Dr. Bob Prescribes Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5
October
13th,
2020
We are compelled, for a moment, to discuss the food of the British Isles. We ask: why should such a sophisticated and culturally diverse nation – one just a few miles away from France - be so gastronomically bereft by comparison? How many of us would honestly prefer an English kidney pudding to a French…
Music History Monday: And Please, Don’t Call Me “Ralph”!
October
12th,
2020
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) in 1921 We mark the birth on October 12, 1872 – 148 years ago today – of the English composer, conductor, folksong collector and teacher Ralph (R-A-L-P-H, pronounced “Rayf”) Vaughan Williams in the village of Down Ampney, in the Cotswold district of Gloucester, 75 miles west of London. He died in…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Tommy Emmanuel
October
6th,
2020
Tommy Emmanuel (born 1955) As per my usual MO, my original intention for today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post was to follow up on yesterday’s Music History Monday with a recommendation for Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, Orfeo ed Euridice. Composed in 1762, it is the earliest opera in the standard operatic repertoire today. However, my present…
Music History Monday: Gluck and Orfeo ed Euridice
October
5th,
2020
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) at the clavichord, painted in 1775 by Joseph Duplessis We mark the premiere performance on October 5, 1762 – 258 years ago today – of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice at the Burgtheater in Vienna, in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa her very self. The history of opera…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Mozart: Quintet for Clarinet and Strings
September
29th,
2020
This post is a sort of hybrid of what we might call a combination of “Music History Tuesday” (if such a thing actually existed) and Dr. Bob Prescribes. Here we go! Mozart in 1789 by the German portrait artist Dora (Doris, Dorothea) Stock (1760-1832) We mark the completion – on September 29, 1789 – 231…
Music History Monday: The Planets
September
28th,
2020
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) We mark the premiere performance - on September 28, 1918 – 102 years ago today – of Gustav Holst’s The Planets in Queen’s Hall, London, under the baton of Adrian Boult. To hear Holst (1874-1934) tell it, The Planets became an albatross around his neck; a monkey on his back; a large,…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Stravinsky’s “Les Noces”
September
22nd,
2020
Stravinsky (1882-1971) in 1921 When discussing the long compositional life of Igor Stravinsky (he completed his first masterwork, The Firebird, in 1910; his last, Requiem Canticles, in 1966 [see Dr. Bob Prescribes for a post on the latter April 7, 2020]), his output is often conveniently divided into three large compositional “periods”: his “Russian period”…
Music History Monday: The Prodigal Son Returns
September
21st,
2020
On September 21, 1962 – 58 years ago today – the composer Igor Stravinsky returned to Russia for the first time in 48 years: he had been gone since 1914. Stravinsky’s parents Fyodor Ignatievich Stravinsky (1843-1902) and Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya (born Kholodovskaya, 1854-1939) in 1874 Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 in…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Michael Haydn Symphonies
September
15th,
2020
Michael Haydn (1737-1806) Yesterday’s Music History Monday post marked the 283rd birthday of the composer, organist, and violinist Michael Haydn, a musician of outstanding talent whose reputation has, sadly and unfairly, been obscured by that of his older brother, Joseph Haydn. Michael Haydn was five years younger than Joseph, having been born in the Austrian…
Music History Monday: The “Other” Haydn
September
14th,
2020
Michael Haydn (1737-1806) We mark the birth on September 14, 1737 – 283 years ago today – of the composer, organist, and violinist Johann Michael Haydn, in the western Austrian town of Rohrau. (Rohrau lies about 20 miles west of today’s capital of Slovakia – Bratislava - a city called Pressburg in Haydn’s day.) Forgive…