Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
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Dr. Bob Prescribes Brahms, Quartets for Four Solo Voices and Piano
October 26th, 2021
A Brahms trivia question: what was the only regular, paying job Brahms ever held? Answer: that of a choral conductor. When we think of Brahms and his music, we typically think of a “serious” German composer of primarily instrumental music: his four magnificent symphonies; his violin concerto and two piano concerti; his many works for solo piano; and his superb chamber music, the most varied set of chamber works by a single composer since Mozart.…
Music History Monday: Johannes Brahms and his Symphony No. 4
October 25th, 2021
We mark the world premiere – on October 25, 1885, 136 years ago today – of Johannes Brahms’ fourth and final symphony. Performed by the superb Meiningen Court Orchestra, the performance was conducted by Brahms himself. It went well. We’ll get to Herr Doktor Professor Brahms in a bit. But first, some gratuitous, auto back…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Viktor Ullman
October 19th, 2021
On September 8, 1942, the composer and pianist Victor Ullmann was deported from Prague and sent to the concentration camp-slash-ghetto of Terezín (what the German’s called “Theresienstadt”) some 20 miles north of Prague, in what today is the northwestern corner of the Czech Republic. Even though roughly 33,000 Jews died at Terezín – mostly of…
Music History Monday: Viktor Ullman, the Musical Bard of Terezín
October 18th, 2021
We mark the death on October 18, 1944 – 77 years ago today – of the composer and pianist Viktor Ullmann, in a gas chamber at the concentration and death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Nazi-occupied Poland. Last week’s Music History Monday focused on a soft-rock song entitled Je t’aime… Moi non plus by the French…