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Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Note: I mistakenly posted this as yesterday’s almanac when in reality it should have been for today’s date – December 16! I’m sorry for the confusing this caused! – Ed

Birthdays

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820

Beethoven Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820

In 1770 Ludwig van Beethoven believed to have been born (His baptism is on record as being December 16). A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis and an opera, Fidelio. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his 30s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. 1

Zoltán Kodály

In 1882 Zoltán Kodály was born in Kecskemét, Hungary. He learned to play the violin as a child. In 1905 he visited remote villages to collect songs, recording them on phonograph cylinders. In 1906 he wrote the thesis on Hungarian folk song (“Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong”). Around this time Kodály met fellow composer Béla Bartók, whom he took under his wing and introduced to some of the methods involved in folk song collecting. The two became lifelong friends and champions of each other’s music. All these works show a great originality of form and content, a very interesting blend of highly sophisticated mastery in the Western-European style of music, including classical, late-romantic, impressionistic and modernist tradition and at the other hand profound knowledge and respect for the folk music in Hungary and the Hungarian-inhabited areas of Slovakia and Romania. Partly because of the Great War and subsequent major geopolitical changes in the region, partly because of a naturally rather diffident temperament in youth, Kodály had no major public success until 1923. This was the year when one of his best-known pieces, Psalmus Hungaricus, was given its first performance at a concert to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the union of Buda and Pest (Bartók’s Dance Suite premiered on the same occasion.) Kodály’s first wife was Emma Gruber (née Schlesinger, later Sándor), the dedicatee of Ernő Dohnányi’s Waltz for piano four-hands, Op. 3, and Variations and Fugue on a theme by E.G., Op. 4 (1897). In November 1958, after 48 years of the most harmonious marriage Kodály’s first wife Emma died. In December 1959, Kodály married Sarolta Péczely, his 19-year-old student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with whom he lived happily until his death in 1967 at the age of 84. In 1966, Kodály toured the United States and gave a special lecture at Stanford University, where some of his music was performed in his presence. 2

Trevor Pinnock

Happy 68th birthday Trevor Pinnock! Born on this day in 1946 in Canterbury. He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical music. He is a former artistic director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and founded The Classical Band in New York. Since his resignation from The English Concert in 2003, Pinnock has continued his career as a conductor, appearing with major orchestras and opera companies around the world. He has also performed and recorded as a harpsichordist in solo and chamber music and conducted and otherwise trained student groups at conservatoires. Trevor Pinnock won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, an occasional orchestra formed to mark his 60th birthday. 3

Premiers

In 1893 Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9. “From the New World” was premiered in New York City at a public rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic with Anton Seidl conducting.

In 1916 the American premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde took place with vocal soloists Tilly Koenen and Johannes Sembach, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting.

In 1921 Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frederick Stock. Prokofiev was the soloist.

In 1938 Francsi Poulenc’s Organ Concerto was unveiled in a private performance in Paris. Maurice Durufle was the organist and Nadia Boulanger conducted.

Also in 1938 Ernest Bloch’s Violin Concerto was premiered by violinist Joseph Szigeti and the Cleveland Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting.  

In 1986 Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of his Opening Prayer for Baritone and Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with Kurt Ollmann as the vocal soloist.

Today in Classical Music

In 1785 it is reported that Mozart finished his Piano Concerto No. 22.

In 1838 Niccolo Paganini heard for the first time Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. Paganini had recently acquired a Stradivarius viola and told Berlioz, “But I have no suitable music. Would you like to write a solo for viola? You are the only one I can trust for this task.”  Unfortunately Paganini was initially disappointed upon seeing the sketch of the allegro movement. But when he finally heard the full symphony “he was so overwhelmed by it that, following the performance, he dragged Berlioz onto the stage and there knelt and kissed his hand before a wildly cheering audience and applauding musicians. A few days later he sent Berlioz a letter of congratulations, enclosing a bank draft for 20,000 francs.” 4

In 1854 Franz Liszt received a letter from Richard Wagner in which Wagner told him of an idea for an opera he called Tristan und Isolde.

In 1890 Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler met for the first time, at a performance of the opera Don Giovanni which Mahler was conducting in Budapest.

In 2002 the 30th Concert of the Three Tenors ( Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, and Luciano Pavarotti) was held in St. Paul, Minnesota.

  1. Wikipedia contributors, “Ludwig van Beethoven,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ludwig_van_Beethoven&oldid=695054275 (accessed December 15, 2015).
  2. Wikipedia contributors, “Zoltán Kodály,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zolt%C3%A1n_Kod%C3%A1ly&oldid=679839360 (accessed December 15, 2015).
  3. Wikipedia contributors, “Trevor Pinnock,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trevor_Pinnock&oldid=693939104 (accessed December 15, 2015).
  4. Wikipedia contributors, ‘Harold en Italie’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 31 July 2015, 19:58 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harold_en_Italie&oldid=673979779> [accessed 15 December 2015]