Minuet

A minuet (/ˌmɪnjuːˈɛt/; also spelled menuet), is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, possibly from the French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular group dances called branle à mener or amener.

The term also describes the musical style that accompanies the dance, which subsequently developed more fully, often with a longer musical form called the minuet and trio, and was much used as a movement in the early classical symphony.

Dance

The name may refer to the short steps, pas menus, taken in the dance, or else be derived from the branle à mener or amener, popular group dances in early 17th-century France (Little 2001). The minuet was traditionally said to have descended from the bransle de Poitou, though there is no evidence making a clear connection between these two dances. The earliest treatise to mention the possible connection of the name to the expression pas menus is Gottfried Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister, published in Leipzig in 1717, but this source does not describe the steps as being particularly small or dainty (Russell 2006, 140–41). At the period when it was most fashionable it was controlled, ceremonious and graceful.

Đorđe Balašević

Đorđe Balašević (Serbian Cyrillic: Ђорђе Балашевић, born 11 May 1953) is a prominent Serbian and former Yugoslav singer-songwriter.

Balašević started his career in the 1977 as a member of the pop rock band Žetva, before leaving to form the pop rock band Rani Mraz. After releasing two albums, Rani Mraz disbanded, and Balašević started a successful solo career, spanning up to the present. While his initial works were mostly pop rock-oriented, in his later career he often used elements of rock, chanson and folk music, while his lyrics often dealt with romantic, humorous or political- and social-related themes.

Early biography

Balašević was born to a Serbian father, Jovan Balašević, and to Veronika Dolenec, half Hungarian, half Croatian from Rasinja near Koprivnica, Croatia. He has a sister, Jasna. His grandfather's surname was Balašev, but in 1941 the grandfather changed it to Balašević.

The younger Balašević grew up on Jovan Cvijić street in Novi Sad, in the same house where he currently lives. He started writing poetry in primary school. He left high school in the third year (because, in his words, he hated subjects like mathematics, physics and chemistry) but managed to get a high school diploma as part-time student and passed the preliminary exam for the university study of geography. He never graduated from the university. Instead, he joined the band Žetva (Harvest) in 1977.

Il Giardino Armonico

Il Giardino Armonico ("The Garden of Harmony") is a pioneering Italian early music ensemble founded in Milan in 1985 by Luca Pianca and Giovanni Antonini, primarily to play 17th- and 18th-century music on period instruments.

Il Giardino Armonico performs with soloists such as the mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli, duo pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, cellist Christophe Coin, and soprano Danielle de Niese. Its recordings have met with honors including the Gramophone and Grammy Awards. Il Giardino Armonico performs both in concerts and in opera stage productions of works such as by Monteverdi, Handel, Pergolesi and Vivaldi. In 2014, the ensemble commenced a project aiming to perform and record all of Joseph Haydn's symphonies by 2032, the 300th anniversary of the composer's birth.

References

External links

Media related to Il Giardino Armonico at Wikimedia Commons