Acoustic guitars which are constructed with hollow bodies have been in circulation for around a thousand years. Today there are three kinds of acoustic guitars: steel-string acoustic, classical and arch top guitars. The tone/sound of acoustic guitars is produced by both the strings vibration, the amplification of the body and the resonating chamber. The classical acoustic guitar is generally played as a standalone instrument, using a finger-picking technique that’s comprehensive. Electric guitars, which were brought into the fry in the 1930s, use an amplifier that manipulates the tone electronically.

Martin Smith W400 Natural Acoustic Guitar

Looking at the first of our acoustic guitar reviews, this guitar, the Martin Smith W400 is a full size guitar that comes with an agathis back and sides, spruce top, chrome hardware and maple fret board. When you purchase this guitar you can expect it to come bundled with a strap, spare strings, plectrums and a tutorial DVD to get you on that road to playing like a pro.

Martin X Series DX1 Acoustic

The second of our acoustic guitar reviews; the Martin’s have been manufacturing guitars since 1833. Since that time, Martin has been responsible for the production of at least one million guitars, with virtually every famous guitar player having owned one. The X series symbolises a new era in Martin acoustics, one that utilising new manufacturing methods which brings that legendary guitar tone down to an affordable price. These guitars sport a fairly basic looks, which was intentionally orchestrated as the manufacturers wasn’t to spend more time on giving you a guitar that would produce that exceptional tone.

Gibson Song maker Mahogany Acoustic Guitar

These instruments deliver a lush, full-bodied tone that you’d come to expect from such an aesthetically appealing instrument. These guitars were developed for durability, as they’re able to handle the stresses of everyday use without losing that consistently rich tone. The traditional scalloped bracing pattern that these guitars sport, allows the CSM’s top to vibrate with less restraint which ultimately results in a more balanced and powerful tone.

Gibson CJ-165 Vintage Sunburst Guitar

These acoustic guitars come with a small body to the standard Gibson Jumbo variety; as a result, these instruments are most suited for those of you who prefer smaller bodied acoustics. These guitars were designed to be able to rest comfortably on the knee of even the smallest of persons, but its smaller size does not comprise the quality of this instruments tone.  The internal structure of these instruments is a 1930s styled body bracing which gives the CJ-165 both a vintage look and contemporary quality sound. I hope you found our acoustic guitar reviews informative.

Handel and Mozart

One of the most exciting operas performed in early 18thcentury Italy were by a young German composer known as George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). He and other composers of this period produced operas based loosely on historical events and legends from ancient Greece and Rome. They were known as opera seria (severe opera). Handel’s greatest works of this kind include Julius Caesar (1724), Rodelinda (1725) and Alcina (173′5). To modern audiences, these serious operas seem to lack drama. They sound like concerts in costume, with singers performing a series of dazzling show-pieces. But this was exactly what 18th-century audiences wanted. They went to the opera for an evening of light entertainment, to chat, gamble, eat and drink, occasionally stopping to listen to their favourite singer performs his or her show-piece.

The greatest 18th-century opera composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91). His operas cannot be matched for their stunning music, intriguing characters and suitability for staging within the theatre. In operas such as The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), Mozart ingeniously combines comedy and seriousness. His expressive music creates fascinating, believable characters that cannot be described as merely good or evil. They have both nasty and sympathetic sides, like individuals in real existence.

19th-century opera

The early 19th century saw the centre of opera shift back to Italy, largely thanks to a remarkable young composer known as Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868). Rossini wrote 36 enormously well-known operas between 1810 and 1829, and then composed no more in the remaining 40 years of his life. His most famous work is The Barber of Seville (1816). The vocal music style utilized by Rossini demanded incredible flexibility from singers, and an athletic vocal technique. For most of the 19th century, the globe of opera was divided into two camps, German and Italian.

Opera brings individuals with a wide variety of skills with each other below the exact same roof, all working towards the same goal – overall performance. A composer writes the music, and a librettist adapts the words of an original story so that they are suitable for singing. A director and designer work closely with each other to choose what each production will look like, and how the performers will act on stage. Performers include soloists, chorus singers, occasionally dancers, instrumentalists and a conductor, who should keep all the music below control. Many people do essential operate behind the scenes of an opera but get very little credit: scene-painters, carpenters, electricians, costume- and wig-makers, make-up artists, dressers, scenery movers, lighting technicians, stage managers, rehearsal pianists, assistant directors, box-office attendants, ushers and company administrators. A single opera performance requires all these individuals to operate difficult together and fit in with each others’ complicated schedules.

The art of opera

In contrast to television or film drama, opera drama is not supposed to be realistic. Opera is larger than life, a globe of magical relationships, perfect love, coincidental meetings – a world of make-believe. It demands a suspension of disbelief, that is, audiences must forget that the action on stage is not actual to ensure that they can experience the drama fully. For example, in numerous operas, lovers warble poetic words at each other, in high-pitched tones. This doesn’t occur in most people’s actual lives, but the emotions expressed can still be appreciated.

On the other hand, opera enables some things that do happen in real life to be expressed far more neatly than could ever be achieved in film drama. Imagine four people in a room, each with strong feelings along with a point of view to put across. Inside a film, if they all talked at once there would just be a jumble of noise. In an opera, however, they can sing, and although their individual feelings may be really various, a skilled composer can lock their voices neatly together so that a single harmonious whole is produced. It’s artificial but very effective within the theatre, and stunning to hear, as well.

Operetta lost popularity in Europe during the early 20th century, but took root within the USA, where Gilbert and Sullivan had been much appreciated. The USA then produced its own operetta composers, for example Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951), who was educated in Vienna at the height from the European operetta craze. Among Romberg’s finest functions are The Student Prince (1924) and also the Desert Song (1926).

Musicals

The large popularity of jazz within the I920s, and the arrival of recording, brought a change in musical taste. Operas and operettas were replaced by blockbusting musicals, most of which came from the USA. One of the most successful composers of musicals was George Gershwin (1898-1937), with works such as Lady, Be Good (1924) and Funny Face (1927). But he also had ambitions to compose serious music, and later wrote a magnificent jazz opera, Porgy and Bess (1935).

Stage and screen musicals, however, continued to interest the public more than opera and operetta. The dividing line between these forms is occasionally difficult to define. This is particularly true of 20thcentury musicals performed by artists who could just as well sing significant opera, such as the tenor Mario Lanza (1921-59). Some works are considered too inspired to be described as musicals, yet not significant enough to be called operas. Among these are Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady (1956) and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1958). But usually, modern audiences prefer the ealism of cinema to the artificial sentimentality of operetta.

Operetta is often looked down upon as second best to real opera. But this is unfair. Numerous operetta composers had been as skilled as some of probably the most famous writers of opera. It’s frequently just a matter of personal opinion whether to describe particular functions as ‘opera’, ‘operetta’, or even ‘musical comedy’.

The rise of operetta

The great era operettas began in Paris in around 1840, and were dominated by the composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-80). His greatest stage work, Orpheus within the Underworld (1858), was a sharp satire on old-fashioned attitudes. The people of Paris had been both shocked and delighted by Offenbach’s daring humour. His lively style of music, with its memorable melodies, became particularly popular in Austria’s capital, Vienna. There, a well-known composer of dance music, Johann Strauss (1825-99), started to write for the theatre. The result was arguably the greatest operetta of all time, Die Fledermaus (The Bat, 1874).

Strauss’ music was more sentimental and elegant than Offenbach’s, and he was less concerned with satire. He also included dance numbers, for example waltzes and polkas, in his works. These were tailor-made to become well-liked hits. Strauss’ operettas epitomize the carefree, romantic mood of late 19th-century Vienna. They started a fashion for charming, melodious stage musicals in the Austrian capital that was taken further by composers of the next generation.

The most accomplished of these was the Hungarian-born Franz Lehar (1870-1948). Lehar’s The Merry Widow (1905) in many methods represents the climax of operetta. It’s a charming love story, spiced with satire and mischief, set in a world of wealth and glamour.