Music History Monday: They Should Have Taken a Bus
December
31st,
2018
John Denver (1943-1997) Today we begin by marking a birth and a death, two anniversaries related to one another in tragedy. You rightly ask: what can be “tragic” about a birth? Nothing in itself. So let us begin by celebrating the birth on December 31, 1943 - 75 years ago today – of the singer-songwriter,…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Dave McKenna
December
25th,
2018
If you are among those who just said “Dave who?”, THIS IS YOUR LUCKY DAY! I am about to offer up a gift more lasting, more aesthetically pleasing and more spiritually enlightening than any you have likely received during this “season of getting”. That gift? The pianism of Dave McKenna. Indulge me some first-person info.…
Music History Monday: One Tough Lady
December
24th,
2018
Cosima Liszt von Bülow Wagner (1837-1930) We mark the birth on December 24, 1837 - 181 years ago today – of Cosima Liszt von Bülow Wagner: the illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt; the wife of the pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow; and then the mistress and wife of Richard Wagner. As Wagner’s wife, she…
Dr Bob Prescribes: Gustav Holst – The Planets
December
18th,
2018
Oh my. This was going to be a straightforward review of my favorite recording of one of my favorite orchestral works, Gustav Holst’s The Planets. However, having done my research I have come face to face with an issue and an attendant moral dilemma that has caused me to question whether (or not) I should…
Music History Monday: Buried Treasure
December
17th,
2018
Manuscript of Franz Schubert’s Symphony in B Minor, “Unfinished”, movement 1, page 1 On December 17, 1865 – 153 years ago today – the two complete movements that make up Franz Schubert’s so-called “Unfinished Symphony” received their premiere in Vienna, in a performance conducted by Johann von Herbeck (1831-1877). Schubert had completed those two movements in…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Adventures in Geekdom
December
11th,
2018
I am, uncharacteristically, presently screaming with joy; alternately dancing and weeping and generally making a scene in the thankful privacy of my home office/studio. What – pray tell – should have inspired such a broad and sustained outburst of emotion? Have I won the Lottery? Been the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Grant? Finally binge-watched…
Music History Monday: The Best of Intentions or With Friends Like These…
December
10th,
2018
Boris Godunov On December 10, 1896 (or November 28 in the old-style Russian Julian calendar) – 122 years ago today - Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s rewritten and re-orchestrated version of Modest Mussorgsky’s greatest masterwork, the opera Boris Godunov, received its premiere in St. Petersburg Russia at the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Rimsky-Korsakov’s version of…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Hummel: Piano Concertos Opp 89 & 85
December
4th,
2018
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) Hummel as a young man Hummel was born in Pressburg – what is now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia – on November 14, 1778. He died in Weimar, in what today is central Germany, on October 17, 1837, where he held the position of Kapellmeister for eighteen years. Hummel was a…
Music History Monday: A Concerto, by George!
December
3rd,
2018
George Gershwin ca. 1925 On December 3, 1925 – 93 years ago today – George Gershwin’s Concerto in F for piano and orchestra received its world premiere at Carnegie Hall, with Gershwin at the piano and the New York Symphony Society Orchestra under the baton of Walter Damrosch. Statement: George Gershwin is among the handful…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Superbo di me stesso
November
27th,
2018
Audio tapes: how quaint! I recorded my first course for The Teaching Company (now branded as “The Great Courses”) in May of 1993. That was the first edition of How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. To date, I’ve recorded 666 forty-five minute lectures for The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, and virtually every single…