Music History Monday: Bob Dylan: Nobel Laureate
April
1st,
2024
Bob Dylan (born 1941) in 2017 On April 1, 2017 – 7 years ago today – Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, 1941) was awarded his Nobel Prize in Literature in a private ceremony held at an undisclosed location in Stockholm, Sweden. At the ceremony, Dylan received his gold Nobel Prize medal and his Nobel…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Arturo Toscanini
March
27th,
2024
Today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post takes a different tack than usual. Rather than prescribing/recommending a particular CD (or DVD, or book), today’s post will feature a series of links to various video performances of Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony, interviews with people who knew him, and audio recordings of a very few of his…
Music History Monday: The Towering Inferno
March
25th,
2024
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) circa 1890 We mark the birth on March 25, 1867 – 157 years ago today – of the cellist and conductor Arturo Toscanini, in the city of Parma, in what was then the Kingdom of Italy. He died, at the age of 89, on January 16, 1957, at his home in the…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade
March
19th,
2024
We begin where we left off in yesterday’s Music History Monday post, with what was the closing statement: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) circa 1886 “It's a fact: the very history of twentieth century Russian, Russian expatriate, and Soviet composers starts with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), whose own roots trace back through The Five to Glinka and the…
Music History Monday: Fake It ‘til You Make It
March
18th,
2024
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), painted in 1896 by Ilya Repin We mark the birth of the Russian composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov on March 18, 1844: 180 years ago today. Born in the Russian town of Tikhvin – roughly 120 miles east of St. Petersburg - Rimsky-Korsakov died at the age of 64, on June 21,…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Giuseppe Verdi – Rigoletto
March
12th,
2024
A Lurid, Depraved Tale! Put in contemporary terms, the plot of Rigoletto is, frankly, revolting: a sixteenth century version of the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell story. The opera tells the tale of a rich, slimy, powerful, utterly amoral man (the Duke of Mantua/Epstein) who, among his many carnal sins, rapes and traffics in teenaged girls, abetted…
Music History Monday: An Opera Profane and Controversial: Verdi’s Rigoletto
March
11th,
2024
We mark the first performance on March 11, 1851 – 173 years ago today – of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto at Venice’s storied Teatro la Fenice: The Phoenix Theater. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) in 1852, a year after the premiere of Rigoletto We set the scene. The year was 1849. Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (1813-1901)…
Dr. Bob Prescribes “After the Ball”
March
5th,
2024
Year of the Song As I’ve mentioned in previous Dr. Bob Prescribes posts, I’ve unilaterally designated this campaign and election year “The Year of the Song,” so desperate am I for the distraction and solace only the best popular American songs can provide. We began with Barbara Cook’s wonderful Disney Album on February 6, and…
Music History Monday: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Some Myths Debunked
March
4th,
2024
“Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1843-1893), circa 1875, at the time he was composing Swan Lake We mark the first performance of the ballet Swan Lake on March 4, 1877: 147 years ago today. Premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, with music by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), choreography by the Czech-born dance master Julius Reisinger (1828-1892),…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Carmen
February
27th,
2024
The original cast of Star Trek, the crew of the starship Enterprise, in 1966 Reruns I don’t know about you, but personally, I have mixed feelings about reruns. On one hand, I will never tire of seeing of watching the original Star Trek, which ran for 79 episodes spread over three seasons, from 1966 to…