Portal:Music

The Music Portal

Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.

Music often plays a key role in social events and religious ceremonies. The techniques of making music are often transmitted as part of a cultural tradition. Music is played in public and private contexts, highlighted at events such as festivals and concerts for various different types of ensembles. Music is used in the production of other media, such as in soundtracks to films, TV shows, operas, and video games.

Listening to music is a common means of entertainment. The culture surrounding music extends into areas of academic study, journalism, philosophy, psychology, and therapy. The music industry includes songwriters, performers, sound engineers, producers, tour organizers, distributors of instruments, accessories, and publishers of sheet music and recordings. Technology facilitating the recording and reproduction of music has historically included sheet music, microphones, phonographs, and tape machines, with playback of digital music being a common use for MP3 players, CD players, and smartphones. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various music-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Notation indicating differing pitch, dynamics, articulation, and instrumentation (from Elements of music)
Image 2The Rolling Stones in 1967 (from Album era)
Image 3As LPs fell out of favor to CDs, hip hop producers repurposed them as sampling sources, contributing to the development of record collecting. (from Album era)
Image 4Drawing of the tablet with the Hymn to Nikkal (c. 1400 BCE), the oldest of the Hurrian songs (from History of music)
Image 5Alleluia nativitas by Perotin from the Codex Guelf.1099 (from History of music)
Image 6A young man browsing through a record store in Bonn, West Germany, June 1988 (from Album era)
Image 7Frances Densmore at the Smithsonian Institution in 1916 where she was recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In this picture, Mountain Chief is listening to a recording. (from Music industry)
Image 8An HMV record shop in Wakefield, England closing its operation in 2013 (from Album era)
Image 9Terracotta statue of a Parthian lute player (from History of music)
Image 10Kanye West (2007) emerged during the decade as an important hip-hop producer and album artist. (from Album era)
Image 11US vinyl sales in units, 1995–2020; while album sales overall declined, those in the vinyl format rose toward the end of the 2010s. (from Album era)
Image 12An LP record on a phonograph (from Album era)
Image 13c. 379 CE Bas relief of Sassanid women playing the chang in Taq-e Bostan, Iran (from History of music)
Image 14The logo for Apple Inc.'s online iTunes store, which sells digital files of songs and musical pieces–along with a range of other content, such as digital files of TV shows and movies (from Music industry)
Image 15Musicians working in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 16The portable Discman CD player, which was released in 1984 and precipitated the displacement of LPs (from Album era)
Image 17Frank Sinatra (c. 1955), an early pop album artist (from Album era)
Image 18The monumental Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, c. 5th century BCE, from Hubei (from History of music)
Image 19The Bull Headed Lyre of Ur, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is the best known of the ancient Lyres of Ur (from History of music)
Image 20Platinum records by Elvis Presley, Prince, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen, at Julien's Auctions (from Album era)
Image 21Sheet music for part of the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (from History of music)
Image 22Two musicians of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE), Shanghai Museum (from History of music)
Image 23Guillaume Du Fay (left), with Gilles Binchois (right) in a c. 1440 Illuminated manuscript copy of Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames (from History of music)
Image 24Beyoncé (2016) popularized the surprise-album strategy of the 2010s. (from Album era)
Image 25Stevie Wonder, among the era's innovative artists (from Album era)
Image 26Pink Floyd (1973) performing The Dark Side of the Moon, a leading commercial success of the LP era (from Album era)
Image 27Clara and Robert Schumann (from History of music)
Image 28A musician in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 29The Beatles have been credited by music historians for heralding the album era. (from Album era)
Image 30J. S. Bach (from History of music)
Image 31Circular definition of "musicality" (from Elements of music)
Image 32The Japanese boy band Arashi, who had the world's best-selling album (5x20 All the Best!!) in 2019 (from Album era)
Image 33An example of mechanically printed sheet music (from Music industry)
Image 34A radio broadcasting system from 1906 (from Music industry)
Image 35A smartphone displaying playlists on Spotify, 2010. The streaming service became a dominant and redefining platform for music consumption through the decade. (from Album era)
Image 36A studio engineer working with an audio mixer in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 37A Rhodes College student listening to the 1969 Yes LP on campus, c. 1970 (from Album era)
Image 38A young couple listening to music on an iPod Mini, 2006 (from Album era)
Image 39An audience watching a concert (from Music industry)

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Featured articles - load new batch

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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1763 portrait

Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia, declaring himself King of Prussia after annexing Royal Prussia from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772. His most significant accomplishments include military successes in the Silesian wars, reorganisation of the Prussian Army, the First Partition of Poland, and patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a major military power in Europe under his rule. He became known as Frederick the Great (German: Friedrich der Große) and was nicknamed "Old Fritz" (German: der Alte Fritz).

In his youth, Frederick was more interested in music and philosophy than war, which led to clashes with his authoritarian father, Frederick William I of Prussia. However, upon ascending to the throne, he attacked and annexed the rich Austrian province of Silesia in 1742, winning military acclaim. He became an influential military theorist, whose analyses emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics. (Full article...)
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"Me Too" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor from her second major-label studio album, Thank You (2016). Trainor wrote the song with Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Jason Derulo, Peter Svensson, and its producer, Ricky Reed. Epic Records released it as the album's second single on May 5, 2016. An electro and R&B song with a minimalistic musical bed of a synth bassline, finger snaps, and popping mouth sounds, "Me Too"'s lyrics concern self-love, as Trainor asserts confidence in her looks.

Music critics found the lyrics of "Me Too" difficult to relate to and Trainor's confidence disingenuous, but some praised the track's production. In the United States, the song peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It reached the top 10 and received 4× Platinum certifications in Australia and Canada. (Full article...)
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Final rehearsal for the world premiere in the Neue Musik-Festhalle in Munich

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. As it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is normally presented with far fewer than a thousand performers and Mahler greatly disapproved of the name. The work was composed in a single inspired burst at his Maiernigg villa in southern Austria in the summer of 1906. The last of Mahler's works that was premiered in his lifetime, the symphony was a critical and popular success when he conducted the Munich Philharmonic in its first performance, in Munich, on 12 September 1910.

The fusion of song and symphony had been a characteristic of Mahler's early works. In his "middle" compositional period after 1901, a change of style led him to produce three purely instrumental symphonies. The Eighth, marking the end of the middle period, returns to a combination of orchestra and voice in a symphonic context. The structure of the work is unconventional: instead of the normal framework of several movements, the piece is in two parts. Part I is based on the Latin text of Veni creator spiritus ("Come, Creator Spirit"), a ninth-century Christian hymn for Pentecost, and Part II is a setting of the words from the closing scene of Goethe's Faust. The two parts are unified by a common idea, that of redemption through the power of love, a unity conveyed through shared musical themes. (Full article...)
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Shostakovich in 1950

Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 had its Leningrad première on 9 August 1942 during the Second World War, while the city was under siege by the Nazi German forces.

Shostakovich had intended the piece to be premièred by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, but because of the siege that group was evacuated from the city, as was the composer himself. The world première of the symphony was held on 5 March 1942, in Kuybyshev with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. The Leningrad première was performed by the surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, supplemented with military performers, with Karl Eliasberg conducting. Most of the musicians were suffering from starvation, which made rehearsing difficult: musicians frequently collapsed during rehearsals, and three died. The orchestra was able to play the symphony all the way through only once before the concert. (Full article...)
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"Cross Road Blues" (commonly known as "Crossroads") is a song written by the American blues artist Robert Johnson. He performed it solo with his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues style. The song has become part of the Robert Johnson mythology as referring to the place where he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for musical genius. This is based largely on folklore of the American South that identifies a crossroads as the site where Faustian bargains can be made, as the lyrics do not contain any references to Satan.

"Cross Road Blues" may have been in Johnson's repertoire since 1932 and, on November 27, 1936, he recorded two takes of the song. One was released in 1937 as a single that was heard mainly in the Mississippi Delta area. The second, which reached a wider audience, was included on King of the Delta Blues Singers, a compilation album of some of Johnson's songs released in 1961 during the American folk music revival. (Full article...)
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"Wildest Dreams" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It is the fifth single from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift wrote the song with its producers Max Martin and Shellback. "Wildest Dreams" has an atmospheric, balladic production incorporating programmed drums, Mellotron–generated and live strings, and synthesizers; the rhythm interpolates Swift's heartbeat. Critics described it as synth-pop, dream pop, and electropop. The lyrics feature Swift pleading with a lover to remember her even after their relationship ends. Big Machine Records in partnership with Republic Records released "Wildest Dreams" to radio on August 31, 2015.

When the song was first released, some critics found the production and Swift's vocals alluring but others found the track derivative, comparing it to the music of Lana Del Rey. Retrospectively, critics have described "Wildest Dreams" as one of Swift's most memorable songs. The single peaked within the top five on charts of Australia, Canada, Poland, and South Africa. It was certified diamond in Brazil, nine-times platinum in Australia, and double platinum in Portugal and the United Kingdom. In the United States, "Wildest Dreams" peaked at number five and became 1989's fifth consecutive top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100; it peaked atop three of Billboard's airplay charts. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the track four-times platinum. (Full article...)
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Swift in 2023

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting and artistic reinventions, she has had a significant impact on popular culture in the 21st century. Swift is the highest-grossing live music artist, the wealthiest female musician, and one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Swift signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 and debuted as a country singer with the albums Taylor Swift (2006) and Fearless (2008). The singles "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Love Story", and "You Belong with Me" found crossover success on country and pop radio formats. Speak Now (2010) expanded her country pop sound with rock influences, and Red (2012) featured a pop-friendly production. She recalibrated her artistic identity from country to pop with the synth-pop album 1989 (2014) and the hip-hop-imbued Reputation (2017). Through the 2010s, she accumulated the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Bad Blood", and "Look What You Made Me Do". (Full article...)
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Hoffs in 2006

Susanna Lee Hoffs (born January 17, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actress. With Debbi Peterson and Vicki Peterson, she founded the Bangles in 1981. Their debut album, All Over the Place (1984), was acclaimed by critics but sold poorly. Their second album, Different Light (1986), was also warmly received by critics and was certified double-platinum in 1987 and triple-platinum in 1994. It contained the US number two single "Manic Monday" written by Prince and the number one single "Walk Like an Egyptian." The group's third album, Everything (1988), included the US top ten charting "In Your Room" and number one "Eternal Flame," both written by Hoffs with Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. Hoffs was lead vocalist on five of the seven singles released by the Bangles, resulting in her being seen as the face of the group even though all four members shared lead vocal duties. Following tensions including resentment at Hoffs' perceived leadership and the stress of touring, the band split in 1989. It reformed in 1999 and released the albums Doll Revolution (2003) and Sweetheart of the Sun (2011).

Hoffs' first solo album, When You're a Boy (1991), was followed by Susanna Hoffs (1996). Neither of the releases proved to be as popular as the Bangles' albums, although they yielded two charting singles in the US, the top 40 hit "My Side of the Bed", and "All I Want". She recorded several songs for films and formed the faux-British 1960s band Ming Tea with Mike Myers and Matthew Sweet. Hoffs teamed with Sweet to produce Under the Covers, a series of cover song albums. Her 2012 album Someday was followed by two more cover albums Bright Lights (2021) and The Deep End (2023). (Full article...)
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"You're Not Sorry" is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her second studio album, Fearless (2008). In its lyrics, Swift's narrator calls out an ex-boyfriend for his betrayal. Produced by Swift and Nathan Chapman, "You're Not Sorry" is a rock power ballad with a sound that critics describe as mournful or dramatic: its verses are driven by piano and fiddle, while its refrains incorporate dynamic, crescendoing electric guitars.

To promote Fearless before its release, Big Machine Records made "You're Not Sorry" available for download via the iTunes Store on October 28, 2008. An electronic remix was released for the episode "Turn, Turn, Turn" of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in which Swift made a guest appearance. "You're Not Sorry" peaked at number 11 on both the Canadian Hot 100 and the US Billboard Hot 100, and it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Swift performed the track at the 44th Academy of Country Music Awards in 2009 and included it in the set lists of the Fearless Tour (2009–2010) and the Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012). (Full article...)
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"Ghost in the Machine" is a song by the American singer-songwriter SZA from her second studio album, SOS (2022), featuring the American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers. The song is a ballad that falls within the indie pop and R&B genres; music critics described it as a cross between Bridgers's and SZA's respective sounds. Written in a conversational style, the lyrics express disillusionment with inauthentic relationships, the inhumane behavior of other people, and artificial intelligence. They also portray SZA asking her lover to provide an escape from a world she sees as having been consumed by vanity.

The collaboration began with an online conversation between Bridgers and SZA; the two musicians rapidly completed the song a week before the album was scheduled for release. They co-wrote the song with Rob Bisel, Carter Lang, Matt Cohn, and Marshall Vore. Production and engineering duties were handled by Bisel, Lang, and Cohn. (Full article...)
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xx is the debut studio album by the English indie pop band the xx. It was released on 14 August 2009 by Young Turks, then an imprint label of XL Recordings, and recorded from December 2008 to February 2009 at the label's in-house studio in London. Producing the album, Jamie Smith of the xx created electronic beats for the songs on his laptop and mixed them in a detailed process with the audio engineer Rodaidh McDonald, who attempted to reproduce the intimate, unembellished quality of the band's original demos.

Along with the xx's early R&B influences, the album has drawn comparisons from journalists to alternative rock, electronica and post-punk sounds. Its largely melancholic songs feature minimalist arrangements built around Smith's beats and instrumental parts recorded by the other members of the band, including Oliver Sim's basslines and sparse guitar figures by Baria Qureshi and Romy Madley Croft, who employs reverb in her lead guitar playing. Most of the songs are sung as low-key duets by Croft and Sim, both of whom had written emotional lyrics about love, intimacy, loss and desire. (Full article...)
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Velasquez in 2010

Regina Encarnacion Ansong Velasquez (/rɪˈdʒiːn vɛˈlæskɛz/ rij-EEN vel-ASK-ez; born April 22, 1970) is a Filipino singer and actress. She is considered one of the most influential figures in Philippine popular culture and is known for her vocal range and belting technique. She had unorthodox voice training during her childhood, where she was immersed neck-deep in the sea. Velasquez rose to prominence after winning the television talent show Ang Bagong Kampeon in 1984 and the Asia Pacific Singing Contest in 1989. Under the name Chona, she signed a recording contract with OctoArts International in 1986 and released the single "Love Me Again", which was commercially unsuccessful. The following year, she adopted the stage name Regine Velasquez for her debut studio album, Regine (1987), under the guidance of Viva Records executive Vic del Rosario and producer Ronnie Henares. She explored Manila sound and kundiman genres on her second and third studio albums, Nineteen 90 (1990) and Tagala Talaga (1991).

After signing an international record deal with PolyGram Records, Velasquez achieved commercial success in some Asian territories with her fifth album Listen Without Prejudice (1994), which sold more than 700,000 copies and became her highest-selling album to date, aided by its lead single "In Love with You". She experimented further with jazz and adult contemporary genres on My Love Emotion (1995), while she recorded covers on Retro (1996). After she left PolyGram to sign with Mark J. Feist's MJF Company in 1998, she released the R&B-influenced album Drawn. Velasquez's follow-up record, R2K (1999), was supported by remakes of "On the Wings of Love", "I'll Never Love This Way Again", and "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing", and was subsequently certified twelve-times platinum by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI). (Full article...)
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Portrait by Ernest Walter Histed, c. 1906
Sir Henry Joseph Wood (3 March 1869 – 19 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences. After his death, the concerts were officially renamed in his honour as the "Henry Wood Promenade Concerts", although they continued to be generally referred to as "the Proms".

Born in modest circumstances to parents who encouraged his musical talent, Wood started his career as an organist. During his studies at the Royal Academy of Music, he came under the influence of the voice teacher Manuel García and became his accompanist. After similar work for Richard D'Oyly Carte's opera companies on the works of Arthur Sullivan and others, Wood became the conductor of a small operatic touring company. He was soon engaged by the larger Carl Rosa Opera Company. One notable event in his operatic career was conducting the British premiere of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in 1892. (Full article...)
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Agharta is a 1975 live double album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. By the time he recorded the album, Davis was 48 years old and had alienated many in the jazz community while attracting younger rock audiences with his radical electric fusion music. After experimenting with different line-ups, he established a stable live band in 1973 and toured constantly for the next two years, despite physical pain from worsening health and emotional instability brought on by substance abuse. During a three-week tour of Japan in 1975, the trumpeter performed two concerts at the Festival Hall in Osaka on February 1; the afternoon show produced Agharta, and the evening show was released as Pangaea the following year.

Davis led a septet at the concert; saxophonist Sonny Fortune, and guitarist Pete Cosey were given space to improvise against a dense backdrop of riffs, electronic effects, cross-beats, and funk grooves from the rhythm section – drummer Al Foster, bassist Michael Henderson, guitarist Reggie Lucas, and percussionist James Mtume. Davis controlled their rhythmic and musical direction with hand and head gestures, phrases played on his wah-wah processed trumpet, and drones from an accompanying electronic organ. The evolving nature of the performance led to the widespread misunderstanding that it had no compositional basis, while its dark, angry, and somber musical qualities were seen as a reflection of the bandleader's emotional and spiritual state at the time. (Full article...)
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The American alternative rock band the Breeders played a tour of thirteen concerts in the central and western United States in September 2014. After the group's "classic" lineup reunited in 2013 for a tour commemorating the 20th anniversary of Last Splash, they began working on new material. Ahead of opening for Neutral Milk Hotel at the Hollywood Bowl, they planned a tour leading up to this show, using the opportunity to practice recent compositions that would appear on their 2018 album All Nerve.

Between September 2 and September 17, the Breeders performed in eleven cities, including St. Louis, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Support bands the Funs and the Neptunas opened for them at five and six of these shows, respectively. The group finished the tour on September 20 at the Goose Island 312 Urban Block Party event in Chicago. As well as new songs, they performed numerous selections from Last Splash and Pod. The tour received good reviews from critics; appraisal included comments that the performances were rousing, and that the band was as good as—or better than—in their heyday. (Full article...)

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Selected pictures

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Médée
Graphic: Giuseppe Palanti
Médée is a French-language opera by the composer Luigi Cherubini. Set in the ancient city of Corinth, Greece, it features a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman and is based on Euripides's tragic play Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée. The opera premiered in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have deleted from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing X-ray techniques to reveal areas that the composer had blackened out.

This picture shows the title page for a vocal score of the 1909 hybrid version of Médée.
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Billy Strayhorn
Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
Billy Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best remembered for his long-time collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington that lasted nearly three decades. Though classical music was Strayhorn's first love, his ambition to become a classical composer went unrealized because of the harsh reality of a black man trying to make his way in the world of classical music, which at that time was almost completely white. He was introduced to the music of pianists like Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson at age 19, and the artistic influence of these musicians guided him into the realm of jazz, where he remained for the rest of his life. This photograph of Strayhorn was taken by William P. Gottlieb in the 1940s.
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Mary Lou Williams
Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor and teacher to numerous other jazz musicians. The second of eleven children, she was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A young musical prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of three. This photograph of Williams at the piano was taken by William P. Gottlieb around 1946.
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Les Troyens
Illustration credit: Antoine Barbizet; restored by Adam Cuerden
Les Troyens (The Trojans) is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz, with a libretto written by the composer himself based on Virgil's Aeneid. The score was composed between 1856 and 1858, but Berlioz did not live long enough to see the work performed in its entirety. The first two acts were performed separately under the title La Prise de Troie. This picture shows the cover of the first-edition vocal score for La Prise de Troie, published in 1863.
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Nicholas Lanier
Painting credit: Anthony van Dyck
Nicholas Lanier (baptised 10 September 1588 – buried 24 February 1666) was an English composer and musician; the first to hold the title of Master of the King's Music, in the service of Charles I and Charles II. He was one of the first composers to introduce monody and recitative to England.

After this oil-on-canvas portrait was painted by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck in Antwerp, Lanier convinced the king to bring van Dyck to England, where he became the leading court painter. The portrait displays an attitude of studied carelessness, often termed sprezzatura, defined as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". The painting now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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Ariadne auf Naxos
Illustration credit: unknown
Ariadne auf Naxos ('Ariadne on Naxos'), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera was ninety minutes long, and the performance of the play and opera together totalled over six hours. It was first performed at the Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year.

This picture is the cover of a vocal score of the revised edition of Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916.
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Aida
Photograph: Avinoam Michaeli
Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini.

This picture shows the set for a performance of Aida by the Israeli Opera in 2011.
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Jules Massenet
Photograph credit: Eugène Pirou; restored by Adam Cuerden
Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era, best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death, he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra comique to grand depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies and lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the leading opera composer in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time of his death, he was regarded as old-fashioned; his works, however, began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, and many have since been staged and recorded. This photograph of Massenet was taken by French photographer Eugène Pirou in 1875.
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Hera Hjartardóttir
Photo: Kyle Cassidy
Hera is an Icelandic singer-songwriter who emigrated to New Zealand as a teenager. She is known for her facial art, which is "inspired by moko and also by Celtic warrior paint" and intended to represent both her Icelandic and New Zealand heritage. In 2002 she was named Best Female Singer at the Icelandic Music Awards.
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Thelonious Monk
Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He had a unique improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", and a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer William P. Gottlieb in Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York.
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Griselda (A. Scarlatti)
Manuscript: Alessandro Scarlatti
Griselda is an opera seria in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti. First performed in 1721, it is based on the story of Patient Griselda from Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. The libretto is by Apostolo Zeno, with revisions by an anonymous author. This manuscript copy by Scarlatti, held at the British Library, is of act one, scene one.
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English composer and conductor. His greatest success was his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. This set the epic poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to music, and was widely performed by choral groups in England and the United States. Composers were not well paid; the work sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but he had sold the music outright for the sum of 15 guineas, so did not benefit directly. He learned to retain his rights and earned royalties for other compositions after achieving wide renown, but always struggled financially. This photograph of Coleridge-Taylor was taken around 1905.
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Alexz Johnson
Photo: Epitome Pictures
Alexz Johnson (b. 1986) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and actress, best known for roles as Jude Harrison in the CTV series Instant Star (character shown here), Annie Thelan in the Disney Channel series So Weird, and as Erin Ulmer in the 2006 horror film Final Destination 3. Her album Voodoo was released in 2010.
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Oceana (singer)
Photo: ChrisHamburg
Oceana (born 1982) is a German singer of German/Martiniquen descent. She is shown here performing at the Radio Hamburg Top 820.
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Hayley Williams
Photograph: Sven-Sebastian Sajak
Hayley Williams (born December 27, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. She serves as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and occasional keyboardist of the rock band Paramore. Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Williams moved to Franklin, Tennessee, at the age of fifteen after her parents divorced. In 2004, she formed Paramore alongside Josh Farro, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis. The band currently consists of Williams, Farro and Taylor York. They have released five studio albums: All We Know Is Falling (2005), Riot! (2007), Brand New Eyes (2009), Paramore (2013) and After Laughter (2017).
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