Dr. Bob Prescribes The Music of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
November
15th,
2022
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (1805-1847) in 1829 As a child and then as an adolescent, Fanny Mendelssohn’s all-encompassing commitment to music as a pianist and as composer never wavered. Fanny was not quite 15-years-old when her father Abraham dropped the bomb and forbade her to pursue music as a career. She was, instead, to learn how to…
Music History Monday: The Other Prodigious Mendelssohn: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
November
14th,
2022
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (1805-1847), drawn by her Husband Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861) in 1829, the year they were married We mark the birth on November 14, 1805 – 217 years ago today - of the German composer, pianist, wife, mother, and hausfrau Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. She died on May 14, 1847, all-too-young…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Joan Sutherland
November
8th,
2022
Joan Sutherland Joan Sutherland (1926-2010) had a preternaturally big voice, one that spanned three octaves and had the size and punching power of Sonny Listen. Yet she had the vocal “hand speed” of Sugar Ray Leonard and was consequently able to specialize in repertoire ordinarily sung by women with voices lighter, smaller, and presumably more…
Music History Monday: Listening to the Thundah from Down Undah
November
7th,
2022
Joan Sutherland (1926-2010) in make up for her role as Lucia di Lammermoor in Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor; at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, circa 1965 We mark the birth on November 7, 1926 – 96 years ago today – of the dramatic coloratura soprano Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, in Sydney, Australia. …
Dr. Bob Prescribes Classics for Pleasure?
November
1st,
2022
Classics for Pleasure and Music for Pleasure The British record label Classics for Pleasure was introduced in 1970 as a budget, “classical music” label. The majority of its releases are reissues from the EMI/His Master’s Voice (HMV) catalog. Classics for Pleasure is a subsidiary of the London-based Music for Pleasure Limited, a holding company for…
Music History Monday: The Grandmother of All Drop Parties
October
31st,
2022
Before moving forward, the title of this post - “The Grandmother of All Drop Parties!” – demands an explanation-slash-definition. Naked woman (center) frolicking in a casket beneath the stage at Led Zeppelin’s famed drop party in the Chislehurst Caves in southeast London, October 31, 1974 A “grandmother” is the mother of a parent, though…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Carl Ruggles: Sun-Treader
October
25th,
2022
Michael Tilson Thomas (born 1944) and Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Seiji Ozawa (born 1935) backstage at Tanglewood in 1971; Tilson Thomas served as the BSO associate conductor from 1970 to 1972 The backstory: in 1970, the 26-year-old Tilson-Thomas conducted Ruggles’ masterwork – Sun-Treader – in concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. (That performance was…
Music History Monday: Carl Ruggles
October
24th,
2022
George Crumb (1929-2022) Before moving on to Carl Ruggles, the featured composer of today’s post, we would offer the warmest of happy birthdays to one of the most brilliant composers of the twentieth century, who also happened to be one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met, George Crumb. He was born in Charleston,…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Selected Piano Music of Johann Nepomuk Hummel
October
18th,
2022
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) was, in his lifetime, considered Beethoven’s equal as a pianist and, if not his equal as a compositional innovator, then a rather more listenable alternative. The former head music critic for The New York Times, Harold Schonberg, put it this way: Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), circa 1814 “He [Hummel] was a…
Music History Monday: Name the Composer/Pianist
October
17th,
2022
Name the Composer/Pianist: he was a student of Wolfgang Mozart, Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi, and Joseph Haydn; friend to Franz Schubert and a friend (and rival!) of Ludwig van Beethoven; and teacher of - among many others - Carl Czerny, Ferdinand Hiller, Sigismond Thalberg, and Felix Mendelssohn; in his lifetime considered one of the greats…