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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

You can listen to the Classical Music Almanac Podcast Daily here.

Birthdays

Bedřich Smetana

In 1824 Bedřich Smetana was born. A Czech composer he pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country’s aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast (“My Homeland”), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer’s native land. Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy. In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague’s new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theatre’s principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city’s musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative work, and may have hastened the health breakdown which precipitated his resignation from the theatre in 1874. By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum and his subsequent death. Smetana’s reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors. However, relatively few of Smetana’s works are in the international repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer. 1

Kurt Weill

In 1900 Kurt Weill was born. A German composer, active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad “Mack the Knife”. Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. He wrote several works for the concert hall, as well as several Judaism-themed pieces. He became a United States citizen on August 27, 1943. 2

Harry Blech

In 1910 Harry Blech was born. He was the founder of the London Mozart Players. He was a violinist who, having desired to turn his hand to conducting, had been asked by pianist Dorothea Braus to form an orchestra with which she could play two Mozart piano concertos. The concert took place on 11 February at Wigmore Hall, London and the programme also included two Mozart symphonies, Nos. 28 in C and 29 in A. With this sell-out concert Harry Blech realised that he had found an audience for the music he wanted to perform; that of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and their contemporaries. The Haydn-Mozart Society was created shortly after with William Walton as its chairman and Alan Rawsthorne as one of the committee members. On 3 May 1951, the Royal Festival Hall was opened and the London Mozart Players – as they had become known – was invited to perform as part of the RFH’s opening week of concerts. The orchestra then switched its operation to the more appropriately-sized Queen Elizabeth Hall after its opening in 1967. In 1956, the LMP embarked on its first overseas tour to Italy by way of Amsterdam. During Blech’s time as principal conductor, the orchestra made many commercial recordings  and was also regularly broadcast on the Third Programme and its successor, BBC Radio 3. 3

Leif Segerstam

Happy birthday Leif Segerstam. He is a Finnish conductor, composer, violinist, violist and pianist, especially known for his 291 symphonies, along with his other works in his extensive œuvre. Segerstam has conducted in a variety of orchestras since 1963, mostly American, Australian and European orchestras. He is widely known through his recorded discography, which includes the complete symphonies of Blomdahl, Brahms, Mahler, Nielsen, and Sibelius, as well as many works by contemporary composers, such as the American composers John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse, the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, Swedish composer Allan Pettersson and the Russian composers Alfred Schnittke and Alexander Scriabin. His contributions to the Finnish music scene and his vibrant personality have made him a famous composer. 4

Premieres

In 1792 Joseph Haydn conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 98 at the Hanover Square Rooms in London.

In 1795 Joseph Haydn conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 103, also known as The Drumroll, at the King’s Theater in London.

In 1961 Aaron Copland conducted members of the National Symphony in the premiered of his Nonet for Strings at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C..

On This Day in Classical Music

In 1786 Mozart completed work on his Piano Concerto No. 23 in Vienna.

In 1795 Beethoven performed publicly for the first time to, not surprisingly, great acclaim.

In 1798 Frederick William III, King of Prussia, dismisses Luigi Boccherini from his post as court composer, this despite the fact – perhaps because of the fact –  that his father, Frederick William II, appointed him to the post.

In 1806 John Field performs for the first time in Moscow and received such a warm welcome that he decided to live in Russia for several years.

In 1867 Tchaikovsky picks up the baton for the first time, in St. Petersburg.

In 1874 Rimsky-Korsakov follows in Tchaikovsky’s footsteps and also makes his conducting debut in St. Petersburg.

In 1884 Frederick Delius travels to New York before making is way to Florida to work in a orange grove that his father had invested in.

In 1903 Gabriel Fauré becomes the music critic for the French Newspaper Le Figaro.

Recommended Listening

Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 98 in B flat major, performed by the Orchestra of the 18th Century, conducted by Frans Brüggen.

  1. Wikipedia contributors, “Bedřich Smetana,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bed%C5%99ich_Smetana&oldid=706049388 (accessed March 1, 2016).
  2. Wikipedia contributors, “Kurt Weill,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kurt_Weill&oldid=705853038 (accessed March 1, 2016).
  3. Wikipedia contributors, “London Mozart Players,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=London_Mozart_Players&oldid=694589393 (accessed March 1, 2016).
  4. Wikipedia contributors, “Leif Segerstam,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leif_Segerstam&oldid=704045102 (accessed March 1, 2016).