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classical, classical music, composers, opera, orchestra, philharmonic, Russian composers, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky
Thursday, March 24, 2016
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Birthdays
In 1911 Enrique Jordá was born. He was a Spanish-American conductor. Born in San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa, Spain), later on he was a naturalized US citizen. After conducting in Madrid, Cape Town and Antwerp, he was music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 1954 to 1963. He made several stereophonic recordings in San Francisco forRCA Victor in 1957 and 1958. He made several highly acclaimed recordings for Decca in the late 40s and early 50s of Spanish music with the London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra and Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, including two recordings of Nights in The Gardens of Spain with Clifford Curzon as soloist. Several of these have been reissued on the Dutton label. During his tenure in San Francisco he gave the world premiere of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un Gentilhombre with Andrés Segovia as the soloist. Mr. Jorda made recordings with both the San Francisco Symphony and the Symphony of the Air, several of which have recently been reissued on CD. His third recording of Nights in the Garden of Spain was made with the San Francisco Orchestra with Arthur Rubintein as soloist. His final recordings with the orchestra were for CRI in 1962. After he left San Francisco, he was a guest conductor in Europe, South America and Australia. He published a book on conducting, “El Director de Orquesta Ante la Partitura,” in 1969, and from 1970 to 1976 was the music director of the Antwerp Philharmonic Orchestra. During the San Francisco Symphony’s 1973 European tour, the musicians were reunited with Jordá for the final time. Jordá died at 84 in Brussels, Belgium following a two-month illness related to a blood transfusion. His daughter Tessa is married to David William Brewer, Lord Mayor of London between 2005 and 2006. 1
Happy birthday Benjamin Luxon. He is now retired but had a long relationship with the English National Opera. He also was known for a wide-ranging repertoire that ranged from opera to folk songs to parlor music. He studied with Walther Gruner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and established an international reputation as a singer when he won a third prize at the 1961 ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Soon afterward he joined composer Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group and on their tour of the Soviet Union in 1963 sang the roles of Sid and Tarquinius in, respectively, Britten’s operas Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia. In 1971, Britten composed the title role of his television opera Owen Wingrave specifically for Luxon’s voice; Luxon created the role later that year with the English Opera Group. The following year, 1972, Luxon made his début at both the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – creating the role of the Jester in Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera Taverner – and at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, where he sang the title role in Raymond Leppard’s realization of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. Thereafter he became a frequent guest at both venues and also at Tanglewood in Massachusetts, USA. In 1974, Luxon began his long association with the English National Opera which culminated in his appearance in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff in 1992. He made his Metropolitan Opera début (as Eugene Onegin) in 1980, hisLa Scala début in 1986 and his Los Angeles début (as Wozzeck) in 1988. He sang in most of the major European opera houses and made frequent appearances in Munich (Bayerische Staatsoper) and Vienna (Wiener Staatsoper). In addition to his opera work, Luxon also developed a reputation as a concert-giver and recitalist with an unusually broad repertoire, ranging from early music through Lieder to contemporary song, music hall and folk music. He has also been recognised for his work rehabilitating parlour songs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, particularly in partnership with Robert Tear. He has made more than a hundred recordings, many featuring early and mid twentieth-century British songwriting and folksong arrangements by composers such as Britten, George Butterworth, Percy Grainger, Ivor Gurney, Roger Quilter, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Peter Warlock. His regular accompanist between 1961 and 1999 was the pianist David Willison. Luxon was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1986 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Starting around 1990, Luxon began to be troubled by hearing loss. Though he explored a variety of conventional and ‘alternative’ treatments, continued fluctuation and deterioration in his hearing forced him to end his singing career by the end of the decade. Since then, however, Luxon has developed a career as a narrator and poetry reader whilst continuing to give master classes and direct opera. He currently lives in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, USA. He once stated, on the BBC’s “Desert Island Discs” program, that his favourite piece of music is Thomas Tallis’s Spem in alium. 2Premieres
In 1784 Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 was premiered with Mozart as the piano soloist.
In 1820 Rossini’s Messa di Gloria was premiered in Naples.
In 1881 the revised version of Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra was premiered at La Scala. It had been premiered nearly 30 years early but was not a popular success, most likely due to its complicated plot, but also to the fact that Verdi wanted the libretto in prose form and not poetic. Verdi was helped by Arrigo Boito (who also helped him bring Otello to the stage) and this revised version in the one that is most frequently performed today.
In 1924 Sibelius conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 7 in Stockholm.
In 1934 Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 1 was premiered in Leningrad.
On This Day in Classical Music
In 1721 Johann Sebastian Bach completed six concertos that he dedicated to Margrave Ludwig of Brandenburg, hence the name The Brandenburg Concertos.
In 1792 John Field made his official debut performance at the Rotunda Assembly Rooms in Dublin. He was nine years old!
In 1852 Hector Berlioz conducted the inaugural performance of the New Philharmonic Society, at Exeter Hall in London, England.
In 1864 Louis Moreau Gottschalk gave a concert in Washington, D.C. with President Abraham Lincoln in the audience.
In 1875 Harvard University allowed for the granting of PhD’s in music, but it will be 30 years before the first one is conferred.
In 1889 Tchaikovsky and Massenet meet for the first time in Paris.
Recommended Listening
- Wikipedia contributors, “Enrique Jordá,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enrique_Jord%C3%A1&oldid=706631932 (accessed March 23, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Benjamin Luxon,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benjamin_Luxon&oldid=706337567 (accessed March 23, 2016).