Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Latest News:
Music History Monday: In a Class by Himself
September 25th, 2023
We mark the birth on September 25, 1932 – 91 years ago today – of the pianist Glenn Herbert Gold, in Toronto, Canada. (Yes, the surname on “Glenn Gould’s” birth certificate is “Gold.” When the young guy was seven years old his family began informally using the surname “Gould,” though Glenn himself never formally changed his name from “Gold” to “Gould.”) He died there in Toronto on October 4, 1982, at the age of fifty.…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Richard Wagner, Lohengrin revisited – Part One
September 19th, 2023
Both Music History Monday (for August 28) and Dr. Bob Prescribes (for August 29) were dedicated to Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin. That Dr. Bob Prescribes post examined three traditional video performances of the opera, and ultimately recommended a Bayreuth Festival performance recorded in 1982, featuring Peter Hofmann as The Mystery Man in Silver (Lohengrin), Karan Armstrong…
Music History Monday: Jimi Hendrix and the 27 Club
September 18th, 2023
We mark the death on September 18, 1970 – 53 years ago today – of the American guitarist, singer, and songwriter James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, at St. Mary Abbots Hospital in London. He was born in Seattle, Washington on November 27, 1942, making him 27 years old at the time of his death, something we…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Charles-Valentin Alkan
September 12th, 2023
Yesterday’s Music History Monday post acknowledged the strange and by any measure, stupid death of Charles-Valentin Alkan on March 29, 1888. (You needn’t flip back to yesterday’s Music History Monday; we’ll recount Alkan’s “death by umbrella rack” later in this post.) By the time Charles-Valentin Alkan died in Paris on March 29, 1888, at the…