Dr. Bob Prescribes: In Praise of Song
January
16th,
2024
I’ve always believed there are basically two kinds of music: the music you grow up listening to as a child and as an adolescent and everything else. Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) and Duke Ellington (center, 1899-1974) at the Downbeat Club, New York City, in 1949 (Benny Goodman [1909-1986] is seated behind Ellington’s left shoulder); FYI, this…
Music History Monday: American Pie
January
15th,
2024
On January 15, 1972 – 52 years ago today – Don McLean’s folk-rock song American Pie began what would eventually be a four-week stay at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song made the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Don McLean (born 1945) very famous and very rich, and it is considered by…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Hans von Bülow: A Life and Times
January
9th,
2024
Five years ago, my Dr. Bob Prescribes post for January 15, 2019 recommended Alan Walker’s epic (25 years in the research and writing!), three-volume biography of Franz Liszt. In that post, I mentioned – that our Maine Coon cat Teddy (who, sadly, kicked the Kibble on December 24, 2022) – was often paid the highest…
Music History Monday: Pianist, Conductor, Composer, and a Cuckold for the Ages
January
8th,
2024
Hans Guido von Bülow (1830-1894), circa 1875 We mark the birth on January 8, 1830 – 196 years ago today – of the German pianist, conductor, composer, and cuckold, Hans Guido von Bülow. Born in the Saxon capital of Dresden, he died in a hotel in Cairo, Egypt, on February 12, 1894, at the age…
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel
December
19th,
2023
Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel; by Anatoly Kuznetsov Picador/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux New York; copyright 1966, 1970, and 2023 Translated by David Floyd Introduction by Masha Gessen According to one review, Kuznetsov’s Babi Yar is: “A disturbing book that screams to be read.” Truer words were never written. Despite…
Music History Monday: Shostakovich Symphony No. 13
December
18th,
2023
On December 18, 1962 - 61 years ago today – Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 received its premiere in Moscow. The symphony stirred up a proverbial hornet’s nest of controversy, and we’re not talking here about your everyday hornet, but rather, those gnarly ‘n’ gnasty Asian Giant Hornets! Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906-1975) in 1962 It…
![Bach’s hand-written title page for the manuscript of his “Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato,” “Six Solo [works] for violin without accompaniment](https://d3fr1q02b1tb0i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/11163528/9.jpg)
Dr. Bob Prescribes: Johann Sebastian Bach, Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
December
12th,
2023
We cannot (and will not!) talk about Sebastian Bach’s landmark Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin without first considering what is, to my mind, one of the most perfect examples of human ingenuity this side of cave painting, and that is the violin. The Violin The violin is a miracle of ingenuity and nature, of…
Music History Monday: The “Amusa”
December
11th,
2023
Friederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg (1702-1723), the “Amusa” On December 11, 1721 – 302 years ago today – Johann Sebastian Bach’s employer, the 27-year-old Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen (1694-1728), married the 19-year-old Friederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg (1702-1723). She was the fourth daughter (and youngest child) of Charles Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg (1668-1721) and his first wife,…
Dr. Bob Prescribes Adolf von Henselt – Piano Music
December
5th,
2023
Unplayable? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) circa 1875 Yesterday’s Music History Monday post observed how two beloved concert staples by our great and good friend Pyotr (Peter) Ilych Tchaikovsky - his Piano Concerto No. 1 (of 1874) and his Violin Concerto in D major (of 1878) – were deemed unplayable by their initial dedicatees. Those “dedicatees”…
Music History Monday: Unplayable
December
4th,
2023
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) in 1888, looking rather older than his 48 years We mark the premiere on December 4, 1881 – 142 years ago today – of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s one-and-only violin concerto, his Violin Concerto in D major. It received its premiere in Vienna, where it was performed by the violinist Adolf Brodsky…