The "Bechstein Hall" opened on 31 May 1901 with a concert given by the virtuoso pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni and violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. During its early period many famous musicians played there, including Artur Schnabel, Pablo Sarasate, Percy Grainger, Myra Hess, Arthur Rubinstein and Camille Saint-Saëns.
Because it was owned by a German firm, the hall was seized as "enemy property" during World War I. The hall with over 130 pianos was sold at an auction to Debenhams for a very small amount of money, and was re-opened as Wigmore Hall in 1917. Musicians who have performed there since include Sviatoslav Richter, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria de los Ángeles, Sergei Prokofiev, Shura Cherkassky, Paul Hindemith, Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, Peter Pears, Benjamin Britten and Francis Poulenc.
Today the Wigmore Hall seats 540 people. Many concerts are broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Famous musicians perform there, as well as young musicians who are just starting their career.
The Wigmore Hall publishes on its own record label "Wigmore Hall live" recordings of concerts that were given by famous musicians. The pianos in the Wigmore Hall today are made by Steinway.
The Wigmore Hall's director is John Gilhooly. His future plans include having lots of music by living composers
Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music or ABRSM is an organisation that arranges music examinations. The organisation is based in London, but they arrange examinations in places all over the world. Many people, especially children, who learn instruments take examinations of the ABRSM as it helps them to become better players because it gives them something to work for. People of any age can take the exams. Those who pass an exam get a certificate. Over 620,000 candidates take the ABRSM examinations every year in over ninety countries.
The organisation is called “Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music” because it is organised by a group of four music conservatoires:
Exams can be taken on many different instruments. In nearly each case there are eight grades, numbered from 1 to 8. For example, someone who has learned the piano for a short while may take Grade 1 once he or she can play pieces such as a simple minuet, and play a few scales with separate hands. By the time they take Grade 8 they will need to be able to play movements from sonatas by composers such as Beethoven, play all 24 scales in various ways very fluently and be good at sight-reading.
The marks are given out of 150. The pass mark is hundred. Below hundred marks is a “Fail”. one hundred and twenty marks to one hundred and twenty nine is called a “Merit” and one hundred and thirty and above is a “Distinction”.
Although some students take each of the grades as they get better at their instrument, it is not necessary to have passed earlier grades in order to take a higher grade. For grades 6 and above it is necessary to have passed Grade 5 Theory or Practical Musicianship or Jazz. This is to make sure that students have a good knowledge of music.
The examiners are people who are professional musicians. Many of them are music teachers. They have a wide experience of music and they are trained by the ABRSM so that they all mark in the same way.
The ABRSM also publish a lot of music, including the music set for their exams.
There are four kinds of exams:
These are by far the most commonly taken exams. Available for over 35 instruments, these exams consist of 4 different sections:
Each section has a certain number of marks and all the marks add up to 150. 100 is a pass, 120 a merit and 130 a distinction.
There is also a Prep Test for those who are not yet ready to take Grade 1 but would like to have the experience of taking an exam. Students who take a Prep Test are not given a mark. It is a way to encourage young people and make them relaxed about the idea of taking exams.
These are written papers about musical theory. They are marked out of 100: 66 or more is a pass; 80 or more is a merit; 90 or more is a distinction.
These exams will test a student’s understanding of rhythm, melody, key and notation together with the ability to sing and play from memory, and improvise and to recognise changes to and answer questions about a score.
These are the newest types of exams. Jazz piano was first offered in 1999. At the moment they are only available for flute, piano, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and trombone. They are also only available from Grades 1-5. They are marked in the same way as practical exams. However many of the pieces include large sections where they have to improvise (make something up) using particular chords.
The ABRSM offer diplomas in three disciplines:
For each discipline there are three levels of award:
These are professional qualifications which allow a person to put the letters after his or her name.
Punjab
Punjab or Panjab may mean:
In former countries, states and provinces:
In other:
See also:
House of Commons
House of Commons is the name of the lower house in several commonwealth parliaments
Engraving
Engraving is putting a design onto a hard, flat surface, by carving into it. The result may be a decorative piece in itself, as when silver, gold or steel are engraved, or may provide a printing plate of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper which are also called engravings. Engraving was an important method in history of making images on paper, both in artistic ways, such as making a decorative print, and also for printing books and magazines. It has long been replaced by photography in its commercial uses and, is nowadays much less common in printmaking, where it has been almost completely replaced by etching and other techniques.
Engravers use a steel tool called a burin to cut the picture or pattern into the surface, mostly a copper plate. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that give different line types when used. The burin gives us a line that is unique because of its steady appearance and smooth edges. The angle tint tool has a slightly curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines on them, used to do work on larger areas. Flat gravers are used for doing work on letters, as well as most musical instrument engraving work. Round gravers are commonly used on silver as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel.
In ancient history, the only engraving that could be made were the shallow grooves found in some jewellery after 1000 B.C.
In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate metal. It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record them. From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to make artistic images on paper in Germany in the 1430s. The first and greatest period of engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, and Lucas van Leiden.
Thereafter engraving tended to lose popularity to etching, which was a much easier technique for an artist to learn. By the nineteenth century, most engraving was for commercial picture-making.
Before the invention of photography, engraving was used to reproduce other forms of art, for example paintings. Engravings continued to be common in newspapers and many books into the early 20th century, because they were cheap to use in printing.