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classical, classical music, composers, Liszt, New York Philharmonic, opera, orchestra, philharmonic
11 Monday Apr 2016
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classical, classical music, composers, Liszt, New York Philharmonic, opera, orchestra, philharmonic
10 Sunday Apr 2016
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Boston Symphony Orchestra, classical, classical music, composers, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Mozart, Mozart, opera, orchestra, philharmonic, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Wagner, Wolgang Amadeus
Happy birthday Lesley Garrett! She has had an extensive music career. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, she won the Decca Prize of the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 1979, thereby launching her career. Her professional debut, in 1979, was as Amor in Orontea at the music festival in Batignano. She subsequently sang, in 1980, Alice in Le comte Ory at the London Coliseum and Dorinda in Orlando at the Wexford Festival, in 1981, also at Wexford, the title role in Zaide, in 1982 Sophie in Werther with Opera North and in 1984 Damigella in L’incoronazione di Poppea at Glyndebourne.[6] From 1984, as principal soprano at English National Opera, she became well known for her performances in productions of the operas Serse, Le Nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and Die Fledermaus. Garrett has performed across the world, in countries throughout Europe, and also the United States, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea. She has also sung opera and pop classics with Bryan Ferry, Eurythmics and Mick Hucknall to celebrate the arrival of the new century on Millennium Eve in the grounds at the Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum. She played the lead role of Hanna Glawari in the Welsh National Opera’s production of The Merry Widow, which toured the United Kingdom in 2005. In 2006 she sang the role of Mother Abbess in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival of The Sound of Music. In 2008, she joined the cast of Carousel as Nettie Fowler. The production toured the UK and then transferred to the West End’s Savoy Theatre. In 2013 she returned to opera with the monodrama La Voix humaine for Opera North. Garrett is a member of the board of the English National Opera. In 2002 Garrett was appointed a CBE for her services to music. 1
Happy birthday Yefim Bronfman! He was born in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, and emigrated to Israel at the age of 15. He became an American citizen in 1989. He made his international debut in 1975 with Zubin Mehta and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1989 and gave a series of recitals with Isaac Stern in 1991. He won a Grammy award in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartók piano concertos withEsa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Another recording with Salonen, of the concertos of Sergei Rachmaninoff, was pirated by the record label Concert Artist and re-issued with the piano part falsely attributed to Joyce Hatto. Bronfman is also devoted to chamber music and has performed with many chamber ensembles and instrumentalists. He made a set of Sergei Prokofiev’s complete sonatas and concertos (with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) for Sony Records. In 1999, he appeared in Disney’s Fantasia 2000, in a short clip introducing the “Steadfast Tin Soldier” segment. His rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major (1st movement) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is the music used for the segment. In March, 2006, Bronfman performed Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. Bronfman has also made appearances with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto. His recent appearances have included performances with the Orchestre de Paris and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra; Bronfman has also appeared as a Pennington Great Performers series artist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and again in 2007. In January 2007, he also premiered Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto, of which he is the dedicatee, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by the composer. This was later followed by a European premiere at The Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In May 2008, Bronfman performed Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, during a three-week Brahms Festival. On September 3, 2008, Bronfman performed Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor by Rachmaninoff under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas at the Opening Gala of the San Francisco Symphony, and on September 28 and 29 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of David Robertson. On March 25 and 26, 2009, he performed it yet again, this time under the baton of Pinchas Zukerman with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada. Bronfman performed Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Houston Symphony Orchestra March 12–15, 2009, under the baton of Maestro Hans Graf, resident Music Director. 2
Happy birthday Hayley Westenra! She is a New Zealand singer, classical crossover artist, songwriter and UNICEF Ambassador. Her first internationally released album, Pure, reached No. 1 on the UK classical charts in 2003 and has sold more than two million copies worldwide. Pure is the fastest-selling international début classical album to date, having made Westenra an international star at age 16. In August 2006, she joined the Irish group Celtic Woman, was featured on their Celtic Woman: A New Journey CD and DVD, toured with them on their 2007 Spring Tour, and was also featured on their DVD, The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection, released in 2008. Wesentra has produced five New Zealand number one studio albums, holding the title for the most number one records for any New Zealand act, a record shared with alternative rock band Shihad since the release of their 2014 album, FVEY. Across classical music to easy listening, folk and pop style songs, Westenra has performed songs in English, Irish, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Portuguese, Latin, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Catalan. Westenra has performed for dignitaries all over the world. She is the second youngest UNICEF Ambassador to date and has contributed to charities around the globe. 3
In 1820 Louis Spohr’s Symphony No. 2 was premiered at a Philharmonic Society concert in London. Spohr was noted as conducting with his violin bow, something not seen previously.
In 1853 Charles Gounod’s Ave Maria was first performed in Paris. He based it on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude in C Major.
In 1868 a portion of Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem was premiered in the Bremen Cathedral.
In 1935 Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 4 was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult. 2 years later, RVW would conduct the same orchestra in the recording of this symphony – and it would be the only time he actually conducted a commercial recording of any of his symphonies.
In 1936 Carlos Chavez conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiered of his Sinfonia India.
In 1963 Francis Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata was premiered by clarinetist Benny Goodman and pianist Leonard Bernstein.
In 1602 Claudio Monteverdi was granted citizenship in Mantua.
In 1764 Leopold, Wolfgang, and Maria Anna Mozart departed Paris to travel to London as their European tour continued.
In 1859 Franz Liszt was inducted into the Order of the Iron Crown by Emperor Franz Joseph II, which would entitle him to a knighthood should he request it.
In 1861 Arthur Sullivan graduated from the Leipzig Conservatoire.
In 1865 Hans von Bülow conducted the opening rehearsal of Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, despite the fact that only hours before his wife had given birth to Wagner’s child.
In 1904 Erik Satie was arrested after fighting with a critic during a Beethoven concert in Paris.
Charles Gounod’s Ave Maria performed by Elena House.
Louis Spohr’s Symphony No. 2 performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Choo Hoey.
09 Saturday Apr 2016
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Boston Symphony Orchestra, classical, classical music, composers, Leonard Bernstein, orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, philharmonic
In 1898 Paul Robeson was born. He was an American singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. At Rutgers College, he was an outstanding football player, then had an international career in singing, with a distinctive, powerful, deep bass voice, as well as acting in theater and movies. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, fascism, and social injustices. His advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with communism, and criticism of the United States government caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Ill health forced him into retirement from his career. Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College, where he became a football All-American and the class valedictorian. He received his LL.B. from Columbia Law School, while playing in the National Football League (NFL). At Columbia, he sang and acted in off-campus productions; and, after graduating, he became a participant in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in The Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Got Wings. Robeson initiated his international artistic résumé with a theatrical role in Great Britain, settling in London for the next several years with his wife Essie. Robeson next appeared as Othello at the Savoy Theatre before becoming an international cinema star through roles in Show Boat and Sanders of the River. He became increasingly attuned towards the sufferings of other cultures and peoples. Acting against advice, which warned of his economic ruin if he became politically active, he set aside his theatrical career to advocate the cause of the Republican forces of the Spanish Civil War. He then became active in the Council on African Affairs (CAA). During World War II, he supported America’s war efforts and won accolades for his portrayal of Othello on Broadway. However, his history of supporting pro-Soviet policies brought scrutiny from the FBI. After the war ended, the CAA was placed on the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations and Robeson was investigated during the age ofMcCarthyism. Due to his decision not to recant his public advocacy of pro-Soviet policies, he was denied a passport by the U.S. State Department, and his income, consequently, plummeted. He moved to Harlem and published a periodical critical of United States policies. His right to travel was eventually restored by the 1958 United States Supreme Courtdecision, Kent v. Dulles, but his health broke down. He retired and he lived out the remaining years of his life privately in Philadelphia. 1
In 1906 Antal Dorati was born in Budapest, where his father Alexander Doráti was a violinist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother Margit Kunwald was a piano teacher. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leo Weiner for composition and Béla Bartók for piano. His links with Bartók continued for many years: he conducted the world premiere of Bartók’s Viola Concerto, as completed by Tibor Serly, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1949, with William Primrose as the soloist. He made his conducting debut in 1924 with the Budapest Royal Opera. As well as composing original works, he compiled and arranged pieces by Johann Strauss II for the ballet Graduation Ball (1940), premiered by the Original Ballet Russe in Sydney, Australia, with himself on the conductor’s podium. For Ballet Theatre (later renamed American Ballet Theatre) he created scores for the ballets Bluebeard (1941) from music by Jacques Offenbach and The Fair at Sorochinsk (1943) from music by Modest Mussorgsky. His autobiography, Notes of Seven Decades, was published in 1979. In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II made Doráti an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). This entitled him to use the post-nominal letters KBE. By convention honorary knights do generally not use the “Sir” unless they subsequently acquire UK citizenship. His wife was Ilse von Alpenheim, an Austrian pianist. Doráti died at the age of 82 in Gerzensee, Switzerland. 2
In 1926 Edgard Varèse’s Amériques was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
In 1942 Igor Stravinsky’s Circus Polka was premiered at Madison Square Gardens in New York by the Barnum & Bailey Circus with M. Evans conducting.
In 1948 Samuel Barber’s song-cycle Knoxville: Summer of 1915 for voice and orchestra was premiered by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting and soprano Eleanor Steber the soloist.
In 1977 Leonard Bernstein’s Candide Suite was premiered in Tel Aviv.
In 1765 London Newspapers feature an advertisement inviting people to hear the musical talents of the young brother and sister team of Wolgang Amadeus and Maria Anna Mozart in their home each day from noon to 2pm.
In 1835 Franz Liszt collapsed after performing at a concert with Hector Berlioz in Paris.
In 1886 Enrique Granados made his piano concert debut in Barcelona.
In 1889 Richard Strauss signed a one-year contract with the Berlin Opera.
In 1940 Carnegie Hall in New York hosts a demonstration of Bell Laboratories new stereo music on film.
In 1941 the Berlin State Opera house was destroyed in an allied bombing raid.
08 Friday Apr 2016
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Boston Symphony Orchestra, classical, classical music, composers, opera, orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, philharmonic
In 1692 Giuseppe Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice (now in Slovenia) to Gianantonio – native of Florence– and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families. It appears Tartini’s parents intended him to become a Franciscan friar and, in this way, he received basic musical training. He studied law at the University of Padua, where he became skilled at fencing. After his father’s death in 1710, he married Elisabetta Premazore, a woman his father would have disapproved of because of her lower social class and age difference. Unfortunately, Elisabetta was a favorite of the powerful Cardinal Giorgio Cornaro, who promptly charged Tartini with abduction. Tartini fled Padua to go to the monastery of St. Francis in Assisi, where he could escape prosecution. While there, Tartini took up playing the violin. Legend says when Tartini heard Francesco Maria Veracini’s playing in 1716, he was impressed by it and dissatisfied with his own skill. He fled to Ancona and locked himself away in a room to practice, according to Charles Burney, “in order to study the use of the bow in more tranquility, and with more convenience than at Venice, as he had a place assigned him in the opera orchestra of that city.” Tartini’s skill improved tremendously and, in 1721, he was appointed Maestro di Cappella at the Basilica di Sant’Antonio in Padua, with a contract that allowed him to play for other institutions if he wished. In Padua he met and befriended fellow composer and theorist Francesco Antonio Vallotti. Tartini was the first known owner of a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1715, which Tartini bestowed upon his student Salvini, who in turn bestowed it to the Polish music composer and virtuoso violinist Karol Lipiński upon hearing him perform, from which it derives its moniker, the Lipinski Stradivarius. He also owned and played the Antonio Stradivarius violin ex-Vogelweith from 1711. In 1726, Tartini started a violin school which attracted students from all over Europe. Gradually, Tartini became more interested in the theory of harmony and acoustics, and from 1750 to the end of his life he published various treatises. His home town, Piran, now has a statue of Tartini in the square, which was the old harbour, originally Roman, named the Tartini Square (Slovene: Tartinijev trg, Italian: Piazza Tartini). Silted up and obsolete, the port was cleared of debris, filled, and redeveloped. One of the old stone warehouses is now the Hotel Giuseppe Tartini. His birthday is celebrated by a concert in the main town cathedral. 1
In 1889 Adrian Boult was born. He was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivaled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later. Forced to leave the BBC in 1950 on reaching retirement age, Boult took on the chief conductorship of the LPO. The orchestra had declined from its peak of the 1930s, but under his guidance its fortunes were revived. He retired as its chief conductor in 1957, and later accepted the post of president. Although in the latter part of his career he worked with other orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and his former orchestra, the BBC Symphony, it was the LPO with which he was primarily associated, conducting it in concerts and recordings until 1978, in what was widely called his “Indian Summer”. Boult was known for his championing of British music. He gave the first performance of his friend Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and introduced new works by, among others, Bliss, Britten, Delius, Tippett, Vaughan Williams and Walton. In his BBC years he introduced works by foreign composers, including Bartók, Berg, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern. A modest man who disliked the limelight, Boult felt as comfortable in the recording studio as on the concert platform, making recordings throughout his career. From the mid-1960s until his retirement after his last sessions in 1978 he recorded extensively for EMI. As well as a series of recordings that have remained in the catalogue for three or four decades, Boult’s legacy includes his influence on prominent conductors of later generations, including Colin Davis and Vernon Handley. 2
In 1921 Jan Novak was born. He was a popular Czech composer of classical music. Novák was primarily active in the 1960s and composed the music for several films of Karel Kachyňa. Novák also composed music for the films of animators Jiří Trnka and Karel Zeman, the leading figures of the Czech animated film. 3
In 1708 Handel’s The Resurrection was premiered in Rome with Arcangelo Corelli conducting.
In 1781 Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 27 and Rondo in C for violin and orchestra were premiered.
In 1876 Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda was premiered at La Scala in Milan.
In 1927 Edgar Varèse’s Arcana for orchestra was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
In 1938 Walter Piston conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere of his Symphony No. 1.
In 1949 Leonard Bernstein was the soloist at the premiere of his Symphony No. 2 (“The Age of Anxiety”) with the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky.
In 1778, following his death Thomas Arne’s possessions were sold, including a harpsichord, two guitars, and a mandolin. He is probably best known for composing Rule Britannia.
In 1805 Joseph Haydn, who was in his seventies, heard Mozart’s 14-year-old son Franz Xaver Mozart make his public debut and heaped great praise on the young man.
In 1820 Ludwig van Beethoven was awarded custody of his nephew Karl when a court overruled a previous court’s decision to award the boy’s mother custody.
In 1878 Charles Villiers Standford and Jennie Wetton are married (much to the chagrin of his parents).
In 1897 newspapers reported that Gustav Mahler had been hired to be the conductor of the Vienna Opera.
In 1904 Ruggero Leoncavallo composed Mattinata for Enrico Caruso to record at the Grand Hotel in Milan.
07 Thursday Apr 2016
Posted Blog, Classical Music, Classical Music Almanac, podcast
inIn 1820 Alfred Mellon was born. He was an English violinist, conductor and composer. He played the violin in the opera and other orchestras, and afterwards became leader of the ballet at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden. He was next director of the music at the Haymarket and Adelphi theatres, and subsequently conductor of the Pyne and Harrison English Opera Company, who in 1859 produced his opera, “Victorine”, at Covent Garden. He was conductor of the Musical Society, and of the Promenade Concerts, which for several seasons were given under his name at Covent Garden. In September 1865, he was chosen conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. 1
Happy birthday Leif Ove Andsnes! He is a Norwegian pianist and well-known chamber musician. Andsnes has made several recordings for Virgin and EMI. For his “Beethoven Journey” project, Andsnes performed and recorded all five of the composer’s piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; they have been released on Sony Classical. He is represented by IMG. 2
In 1786 Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 was premiered in Vienna. Mozart conducted and was soloist.
In 1805 Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) was publicly premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien; for which concert the announced (theoretical) key for the symphony was Dis (D-sharp major, 9 sharps). However, it was given a private premier the year before for Beethoven’s royal patron, Prince Lobkowitz, at the castle Eisenberg (Jezeří) in Bohemia. 3
In 1994 John Harbison’s Cello Concerto was premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony with Seiji Ozawa conducting.
In 1768 William Boyce resigned as organist for St. Michael’s Cornhill, after 32 years because it was suggested that his playing was not good enough.
In 1805 Lorenzo da Ponte – librettist for some of Mozart’s most famous operas – skipped town and made his way to America to get away from his creditors.
In 1886 Franz Liszt gave a private performance for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle.
In 1917 Sergei Rachmaninoff gave series of three epic concerts at the Bolshoi Theater, featuring his own music as well by Tchaikovsky and Liszt. This would be his farewell to Russia as he would leave his homeland as the Russian Revolution came to a head a few months later.
In 1920 Alice Elgar died of lung cancer in her husband Edward’s arms.
In 1933 anti-Semitism worsened in Nazi Germany as all Jews are banned from performing with state-run orchestras as well as from holding professorships at German universities.
06 Wednesday Apr 2016
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Borodin, classical, classical music, composers, Liszt, Mozart, opera, orchestra, philharmonic
Happy birthday André Previn! He is a German-born American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings (and one more for his Lifetime Achievement). 1
Happy birthday Pascal Rogé! His first appearance in public was in 1960 with a performance of Claude Debussy’s Préludes. He won the piano prize at the Paris Conservatory and worked for several years withJulius Katchen. At seventeen, he gave his first recitals in major European cities, landing an exclusive contract with Decca in the process. He has a particular affinity with French composers such as Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc. He also performs chamber works, with the Pasquier Trio, and with musicians such as Pierre Amoyal and Michel Portal, with whom he recorded Poulenc and Tchaikovsky. He gives recitals worldwide, in all the major centres. A friend of conductor Charles Dutoit, he was regularly invited to Canada to work with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra while Dutoit was conductor there. 2
Happy birthday Patrick Doyle! He is a Scottish film composer. A longtime collaborator of actor-director Kenneth Branagh, Doyle is known for his work composing for films such as Henry V (1989), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Hamlet (1996), and Gosford Park (2001), as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Eragon (2006), Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Thor (both 2011). Doyle has been nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, and is the recipient of the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award for “outstanding achievements and contributions to the world of film and television music” 3
In 1900 Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto in c# was premiered by the Boston Symphony with Wilhelm Gericke conducting and the Beach was the soloist.
In 1945 Randall Thompson’s The Testament of Freedom (to texts by Thomas Jefferson) for men’s chorus and orchestra was premiered by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. This was the first performance with orchestra. The world premiere (with piano accompaniment) had taken place at the University of Virginia on April 13, 1943.
In 1967 Miklós Rózsa’s Piano Concerto was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with Leonard Pennario as soloist.
In 1768 twelve-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his elder sister Maria Anna performed at the wedding of Archduchess Maria Carolina and King Ferdinando of Naples.
In 1774 Mozart completed work on his Symphony No. 29 while living in Salzburg.
In 1826 Carol Maria von Weber was made the first honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society.
In 1847 London’s covent Garden Theater reopened after being converted into an opera house. They staged a performance of Rossini’s Semiramide.
In 1856 Alexander Borodin passed his exams to become a medical doctor and worked in a military hospital at the end of of the Crimean War where he met a teenage soldier named Modest Mussorgsky.
In 1886 Franz Liszt presented a check for £1,100 to the Royal Academy of Music to establish the Liszt scholarship.
In 1897 Johannes Brahms was interred in Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, not that far from Beethoven and Schubert.
05 Tuesday Apr 2016
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Beethoven, Boston Symphony Orchestra, classical, classical music, composers, French composers, German composers, opera, orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, philharmonic
In 1784 Louis Spohr was born. He was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, ten operas, eighteen violin concerti, four clarinet concerti, four oratorios and various works for small ensemble, chamber music and art songs. Spohr was the inventor of both the violin chinrest and the orchestral rehearsal mark. His output occupies a pivotal position between Classicism and Romanticism, but he fell into obscurity following his death, when his music was rarely heard. The late 20th century saw a revival of interest in his [work], especially in Europe. 1
In 1908 Herbert von Karajan was born. He was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, and he was a dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records. 2
Happy birthday Julius Drake! He was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert Schumann. Drake is now a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and a visiting professor at the Royal Northern College of Music; he lives in London with his wife and two children and, between performing, recording and teaching, is actively involved in the Jean Meikle Music Trust, a charity set up in commemoration of his mother. Drake is an uncle of theatre and opera director Sophie Hunter. Drake was director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000–2003 and was musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and New York; he was artistic director of Leeds Lieder 2009 and directs the Machynlleth Festival in Wales from 2009 – 2011. He has devised song programmes for the Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and the historic Middle Temple Hall in London with such recitalists as Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Ian Bostridge, Alice Coote, Angelika Kirchschlager, Sergei Leiferkus, Felicity Lott, Katarina Karnéus, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, Amanda Roocroft, and Willard White; he also has a longstanding partnership with oboist Nicholas Daniel. Drake’s numerous recordings include playing on screen in David Alden’s 1997 film of Schubert’s Winterreise for Channel 4 with Ian Bostridge. 3
In 1803 Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 3 were both premiered in Vienna. Beethoven conducted both and was soloist on the latter.
In 1811 Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Concertino was premiered in Munich, with King Maximilian in the audience. So moved was the king that he ordered two more clarinet concertos from von Weber.
In 1874 Johann Strauss Junior’s operetta Die Fledermaus was premiered in Vianna.
In 1902 Maurice Ravel’s Jeux d’eau and Pavane pur une infante defunte both were premiered on the same program in Paris. He composed both while studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré.
In 1913 Erik Satie’s Veritables Flabby Preludes (for a dog) were premiered in Paris. These compositions were initially rejected by two publishers in Paris.
In 1939 Alexander Gretchaninoff’s Symphony No. 5 was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
In 1946 Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto was premiered by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting and Raya Garbousova the soloist.
In 1987 Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto was premiered in New York. This was Glass’ first foray into non-theatrical music and was written with his late father in mind. As Glass said, “I wrote the piece in 1987 thinking, let me write a piece that my father would have liked […] A very smart nice man who had no education in music whatsoever, but the kind of person who fills up concert halls. […] It’s popular, it’s supposed to be — it’s for my Dad.” 4
In 1801 an official government report on the death of Domenico Cimarosa is published. It found that contrary to popular opinion, he was not poisoned but rather died from cancer.
In 1833 Robert Schumann wrote a letter to a friend informing him that he had broken one of his fingers – which set back any composing and performance of his for a while.
In 1903 Gabriel Faure was made an officer of France’s Legion d’Honneur.
04 Monday Apr 2016
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Boston Symphony Orchestra, classical, classical music, composers, Dvorák, Mozart, opera, orchestra, philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Russian composers
In 1843 Hans Richter was born. He was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was good local composer, conductor and regens chori Anton Richter. His mother was opera-singer Jozefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory. He had a particular interest in the horn, and developed his conducting career at several different opera houses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He became associated with Richard Wagner in the 1860s, and in 1876 he was chosen to conduct the first complete performance of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In 1877, he assisted the ailing composer as conductor of a major series of Wagner concerts in London, and from then onwards he became a familiar feature of English musical life, appearing at many choral festivals including as principal conductor of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival (1885–1909) and directing the Hallé Orchestra (1899–1911) and the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra (1904–1911). In Europe his work was chiefly based in Vienna, where (transcending the bitter division between the followers of Wagner and those of Johannes Brahms) he gave much attention to the works of Brahms himself, Anton Bruckner (who once slipped a coin into his hand after a concert by way of a tip) and Antonín Dvořák (he gave the London and Vienna premieres of the Symphonic Variations); he also continued to work at Bayreuth. In later years, Richter became a whole-hearted admirer of Sir Edward Elgar, and he also came to accept Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. On one occasion, he laid down his baton and allowed a London orchestra to play the whole second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony itself. Never afraid to experiment on behalf of the music he loved, he lent his authority to an English-language production of The Ring at Covent Garden (1908). In 1909 he delivered the British premiere, very shortly after the world premiere in Boston, of Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s Symphony in B minor “Polonia”. Failing eyesight forced his retirement in 1911. He died at Bayreuth in 1916. Richter’s approach to conducting was monumental rather than mercurial or dynamic, emphasizing the overall structure of major works in preference to bringing out individual moments of beauty or passion. Some observers regarded him as little more than a time-beater; but others, notably Eugene Goossens, pointed to the remarkable rhythmic vitality of his work, a quality which hardly squares with the image of Richter as a rather stolid and static personality.
“Hans Richter was first brought to England by Wagner in 1877 to conduct six operatic concerts in London. The impact made by Richter (then 32 years old) on the capital’s orchestral players was enormous. They had never been rehearsed so thoroughly, nor with such discipline as that of a genuine musician rather than a showman; nothing was allowed to slip through as the fundamentals were revisited. Intonation was scrutinised, details brought out, tempi rationalised, notes corrected. His practical knowledge (he played every orchestral instrument) proved formidable and no weak player felt secure. He usually conducted rehearsals and performances of orchestral concerts and operas from memory. The living composers whose works he introduced to British audiences were the greats in whose company he could be found, Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Stanford, Parry and Elgar. For 20 years from 1879 he toured the length and breadth of Britain with his Richter Orchestra. — Christopher Fifield, Hans Richter’s impact as a career conductor.
A rebuke he is supposed to have made to a musician in the Covent Garden orchestra is still sometimes quoted: “Up with your damned nonsense will I put twice, or perhaps once, but sometimes always, by God, never.”1
In 1922 Elmer Bernstein was born. He was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions. His most popular works include the scores to The Magnificent Seven, The Ten Commandments, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, Ghostbusters, The Black Cauldron, Airplane!, The Rookies, and Cape Fear. He won an Oscar for his score to Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and was nominated for fourteen Oscars in total. He also won two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Grammy Awards. 2
Happy birthday Thomas Trotter! He is a British concert organist. He is Birmingham City Organist, organist of St Margaret’s, Westminster and visiting Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music, London. He was a pupil at Malvern College and organ scholar of, and studied music at, King’s College, Cambridge. He also studied under Marie-Claire Alain, winning the Prix de Virtuosité in her class. He won first prize in the interpretation competition at the St Albans International Organ Festival in 1979 and made his debut in London’s Royal Festival Hall the following year. He was appointed Birmingham City Organist in 1983, succeeding Sir George Thalben-Ball. In May 2001 he was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society award for Best Instrumentalist, the first organist to win this award. In July 2003 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Central England. 3
Happy birthday Jane Eaglen! A neighbour noticed Eaglen’s musical interest, and she started piano lessons at the age of five, continuing until she was sixteen. Her piano teacher then suggested she take singing lessons, and for a year she studied with a local teacher. “One day you will sing Norma and Brünnhilde”, her teacher told her to which Jane asked “Are they good?” “Yeah, yeah”, her teacher replied, “they’re pretty good”. After having been turned down by the Guildhall School in London, Jane auditioned at age eighteen for Joseph Ward, the voice professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Ward recognized her potential, and took Eaglen on as a student. Within weeks Ward had directed her toward the roles such as Norma and Brünnhilde. In 1984 she joined the English National Opera, and spent a couple of years singing the First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Berta, the servant in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. Other roles included Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. When she was cast as Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, audiences went wild. Eaglen broke into the major opera scene when she was cast as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Scottish Opera. She went on to sing Brünnhilde and the title roles in Tosca and Norma with that company. She made her American debut as Norma in 1994 with Seattle Opera as a last-minute replacement for Carol Vaness, and followed, two weeks later with Brünnhilde at Opera Pacific, a last-minute replacement for Ealynn Voss. Her first Isolde came in 1998 with the Seattle Opera, a company she has returned to consistently. She repeated the role in 1999 in Chicago and in 2000 at the Metropolitan Opera. 4
Happy birthday Vladimir Jurowski! He is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski, and grandson of Soviet film music composer Vladimir Michailovich Jurowski. Jurowski began his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1990, he moved with his family, including his brother Dmitri (conductor) and his sister Maria (pianist) to Germany, where he completed his education at the music schools at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. He studied conducting with Rolf Reuter and vocal coaching with Semion Skigin.[1] He participated in a conducting master class with Sir Colin Davis on Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7 in 1991. Jurowski first appeared on the international scene in 1995 at the Wexford Festival, where he conducted Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera May Night, and he returned the following year for Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’étoile du nord, which was recorded by Naxos Records. In April 1996, he made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducting Nabucco. 5
In 1739 Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt was premiered at the King’s Theater in London.
In 1779 Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Mass in C was premiered in the Salzburg Cathedral.
In 1838 excerpts from Mikhail Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla were premiered in St. Petersburg. It would not be performed in whole until 1842.
In 1861 Johann Strauss Junior’s Perpetuum Mobile was premiered in Vienna.
In 1867 Camille Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 1 was premiered in Paris.
In 1875 Bedřich Smetana’s Vltava from Ma Vlast was premiered in Prague. By this time Smetana was totally deaf and couldn’t hear his own composition.
In 1955 Igor Stravinsky’s Greeting Prelude (for the 80th birthday of conductor Pierre Monteux) was premiered by the Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch.
In 1975 George Rochberg’s Violin Concerto was premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony, with Isaac Stern as soloist.
In 1977 Henryk Goreck’s Symphony No. 3 (‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’) was premiered in Royan.
In 1900 Antonín Dvořák made his final conducting appearance with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. On the program was Brahms’ Tragic Overture, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, Beethoven’s 8th Symphony. and his own symphonic poem The Wild Dove.
03 Sunday Apr 2016
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In 1815 Luigi Cherubini’s Overture in G was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, who commissioned him to compose three works when they had engaged him to conduct a series of concerts that spring.
In 1869 Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto was premiered in Copenhagen.
In 1911 Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 4 was premiered in Helsinki.
In 1931 Paul Hindemith’s “Concert Music” was premiered by the Boston Symphony (commissioned for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary) with Serge Koussevitzky conducting.
In 2003 Elliott Carter’s Boston Concerto was premiered by the Boston Symphony with Ingo Metzmacher conducting.
In 1775 Muzio Clementi made his London debut as a harpsichordist at a benefit concert in the Hickford’s Rooms.
In 1827 Mozart’s Requiem was performed at the memorial service for Beethoven.
In 1843 Mendelssohn’s lifelong dream of opening a music conservatory came true. Now known as the the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theater, he persuaded Ignaz Moscheles and Robert Schumann to join him, along with other prominent musicians, including string players Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim and music theorist Moritz Hauptmann.
In 1885 Franz Liszt celebrated his 75th birthday at a party at Westwood House in Sydenham, South London.
In 1924 Charles Villiers Stanford was interred at Westminster Abbey.
In 1926 the American premiere of Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7 was made by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
In 1930 Gustav Holst was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society.
In 1933 a performance of the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Richard Strauss was cancelled after a large number of ticket holders return their tickets for refund when they find out that Strauss agreed to replace Bruno Walter as conductor because Walter was Jewish.
In 1982 Carl Orff was buried at the Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich.
02 Saturday Apr 2016
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In 1851 Adolph Brodsky was born. He was a Russian Empire violinist. He enjoyed a long and illustrious career as a performer and teacher, starting early in Vienna, going on to Moscow, Leipzig, and New York City and finally Manchester. During its course he met and worked with composers such as Tchaikovsky and Elgar. 1
Happy birthday Raymond Gubbay! He is a classical music promoter and impresario based in London. The programme to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his starting out as a promoter says that, after arranging small scale concerts around the UK, he began gradually to promote in London. He now presents more than seventy performances each year at London’s Royal Albert Hall and hundreds more around the UK and in Europe and Australia. 2
In 1798 Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation was premiered in Vienna.
In 1800 Beethoven conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The symphony is clearly indebted to Beethoven’s predecessors, particularly his teacher Joseph Haydn as well as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but nonetheless has characteristics that mark it uniquely as Beethoven’s work. Also on the concert program were his Septet and Piano Concerto No. 2, as well as a symphony by Mozart, and an aria and a duet from Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. This concert effectively served to announce Beethoven’s talents to Vienna. 3
In 1911 the first suite from Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe was premiered in Paris.
In 1938 Quincy Porter conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiered of his Symphony No. 1.
In 1958 Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 9 was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Festival Hall in London. This would be the last symphony he would compose and he died the day it was due to be recorded for the first time, by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.
In 2005 Per Norgard’s “The Will-o’-the-Wisps Go to Town” (to texts by Hans Christian Andersen and Susanne Broegge), for soloists, chorus and orchestra was premiered in Birmingham, England, by the Birmingham Symphony.
In 1768 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was appointed Kapellmeister in Hamburg succeeding Georg Philipp Telemann, his godfather, who died the previous year.
In 1785 Christoph Willibald von Gluck signed his last will and testament, leaving his estate to his wife, Maria Anna Bergin.
In 1833 Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt perform Liszt’s Sonata for Four Hands for a fundraiser for the actress (and later wife of Hector Berlioz) Harriet Smithson, who was raising money for an English Theater in Paris.
In 1842 the New York Philharmonic was founded by the American conductor Ureli Corelli Hill, with the aid of the Irish composer William Vincent Wallace. The orchestra was then called the Philharmonic Society of New York, and its first performance would be in December of that year, a three hour epic which included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
In 1915 Alexander Scriabin made his final public appearance in St. Petersburg. He would die two weeks later.