Wednesday, February 10, 2016
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Birthdays
Larry Adler
In 1914 Larry Adler was born in Baltimore. He graduated from Baltimore City College high school. He taught himself harmonica, which he called a mouth-organ. He played professionally at 14. In 1927, he won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Sun, playing a Beethoven minuet, and a year later he ran away from home to New York. After being referred by Rudy Vallée, Adler got his first theatre work, and caught the attention of orchestra leader Paul Ash, who placed Adler in a vaudeville act as “a ragged urchin, playing for pennies”. From there, he was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld and then by Lew Leslie again as an urchin. He broke the typecasting and appeared in a dinner jacket in the 1934 Paramount film Many Happy Returns, and was hired by theatrical producer C. B. Cochran to perform in London. He became a star in the United Kingdom and the Empire, where, it has been written, harmonica sales increased 20-fold and 300,000 people joined fan clubs.”. Adler was one of the first harmonica players to perform major works written for the instrument, often written for him: these include Jean Berger’s Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra “Caribbean” (1941), Cyril Scott’s Serenade (harmonica and piano, 1936), Vaughan Williams’ Romance in D-flat for harmonica, piano and string orchestra; premiered New York, 1952, Milhaud’s Suite Anglais (Paris, May 28, 1947), Arthur Benjamin’s Harmonica Concerto (1953), and Malcolm Arnold’s Harmonica Concerto, Op. 46 (1954, written for The Proms). He recorded all except the Scott Serenade, some more than once. Earlier, Adler had performed transcriptions of pieces for other instruments, such as violin concertos by Bach and Vivaldi – he played his arrangement of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in A minor with the Sydney Symphony. Other works he played in harmonica arrangements were by Bartók, Beethoven (Minuet in G), Debussy, Falla, Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Mozart (slow movement from the Oboe Quartet, K. 470), Poulenc,Ravel (Boléro), Stravinsky and Walton. During the 1940s, Adler and the dancer, Paul Draper, formed an act and toured nationally and internationally, performing individually then together in each performance. One popular number was Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm. After the blacklisting and an unsuccessful libel suit decided in 1950, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1951 and settled in London, where he remained the rest of his life. Another source indicates he stayed in London from 1949. The 1953 film Genevieve brought him an Oscar nomination for his work on the soundtrack, and great wealth. His name was originally kept off the credits in the United States due to blacklisting. His other film scores included A Cry from the Streets (1958), The Hellions (1961), The Hook (1963), King & Country (1964) and A High Wind in Jamaica(1965). He also scored a hit with the theme song of the French Jacques Becker movie Touchez pas au grisbi with Jean Gabin, written by Jean Wiener. In 1959, a reviewer from the Village Voice called Adler “a great artist” after watching his twice-nightly performances at the Village Gate. In 1994, for his 80th birthday, Adler and George Martin produced an album of George Gershwin songs, The Glory of Gershwin, on which they performed “Rhapsody in Blue.”The Glory of Gershwin reached number 2 in the UK albums chart in 1994. Adler was a musician and showman. Concerts to support The Glory of Gershwin showed he was a competent pianist. He opened each performance with Gershwin’s “Summertime”, playing piano and harmonica simultaneously. The album included Peter Gabriel, Oleta Adams, Elton John, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Meat Loaf, Sinéad O’Connor, Robert Palmer,Cher, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Courtney Pine, Issy Van Randwyck, Lisa Stansfield and Carly Simon, all of whom sang Gershwin tunes with an orchestra and Adler adding harmonica solos. 1
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Leontyne Price
Happy 89th birthday Leontyne Price! She was born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera. One critic characterized Price’s voice as “vibrant”, “soaring” and “a Price beyond pearls”, as well as “genuinely buttery, carefully produced but firmly under control”, with phrases that “took on a seductive sinuousness.” Time magazine called her voice “Rich, supple and shining, it was in its prime capable of effortlessly soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C.” A lirico spinto (Italian for “pushed lyric”) soprano, she was considered especially well suited to the roles of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, as well as several in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After her retirement from the opera stage in 1985, she continued to appear in recitals and orchestral concerts until 1997. Among her many honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), the Spingarn Medal (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), the National Medal of Arts (1985), numerous honorary degrees, and 19 Grammy Awards, 13 for operatic or song recitals, five for full operas, and a special Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989, more than any other classical singer. In October 2008, she was one of the recipients of the first Opera Honors given by the National Endowment for the Arts. 2
Jerry Goldsmith
In 1929 Jerry Goldsmith was born in Los Angeles. He was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for such noteworthy films as The Sand Pebbles, Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, The Omen, The Boys from Brazil, Alien,Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Rudy, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, The Mummy, three Rambo films, and five Star Trek films. He collaborated with some of film history’s most prolific directors, including Robert Wise, Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, Joe Dante, Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Paul Verhoeven, and Franklin J. Schaffner. Goldsmith was nominated for six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, and eighteen Academy Awards. In 1976, he was awarded an Academy Award for The Omen. 3
Premieres
In 1744 George Frideric Handel’s opera Semele was premiered at Covent Garden in London.
In 1749 George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Susanna was premiered, also at Covent Garden in London.
In 1794 Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 was premiered at the King’s Theater in London.
In 1881 Jacques Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann was premiered posthumously at the Opera-Comique in Paris.
In 1882 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Snow Maiden was premiered in St. Petersburg.
On This Day in Classical Music
In 1922 the first complete symphony orchestra concert was broadcast on radio, on Detroit station WWJ, featuring the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch and featured pianist Artur Schnabel.
In 1945 Benjamin Britten completed the full score of his opera Peter Grimes.
In 1948 the Soviet Central Committee issued a decree about how music should sound, in effect censoring the composers of the day. Many of the famous Russian composers ran afoul of this decree, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev.
Recommended Listening
George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, featuring Larry Adler on the harmonica.
George Gershwin’s Summertime from Porgy and Bess with Leontyne Price.
- Wikipedia contributors, “Larry Adler,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Adler&oldid=684021872 (accessed February 9, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Leontyne Price,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leontyne_Price&oldid=702691998 (accessed February 9, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Jerry Goldsmith,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_Goldsmith&oldid=700918310 (accessed February 9, 2016).
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