Histoire(s) du cinéma

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has... worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also takes inspiration from Gregorian chant. Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. A prolonged struggle with Soviet officials led him to emigrate with his wife and their two sons in 1980. He lived first in Vienna, Austria, where he took Austrian citizenship, and then re-located to Berlin, Germany. He returned to Estonia around the turn of the 21st century and now lives alternately in Berlin and in Tallinn. Familiar works by Pärt are Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell and the string quintet "Fratres I" , which he transcribed for string orchestra and percussion, the solo violin "Fratres II" and the cello ensemble "Fratres III" . Pärt is often identified with the school of minimalism and, more specifically, that of mystic minimalism or holy minimalism.
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Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist. His work often explores religion, isolation,... sexuality, and interpersonal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. While giving the speech at Cohen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 10 March 2008, Lou Reed described Cohen as belonging to the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters." Cohen was born on 21 September 1934 in Westmount, Montreal, Quebec, into a middle-class Jewish family. He attended Roslyn elementary school. His mother, Marsha Klinitsky, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, emigrated from Lithuania while his great-grandfather emigrated from Poland. He grew up in Westmount on the Island of Montreal. His grandfather was Lyon Cohen, founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, Nathan Cohen, who owned a substantial Montreal clothing store, died when Cohen was nine years old.
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Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. Although he died at the age of 31, Schubert was a prolific composer, having written some 600 Lieder,... nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. Appreciation of Schubert's music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered and championed his works in the 19th century. Today, Schubert is seen as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers. Schubert was born in Himmelpfortgrund , Vienna, on 31 January 1797. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elisabeth Vietz, was the daughter of a Silesian master locksmith, and had also been a housemaid for a Viennese family prior to her marriage.
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian, and later French and American composer, pianist and conductor. He is acknowledged by many as one of the... most important and influential composers of the 20th century. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird , Petrushka and The Rite of Spring . The Rite of Spring, which provoked a riot during its premiere, transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His so-called Russian phase was followed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned to neoclassical music.
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Ludwig van Beethoven ; baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827 was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure... in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf. Beethoven was the grandson of a musician of Flemish origin named Ludwig van Beethoven who moved at the age of twenty to Bonn. who was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, rising to become Kapellmeister .
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Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist of the Baroque Period. He enriched many established... German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach wrote much music, which was revered for its intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty. Many of his works are still known today, such as the Brandenburg Concertos, the Mass in B minor, the Well-Tempered Clavier, and his passions, cantatas, partitas, and organ works. Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach into a very musical family; his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach was the director of the town's musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father taught him to play violin and harpsichord, and his brother, Johann Christoph Bach taught him the clavichord, and exposed him to much contemporary music. Bach also sang, and he went to the St Michael's School in Lüneburg, because of his skill in voice.
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Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich Russian pronunciation: [ˈdmʲitrʲɪj... ˈdmʲitrʲɪɪvʲɪt͡ɕ ʂəstɐˈkovʲɪt͡ɕ] was a Soviet Russian composer and pianist and was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Leon Trotsky's chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later had a complex and difficult relationship with the government. Nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and the USSR . After a period influenced by Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, Shostakovich developed a hybrid style, as exemplified by Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District . This single work juxtaposed a wide variety of trends, including the neo-classical style and post-Romanticism . Sharp contrasts and elements of the grotesque characterize much of his music. Shostakovich's orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti.
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Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th... century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer . Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of ethnomusicology. Béla Bartók was born in the small Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary on March 25, 1881. Bartók's family reflected some of the ethno-cultural diversities of the country. His father, Béla Sr., considered himself thoroughly Hungarian, because on his father's side the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsod county , though his mother was from a Roman Catholic Serbian family .
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