Dr. Bob Prescribes Yiddish Song and Klezmer
September
8th,
2020
Sitting around the dinner table recently, my son Daniel (11 years old) asked the rest of us what single superpower each of us would choose if we could only choose one. He went first, and predictably, he chose the power to choose an unlimited number of superpowers. His sister Lily (13 years old) immediately disqualified…
Music History Monday: François-André Danican Philidor
September
7th,
2020
We mark the birth on September 7, 1726 – 294 years ago today – of the composer and chess master (properly, the “unofficial” world chess champion!) François-André Danican Philidor. François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) In my Dr. Bob Prescribes post for Tuesday, September 1 (all of last week), we observed that the composer and conductor Giuseppe…
Celebrating an Anniversary and Some Changes on Patreon
September
2nd,
2020
The Mozart Family in 1780, the icon-image for my new Patreon tier, “Family” My Dear Patrons, My two-year anniversary on Patreon is here and changes are afoot. I will tell you all about them. Permit me, though, a little background first. My original intention here on Patreon was to blog and vlog once, perhaps twice…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Mahler Symphony No. 5
September
1st,
2020
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) in 1903 When it came to his music, particularly its orchestration, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was fussy. Starting with his Symphony No. 5, which he began in 1901 and initially completed in 1903, Mahler was never completely satisfied with anything he composed; he was always reworking this, re-orchestrating that, fussing to a degree…
Music History Monday: I Want, I Need, I Must Have: Rock Stars and Their Riders
August
31st,
2020
According to “This Day in Music.com”, on August 31, 2006 – 14 years ago today – the Times of London ran an article on the sometimes outright whacko-crazy demands made by rock stars when on tour. Today we’ll live vicariously through a few of these rockers and see what sort of extravagance we too could…
Music History Monday: Bohemian Rhapsody
August
24th,
2020
Queen, circa 1975; left-to-right: Roger Taylor (born 1949), John Deacon (born 1951) Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara, 1946-1991); Brian May (born 1947) It was on August 24, 1975 – 45 years ago today – that Queen began recording Bohemian Rhapsody at Rockfield Studio No. 1 in Monmouth, Wales. It would take a total of three…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Siegfried Idyll
August
18th,
2020
Advertising postcard picturing Wagner (with his father-in-law Franz Liszt directly behind him) greeting Kaiser Wilhelm I at the inaugural Bayreuth Festival in 1876 Yesterday’s Music History Monday marked the 144th anniversary of the premiere of Richard Wagner’s music drama Götterdämmerung (“The Twilight of the Gods), the fourth and final installment of his epic tetralogy The…
Music History Monday: The Miracle at Bayreuth!
August
17th,
2020
Richard Wagner’s “Festival Theater” in Bayreuth On August 17, 1876 – 144 years ago today – Richard Wagner’s music drama Götterdämmerung (“Twilight of the Gods”) received its premiere in his newly-opened “Festival Theater” in Bayreuth, Germany. That performance of Götterdämmerung brought to its conclusion the first production of Wagner’s epic four evening tetralogy, The Ring…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Mozart, Symphony in C major, “Jupiter”, K. 551
August
12th,
2020
The first page of Mozart’s manuscript of the Jupiter Symphony; note the date of completion appended to the upper right-hand corner: “10 Aug 1788” Nicknames. We turn to that paragon of informational accuracy, Wikipedia, for the following definition of the word “nickname”: “A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or…
Music History Monday: Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony and the Summer of 1788
August
10th,
2020
Mozart in 1789 by the German portrait artist Dora (Doris, Dorothea) Stock (1760-1832) We mark the completion, on August 10, 1788 – 232 years ago today – of Mozart’s Symphony in C major, catalogued by Ludwig Köchel as K. 551 and nicknamed the “Jupiter”. It was Mozart’s final symphony, a towering, innovative masterwork, the greatest…