Yesterday’s Music History Monday marked the death of the Russian impresario and polymath Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929). Serge Diaghilev was a facilitator of genius. His special gift was for “creative administration.” He could spot talent from 100 miles away, then bring that talent together, all the while imposing his own taste, vision, artistic and aesthetic will on a project. He was a narcissist, an egomaniac, and a born leader, who created a way of doing things that had not existed before him. The medium of ballet was Diaghilev’s all-inclusive art form – his gesamtkunstwerke – and through ballet he managed to influence almost all the arts of his time, not just dance but music, theater, painting, literature, design, fashion, and early cinema as well. It was Serge Diaghilev who gave the young Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) the opportunity to become Stravinsky. Without Diaghilev, Stravinsky would never have become an international sensation at the age of 28. Without Diaghilev, some of Stravinsky’s greatest masterworks – Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, Les Noces, and Pulcinella would never have been composed. Without Diaghilev, twentieth century music and dance would have evolved in a manner entirely different than it did, and not for the better. But thanks to […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Dr. Bob Prescribes
Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1555-1612) By the last years of the sixteenth century, the multi-choral/multi-ensemble (or just “polychoral”) religious music being composed for performance at the Basilica of San Marco (St. Mark’s) in Venice had virtually nothing to do with the sober spirit and musical dictates of the Counter Reformation. Rather, it had everything to do with the exuberant, independent spirit of Venice. The great exponents of this magnificent, polychoral Venetian music were the Gabrieli boys – Andrea Gabrieli (ca. 1510-1586) and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1555-1612). Giovanni Gabrieli was born in Venice around 1555. His uncle, Andrea Gabrieli, was an excellent and influential composer as well as the principal organist at San Marco, a musical position second only to maestro di cappella (who was, at the time, the theorist and sometime composer Gioseffo Zarlino, 1517-1590). Young Giovanni was Andrea Gabrieli’s star pupil, and Andrea was proud of his nephew. Giovanni Gabrieli recalled: “If Signor Andrea Gabrieli (of blessed memory) had not been my uncle, I should dare to say (without fear of being accused of bias) that, as there are few illustrious painters and sculptors gathered together in the world, so are there few indeed composers and organists as excellent as […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post celebrated the 627th birthday of Guillaume (“William”) Du Fay (1397-1474). He was, by every measure, one of the greatest composers yet to have lived, and was considered – in his lifetime, by his contemporaries – to be the greatest among them. Why, then, is he not TODAY a household name? Why, then, do we not hear his music programmed alongside that of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Greenberg? You know the answer. 627 years was, in terms of Western music history, a long time ago. The compositional language has changed profoundly since the fifteenth century, as has the very “nature” of what constitutes musical expression. Du Fay’s music mirrors a world long gone, a world – socially, politically, and spiritually – that most of us, today, simply cannot identify with. And yet, his music – no small amount of which is based on complex compositional methods that had been formulated in the fourteenth century – is, to my ear, ineffably beautiful. This is the mark of any great art: art that transcends the mechanics of its construction and the time of its creation to communicate something intrinsically and aesthetically important over the centuries, to people otherwise unfamiliar with […]
Continue ReadingAs often happens, the topic of a previous day’s Music History Monday post has become, here, the inspiration for today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes. As a reminder: yesterday’s Music History Monday – entitled “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” – focused on a pair of Taylor Swift concerts in Seattle that shook the ground beneath the stadium with such violence that it registered as a magnitude 2.3 earthquake. OMG: does that mean that today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes will feature Taylor Swift? No, it does not, for which we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, we’re going to run with the music-and-earthquake connection. It’s a bit tangential, to be sure, but nevertheless, applicable. Carmen With music by Georges Bizet (1838-1875) and a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée, Carmen opened on March 3, 1875, at the Théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris’ 2nd arrondissement. Neither Carmen’s premiere nor the run that followed went well. Audiences at the “Opéra-Comique” were accustomed to, well, comic French operas. Instead, in Carmen, they witnessed an opera that the critics slammed as “Wagnerian” because – so they wrongly claimed – the voices were subordinated to the orchestra. Additionally, the audiences at the Opéra-Comique found both of Carmen’s […]
Continue ReadingAs I know I’ve already mentioned, since I turned 70 this past April, I’ve decided to stop worrying about repeating myself. So here I go again. Asking me to name my favorite music, or favorite composer, or favorite performer is something of a waste of time, as I tend to be most in love with whatever/whomever I’ve just been listening to. Besides, at this point of my life, I rarely listen to music just for pleasure. Rather, I’m typically listening to the music I’m writing about or preparing to lecture about. However, there is an exception to this work-related listening – when I actually listen to music for the sheer pleasure of it – and that’s when I’m in my car. Consequently, if someone really wants to know what I’ve been listening to by choice – and by extension, what music is currently giving me the most pleasure – I merely need to be asked what’s in the CD player of my 2017 Toyota Highlander/Dadmobile. Answer: 99% of the time, it’s jazz piano. And for the last 18 months (or so), it’s been almost exclusively albums featuring Bill Evans (1929-1980) playing solo, or with the guitarist Jim Hall […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post marked the birth on July 8, 1935, of the American Grammy and Emmy Award-winning pop singer, actor, and comedian Steve Lawrence. Maestro Lawrence’s birth name was Sidney Liebowitz, which I used as a point of departure for an extended riff on American Jewish musicians/entertainers who changed their named in order to “blend in” to what was, during the first half of the twentieth century, the predominantly white, Protestant, Anglo-American culture. During the course of researching and writing yesterday’s blog, I watched a bunch of Steve Lawrence videos. In some, he appeared solo. In others, he appeared with his wife and performing partner, Eydie Gormé (1928-2013). In still others, he appeared with his best pal, Sammy Davis Jr. I watched Steve Lawrence perform and be interviewed on his friend Johnny Carson’s Show (on which he appeared many times) and the Ed Sullivan Show (ditto). In fact, I spent an entire afternoon watching Steve Lawrence videos. It was an altogether shocking pleasure, one that evoked from me applause (is there anything more stupid, really, than applauding a YouTube video?), laughter, a few tears, and the most acute nostalgia: I hadn’t realized – or at least I hadn’t remembered – […]
Continue ReadingLast week’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post dealt with the 1970s, the phenomenon that was disco, and the movie Saturday Night Fever of 1977. Likewise, yesterday’s Music History Monday post also dealt with the 1970s: the invention of the Walkman in 1979. As such, I’ve decided to stick with the 1970s in today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes as well, with music that – like disco – also reflects something of its time. However, rather than focus on the frivolous escapism that was disco culture, today’s post will feature music that mirrors some of the most profound issues of its time. The 1970s I will be among the first to admit that attempts to generalize/characterize the events and spirit of a given decade – the 1950s; the 1960s; the 1970s; etc. – is a fool’s errand. So color me a fool. Like music history periodization (Renaissance; Baroque era, Classical era, Romantic era, and so forth), attempting to relate the events of a numerical decade as if they represent some sort of unified whole can be an exercise in random. I mean, honestly, can we really draw a historical line between the years 1969 and 1970? Of course not. But discussing events that occurred during a given […]
Continue ReadingWe began our examination of Tristan und Isolde in last week’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post. Our prescribed performance – as featured above – will continue to supply our video examples as we move through Acts II and III. As mentioned in last week’s post, our examination of Tristan und Isolde is focusing on Isolde, and three particular episodes – one from each of the three acts – that demonstrate her ongoing metamorphosis across the span of the drama: from viciously angry and depressed in Act I, to agitated and love struck in Act II, to transfigured in Act III. Act II Wagner’s stage instructions set the scene: A garden with tall trees in front of Isolde’s apartment with steps at one side. A pleasant summer’s night. At the open door is placed a burning torch. Sounds of hunting. Brangäne, on the steps to the apartments, looks out after the hunting party as their sounds fade away into the distance. Isolde comes out of the apartment in wild agitation.” Act II consists of three continuous scenes. Scene one is a dialogue between Isolde and her maid, Brangäne. Scene two is dominated by the conversation (which I’ve italicized because it’s some conversation!) […]
Continue ReadingSooner Than Later My Dr. Bob Prescribes post for May 14, 2024 (four weeks ago) was entitled “Fluids of Choice and Drinking Songs.” Among the featured “drinking songs” was the famous “quaff the presumed poison” scene from Act I of Tristan und Isolde. That May 14 post offered a video link to the scene, from a performance recorded live at La Scala in Milan in 2007. Featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Ian Story as Tristan, and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, it is hands down my favorite recording of the opera on DVD. I promised to feature the performance in a post of its own “sooner than later.” I trust today is soon enough. Today’s double-length Dr. Bob Prescribes post will deal with Act I of Tristan und Isolde. Next week’s Dr. Bob Prescribes will pick up from there, with Acts II and III. Write What You Know: Tristan und Isolde as Autobiography The aspiring writer is advised to “write what you know.” What Richard Wagner (1813-1883) “knew” during the late 1850s was an unquenchable passion for the wife of his benefactor. That benefactor was a wealthy businessman named Otto von Wesendonck; his wife (and the object of […]
Continue ReadingJohann Joseph Fux? Yes, Johann Joseph Fux. And please, let us try to refrain from joking about Herr Fux’s fuxing name. There’s nothing we can say that hasn’t already been said by generations of young music composition students, including – to my enduring shame – yours truly. Yes: for generations of undergraduate music composition students, a thorough study of Fuxian Counterpoint has been – and for all I know, continues to be – de regueur. When I was a university freshman, the required freshman-level music theory class taught by a composer named Peter Westergaard (1931-2019) was a thorough study of something called Fuxian species counterpoint. Westergaard’s book was largely based on Johann Joseph Fux’s instructional treatise Gradus ad Parnassum which was first published in 1725. Fux’s Gradus was, in turn, based on the compositional techniques of the great Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (circa 1525-1594). It is no small irony that Fux, who was considered among the greatest (and was certainly among the most honored) composers of his time is known today – to the degree that he is known at all – as a result of his instructional manual. So: Why Fux, Here, Today? What, you might rightly ask, made me think […]
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