Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Frederic Chopin, Terry Miller

Honors Theses

Frederic Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola, Warsaw on February 22, 1810. He was brought up in a private school among sons of Polish nobility. His musical education was entrusted to the Bohemian pianist Albert Zwyny and the Director of the Warsaw School of Music, Joseph Elsner. At the age of seven he played a piano concerto by Gyrowetz, and improvisations in public. His first attempts in composition were dances (Polonaises, Mazurkas and Waltzes), but he published as Opus 1 a Rondo, and as Opus 2 variations on "La ci darem la mano", with orchestra.

The Violin: A Learning Experience, Diane Childs

Honors Theses

My interest in the violin and my choosing it for a semester project was actually out of curiosity. To be truthful, I really didn't care much for listening to violin music, but I had always heard how difficult it was to play, so I convinced myself I could prove different.

Béla Bartók: The Uncompromising Hungarian, Sally Mccarty

Honors Theses

Years before the earliest recorded compositions by professional musicians, the common people sang, danced, and chanted lullabies, work songs, and prayers to their gods. Gradually, professional musicians and art music developed, and a distinction grew up between art music and folk music. The theory was that everything good and beautiful came from the gifted few and never from the common crowd. It never struck anyone as odd that those who expressed contempt of the people and all their works, continued to borrow all the best productions of the people, such as its finest folk melodies, dance rhythms, scales, and instruments. …

The Effects Of The Bolshevic Revolution Of Four Russian Composers, Philip Wayne Hardin

Honors Theses

The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was the culmination of over fifty years of political and social unrest. For millions of Russian peasants it represented a welcome and just end to an unresponsive, autocratic government. The communism being preached by the Bolsheviks promised economic improvements for these oppressed masses, and they needed and wanted such improvements.

But in the minds of the intellectual classes of Russia, the teachers, scholars and artists, the Revolution created a fear. A fear that in place of an unpredictable, stifling autocracy, a government would develop that would completely control even the creative activity of Russian life. …