Music History Monday: Death and the Maiden
January
29th,
2018
[caption id="attachment_825" align="alignright" width="225"] Yours truly crouching in the kitchen alcove where Schubert was born[/caption] 192 years ago today – on January 29, 1826 – Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, better known as Death and the Maiden, received its premiere at the home of Karl and Franz Hacker in Vienna. The…
Music History Monday: A Very Dangerous Opera
January
22nd,
2018
[caption id="attachment_2881" align="alignright" width="193"] A signed photograph of Shostakovich dating to the early 1930s, at the time he was composing Lady MacBeth[/caption] 84 years ago today – on January 22, 1934 – Dmitri Shostakovich’s second opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, received its premiere in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and opened two days later in…
Robert Greenberg’s The Great Courses Available for Direct Download!
January
15th,
2018
Dr. Robert Greenberg, best selling creator of audio and video courses for The Teaching Company/The Great Courses since 1993, is now offering those courses for direct download, right here on RobertGreenbergMusic.com! These courses are crafted and produced for lifelong learners and offer a learning experience that goes far beyond anything that can be achieved merely…
Music History Monday: The Compositional Jag
January
8th,
2018
[caption id="attachment_2757" align="alignright" width="300"] Robert Schumann in 1839[/caption] On January 8, 1843 – 175 years ago today – Robert Schumann’s magnificent Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 received its public premiere in the Saxon city of Leipzig. Dedicated to his wife, the pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, the quintet was written during what can only…
Music History Monday: Like Father, Like Son
January
1st,
2018
[caption id="attachment_2640" align="alignright" width="246"] Johann Christian Bach painted in London by Thomas Gainsborough in 1776.[/caption] 236 years ago today – on January 1, 1782 – Johann Christian Bach died in London at the age of 47. The youngest surviving son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach (who himself had died 32 years before, in 1750),…
Music History Monday: A Gift to Music
December
25th,
2017
[caption id="attachment_2593" align="alignright" width="208"] Cosima and Richard. She is seated in order to mask the fact that she was a full head taller than her hubby. Wagner was 5’5” in his lifts, but closer to 5’2” barefoot. In terms of her height, Cosima was her father’s daughter: Franz Liszt stood 6’1” and Cosima about 5’11”.[/caption]…
Music History Monday: The Show Will Go On!
December
18th,
2017
[caption id="attachment_2586" align="alignright" width="300"] L-R: Dmitri Shostakovich, Kirill Kondrashin, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko after the premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 on December 18, 1962.[/caption] On December 18, 1962 - 55 years ago today – Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 received its premiere in Moscow. It was a premiere that almost didn’t take place, one that…
Music History Monday: Not So Happily-Ever-After
December
11th,
2017
[caption id="attachment_2573" align="alignright" width="204"] Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen[/caption]On this day in 1721 – 296 years ago – Johann Sebastian Bach’s employer, the 27 year-old Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen married the 19 year-old Friederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg. It was, for Bach, the final nail in the coffin lid of what had once been his dream job:…
Music History Monday: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major
December
4th,
2017
[caption id="attachment_2560" align="alignright" width="237"] The violinist Josif Kotek (left) and Tchaikovsky (right) in 1877[/caption] 136 years ago today – on December 4, 1881 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major received its premiere in Vienna. It was performed by the violinist Adolf Brodsky and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hans Richter. The…
Music History Monday: Strauss, Nietzsche, Zarathustra and Stanley
November
27th,
2017
121 years ago today – on November 27, 1896 – Richard Strauss conducted the premiere performance of his sprawling orchestral tone poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra in Frankfurt. A momentary if gratuitous diversion… Over the course of the first half of my musical life I played a lot of gigs, both in bands and as a…