We mark the birth on April 24, 1942 – 81 years ago today – of the American singer, songwriter, actress, and filmmaker Barbara Joan “Barbra” Streisand, in Brooklyn, New York. But first, before we get to the magnificent Babs, a brief but spirited edition of “This Day In Music History . . .” okay, “stupid” is too strong a word, so let’s just call it, “This Day In Music History . . . Dumb.” On April 24, 2007 – 16 years ago today – the American musician, actress, singer, and songwriter Sheryl Crowe (born 1962) declared on her website that in order to help the environment, the use of toilet paper should be limited to: “only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required.” We cannot help but wonder precisely what “pesky occasions” Crowe might be referring to. Additionally, we must assume that Ms. Crowe’s proscription again TP overuse was intended to be voluntary, as the issues surrounding enforcement are, indeed, troubling. Sheryl Crow’s environmental concerns extended, as well, to what she deemed to be the profligate use of napkins. She went so far as to design a […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Author Archive for Robert Greenberg – Page 14
The Easter Holiday has come and gone, but the melody lingers. The “melody” to which I specifically refer is Johann Sebastian Bach’s epic St Matthew Passion, which was first performed on Good Friday, April 11, 1727, at the St. Thomas Church (or Thomaskirche) in the Saxon city of Leipzig. Revised versions of the St Matthew were performed three more times in Bach’s lifetime, all under his direction in Leipzig: on April 15, 1729; March 30, 1736; and on March 23, 1742. Bach then further revised the passionbetween 1743 and 1746, and it is this final version that we will hear in performances and recordings today. Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion is a massive, roughly three-hour-long sacred oratorio that sets to music the story surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection as told in chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew. Musically, it is a full-blown religious opera presented in concert form, with a narrator, a cast of characters, two adult choirs and a separate boys’ choir, eight vocal soloists and two orchestras. It is replete with arias, recitatives, choruses, and action music of every stripe. With a libretto by Bach’s long-time collaborator Christian Frederic Henrici (known as “Picander”, 1700-1764), the […]
Continue ReadingWe mark the final San Francisco performance – on the evening of Tuesday, April 17, 1906, 117 years ago today – of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1874-1921). That performance at the no longer extant Grand Opera House at No. 2 Mission Street (between 2nd and 3rd Streets) was not intended to have been Caruso’s last local appearance, but circumstances beyond his control assured that it was! Enrico Caruso (1874-1921) Caruso was born into a poor family in Naples, Italy, on February 24th, 1874. He was the third of seven children (and not the nineteenth of twenty-one, as Caruso himself often claimed!). Following in the professional footsteps of his father, Marcellino Caruso, who was a mechanic, young Enrico was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer at the age of 11. He “discovered” his voice singing in a church choir, and as a teenager he made a few extra dinero singing on the streets and in the cafes of Naples. At the age of 18, Caruso had something of a revelation, when he used money he had earned as a singer to buy his first new pair of shoes. Realizing his real professional potential, he began taking voice lessons, and his […]
Continue ReadingJohannes Brahms (1833-1897) was born and raised in the cold, dank, north German city of Hamburg. (As an adult, he habitually vacationed in the warmer climes of Italy; it would seem that it took him half a lifetime to warm his frozen bones!) Physically, Brahms matured very slowly. By the age of 20 – fully grown – he was short, blonde, blue-eyed dude, almost girlish in his physical beauty, with a high, piping voice. This description might work for a 12-year-old guy, but not one that’s 20. In fact, the year Brahms turned 20, his friend Hedwig Salomon wrote in her diary: “Brahms has a thin, boyish little voice that has not yet changed, and a child’s countenance that any girl might kiss without blushing.” Brahms’ frequent (and eventually exclusive) indulgence in prostitutes dates from this time of his life, his early 20’s. Writing in 1933, Brahms’ biographer Robert Schauffler (The Unknown Brahms, Crown Pub.) delicately observed: “Thus handicapped, he naturally found trouble in getting respectable girls to take his young virility seriously; whereas the daughters of joy, besides possessing a deep knowledge of masculine psychology and being blasé to sex appeal, would take any man as seriously as they […]
Continue ReadingWe mark the premiere on April 10, 1868 – 155 years ago today – of Johannes Brahms’ magnificent A German Requiem, for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra. Johannes Brahms, Again? I know I’ve been going heavy on Brahms (1833-1897) as of late. I would apologize if he wasn’t so fascinating a person and if his music wasn’t so darned good, but he was a fascinating person and his music is superb, so our continued attention is well deserved. It’s not as if we didn’t have other topical options for this date. For example, on this date in 1970 – 53 years ago today – Paul McCartney “officially” announced the split-up of The Beatles. Okay; whatever; if there’s one topic that’s gotten more play here in Music History Monday than Bach, Brahms and Beethoven combined, it’s the fourth “B”: The Beatles. The breakup of The Beatles? Sorry, but yawn. The “Wilhelm Scream” Then there’s this. April 10, 1921, marks the birth – 102 years ago today – of the American singer, songwriter, actor, and comedian Shelby Frederick “Sheb” Wooley, in Erick Oklahoma (he died in Nashville, Tennessee on September 16, 2003, at the age of 82). For the vast majority of […]
Continue ReadingIt Happens Every Spring Five days ago, on March 30, 2023, something took place that hadn’t happened since 1968, 55 years ago: major league baseball’s Opening Day took place with all thirty teams starting their season on the same day. I am aware that this year, spring technically began on March 20, 2023. But let’s be real: in the United States, the true end of winter and beginning of spring – and with it the sense that verdant life and hope spring eternal – is marked by the beginning of baseball season. In the words of Terrence Mann (as played by James Earl Jones in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams): “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.” Terrance Mann’s is a sentiment that would have been shared entirely by the miraculous (not too strong […]
Continue ReadingWe mark the death on April 3, 1897 – 126 years ago today – of the German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms at the age of 63. One of the great ones and along with Sebastian Bach and Louis van Beethoven one of the three bees – the killer bees – Brahms was born in the Hanseatic port city of Hamburg on May 7, 1833. We will get to Maestro Brahms in just a moment but first – with appropriate fanfare – I offer up this edition of “This Day in Music History Stupid.” Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust; Be Kind to My Ashes, Though Snort if You Must On April 3, 2007 – 16 years ago today – the Reuters news agency reported that Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (born December 18, 1943) admitted in a soon-to-be published interview with NME (New Musical Express) magazine that he had snorted his father’s ashes during a drug binge. I think we’ve all wondered the same thing at some point or another: given his personal habits and corpse-like appearance, how and why is Keith Richards still alive, yet still performing at nearly 80 years of age? Richards would seem to be […]
Continue ReadingHaydn’s Masses During the course of his career, Haydn composed a total of fourteen settings of the mass. This means he set the same words to music fourteen times. One might think that in doing so, Haydn could not possibly have avoided repeating himself, but one would be wrong to think so. Haydn was as devout a Catholic as ever genuflected; he loved and believed to the core of his cockles the words of the mass. As such, he lavished extraordinarily original music on each of his masses, the composition of which was – for Haydn – an act of faith. Haydn as Believer Joseph Haydn was born into a Roman Catholic family on March 31, 1732, in the Austrian village of Rohrau. He was raised Catholic and he stayed Catholic; unlike his buddy Mozart and his cantankerous student Beethoven, Haydn’s Catholicism never “lapsed.” Haydn’s personal friend and biographer Georg August Griesinger (1769-1845) described his faith this way: “Haydn was very religiously inclined, and was loyally devoted to the faith in which he was raised. He was strongly convinced in all his heart that all human destiny is under God’s guiding hand, that God rewards good and evil, that […]
Continue ReadingA quick comment in reference to the title of today’s post, “Papa’s Last Appearance.” Not that you really need me to tell you, but by “Papa” we are not referring to Papa John Schnatter, who founded “Papa John’s Pizza” in 1984. Neither are we referring to the stand-up comedian Tom Papa, the sportscaster Greg Papa, the American rock band Papa Roach, nor the American Paul Karason (1950-2013), also-known-as “Papa Smurf,” whose skin turned to a purplish-blue color as a result of ingesting a home-made brew of silver chloride colloid. By “Papa,” we are referring to Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) who was once-and-forever nicknamed “papa” while still in his thirties by the grateful musicians who worked for him! We mark what turned out to be the final public appearance of “Papa” Joseph Haydn on March 27, 1808 – 215 years ago today – at a concert held in honor of his upcoming 76th birthday. The gala concert, held at Vienna’s University Hall, featured a performance of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, which had been completed ten years before, in 1798. The concert was what we would call today a “star-studded event”: everyone who was anyone in Vienna’s musical world was there, including […]
Continue Reading“What Right Had He to Write This Thing?” A happy vernal equinox to everyone and sundry! Yes, technically the first day of spring in 2023 was yesterday, March 20. But I was taught that the first day of spring is usually March 21, and so we are honoring it today with its eponymous masterwork, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The Rite – composed in 1912 and premiered in Paris on May 29, 1913 – was new and different, and it inspired people to say the darndest things. For example, the following poem appeared in the Boston Herald on February 9, 1924, following a performance of The Rite in that city: “Who wrote this fiendish Rite of Spring?What right had he to write this thing,Against our helpless ears to flingIts crash, clash, cling, clang, bing, bang, bing?And then to call it Rite of Spring,The season when on joyous wingThe birds’ harmonious carols singAnd harmony’s in everything?He who could write The Rite of Spring,If I be right, by right should swing!” Igor Stravinsky composed The Rite of Spring for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes when he was thirty years old. Even if he had never written another piece of music, Stravinsky would […]
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