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In music, a
whip or
slapstick is a
percussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
consisting of two wooden boards joined by a hinge at one end. When the boards are brought together rapidly, the sound is reminiscent of the crack of a
whipA whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...
. It is often used in modern orchestras, bands, and percussion ensembles.
There are two types of whips. The first has two planks of wood connected together by a hinge, with a handle on each. The percussionist holds the instrument by the handles and hits the two pieces of wood together, creating a loud whip noise. The other type also has two planks of wood, one longer than the other, with one handle, connected with a spring hinge so it can be played with just one hand, though it cannot produce sounds as loud as a whip requiring both hands. This second type of whip is technically a separate instrument called a
slapstick.
Usage in classical music
This list is alphabetical, but is by no means exhaustive.
- John Adams: Nixon in China
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
- Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
: Living Toys (the whip is played by the lead French horn player) and The TempestThe Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play, The Tempest by William Shakespeare.-Background and premiere performances:...
- Leroy Anderson
Leroy Anderson was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler...
: ChristmasChristmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
Standard "Sleigh Ride"Sleigh Ride" is a popular light orchestral piece composed by Leroy Anderson. The composer had the original idea for the piece during a heat wave in July 1946; he finished the work in February 1948. Lyrics, about a person who would like to ride in a sleigh on a winter's day with another person,...
," where the instrument is meant to imitate an actual whip on a horseThe horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
.
- Samuel Barber
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...
: Piano ConcertoThe Piano Concerto, Op. 38, by Samuel Barber was commissioned by the music publishing company G. Schirmer in honor of the hundredth anniversary of their founding...
- Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
: The Young Person's Guide to the OrchestraThe Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34, is a musical composition by Benjamin Britten in 1946 with a subtitle "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell"...
, Noye's FluddeNoye's Fludde is an early 15th century mystery play from the Chester Mystery Cycle. It was set to music by Benjamin Britten in 1957 based on an edition by Alfred W. Pollard...
, Sinfonia da RequiemSinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20, for orchestra is a symphony written by Benjamin Britten in 1940 at the age of 26. It was one of several works commissioned from different composers by the Japanese Government to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire...
, St. Nicolas (Britten)Saint Nicolas is a cantata with music by Benjamin Britten and text by Eric Crozier, written in 1948.-Background:Benjamin Britten wrote the cantata Saint Nicolas in 1948 for the centennial celebrations of Lancing College in Sussex...
, Spring SymphonyThe Spring Symphony is Benjamin Britten's Opus 44. It is dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was premiered in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam on Thursday 14 July 1949 as part of the Holland Festival, when the composer was 35...
and War RequiemThe War Requiem, Op. 66 is a large-scale, non-liturgical setting of the Requiem Mass composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed January 1962. Interspersed with the traditional Latin texts, in telling juxtaposition, are settings of Wilfred Owen poems...
- John Barnes Chance
John Barnes Chance was a composer, born in Beaumont, Texas. Chance studied composition with Clifton Williams at the University of Texas, Austin, and is best known for his concert band works, which include Variations on a Korean Folk Song, Incantation and Dance, and Blue Lake Overture...
: Incantation and Dance
- Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
: Rodeo (Buckaroo Holiday) Symphony No.3Symphony No. 3 was Aaron Copland's third and final symphony, its premiere performance taking place on October 18, 1946, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitsky.It was written at the end of World War II...
- George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
: Piano Concerto in FConcerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than the earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue...
- Adam Guettel
Adam Guettel is an American composer-lyricist of musical theater and opera . He is best known for the musical The Light in the Piazza, for which he won two Tony Awards, for Best Score and Best Orchestrations, and two Drama Desk Awards, for Best Music and Best Orchestrations.-Early years:Guettel...
: The Light in the Piazza (musical)
- Daron Hagen
Daron Aric Hagen , is an American composer, conductor, pianist, educator, librettist, and stage director of contemporary classical music and opera.- Early life and education :...
: Shining BrowShining Brow is an English language opera by Daron Hagen, first performed by the Madison Opera in Madison, Wisconsin, April 21, 1993. It is based on events in the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright...
- Alun Hoddinott
Alun Hoddinott CBE , was a Welsh composer of classical music, one of the first to receive international recognition.-Life and works:...
: Fioriture
- James MacMillan: The Sacrifice
The Sacrifice is an opera in three acts composed by James MacMillan with a libretto by the poet Michael Symmons Roberts based on the Branwen story of the Welsh myth collection, the Mabinogion. The world premiere took place on 22 September 2007 at the Donald Gordon Theatre of the Wales Millennium...
- Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
: Symphonies No. 5The Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor by Gustav Mahler was composed in 1901 and 1902, mostly during the summer months at Mahler's cottage at Maiernigg. Among its most distinctive features are the funereal trumpet solo that opens the work and the frequently performed Adagietto.The musical canvas and...
and 6The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler, sometimes referred to as the Tragische , was composed between 1903 and 1904 . The work's first performance was in Essen, on May 27, 1906, conducted by the composer.The tragic, even nihilistic ending of No...
- William Mathias
William Mathias CBE was a Welsh composer.-Brief biography:Mathias was born in Whitland, Carmarthenshire. A child prodigy, he started playing the piano at the age of three and composing at the age of five. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Lennox Berkeley, where he was elected a fellow...
: Vistas, Laudi and In Arcadia
- Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
: Des Canyons aux étoiles, Saint-François d'Assise Saint François d'Assise is an opera in three acts and eight scenes by French composer and librettist Olivier Messiaen, written from 1975 to 1983. It concerns Saint Francis of Assisi, the title character, and displays the composer's devout Catholicism...
and Éclairs sur l'au-delà…Éclairs sur l'au-delà… is an orchestral piece by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. Composed in 1987–91, it was his last completed work, his very last work being Concert à quatre...
- Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
: Pictures at an ExhibitionPictures at an Exhibition is a suite in ten movements composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists...
(the whip is used by the orchestrations of Maurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
, Vladimir JurowskiVladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski.Jurowski began his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory...
and Henk de Vlieger's version for percussion essemble)
- Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
: Symphony No. 1 (which begins with nine whip cracks punctuated by pauses)
- Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
: Piano Concerto in GMaurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major was composed between 1929 and 1931. The concerto is in three movements, and is heavily influenced by jazz, which Ravel had encountered on a concert tour of the USA.-Background:...
and L'heure espagnoleL'heure espagnole is a one-act opera, described as a comédie musicale, with music by Maurice Ravel to a French libretto by Franc-Nohain, based on his play of the same name first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon on 28 October 1904...
(The Spanish Hour)
- Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
: Cello Concerto No. 2 in GThe Cello Concerto No. 2, Opus 126, was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in the spring of 1966 in the Crimea. Like the first concerto, it was written for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere in Moscow under Yevgeny Svetlanov on 25 September 1966 at the composer's 60th birthday concert...
(last movement), Symphony No. 13The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was first performed in Moscow on 18 December, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin . The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky...
, Symphony No. 14The Symphony No. 14 by Dmitri Shostakovich was completed in the spring of 1969, and was premiered later that year. It is a sombre work for soprano, bass and a small string orchestra with percussion, consisting of eleven linked settings of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the...
and Symphony No. 15The Symphony No. 15 in A major , Dmitri Shostakovich's last, was written in a little over a month during the summer of 1971 in Repino. It was first performed in Moscow on 8 January 1972 by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich.-Form:The work has four...
- Juan María Solare
Juan María Solare is an Argentine composer and pianist.-Education:Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Solare studied and received his diploma in piano , composition and conducting at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música Carlos López Buchardo...
: Un ángel de hielo y fuego
- Carl Strommen: Cumberland Cross
- Frank Ticheli: Fortress
- Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
: New Year (opera and suite version), The Knot GardenThe Knot Garden is the third opera by composer Michael Tippett for which he wrote the original English libretto. The work had its first performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 2 December 1970 conducted by Sir Colin Davis and produced by Sir Peter Hall...
, The Ice BreakThe Ice Break is an opera in three acts by Michael Tippett, to an original English libretto by the composer. It was first produced at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 7 July 1977, conducted by Colin Davis, the dedicatee of the opera....
, The Vision of Saint Augustine, Songs for Dov and The Shires Suite
- Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
: IonisationIonisation is a musical composition by Edgard Varèse written for thirteen percussionists, the first concert hall composition for percussion ensemble alone. The premiere was at Steinway Hall, on March 6, 1933, conducted by Nicolas Slonimsky, to whom the piece was later dedicated...
- Alexander Vustin
Alexander Kuzmich Vustin, also Voustin or Wustin is a Russian composer.-Biography:He studied composition first with Grigory Frid at a regional music college, and later with Vladimir Ferè at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1969. Between 1969 and 1974, Vustin worked as a music editor at USSR...
: Devil in LoveThe Devil in Love is an opera in three acts by the Russian composer Alexander Vustin . The Russian libretto was written by Vladimir Khachaturov after the novel The Devil in Love by Jacques Cazotte .-History of creation:...
- William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
: Belshazzar's feastBelshazzar's Feast is an oratorio by the English composer William Walton. It was first performed at the Leeds Festival on 8 October 1931. The work has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions and one of the most popular works in the English choral repertoire...
- Huw Watkins
Huw Watkins is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson...
Piano Concerto
- Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...
: Die SoldatenDie Soldaten is a four act opera in German by German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, based on the 1776 play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. It is dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. Zimmermann himself faithfully adapted the play into the libretto, the only changes to the text being repeats and small cuts...