We mark the first performance on May 22, 1874 – 149 years ago today – of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, written in memory of the Italian novelist, poet, and patriot Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1872).” Background Giuseppe Verdi circa 1870 In June of 1870, the 57-year-old Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) agreed to compose an opera for the brand-new Cairo…
Grand Opera House (originally “Wade’s Opera House”), San Francisco, in 1881 We mark the final San Francisco performance - on the evening of Tuesday, April 17, 1906, 117 years ago today – of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso (1874-1921). That performance at the no longer extant Grand Opera House at No. 2 Mission Street…
It Happens Every Spring Five days ago, on March 30, 2023, something took place that hadn’t happened since 1968, 55 years ago: major league baseball’s Opening Day took place with all thirty teams starting their season on the same day. I am aware that this year, spring technically began on March 20, 2023. But let’s…
We mark the premiere performance, on February 20, 1816 – 207 years ago today – of Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera masterwork, The Barber of Seville, at Rome’s famed Teatro Argentina. Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868) in 1815 by Vicenzo Camuccini The Natural Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born on February 29 (bummer of a birthday!), 1792 in…
It’s hard to believe that it’s almost two weeks since we returned from our trip to Vienna, but there you go, time flies when you’re putting things away, doing laundry, and paying bills. I have always advocated – vainly – that we should all have the opportunity to “take a vacation from a vacation” by…
Classics for Pleasure and Music for Pleasure The British record label Classics for Pleasure was introduced in 1970 as a budget, “classical music” label. The majority of its releases are reissues from the EMI/His Master’s Voice (HMV) catalog. Classics for Pleasure is a subsidiary of the London-based Music for Pleasure Limited, a holding company for…
Salvatore (“Sal”) Joseph Mosca (1927–2007) Let’s say it upfront: Salvatore (“Sal”) Joseph Mosca (1927–2007) is the greatest jazz musician you’ve likely never heard perform. Readers of my posts have heard of Maestro Mosca, as I’ve mentioned him repeatedly as being among my favorite, best-of-the-best jazz pianists ever. But I would hazard to guess that the…
Erik Satie (1866-1925) in 1920 We mark the birth, on May 17, 1866 – 155 years ago today – of the French composer and provocateur Erik Alfred-Leslie Satie. He was born in the ancient port town of Honfleur, situated in Normandy at the mouth of the Seine River on the English Channel, roughly 100 miles…
Pronunciation! Before we can get to the extraordinary man whose beneficence built America’s premiere concert hall and brought Tchaikovsky to New York in order to break it in, we must deal with a sticky issue of pronunciation. Andrew Carnegie’s surname is pronounced Car-NEH-gie, with an accent on the second syllable. Likewise, the Car-NEH-gie Corporation of…
Left-to-right: conductor Erich Kleiber (1890-1956), Alban Berg (1885-1935) and bass-baritone Leo Schützendorf (the first Wozzeck, 1886-1931) at the State Opera in Berlin, December 1925, prior to the world premiere of Berg’s Wozzeck We mark the premiere performance on December 14, 1925 – 95 years ago today – of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck in Berlin, conducted…