A Minute with Miles

The double bass is the one member of the modern violin family whose roots are in the viola da gamba, or viol family.

Art song is a general term that refers to the kinds of songs written by classically-trained composers for classically-trained singers. Composers themselves don’t talk about writing “art songs,” they simply say “songs.”

Fantasy is the English translation of the Italian fantasia, a word that first appeared as a title for instrumental works in the 1500's. Since then, it’s a title that’s been used over and over.

Musical child prodigies have always fascinated the public. Far more rare than the child prodigy performer, though, is the child prodigy composer. The first name that comes to many people’s minds when they think of child composers is Mozart, and it’s true that Mozart started writing music at the age of four or five. But of all Mozart’s great pieces, very few were written before his twentieth birthday. Felix Mendelssohn, on the other hand, composed works when he was fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen that are still considered masterpieces, and that far surpass anything Mozart wrote when he was a teenager.

It’s popular, in some circles, to find links between creative genius and mental illness. Among composers, Robert Schumann is usually Exhibit A, but there are others who are regularly mentioned, as well. My own view is that the so-called link is no link at all.

The word sonata comes from the Italian sonare, an old form of suonare, which means “to sound,” or “to play,” as in “to play an instrument.”

Claude Debussy once referred to Bach’s music as “pure musical arabesque.”

Antonio Vivaldi’s life story could easily be the subject of a novel.

The word cello, believe it or not, comes from an Italian word meaning “little big viola.”

Modern scholars have found that Fasch’s music represents an important transition between the style of the late Baroque period and the “classical” style of Haydn and Mozart.