Music History Monday: John Knowles Paine
January
9th,
2017
In the world of concert music, January 9th was a quiet day. The most noteworthy event to fall on this date was the birth - in 1839 and in Portland, Maine - of the American composer and pedant John Knowles Paine. In 1874, at the age of 35, Paine became not just the first Professor…
Introducing Web Courses from Robert Greenberg!
January
6th,
2017
A gratuitous though heart-felt description of (and plug for) my soon-to-be-released web courses, “Mozart in Vienna” and “The Music of the Twentieth Century”: https://youtu.be/8VNa9gLc8HY
Music History Monday: Mily Balakirev
January
2nd,
2017
A happy 180th birthday to Mily Balakirev, the man who became – virtually – the Tsar of nineteenth century Russian music. More than anyone else, it was Mily Balakirev who postulated and promulgated precisely what Russian nationalist music should be. Balakirev was born in the city of Nizhny Novgorod – which was known as “Gorky”…
Music History Monday: Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich
December
27th,
2016
[caption id="attachment_1763" align="alignright" width="231"] Shostakovich on the cover of Time Magazine, July 20, 1942, wearing his fireman’s helmet during the siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).[/caption]Last week’s “Music History Monday” was about the premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 on December 18, 1962 and the official Soviet silence that greeted that premiere on December 19,…
Music History Monday: Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13
December
19th,
2016
[caption id="attachment_1747" align="alignright" width="300"] Dmitri Shostakovich in 1960[/caption] The Premiere That Almost Wasn't: Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 Wednesday, December 19, 1962 was significant for something that didn’t happen. On the day before - Tuesday, December 18, 1962 - Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 received its premiere in Moscow with Kirill Kondrashin conducting the bass soloist…
Music History Monday: Beethoven and Haydn
December
12th,
2016
[caption id="attachment_1777" align="alignright" width="221"] Joseph Haydn in 1791, a year before beginning his lessons with "the great Mogul" (Beethoven)[/caption] On Wednesday December 12, 1792, 224 years ago today, the nearly 22 year-old Ludwig van Beethoven jotted down an expenditure he had made that day: “Haidn [sic] 8 groschen.” Beethoven had just taken and paid for…
Music History Mondays: Mozart – A Diagnosis
December
5th,
2016
[caption id="attachment_1779" align="alignright" width="300"] To the left-of-center, the no-longer-extant house at Rauhensteingasse 8 in which Mozart died. The room in which he died – his music room – is at the left-hand corner of the building, at 9 o’clock of the middle floor. The spire of St. Stephen’s Cathedral can be seen to the right.[/caption]…
Music History Monday: The Gnarly Demise of a Nasty Man
November
28th,
2016
On November 28, 1632 - 284 years ago today – Giovanni Battista Lulli was born to a working class family in a working class neighborhood in Florence. As “Jean-Baptiste Lully”, his rags-to-riches life would see him climb to the very pinnacle Euro-music, becoming the first important composer of French-language opera, the all-powerful director of the…