On July 17, 1717 – exactly 300 years ago today – George Frederich Handel’s Orchestral Suites in F Major and D Major (collectively known as his Water Music) received their premiere during a royal cruise down the River Thames from Whitehall to Chelsea. Here’s the story – the great story – that’s usually told about the writing and the premiere of Handel’s H2O Musik: Georg Friedrich Händel was born in the central German state of Saxony-Anhalt on February 23, 1685. Like so many other great musicians (including includes Robert Schumann, Peter Tchaikovsky, Igor Stravinsky, Cole porter and Paul Simon), Handel (we’ll use the Anglicized spelling of name from here on out) bombed out of law school in order to pursue a career as a musician. Fabulously ambitious and as tireless as a phone solicitor, Handel’s first two operas – Almira and Nero – were written and produced in Hamburg in 1705, when he was still but a lad of 20 years of age. From 1706 to 1710 he lived and worked in Italy, composing operas and sacred music. Such was his fame and popularity among Italian audiences that he became know as il caro sassone – “the dear Saxon”. (We […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Music History Mondays – Page 37
Today we recognize the birth – 122 years ago, in Munich – of the composer and educator Carl Orff. Orff lived a long and productive life. He died on March 29, 1982 at the age of 86. He was a composer of great talent whose works draw on influences as diverse as ancient Greek tragedy and medieval chant, Baroque theater and Bavarian peasant life. His so-called “scenic cantata”, Carmina Burana (1936), remains an audience favorite today. Along with the German educator Gunild Keetman, Orff developed a musical education method in the 1920s called the Orff Schulwerk, or the “Orff Approach”, a methodology that integrates music, movement, speech and drama in a manner based on what children do instinctively: play. Today, the Orff Approach is employed around the world and is one of the four major developmental musical educational methodologies; the other three are the Kodály Method, the Suzuki Method, and Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Orff’s success as a composer and educator garnered him great honors in his native Germany. From 1950 to 1960 he was the Chair of Music Composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world. In 1956 he was given membership […]
Continue ReadingToday we mark the 163rd anniversary of the birth – on July 3, 1854 – of the Czech (Moravian) composer Leoš Janáček. First things first, as Janáček’s name is notoriously mispronounced by non-Czechs. His first name – Leoš – is easy enough: “Lay-osh.” But his surname is a challenge for those of us who have trouble moving our vowels. We will learn to pronounce it in two steps. Step one: place an accent on the middle syllable: “Ya–NA-check”. Step two: accent the first syllable as well – “YA-NA-check” – and say it quickly: “YA-NA-check”. Excellent. Dude /d(j)uːd/ was born in the village of Hukvaldy in the Moravia-Silesia (north eastern) region of today’s Czech Republic. At the time of his birth, Moravia was part of the Austrian Empire and Janáček’s hometown was known by its German name of “Hochwald”. Young Janáček had a first-rate singing voice. At 11 he received a scholarship to attend the Queen’s Monastery and School in the city of Brno (pronounced Bur-NO), the largest city in Moravia. The Queen’s Monastery and School was a first-rate music conservatory. Janáček studied singing, organ, and piano and he did well. After graduating at the age of 15, he attended the Royal […]
Continue ReadingOn this day in 1788 Wolfgang Mozart completed the score of his Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543. It is – with no exaggeration or hyperbole intended – a virtually perfect work: with the greatest of respect to Joseph Haydn, Mozart’s K. 543 is the most exquisitely constructed and expressively sublime Classical era-styled symphony in the repertoire. Having completed his Symphony in E-flat Major 229 years ago today, Mozart went right back to work. Over the course of the next 29 days he wrote out the score of his proto-Romantic Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550, completing it on July 25. The following day he began work on his epic and monumental Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 (“Jupiter”), finishing it 16 days later, on August 12. Start to finish, Mozart wrote out the scores of his final three symphonies – arguably the greatest symphonies composed in the eighteenth century – in just six weeks. For our information, there are no cross-outs or revisions. Working with a quill pen and ink, Mozart simply wrote out the scores, a measure at time, beginning to end. How did he do it? How could he do it? […]
Continue ReadingToday we recognize and celebrate the birth, 207 years ago today, of someone who can rightfully be called “a musician’s musician”: the violinist, composer and teacher Ferdinand David. We will get to the specifics of Maestro David’s life and career in a moment. With your indulgence, a brief bit of editorializing. Marlon Brando (1924-2004). Yes, Marlon Brando: actor, director, activist, and father of at least 16 children (at least 16 children). A movie with Marlon Brando wasn’t a movie in which Marlon Brando played a role so much as a movie in which Marlon Brando played Marlon Brando playing a role. Accordingly, I would suggest that in The Godfather, Marlon Brando portrayed Marlon Brando playing Vito Corleone; in Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando portrayed Marlon Brando playing Colonel Walter Kurtz. Brando was so brilliant, his persona so pronounced, his affectations so uniquely individual, that his personal brand always seemed to overshadow the characters he played. So it is with certain musicians as well. The pianist Yuja Wang, for example. She is brilliant, but so are lots of other elite pianists. Ah, but those other pianists don’t come out on stage like Ms. Wang wearing micro-micro-miniskirts and 6-inch stiletto heels. Then there’s […]
Continue ReadingEleven years ago today – on June 12, 2006 – the Hungarian-born composer György Sándor Ligeti died in Vienna. He was one of the greatest composers and teachers of the twentieth century; a man and composer who is not just a favorite of mine but something of a hero to me (and I am generally not one who suffers heroes). Ligeti (the first syllable gets the accent) was born into a Jewish Hungarian family on May 28, 1923 in Romanian Transylvania, in the village of Diciosânmărtin. When he was six the family moved to the northern Romanian city of Cluj, the second most populous city in Romania after the capitol of Bucharest. In 1940, northern Romania was annexed by Hungary and thus Cluj became part of Hungary. In 1941, at the age of 18, Ligeti entered the Cluj Conservatory. And that’s where he was when the Second World War caught up to him. Background. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was one of the big losers of World War I. The Empire was broken up in 1918, and that half of the Empire that was the Kingdom of Hungary was further broken up in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon. This “new” Hungarian […]
Continue ReadingMay 29 was an incredibly rich day in music history. So much to write about, so little space! Check it out. On May 29, 1801 – 216 years ago today – Joseph Haydn’s final masterwork, The Season, received its public premiere at the Redoutensaal: the still-extant great ballroom in the Imperial Palace (Hofburg) in central Vienna. (FYI: Wikipedia gives the date of this premiere as being May 19. Incorrecto!) For our further information, among the audience was Haydn’s one-time “student”, Ludwig van Beethoven. 157 years ago today – on May 29, 1860 – the composer Isaac Albéniz was born in Camprodón, Spain. Albéniz was a brilliant pianist and as evidenced by his suite for piano Iberia (written between 1905-1909), a composer of genius. May 29, 1910 saw the death of Mily Balakirev in St. Petersburg; May 29, 1922 saw the birth of the composer Iannis Xenakis in Braila, Roumania. Finally – because I cannot not mention it before going on – May 29 marks the 320 anniversary of the assassination of the 44 year-old Italian castrato Giovanni Grossi (known popularly as “Siface”). One of the most famous singers of the entire Baroque era, Siface met his end on May 29, […]
Continue ReadingMay 22 is a day so rich in music history that choosing a particular event to write about might seem to be a challenge. For example, May 22, 1790 saw the first performance of Mozart’s String Quartets in D, K. 575 and B-flat, K. 589 (the first two of the three so-called “Prussian Quartets”) at his flat in Vienna. May 22, 1874 saw the first performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s in-all-ways extraordinary Requiem, conducted by Verdi himself at the Church of San Marco in Milan. Four years ago today – on May 22, 2013 – the marvelous French composer Henri Dutilleux died in Paris at the age of 97. (All sentient creatures should at very least know and covet Dutilleux’s Cello Concerto, entitled Tout un monde lointain… [A whole distant world…], completed in 1970 for Mstislav Rostropovich.) But frankly, these events pale in comparison with the BIG event of May 22, and that was the birth in Leipzig on May 22, 1813 – 204 years ago today – of Richard Wagner. Wagner died at the age of 69 on February 13, 1883: 134 years ago. And yet he and his work continue to inspire a level of debate, adulation and rancor that […]
Continue ReadingOn this day in 1501 – 516 years ago – the first polyphonic (multi-part) music printed using moveable type was released to the public by the Venice-based publisher Ottaviano dei Petrucci. (The publication features a dedication dated May 15, 1501, so we assume that this corresponds with its release date.) The publication was an anthology of works entitled Harmonice musices odhecaton A, meaning “One Hundred Pieces of Harmonic Music, Volume A”. (Volumes “B” and “C” would follow in 1502 and 1503, respectively). The anthology consists of 96 (not “100”, as the title claims) French songs and instrumental pieces by some of the most famous composers of the day, as well as some anonymous works as well. Those famous composers represented in the anthology – which include Josquin de Prez, Johannes Ockingham, Jacob Obrecht, Antoine Brumel and Alexander Agricole – were all originally from northern France and southern Belgium: the so-called “Franco-Flemish” composers from “oltre montani” (“the other side of the Alps”) who were so popular in Italy at the time. The publication of Harmonice musices odhecaton A was an event of earth-shaking importance, one that changed – forever – the speed of dissemination and the rate of stylistic change in […]
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