Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.
Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.
Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music".
According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to the law of most countries (including all members of the World Trade Organization), Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries.
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev PAR (Russian: Валерий Абисалович Гергиев, Ossetic: Гергиты Абисалы фырт Валери/Gergity Abisaly Fyrt Valeri; born 2 May 1953) is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.
Gergiev, born in Moscow, is the son of Tamara Tatarkanovna and Abisal Zaurbekovich. He and his siblings were raised in Vladikavkaz in their native North Ossetia in the Caucasus. He began piano at secondary school, before going on to study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Leningrad from 1972 to 1977. His principal conducting teacher was Prof. Ilya Musin (Илья Мусин), one of the greatest conductor-makers in Russian musical history. His sister, Larissa Gergieva, is a pianist and director of the Mariinsky's singers' academy.
In 1978, he became assistant conductor at the Kirov Opera, now the Mariinsky Opera, under Yuri Temirkanov, where he made his debut conducting Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace. He was chief conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra from 1981 until 1985 – the year he made his debut in the United Kingdom, along with pianist Evgeny Kissin, and violinists Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin, at The Lichfield Festival.
Pierre Boulez (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ bu.lɛːz]) (born 26 March 1925) is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.
Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics. He pursued the latter at Lyon before pursuing music at the Paris Conservatoire under Olivier Messiaen and the wife of Arthur Honegger, Andrée Vaurabourg.
Through Messiaen, Boulez discovered twelve-tone technique — which he would later study privately with René Leibowitz — and went on to write atonal music in a post-Webernian serial style. Boulez was initially part of a cadre of early supporters of Leibowitz, but due to an altercation with Leibowitz, their relations turned divisive, as Boulez spent much of his career promoting the music of Messiaen instead.
The first fruits of this were his cantatas Le visage nuptial and Le soleil des eaux for female voices and orchestra, both composed in the late 1940s and revised several times since, as well as the Second Piano Sonata of 1948, a well-received 32-minute work that Boulez composed at the age of 23. Thereafter, Boulez was influenced by Messiaen's research to extend twelve-tone technique beyond the realm of pitch organization, serialising durations, dynamics, mode of attack, and so on. This technique became known as integral serialism.
Plot
Composer George Gershwin is driven by his need to succeed. Unfortunately his drive destroys his romantic relationships with singer Julie Adams, who is desperately in love with him, and aloof socialite Christine Gilbert.
Keywords: 1920s, art-gallery, ballet, bird's-eye-shot, black-maid, blackface, brain-tumor, burlesque, composer, concert
The jubilant story of George Gershwin.
George Gershwin: It's only with my music that I can prove my right to live. I must write!
Oscar Levant: I've got a date with my insomnia.
George Gershwin: I don't want to be just a concert pianist. I want to use the piano as a stepping stone!
Oscar Levant: If I had your talent, I'd be a pretty obnoxious fella. What do you call yourself?::George Gershwin: George Gershwin, it's my real name.::Oscar Levant: Mine's Oscar Levant. I'm thinking of changing it.
Max Dreyfus: [referring to "Porgy and Bess", which has just opened] You've made opera entertaining.
Julie Adams: What if this show is a flop?::George Gershwin: We'll do others. I haven't got time for flops.
Oscar Levant: Tell me, if you had it to do all over again, would you still fall in love with yourself?
Christine Gilbert: You can make up songs, George, but you can't make up lif.
Max Dreyfus: George, you can give America a voice.
Dreyfus receptionist: You're fresh!::Oscar Levant: Unfortunately you're not.