no. 31); these were performed in Paris on 12 June and 18 June 1778. for his gallery; Mozart with the Order of the Golden Spur which he received in 1770 as a 14-year old from Pope Clement XIV in Rome.]]

1781: Departure to Vienna

In January 1781, Mozart's opera Idomeneo premiered with "considerable success" in Munich. The following March the composer was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of Joseph II to the Austrian throne. Mozart, fresh from the adulation he had earned in Munich, was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant and particularly when the archbishop forbade him to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary. The resulting quarrel came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused. The following month, permission was granted but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the ass", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.

Early Vienna years

Mozart's new career in Vienna began well. He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781, and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna". Aloysia, who had earlier rejected Mozart's suit, was now married to the actor Joseph Lange, and Mozart's interest shifted to the third daughter, Constanze. The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly broke up in April 1782. Mozart also faced a very difficult task in getting his father's permission for the marriage. The couple were finally married on 4 August 1782, in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before Leopold's consent arrived in the mail.

In 1783, Wolfgang and Constanze visited his family in Salzburg. Leopold and Nannerl were, at best, only polite to Constanze, but the visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C minor. Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part.

Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna, and the two composers became friends (see Haydn and Mozart). When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785, and are judged to be a response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn in 1785 told the visiting Leopold: "I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition."

From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season. Since space in the theaters was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof (an apartment building), and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube (a restaurant). The concerts were very popular, and the concertos he premiered at them are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Solomon writes that during this period Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre". Mozart also bought a fine fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a billiard table for about 300. and kept servants. Saving was therefore impossible, and the short period of financial success did nothing to soften the hardship the Mozarts were later to experience.

On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit ("Beneficence"). Freemasonry played an important role in the remainder of Mozart's life: he attended meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on various occasions he composed Masonic music. (See Mozart and Freemasonry.)

1786–1787: Return to opera

Despite the great success of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart did little operatic writing for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act Der Schauspieldirektor. He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. However, around the end of 1785, Mozart moved away from keyboard writing and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. 1786 saw the successful premiere of The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna. Its reception in Prague later in the year was even warmer, and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera Don Giovanni, which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, and also met with success in Vienna in 1788. The two are among Mozart's most important works and are mainstays of the operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulty for both listeners and performers. These developments were not witnessed by the composer's father, as Leopold had died on 28 May 1787.

In December 1787 Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and only required Mozart to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal. However, even this modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph's aim was to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.

In 1787 the young Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart. No reliable records survive to indicate whether the two composers ever met. (See Mozart and Beethoven.)

1788–1790

, made by Dora Stock during Mozart's visit to Dresden, April 1789]] Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786 he had ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because Austria was at war, and both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined.

By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund. Mozart began to borrow money, most often from his friend and fellow Mason Michael Puchberg; "a pitiful sequence of letters pleading for loans" survives. Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from depression, and it seems that his output slowed. Major works of the period include the last three symphonies (Nos. 39, 40, and 41, all from 1788), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Così fan tutte, premiered in 1790.

Around this time Mozart made long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes: to Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789 (see Mozart's Berlin journey), and to Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790. The trips produced only isolated success and did not relieve the family's financial distress.

1791

Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, a time of great productivity—and by some accounts a time of personal recovery. He composed a great deal, including some of his most admired works: the opera The Magic Flute, the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B-flat), the Clarinet Concerto K. 622, the last in his great series of string quintets (K. 614 in E-flat), the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618, and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.

Mozart's financial situation, a source of extreme anxiety in 1790, finally began to improve. Although the evidence is inconclusive, it appears that wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities to Mozart in return for the occasional composition. He probably also benefited from the sale of dance music written in his role as Imperial chamber composer. and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered on 15 November 1791.

Final illness and death

in 1819]] Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the premiere on 6 September of his opera La clemenza di Tito, written in 1791 on commission for the Emperor's coronation festivities. He was able to continue his professional functions for some time, and conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute on 30 September. The illness intensified on 20 November, at which point Mozart became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.

Mozart was nursed in his final illness by Constanze and her youngest sister Sophie, and attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. It is clear that he was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem. However, the evidence that he actually dictated passages to his student Süssmayr is very slim.

Mozart died at 1 a.m. on 5 December 1791 at the age of 35. The New Grove gives a matter-of-fact description of his funeral:

The cause of Mozart's death cannot be known with certainty. The official record has it as "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever", referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death, including trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that Mozart died of acute rheumatic fever.

Mozart's sparse funeral did not reflect his standing with the public as a composer: memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, in the period immediately after his death, Mozart's reputation rose substantially: Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his work; biographies were written (first by Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, and Nissen; see Biographies of Mozart); and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.

Mozart usually worked long and hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches and drafts; unlike Beethoven's these are mostly not preserved, as Constanze sought to destroy them after his death. (See: Mozart's compositional method.) He was raised a Roman Catholic and remained a member of the Church throughout his life. (See Mozart and Roman Catholicism.)

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, and knew a great number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. Solomon considers his three closest friends to have been Gottfried von Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani; others included his older colleague Joseph Haydn, singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a curious kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.

He enjoyed billiards and dancing (see Mozart and dance), and kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, and also a horse for recreational riding. He had a fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, but also in his correspondence with his sister and parents. Mozart even wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends. See: Mozart and scatology.

Works, musical style, and innovations

Style

" (K. 626) in Mozart's own handwriting. It is located at the Mozarthaus in Vienna.]] Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetype of the Classical style. At the time he began composing, European music was dominated by the style galant, a reaction against the highly evolved intricacy of the Baroque. Progressively, and in large part at the hands of Mozart himself, the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque emerged once more, moderated and disciplined by new forms, and adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu. Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical sophistication and emotional reach. He almost single-handedly developed and popularized the Classical piano concerto. He wrote a great deal of religious music, including large-scale masses, but also dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the Classical style are all present in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are the hallmarks of his work, but simplistic notions of its delicacy mask the exceptional power of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:

It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous.

Especially during his last decade, Mozart exploited chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time, with remarkable assurance and to great artistic effect.

Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others' music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique compositional language. In London as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which deeply affected the evolution of his own practice. In London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light music with a mania for cadencing; an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of movements. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.

As Mozart matured, he progressively incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 is another excellent example.

Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and instrumental music. He produced operas in each of the prevailing styles: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone color, for emotional depth and to mark dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted: his increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concertos influenced his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was in turn reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.

Influence

Mozart's most famous pupil, whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child, was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras. More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of the training of classical musicians.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at Bonn, and he traveled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study the older composer. Some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.

A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827) and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G, "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to Mozart.

Köchel catalogue

For unambiguous identification of works by Mozart, a Köchel catalogue number is used. This is a unique number assigned, in regular chronological order, to every one of his known works. A work is referenced by the abbreviation "K." followed by this number. The first edition of the catalogue was completed in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves our knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.

See also

The Complete Mozart Edition, 180 compact discs arranged into 45 themed volumes released by Philips Classics Records in 2000.

Mozart effect

Mozart family

Mozart in fiction

Mozartkugel

Mozarteum

Mozarthaus Vienna

Notes

References

Fradkin, Robert A. (1996) The well-tempered announcer: a pronunciation guide to classical music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 025321064X.

Further reading

External links

Mozarthaus Salzburg

Salzburg Tourist Office – Salzburg City Tourist Board website.

Digitized, scanned Material (Books, Sheet music)

"Mozart" Titles; Mozart as author from archive.org

"Mozart" Titles; Mozart as author from books.google.com

Digital Mozart Edition (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum)

"Mozart" titles from Gallica

From the British Library

*Mozart's Thematic Catalogue (view with "Turning the Pages")

*Mozart's Musical Diary

*Background information on Mozart and the Thematic Catalogue

Letters of Leopold Mozart und Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Badische Landesbibliothek)

Sheet music (Scores)

Complete sheetmusic (scores) from the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum)

"Mozart" Titles from the Munich Digitisation Centre (MDZ)

"Mozart" Titles from the University of Rochester

Free typeset sheet music of Mozart's works from Cantorion.org

Mozart as author from archive.org

Mozart as author from books.google.com

* Category:Classical era composers Category:German composers Category:Opera composers Category:Organ improvisers Category:Viennese composers Category:Austrian classical pianists Category:Child classical musicians Category:People from Salzburg Category:Austrian Roman Catholics Category:Knights of the Golden Spur Category:1756 births Category:1791 deaths

Caption	Atkinson at the premiere for Mr. Bean's Holiday in March 2007
Birth name	Rowan Sebastian Atkinson
Birth date	January 06, 1955
Birth place	Consett, County Durham, England, United Kingdom
Current location	Danville, California
Medium	Stand-up, television, film
Genre	Physical comedy, satire
Influences	Peter Sellers, Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati
Influenced	Steve Pemberton, David Walliams, David Schneider
Active	1978–present
Notable work	Not the Nine O'Clock News Blackadder Mr. Bean The Thin Blue Line
Spouse
Child	Ben Atkinson, Lily Atkinson, Gemma Atkinson
Baftaawards	Best Light Entertainment Performance 1981 Not the Nine O'Clock News 1990 Blackadder Goes Forth
Olivierawards	Best Comedy Performance 1981 Rowan Atkinson in Revue

}}

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English comedian, actor and writer. He is most famous for his work in the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedy actors ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians.

Early life and education

Atkinson, the youngest of three brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University. He continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, first achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976.

Television

After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his funny man in an act that was eventually filmed for a television show. After the success of the show, he did a one-off pilot for ITV in 1979 called Canned Laughter. Atkinson then went on to do Not the Nine O'Clock News, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He starred on the show along with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.

The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1986. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies of all time, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) and (1988).

Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Years Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened somewhat to a modern-day Buster Keaton. During this time, Atkinson appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1987 and 1989. Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television in the 1990s, and it eventually made into a major motion picture in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by Mel Smith, his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second movie was released in 2007 entitled Mr. Bean's Holiday.

In 1995 and 1996, Atkinson portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in the popular The Thin Blue Line television series, written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.

Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Kronenbourg, Hitachi electrical goods, Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Most famously, he appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent in a long-running series for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English was based.

He also starred in a comedy spoof of Doctor Who as the Doctor, for a red nose day benefit. He had also been considered as a candidate for playing the Doctor in the actual show.

Film

, next to the Manneken Pis.]] Atkinson's film career began in 1983 with a supporting part in the 'unofficial' James Bond movie Never Say Never Again and a leading role in Dead on Time with Nigel Hawthorne. He appeared in former Not the Nine O'Clock News co-star Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy in 1989. He also appeared alongside Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling in Roald Dahl's The Witches in 1990. In 1993 he played the part of Dexter Hayman in Hot Shots! Part Deux, a parody of Rambo III, starring Charlie Sheen.

Atkinson gained further recognition with his turn as a verbally bumbling vicar in the 1994 hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. That same year he was featured in Walt Disney's The Lion King as Zazu the Red-billed Hornbill. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in successful comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), and ''Love Actually (2003).

In 2005, he acted in the crime/comedy Keeping Mum, which also starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Patrick Swayze.

In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen in 1997 with Bean to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in March 2007 and may be the last time he plays the character. He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English in 2003. Its sequel, Johnny English Reborn will be released in 2011.

Theatre

Rowan Atkinson appeared in the 2009 revival of the West End musical Oliver! as Fagin. The production was directed by Rupert Goold. A year prior he starred in a pre-West End run of the show in Oxford, directed by Jez Bond.

Comedic style

Best known for his use of physical comedy in his trademark character of Mr. Bean, others of Atkinson's characters rely more heavily on language. Atkinson often plays authority figures (especially priests or vicars) speaking absurd lines with a completely deadpan delivery.

One of his better-known trademark comic devices is over-articulation of the "B" sound, such as his pronunciation of "Bob" in a Blackadder episode. Atkinson suffers from stuttering, and the over-articulation is a technique to overcome problematic consonants.

Atkinson's style is often visually-based. This visual style, which has been compared to Buster Keaton, Sunetra is of mixed descent, being the daughter of an Indian father and a British mother. The couple married at the Russian Tea Room in New York City in 1990. They have two children and live in Northamptonshire as well as Oxfordshire and London. In October 2010, his Blackadder co-star Stephen Fry confessed on The Rob Brydon Show that he had contemplated asking Sastry out (she was a make-up artist on the series), but discovered she was going on a date with Atkinson and kept quiet. Fry was best man at Atkinson's wedding in 1990.

Politics

In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill — on the grounds that the bill would give religious groups a "weapon of disproportionate power" whose threat would engender a culture of self-censorship among artists.

In 2009, he criticised homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.

Cars

With an estimated wealth of £100 million, Atkinson is able to indulge his passion for cars that began with driving his mother's Morris Minor around the family farm. He has written for the British magazines Car, Octane, Evo, and "SuperClassics", a short-lived UK magazine, in which he reviewed the McLaren F1 in 1995.

Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly 'Class 1') lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material.

A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.

Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns a McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident in Cabus, near Garstang, Lancashire with an Austin Metro. He also owns a Honda NSX. Other cars he owns include an Audi A8, and a Honda Civic Hybrid.

The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back. A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and ."

One car Atkinson will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people—and I wish them no ill—are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one."

Television appearances

at Goodwood Circuit in 2009]]

Canned Laughter (1979), an experimental sitcom pilot for LWT

The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979), a charity special for Amnesty International

Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982)

Peter Cook & Co (1980)

The Innes Book Of Records (1980), guest appearance

Blackadder as Prince Edmund (Series 1), Lord Blackadder (Series 2), Edmund Blackadder (Series 3 & 4) & Ebenezer Blackadder (Blackadder's Christmas Carol) (1983–1989)

Saturday Live as guest host (1986)

Mr. Bean as Mr. Bean (1990–2009 various times)

Rowan Atkinson Live as assorted characters (1992) (VHS of live sketches)

Bernard and the Genie as Bernard's Boss (1991) (TV movie)

Funny Business (1992), a documentary about the craft of comedy

A Bit Of Fry And Laurie (1992), guest appearance

The Thin Blue Line as Inspector Raymond Fowler (1995–1996)

as Blackadder (2000)

Mr. Bean (animated TV series) as Mr Bean, voice (2002)

The Comic Relief Red Nose Day telecasts, including appearing in:

* as Edmund Blackadder (1988)

* Nosenight sketches (1989)

* Mr Bean's Red Nose Day as Mr Bean (1991)

* (I Wanna Be) Elected as Mr Bean (1992)

* Blind Date with Mr Bean as Mr Bean (1993)

* Torvill and Bean as Mr Bean (1995)

* Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death as The Doctor (1999)

* Popsters as Nasty Neville (2001)

* Lying to Michael Jackson as Martin Bashir (2003)

* Spider-Plant Man as Peter Piper and Spider-Plant Man (2005)

* Mr Bean's Wedding as Mr Bean (2007)

* The Greatest Worst Bits of Comic Relief as Himself (2007)

The Dame Edna Treatment (2007), guest appearance as Mr Bean

We Are Most Amused (2008), a special show to celebrate Prince Charles' 60th birthday

Blackadder Rides Again as himself (2008)

Filmography

Awards

Atkinson has won the following awards: Variety Club Award for BBC Personality of the Year – 1980

References

External links

Rowan Atkinson biography at BFI Screenonline

Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Newcastle University Category:Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Car collectors Category:English Anglicans Category:English comedians Category:English comedy writers Category:English film actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Living people Category:Mr. Bean Category:Old St. Beghians Category:People from Consett

Name	Billy Joel
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	William Martin Joel
Alias	Bill Joel,Bill Martin
Birth date	May 09, 1949
Birth place	The Bronx, New York City,
Origin	Hicksville, New York,
Instrument	Vocals, piano/keyboards, guitar, harmonica, accordion
Genre	Rock, pop, jazz, classical
Occupation	Singer-songwriter
Years active	1964–present
Label	Columbia,Family Productions,Famous Music,Sony Classical
Associated acts	Echoes,The Hassles,Attila,Elton John,Bruce Springsteen
Url
Notable instruments	Piano

William Martin "Billy" Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to the RIAA.

Joel had Top 40 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; achieving 33 Top 40 hits in the United States, all of which he wrote singlehandedly. He is also a six-time Grammy Award winner, a 23-time Grammy nominee and has sold over 150 million records worldwide. He was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006) and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame (2009). Joel "retired" from recording pop music in 1993 but continues to tour (often with Elton John).

Life and career

Early life

Joel was born to a Jewish family in The Bronx, New York

Joel's father was an accomplished classical pianist. Billy reluctantly began piano lessons at an early age, at his mother's insistence; his teachers included the noted American pianist Morton Estrin and musician/songwriter Timothy Ford. His interest in music, rather than sports, was a source of teasing and bullying in his early years. (He has said in interviews that his piano instructor also taught ballet. Her name was Frances Neiman, and she was a Juilliard trained musician. She gave both classic piano and ballet lessons in the studio attached to the rear of her house, leading neighborhood bullies to mistakenly think he was learning to dance.) As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so that he would be able to defend himself. He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, winning twenty-two bouts, but abandoned the sport shortly after having his nose broken in his twenty-fourth boxing match.

Joel attended Hicksville High School, class of 1967. Joel however did not graduate from Hicksville. Due to playing at a piano bar, he was one English credit short of the graduation requirement; he overslept on the day of an important exam, owing to his late-night musician's lifestyle. He left high school without a diploma to begin a career in music. "I told them, 'the hell with it. If I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records and you don't need a high school diploma over there'." Columbia did, in fact, become the label that eventually signed him. In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board and was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High's annual graduation ceremony—25 years after he had left.

Early career

Upon seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Joel decided to pursue a full-time musical career, and set about finding a local Long Island band to join. Eventually he found the Echoes, a group that specialized in British Invasion covers. The Echoes became a popular New York attraction, convincing him to leave high school to become a professional musician. He began playing for the Echoes when he was 14 years old.

Joel began playing recording sessions with the Echoes in 1965, when he was 16 years old. Joel played piano on several recordings produced by Shadow Morton, including (as claimed by Joel, but denied by songwriter Ellie Greenwich) the Shangri-Las' Leader of the Pack, as well as several records released through Kama Sutra Productions. During this time, the Echoes started to play numerous late-night shows.

Later, in 1965, the Echoes changed their name to the Emeralds and then to the Lost Souls. For two years, Joel played sessions and performed with the Lost Souls. In 1967, he left that band to join the Hassles, a Long Island band that had signed a contract with United Artists Records. Over the next year and a half, they released The Hassles in 1967, Hour of the Wolf in 1968, and four singles, all of which failed commercially. Following The Hassles' demise in 1969, he formed the duo Attila with Hassles drummer Jon Small. Attila released their eponymous debut album in July 1970, and disbanded the following October. The reason for the group's break-up has been attributed to Joel's affair with Small's wife, Elizabeth, whom Joel eventually married.

Cold Spring Harbor

Joel signed his first solo record contract with Family Productions, and subsequently recorded his first solo album. Cold Spring Harbor (a reference to the Long Island town of the same name), was released in 1971. However, the album was mastered at the wrong speed, and the album was initially released with this error, resulting in Joel's sounding a semitone too high. The onerous terms of the Family Productions contract also guaranteed him very little money from the sales of his albums.

Popular cuts such as "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now" were originally released on this album, although they did not gain much attention until released as live performances in 1981 on Songs in the Attic. Since then, they have become favorite concert numbers. Cold Spring Harbor gained a second chance on the charts in 1984, when Columbia reissued the album after slowing it down to the correct speed. The album reached #158 in the US and #95 in the UK nearly a year later. Cold Spring Harbor caught the attention of Merrilee Rush ("Angel of the Morning") and she recorded a femme version of "She’s Got a Way (He’s Got a Way)" for Scepter Records in 1971.

Joel gigged locally in New York City in the fall of 1971 and moved out to Los Angeles early in 1972, adopting the stage name Bill Martin. While in California he did a six month gig in The Executive Room piano bar on Wilshire Boulevard. It was there he composed his signature hit "Piano Man" about the various patrons of the lounge. Subsequently he toured with his band members (Rhys Clark on drums, Al Hertzberg on guitar, and Larry Russell on bass) until the end of June 1972 throughout the US and Puerto Rico, opening for headliners such as J. Geils Band, The Beach Boys and Taj Mahal. At the Mar y sol festival in Puerto Rico, he electrified the crowd and got a big boost for his career., returning to New York City in 1975.

Early Columbia years: 1973–1976

Joel's experiences in Los Angeles connected him with record company executives, who bought out his contract with Ripp under the condition that the Family Productions logo be displayed alongside the Columbia logo for the next ten albums. There was a stipulation that Family Productions would receive a 25-cent royalty for every album Joel sold. The stand-out track for Piano Man was the title track, which, despite only making it to #25 on the Billboard Hot 100, stands as Joel's signature song (he ends nearly all of his concerts with it).

The touring band changed as well, Don Evans replacing Al Hertzberg on guitar, and Patrick McDonald taking over the bass position, to be replaced in 1974 by Doug Stegmeyer, who remained with Billy until 1989. Tom Whitehorse on banjo and pedal steel and then Johnny Almond on sax and keyboards rounded out the band. Billy's infectious spirit and talent galvanized the band into a tight performing unit, touring the U.S. and Canada extensively and appearing on the popular music shows of the day. Joel remained in Los Angeles to write Streetlife Serenade, his second album on the Columbia label. It was around this time that Jon Troy, an old friend from the New York neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, acted as Joel's manager although he would soon be replaced by Joel's wife Elizabeth. References to both suburbia and the inner city pepper the album.

The stand-out track on the album is "The Entertainer", a #34 hit in the U.S. which picks up thematically where "Piano Man" left off. Joel was upset that "Piano Man" had been significantly edited down to make it more radio-friendly, and in "The Entertainer," he refers to the edit with sarcastic lines such as "If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05", alluding to shortening of singles for radio play, as compared with the longer versions that appear on albums. Although Streetlife Serenade is often considered one of Joel's weaker albums (Joel has confirmed his distaste for the album), it nevertheless contains some notable tracks, including the title track, "Los Angelenos" and the instrumental "Root Beer Rag", which was a staple of his live set in the '70s and was resurrected frequently in 2007 and 2008. Streetlife Serenade also marks the beginning of a more confident vocal style on Joel's part.

In late 1975, he played piano and organ on several tracks on Bo Diddley's The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll all-star album.

Disenchanted with the L.A. music scene, Joel returned to New York in 1976. There he recorded Turnstiles, for which he used his own hand-picked musicians in the studio for the first time, and also adopted a more hands-on role. Songs were initially recorded at Caribou Ranch with members of Elton John's band, and produced by famed Chicago producer James William Guercio, but Joel was dissatisfied with the results. The songs were re-recorded in New York, and Joel took over, producing the album himself.

The minor hit "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" echoed the Phil Spector sound, and was covered by Ronnie Spector (in a 2008 radio interview, Joel said he does not perform "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" in his live shows anymore because it is in too high a key and "shreds" his vocal cords.) The album also featured the song "New York State of Mind", a bluesy, jazzy epic that has become one of Joel's signature songs, and which was later covered by fellow Columbia labelmates Barbra Streisand, on her 1977 Streisand Superman album, and as a duet with Tony Bennett, on his 2001 album. Other songs on the album include "Summer, Highland Falls", "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" and "Say Goodbye to Hollywood", which became a Top 40 hit in 1981 in a live version. Songs such as "Prelude/Angry Young Man" would become a mainstay of his concerts for years.

The Stranger and 52nd Street

For The Stranger, Columbia Records teamed Joel with producer Phil Ramone. The album yielded four Top-25 hits on the Billboard charts in the US: "Just the Way You Are" (#3), "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" (#17), "Only the Good Die Young" (#24), and "She's Always a Woman" (#17). Album sales exceeded Columbia's previous top-selling album, Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, and was certified multi-platinum. His first-ever Top Ten album, it reached #2 on the charts. Ramone subsequently produced every Billy Joel studio release up to Storm Front, initially released in 1989. This album also featured "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant", an album-oriented rock classic, which has become one of his most well known songs. The song references a restaurant, Fontana di Trevi, near Carnegie Hall where he went when performing there, and the song's famous signature line – A bottle of white, a bottle of red, perhaps a bottle of rosé instead?" was actually spoken to him verbatim by a waiter once at Fontana di Trevi while he was ordering, inspiring part of the song.

The Stranger netted Joel Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, for "Just the Way You Are", which was written as a gift to his wife Elizabeth. He received a late night phone call to his hotel room in Paris (he was on tour) in February 1979, letting him know he had won in both categories.

Joel faced high expectations on his next album. 52nd Street was conceived as a day in Manhattan, and was named after the famous street of same name which hosted many of the world's premier jazz venues and performers throughout the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Fans purchased over seven million copies on the strength of the hits "My Life" (#3), "Big Shot" (#14), and "Honesty" (#24). This helped 52nd Street become Joel's first #1 album. "My Life" eventually became the theme song for a new US television sitcom, Bosom Buddies, which featured actor Tom Hanks in one of his earliest roles. The album won Grammys for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male and Album of the Year. 52nd Street was the first album to be released on compact disc when it went on sale alongside Sony's CD player CDP-101 on October 1, 1982, in Japan.

Despite the publicity photos and album cover showing Joel holding a trumpet, he does not play the instrument on the album, though two tracks on the album do feature some well-known jazz trumpeters. Freddie Hubbard plays two solos in "Zanzibar," and Jon Faddis joins Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker in the horn section for "Half a Mile Away".

In 1979, Billy Joel travelled to Havana, Cuba, to participate in the historic Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2–4, alongside Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristofferson; Stephen Stills, the CBS Jazz All-Stars, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnegan, Weather Report, plus an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, Pacho Alonso, Tata Güines and Orquesta Aragón. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.

Early 1980s

The success of his piano-driven ballads like Just the Way You Are, She's Always a Woman and Honesty never sat well with Joel, as many critics were quick to slap the "balladeer" tag on him. With Glass Houses, he attacked the new wave popularity with aplomb and delivered several harder-edged songs custom made for the live shows in arenas and stadiums he was by then playing almost exclusively. The front cover consisted of Joel's real-life modern glass house. The album spent 6 weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart and yielded such hits as "You May Be Right" (used as the theme song, covered by Southside Johnny, for the CBS mid-90s sitcom Dave's World) (#7, May 1980), "Close To The Borderline" (B-side of the "You May Be Right" single), Don't Ask Me Why (#19, September 1980), Sometimes a Fantasy (#36, November 1980) and It's Still Rock & Roll to Me, which became Joel's first Billboard #1 song in July 1980. Glass Houses won the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male. It would also win the American Music Award for Favorite Album, Pop/Rock category. The album's closing song, Through The Long Night, (B-side of the It's Still Rock & Roll to Me single) was a lullaby that featured Joel harmonizing with himself in a song he says was inspired by The Beatles' Yes It Is.

The Nylon Curtain went to #7 on the charts, partially due to heavy airplay on MTV for the videos to the singles Allentown and Pressure. Allentown spent six weeks at a peak position of #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it one of the most-played radio songs of 1982, pushing it into 1983's year-end Top 70, and making it the most successful song from The Nylon Curtain album, besting "Pressure," which peaked at #20 (where it resided for three weeks) and Goodnight Saigon which reached #56 on U.S. charts.

Christie Brinkley and An Innocent Man

The song Uptown Girl was one of the first songs written when Joel returned from vacation. Many believe that Uptown Girl was about supermodel Christie Brinkley, whom he started dating during the song's creation (the music video also included Brinkley). However, Michael Heatley and Frank Hopkinson in their book, The Girl In The Song, speculate that it was actually about Elle, his future missus Christie, and a then-unknown model/singer named Whitney Houston, who were staying at the same hotel as him. The song became a worldwide hit upon its release, #3 in the U.S. and Joel's sole #1 in the United Kingdom.

The resulting album, An Innocent Man, was compiled as a tribute to the rock and roll music of the 1950s and 1960s, and also resulted in Joel's second Billboard #1 hit, Tell Her About It, which was the first single off the album in the summer of 1983. The album itself reached #4 on the charts and #2 in UK. It also boasted 6 top-30 singles, the most of any album in Joel's catalog. At the time the album came out that summer, WCBS-FM began playing The Longest Time both in regular rotation and on the Doo Wop Shop. Many fans wanted this to be the next single released in the fall, but that October, Uptown Girl would be released, peaking at #3 and ranking at #20 on Billboard's 1983 Hot 100 year-end chart. Also, the James Brown-inspired song "Easy Money" would be featured in the 1983 Rodney Dangerfield film of the same name.

In December the title song, An Innocent Man, would be released as a single and would peak at #10 in the U.S. and #8 in the UK, early in 1984. That March The Longest Time would finally be released as a single, peaking at #14 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. That summer, Leave a Tender Moment Alone would be released and hit #27 while Keeping the Faith would peak at #18 in January 1985. In the video for Keeping the Faith, Christie Brinkley also plays the "redhead girl in a Chevrolet". An Innocent Man was also nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy, but lost to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Billy Joel also participated in the USA For Africa We Are The World project in 1985.

Following the success of An Innocent Man, Joel had been approached to release an album of his most successful singles. This was not the first time this topic had come up, but Joel had initially considered "Greatest Hits" albums as marking the end of one's career. This time, he agreed, and Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2 was released as a 4-sided album and 2-CD set, with the songs in sequence of when they were released. The new songs "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" and "The Night Is Still Young" were recorded and released as singles to support the album; both reached the top 40, peaking at #9 and #34, respectively. Greatest Hits was highly successful and has since been certified double diamond by the RIAA for over 10.5 million copies (21 million units) sold. To date it is the sixth best selling album in American music history according to the RIAA.

Coinciding with the Greatest Hits album release, Joel released a 2-volume Video Album that was a compilation of the promotional videos he had recorded from 1977 to the present time. Along with videos for the new singles off the Greatest Hits album, Joel also recorded a video for his first hit, "Piano Man", for this project.

Though it broke into the Top Ten, The Bridge was not a success in relation to some of Joel's other albums, but it yielded the hits "A Matter of Trust" and "Modern Woman" from the film Ruthless People, a dark comedy from the directors of Airplane! (both #10). In a departure from his "piano man" persona, Joel is shown in its video playing a Les Paul-autographed Gibson guitar. The ballad "This is the Time" also charted, peaking at #18, and has been a favorite on the prom circuit ever since. The reason "Modern Woman" has been left off many of Joel's compilation sets (the exception appears to be My Lives) is that he has since said in interviews he doesn't care for the song.

On November 18, 1986, an extended version of the song "Big Man On Mulberry Street" was used on a season three episode of Moonlighting. The episode itself was also titled "Big Man on Mulberry Street". In a dream sequence, Maddie Hayes envisions David Addison with his ex-wife. An extra horn solo was added to the song. The Bridge was also Joel's last album to carry the Family Productions logo, finally severing his ties with Artie Ripp.

At around this time, Joel completed voice work on Disney's Oliver & Company, released in 1988, a loose adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. Joel brought both his acting and musical talents to the film as Dodger. For the film, Joel recorded a song titled "Why Should I Worry?" Critics were generally positive toward the film, and pointed to Joel's acting contribution as one of its highlights, despite it being his first acting job. In interviews, Joel explained that he took the job due to his love of Disney cartoons as a child.

Joel has also stated in many interviews, most recently in a 2008 interview in Performing Songwriter magazine, that he does not think The Bridge is a good album.

The Russia trip

Throughout his tour supporting The Bridge, Joel and his handlers started planning a trip to the Soviet Union. He would be one of the first American rock acts to play there since the Berlin Wall went up, a fact not lost on history buff Joel. There would be live performances at indoor arenas in Moscow, Leningrad and Tbilisi. Joel and his family (including young daughter Alexa) and his full touring band made the trip in June 1987. The entourage was filmed for television and video to eventually offset the cost of the trip, and the concerts were simulcast on radio around the world.

Most of that audience took a long while to warm up to Joel's energetic show, something that never had happened in other countries he had performed in. According to Joel, each time the fans were hit with the bright lights, anybody who seemed to be enjoying themselves froze. In addition, people who were "overreacting" were removed by security.

The album КОНЦЕРТ (Russian for "Concert") was released in October 1987. Singer Peter Hewlitt was brought in to hit the high notes on his most vocally challenging songs, like "An Innocent Man." Joel also did versions of The Beatles' classic "Back in the U.S.S.R." and Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'". It has been estimated that Joel lost more than $1 million of his own money on the trip and concerts, but he has said the goodwill he was shown there was well worth it.

The first single for the album "We Didn't Start the Fire", was released in September 1989 and it became Joel's third and most recent US #1 hit, spending two weeks at the top; it was also Billboard's second-last #1 single of the 1980s. Storm Front was released in October, and it eventually became Joel's first #1 album since Glass Houses, nine years earlier. Storm Front was Joel's first album since Turnstiles to be recorded without Phil Ramone as producer. For this album, he wanted a new sound, and worked with Mick Jones of Foreigner fame. Joel also revamped his backing band, firing everyone, save drummer Liberty DeVitto, guitarist David Brown, and saxophone player Mark Rivera, and bringing in new faces, including talented multi-instrumentalist Crystal Taliefero. Storm Front's second single, "I Go to Extremes" made it to #6 in early 1990. The album was also notable for its song "Leningrad", written after Joel met a clown in the Soviet city of that name during his tour in 1987, and "The Downeaster Alexa", written to underscore the plight of fishermen on Long Island who are barely able to make ends meet. Another well-known single from the album is the ballad "And So It Goes" (#37 in late 1990). The song was originally written in 1983, around the time Joel was writing songs for An Innocent Man; but "And So It Goes" did not fit that album's retro theme, so it was held back until Storm Front.

In the summer of 1992 Joel filed another $90 million dollar lawsuit against his former lawyer Allen Grubman, alleging a wide range of offences including fraud, breach of fiduciary responsibility, malpractice and breach of contract but the case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Joel started work on River of Dreams in early 1993. Its cover art was a colorful painting by Christie Brinkley that was a series of scenes from each of the songs on the album. The eponymous first single was the last top 10 hit Joel has penned to date, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 & ranking at #21 on Billboard's 1993 year-end Hot 100 chart. In addition to the title track, the album includes the hits "All About Soul" (with Color Me Badd on backing vocals) and "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)", written for his daughter, Alexa. A radio remix version of "All About Soul" can be found on The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and a demo version appears on My Lives (2005). The song "The Great Wall of China" was written about his ex-manager Frank Weber and was a regular in the setlist for Joel's 2006 tour. "2000 Years" was prominent in the millennium concert at Madison Square Garden, December 31, 1999, and "Famous Last Words" closed the book on Joel's pop songwriting for more than a decade.

1994–2007

On August 25, 1994, Joel and second wife Christie Brinkley divorced. On December 31, 1999, Joel performed at New York's Madison Square Garden. At the time, Joel said that it would be his last concert. The concert (dubbed The Night of the 2000 Years) ran for close to four hours and was later released as .

1997's "To Make You Feel My Love" and "Hey Girl" both charted from Joel's Greatest Hits Volume III album. Joel wrote and recorded the song "Shameless" that was later covered by Garth Brooks and reached number 1 on Billboard's country charts. Joel performed with Brooks during his Central Park concert in 1997 with an estimated 980,000 people in attendance, the largest audience to attend a U.S. concert.

In 2001, Joel released Fantasies & Delusions, a collection of classical piano pieces. All were composed by Joel and performed by Richard Joo. Joel often uses bits of these songs as interludes in live performances, and some of them are part of the score for the hit show Movin' Out. The album topped the classical charts at #1. Joel performed "New York State of Mind" live on September 21, 2001, as part of the benefit concert, and on October 20, 2001, along with "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)", at the Concert for New York City in Madison Square Garden. That night, he also performed "Your Song" with Elton John.

In 2005, Columbia released a box set, My Lives, which is largely a compilation of demos, b-sides, live/alternate versions and even a few Top 40 hits. The compilation also includes the Umixit software, in which people can remix "Zanzibar", "Only the Good Die Young", "Keepin' The Faith", and live versions of "I Go to Extremes" and "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" with their PC. Also, a DVD of a show from the River of Dreams tour is included.

On January 7, 2006, Joel began a tour across the United States. Having not written, or at least released, any new songs in 13 years, he featured a sampling of songs from throughout his career, including major hits as well as obscure tunes like "Zanzibar" and "All for Leyna". His tour included an unprecedented 12 sold-out concerts over several months at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The singer's stint of 12 shows at Madison Square Garden broke a previous record set by New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, who played 10 sold-out shows at the same arena. The record earned Joel the first retired number (12) in the arena owned by a non-athlete. This honor has also been given to Joel at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia where a banner in the colors of the Philadelphia Flyers is hung honoring Joel's 46 Philadelphia sold-out shows. He also had a banner raised in his honor for being the highest grossing act in the history of the Times Union Center (formerly the Knickerbocker Arena and Pepsi Arena) in Albany, New York. This honor was given to him as part of the April 17, 2007, show he did there. On June 13, 2006, Columbia released 12 Gardens Live, a double album containing 32 live recordings from a collection of the 12 different shows at Madison Square Garden during Joel's 2006 tour.

Joel visited the United Kingdom and Ireland for the first time in many years as part of the European leg of his 2006 tour. On July 31, 2006, he performed a free concert in Rome, with the Colosseum as the backdrop. Organizers estimated 500,000 people turned out for the concert, which was opened by Bryan Adams.

Joel toured South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii in late 2006, and subsequently toured the Southeastern United States in February and March 2007 before hitting the Midwest in the spring of 2007. On January 3 of that year, news was leaked to the New York Post that Billy had recorded a new song with lyrics—this being the first new song with lyrics he'd written in almost 14 years. The song, entitled "All My Life", was Joel's newest single (with second track "You're My Home", live from Madison Square Garden 2006 tour) and was released into stores on February 27, 2007. On February 4, Joel sang the national anthem for Super Bowl XLI, becoming the first to sing the national anthem twice at a Super Bowl. and on April 17, 2007, Joel was honored in Albany, New York, for his ninth concert at the Times Union Center. He is now holding the highest box office attendance of any artist to play at the arena. A banner was raised in his honor marking this achievement.

On December 1, 2007, Joel premiered his new song "Christmas in Fallujah". The song was performed by Cass Dillon, a new Long Island based musician, as Joel felt it should be sung by someone in a soldier's age range. The track was dedicated to servicemen based in Iraq. Joel wrote it in September 2007 after reading numerous letters sent to him from American soldiers in Iraq. "Christmas in Fallujah" is only the second pop/rock song released by Joel since 1993's River of Dreams. Proceeds from the song benefitted the Homes For Our Troops foundation.

2008–present

On January 26, 2008, Joel performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra celebrating the 151st anniversary of the Academy of Music. Joel premiered his new classical piece entitled, "Waltz No. 2 (Steinway Hall)". He also played many of his less well-known pieces with full orchestral backing, including the rarely performed Nylon Curtain songs "Scandinavian Skies" and "Where's the Orchestra?".

On March 10, Joel inducted his friend John Mellencamp into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. During his induction speech, Joel said:

Joel's staying power as a touring act continues to the present day. He sold out 10 concerts at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut from May to July 2008. Mohegan Sun honored him with a banner displaying his name and the number 10 to hang in the arena. On June 19, 2008, he played a concert at the grand re-opening of Caesars Windsor (formerly Casino Windsor) in Windsor, Ontario, Canada to an invite-only crowd for Casino VIPs. His mood was light, and joke-filled, even introducing himself as "Billy Joel's dad" and stating "you guys overpaid to see a fat bald guy." He also admitted that Canadian folk-pop musician Gordon Lightfoot was the musical inspiration for "She's Always A Woman".

On July 16, 2008, and July 18, 2008, Joel played the final concerts at Shea Stadium before its demolition. His guests included Tony Bennett, Don Henley, John Mayer, John Mellencamp, Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey, Garth Brooks, and Paul McCartney. McCartney ended the show with a reference to his own performance there with the Beatles in 1965, the first major stadium concert of the rock and roll industry.

On December 11, 2008, Joel recorded his own rendition of "Christmas in Fallujah" during a concert at Acer Arena in Sydney and released it as a live single in Australia only. It is the only official release of Joel performing "Christmas in Fallujah", as Cass Dillon sang on the 2007 studio recording and the handful of times the song was played live in 2007. Joel sang the song throughout his December 2008 tour of Australia.

On May 19, 2009, Joel's former drummer, Liberty DeVitto, filed a lawsuit in NYC claiming Joel and Sony Music owed DeVitto over 10 years of royalty payments. DeVitto has never been given songwriting credit on any of Joel's songs, but he claims that he helped write some of them. In April 2010, it was announced that Joel and DeVitto amicably resolved the lawsuit.

Face-to-Face tours

Beginning in 1994, Joel toured extensively with Elton John on a series of "Face to Face" tours, making them the longest running and most successful concert tandem in pop music history. During these shows, the two have played their own songs, each other's songs and performed duets. They grossed over US $46 million in just 24 dates in their sold out 2003 tour. Joel and John resumed the Face to Face tour in March 2009 Joel told Rolling Stone magazine: "We’ll probably pick it up again. It’s always fun playing with him."

Personal life

Celebrity dating

Joel mentioned in a television interview on the UK's Channel Five that he had dated Elle Macpherson in the 1980s prior to his marriage to Christie Brinkley. Joel has also said that the songs "This Night," "Uptown Girl" and "And So It Goes" were written about his relationship with Macpherson.

Marriages and family

Joel married his business manager, Elizabeth Weber Small, on September 5, 1973. She was the former wife of his music partner, Jon Small, in the short-lived band Attila. They divorced on July 20, 1982.

Joel married Christie Brinkley on March 23, 1985. Their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, was born December 29, 1985. Alexa was given the middle name of Ray after Ray Charles, one of Joel's musical idols. Joel and Brinkley divorced on August 25, 1994, although the couple remain friendly.

On October 2, 2004, Joel married 23-year-old Katie Lee. At the time of the wedding, Joel was 55. Joel's daughter, Alexa Ray, then 18, served as maid-of-honor. Joel's second wife, Christie Brinkley, attended the union and gave the couple her blessing. Lee works as a restaurant correspondent for the PBS show, George Hirsch: Living it Up!. In 2006, Katie Lee hosted Bravo's Top Chef. She did not return for a second season, instead going on tour with her husband. She then began writing a weekly column in Hamptons magazine, and became a field correspondent for the entertainment television show Extra. On June 17, 2009, both confirmed that they have split after five years of marriage.

Other businesses

In 1996, Joel merged his long-held love of boating with his desire for a second career. He formed, with Long Island boating businessman Peter Needham, the Long Island Boat Company.

Joel plans to open 20th Century Cycles in Oyster Bay, Long Island that will sell custom made retro styled motorcycles and accessories and serve as a hangout for enthusiasts.

Depression

Joel battled with depression for many years. In 1970, a career downturn and personal problems aggravated his condition. He left a suicide note (which became the lyrics to "Tomorrow Is Today") and attempted to commit suicide by drinking furniture polish, saying later, "I drank furniture polish. It looked tastier than bleach." His drummer, Jon Small, rushed him to the hospital. Joel checked into Meadowbrook Hospital, where he was put on suicide watch and received treatment for depression. Joel later recorded "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" as a message to help prevent teen suicide.

Substance abuse treatment

In 2002, Joel entered Silver Hill Hospital, a substance abuse and psychiatric center in New Canaan, Connecticut. In March 2005, he checked into the Betty Ford Center, where he spent 30 days for the treatment of alcohol-related problems.

Politics

Although Joel has donated money to Democratic candidates running for office, he has never publicly endorsed any candidate or made clear his political affiliation.

Religion

Joel was born to non-observant Jewish parents and considers himself a cultural Jew.

On November 16, 2010, in an interview on the Howard Stern Show, Billy Joel said that he doesn't believe in a god, and that he is an atheist.

Influences

Joel's music reflects influences from many different genres, including: classical music, 1950s doo wop, Broadway/Tin Pan Alley, jazz, blues, gospel, pop music, and rock & roll. Ray Charles also had a large impact on Billy Joel's music and personal life. Charles had such a profound effect on Joel that he even named his daughter Alexa Ray after Charles.

These various influences have in part led to his broad success over a long period of time but have also made him difficult to categorize in popular music today.

Among many of Joel's influences are: Beethoven, The Beatles, Joel has been presented with multiple honorary doctorates:

Doctor of Humane Letters from Fairfield University (1991)

Doctor of Music from Berklee College of Music (1993)

Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University (1997)

Doctor of Music from Southampton College (2000)

Doctor of Fine Arts from Syracuse University (2006)

Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music (2008)

His High School Diploma was finally awarded 25 years after he left High School by the School Board.

Joel was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio in 1999.

Joel was also named MusiCares Person of the Year for 2002, an award given each year at the same time as the Grammy Awards. At the dinner honoring Joel, various artists performed versions of his songs including Nelly Furtado, Stevie Wonder, Jon Bon Jovi, Diana Krall, Rob Thomas and Natalie Cole. He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006. In 2005, Joel received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Joel has banners in the rafters of the Times Union Center, Nassau Coliseum, Madison Square Garden, Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT, Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, and Hartford Civic Center in Hartford. (Joel is erroneously cited as the first artist to perform a concert at Yankee Stadium in New York City; The Isley Brothers first performed there in 1969, and the Latin supergroup, The Fania All-Stars played and recorded live albums at the stadium during the 1970s.)

He has also sponsored the Billy Joel Visiting Composer Series at Syracuse University.

Joel is the only performing artist to have played both Yankee and Shea Stadiums, as well as Giants Stadium.

Other media contributions

Don Kirshner's Rock Concert (1974) (Television) (Performed "Piano Man", "Somewhere Along the Line", and "Captain Jack")

The Midnight Special (1975) (Television) (Sang "Travelin' Prayer" and "The Ballad of Billy the Kid")

The Mike Douglas Show (1976) (Television)

Billy Joel Tonight (1976) (Time Life Video) (VHS) (Palmer Auditorium, Connecticut College, New London, CT)

Saturday Night Live (February 18, 1978) (NBC) (hosted by Chevy Chase) (Sang "Just The Way You Are" and "Only The Good Die Young") (Billy passed up going to his 10 year high school reunion to appear on the show)

The Old Grey Whistle Test (1978) (London, England) (Television)

Musikladen (1978) (German television concert)

20/20 (1980) (Television)

Saturday Night Live (November 14, 1981) (NBC) (hosted by Bernadette Peters) (Sang "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" and "She's Got A Way" live via satellite hook-up from his Mid-town Manhattan recording studio)

Live from Long Island (1982) (CBS/Fox) (VHS) (Originally aired on HBO as Billy Joel: A Television First. Recorded live at Nassau Coliseum)

MTV Special: Innocent Man Tour (1983) (Television) ("Behind-the-scenes" look at Joel's Innocent Man tour)

From a Piano Man to an Innocent Man (1984) (BBC Television Broadcast)

Today (June 1984) Introduces music video for "The Longest Time."

Farm Aid (September 1985) (Television)

Contributed piano on Twisted Sister's song "Be Chrool to Your Scuel" on their 1985 album Come Out and Play

Video Album, Vol. 1 (1986) (CBS/Fox) (VHS)

Video Album, Vol. 2 (1986) (CBS/Fox) (VHS)

Late Night with David Letterman (September 1986)

MLB World Series Game 2 (October 19, 1986) (Television) (Performed the National Anthem)

Live From Leningrad USSR (1987) (CBS) (VHS) (Originally aired on HBO)

Oliver & Company (1988) (Provided both the voice and singing voice for the character Dodger in the Disney full-length animated feature.)

Sesame Street (1988) (Sang "Just the Way You Are" to Oscar the Grouch, and "The Alphabet Song" with the kids)

1989 NFL Super Bowl XXIII (Sang National Anthem, Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami, Florida)

Late Night with David Letterman (August 17, 1989) (NBC) Performs with musical guest Mick Jones

Saturday Night Live (October 21, 1989) (NBC) (hosted by Kathleen Turner) (Sang "We Didn't Start The Fire" and "The Downeaster Alexa") (acts in a sketch called "Die Squaren Ost Berliner" which was a German take-off of "Hollywood Squares" as a character named Josef Besselmeier)

Eye of the Storm (1990) (VHS) (Sony) (Compilation of five music videos from the Storm Front album)

Live at Yankee Stadium (1990) (Sony) (DVD/VHS)

A Matter of Trust (1991) (CBS) (VHS) (Documentary of the 1986 Russian tour)

Late Show with David Letterman (August 30, 1993) First musical guest on the show, performing "No Man's Land"

Saturday Night Live (October 23, 1993) (NBC) (hosted by John Malkovich) (Sang "The River Of Dreams" and "All About Soul")

Shades of Grey (1993) (Sony) (PBS documentary on the making of River of Dreams. Released on VHS)

Live from the River of Dreams (Sony) (1994) (Originally aired on 3Sat (German television); released on DVD in the My Lives box set in 2005) Live from Frankfurt, Germany.

During the 1994 Grammy Award Show, the director cut short Frank Sinatra's acceptance speech for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. Joel extended his performance of "The River of Dreams" by stopping the song partway through, looking at the celebrity audience with a grin while pretending to check his watch and saying, "valuable advertising time going by...dollars...dollars...dollars..." which was met with laughter from the audience. He then resumed playing the song.

Greatest Hits, Vol. III (Sony) (1997) (DVD/VHS)

The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1997) (Television)

Behind the Music (1997) (Television)

VH1 Storytellers (1997) (Television)

VH1 Video Time Line (1998) (Television)

60 Minutes (April 26, 1998) Interviewed by Steve Kroft.

Inside the Actor's Studio (1999) (Bravo Network)

Mad About You: "Murray at the Dog Show" (1999) (NBC Television) (Appeared as himself; wrote the music for the song "Lullabye For You" which was featured in the episode. Paul Reiser wrote the lyrics.)

ABC 2000 (1999/2000) (Television, VHS) (International broadcast; portions of Joel's New Year's Eve concert were aired live)

Piano Grand! A Smithsonian Celebration (2000) (Joel served as host and performer; aired on PBS; released on DVD)

MLB World Series- Subway Series Game 1 (2000) (Television) (Performed the National Anthem)

America: A Tribute To Heroes (2001) (Television, Radio, DVD)

Charlie Rose (2001) (PBS television/DVD)

The Concert for New York City (2001) (Television, VHS/DVD)

A&E; Special: In His Own Words (2001) (A&E; Network) (Master class recorded at the University of Pennsylvania)

The Essential Video Collection (2001) (Sony) (DVD/VHS) (Music Video compilation)

Movin' Out (2002), is a musical based on twenty-four Billy Joel songs which was a smash hit on Broadway from 2002 to 2005 (last Broadway show was on December 11, 2005). Joel was composer, lyricist, and orchestrator and won a Tony Award for Best Orchestrations. The musical is really a dance performance choreographed by famed choreographer Twyla Tharp, with Joel's songs sung by Michael Cavanaugh.

The 2003 Tony Awards (Television) (Performed "New York State of Mind")

The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2005) (Television) (Performed "Miami 2017" and "Only the Good Die Young")

Late Night with Conan O'Brien (2005) (NBC) (Performed "Everybody Loves You Now" and "Vienna")

The Today Show (2005) (NBC) (Performed "Keepin' the Faith" and "She's Right on Time")

The Today Show (2006) (NBC) (Performed "The Good Life" with Tony Bennett live)

The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch (2006) (CNBC)

American Chopper (2006) ("The Billy Joel Bike") (Television, DVD)

Tokyo, Japan (2006) (Television, DVD) (Concert was taped and produced by The Fuji Television Network)

NFL Super Bowl XLI (2007) (Joel is the first to sing the National Anthem in two Super Bowls.)

The Oprah Winfrey Show (March 24, 2008) (Appeared with wife, Katie, and performed "Only the Good Die Young")

The South Bank Show (July 13, 2008) (Joel discussed his career)

The Howard Stern Show (November 16, 2010) (Sirius XM) (Interview and musical performance)

See also

List of best-selling music artists

References

External links

Billy Joel – Official Website

Billy Joel at Rolling Stone.com

History of Live Performances by Billy Joel

Interview at TonyAwards.com

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