We must contemplate the weighty. Jazz is, by its very nature, a conversational and dynamic art form, in which performers improvise on a chord progression or on a series of scales (the latter called “modal jazz”). In theory then, as in a spontaneous oration, there is no “right” or “wrong” in a jazz performance, just better or less better choices. Consequently, a given jazz performance is just one of a virtually infinite number of possible jazz performances. The fluidity, spontaneity, and variability of the art constitute the very core of its nature. Which brings us, then, to the potentially problematic issue of a “studio jazz recording.” We backtrack, momentarily. There are two sorts of jazz recordings: live recordings and studio recordings. A live jazz recording captures a particular moment in time, a “slice of musical life”: a “slice of musical life” aided, abetted, inspired, and magnified by the presence of an audience. But a studio recording is another thing altogether. A studio recording is an object: an edited, multi-take, often over-dubbed document that seeks to create as perfect a performance of a piece of music as possible. In the concert world, in which compositions are entirely notated (scripted!), this means […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Archive for Dr. Bob Prescribes – Page 11
Weimar On July 14, 1708, the newly appointed court organist Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and his wife Maria Barbara Bach (1684-1720) arrived in the Thuringian (central German) city of Weimar from Bach’s previous post in the Thuringian city of Mühlhausen. The young couple moved into an apartment in a house owned by another employee of the court, Adam Immanuel Weldig, who was master of the pages and a falsettist (a non-surgical male soprano) in the chorus of the court chapel. (Coincidentally, this same Adam Weldig was an alum of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, where Bach would be the master of music for the last 27 years of his life, from 1723 to 1750). Whatever else its amenities, Weldig’s house had location in spades. It was located at number 5 Markt, on Weimar’s Markplatz (market square), which had been the city’s most important public space since around 1300. From there, it was just a five-minute walk to the Ducal palace (the Wilhelmsburg), where both Bach and Weldig worked. It was at the Weldig house that Bach’s first child, Catharina Dorothea, was born on December 29, 1708, and where his second child – Wilhelm Friedemann – was born on November […]
Continue ReadingBack on June 21, in my Dr. Bob Prescribes post entitled “The Joys of Bassi”, I asserted that, in my experience, baritones, bass-baritones, and bass singers – like the people that play their instrumental equivalents, the string bass and low brass – are the salts of the earth of the vocal world. I observed that, in my experience: “They show up early and stay late; they help set up chairs before a rehearsal and stack them up afterwards. They don’t cut to the front of the line (remind me to tell you my Thomas Hampson story; what a wonderful guy he is!) or exercise ‘artistic prerogative.’ Their collegiality, sense of humor, and general lack of bad attitude will, as my experience has played out over and over again, keep a rehearsal on an even keel.” I would observe with some pique that no one took me up on what are actually my Thomas Hampson stories. Well, if you’re not going to ask, I’ll just going to have to tell you. Story one. Sometime around 1992/1993, Hampson (born 1955) came to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) to do a master class. Here’s how a musical master class works. A […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post celebrated the premiere (on July 18, 2003) of a newly discovered piano work by Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Composed in late February/early March of 1917, Les Soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon (“the evenings lighted by the glow of the coals”) was, in fact, Debussy’s final piano work; he died of colorectal cancer a year later, on March 25, 1918. (Yesterday’s post also discussed the initial Dead Sea Scroll discovery, in November 1946, just because. Because it was the grandmother of all manuscript discoveries! Because any other manuscript discovery made during the twentieth century shrinks to near insignificance by comparison and because, for me, the discovery of those scrolls will always boggle my bean!) For our information, Debussy’s Les Soirs illumines. . . is not the only significant musical manuscript discovered in recent memory. For example. Where’s That Cello Concerto Been Haydn? (apologies) For nearly 200 years, the musical community knew that Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) had composed his first cello concerto around the year 1765 for his great friend, the cellist Joseph Weigl. We “knew” this because Haydn himself kept meticulous records of the music he composed. Unfortunately, that’s all anyone knew about the concerto, because […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post on the death of George Gershwin was, to my mind, painfully dark. Having examined and processed the dreadful events leading up to Gershwin’s tragic death at the age of 38, we turn here in today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post not just to the land of the living but to a musical world filled with dance and with joy. We deserve no less. Disclosure In the spirit of full disclosure, I will tell you that in the very early weeks of my Patreon presence in 2018, I wrote about this album. However, that post was tossed off quickly, and at a measly 890 words, it was roughly one-third the length of what today is a typical Dr. Bob Prescribes post. So today we do the phenomenal Vocal Sampling and their fourth (of five) albums, Cambio de Tiempo, released in April of 2002, proper justice.… See it, only on Patreon! Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale Now
Continue ReadingWe mark the death on July 11, 1937 – 85 years ago today – of the American composer and pianist George Gershwin, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Born in Brooklyn New York on September 26, 1898, Gershwin was only 38 years old at the time of his death. This is going to be an unavoidably depressing post. Dealing with anyone’s death is difficult. Dealing with the death of a young person (and damn, from where I stand, 38 is still a kid) is both difficult and tragic. When we add to that Gershwin’s dazzling talent and unlimited promise we are forced, as well, to ask “what if . . .?” George Gershwin (1898-1937) George Gershwin had it all. Tall, athletic, good-looking (in his own lantern-jawed sort of way), he was blessed with preternatural talent. As someone who had grown up poor on the streets of New York City, he was devoid of snobbery or pretense and could get along with just about anyone. He suffered no childhood trauma; he adored and was adored by his family and friends and was filled with vitality and an infectious joie de vivre. We are told that given his gifts and effusive […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post focused first on Igor Stravinsky’s arrangement and orchestration of The Star-Spangled Banner and the circumstances surrounding its having been, literally, “banned in Boston.” The post then went on to explore the decidedly non-American origin of the music of The Star-Spangled Banner. During the course of yesterday’s Music History Monday post, a link to a performance of Stravinsky’s arrangement was provided. That linked performance – by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas – is the first cut on the prescribed disc, “Stravinsky in America”, about which more will be said later in this post. The hubbub surrounding Stravinsky’s arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner is not the only time a performance of the anthem caused a scandal. After a quick review of yesterday’s post, I will present to you three other performances of The Star-Spangled Banner that made eyebrows arch and tsk-tsk-ers “tsk.” The Star-Spangled Banner began its life as an English drinking song entitled Anacreon in Heav’n, the words of which celebrates the twin delights of Venus and Bacchus (sex and booze). Its music was written by a teenager named John Stafford Smith in the mid-1760s. Thus constituted, Anacreon in Heav’n was the […]
Continue ReadingMonday’s Music History Monday post marked the birth, on June 27, 1859, of Mildred Jane Hill, who wrote the music to Happy Birthday to You. Thus, today’s Happy Birthday to You-themed Dr. Bob Prescribes post! The “Book” I have not a clue as to where or when I bought (or was given) the book that is the prescribed item for today’s post. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, which means I had it before I moved to California in 1978. There is no price scribbled on its title page, so it’s unlikely that I bought it used. It might – might – have been given to me by my composition teacher Edward T. Cone when I graduated Princeton in 1976; I just don’t remember. Whatever; here’s what “it” is. It is a souvenir of a concert and ball held at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music on January 24, 1970. The festivities marked three events: the 113th anniversary of the Academy of Music, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the 70th birthday of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s long-time music director, Eugene Ormandy (1889-1985).… See the full post — and more — only on Patreon! Robert […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post marked the birth, on June 20, 1843, of the Russian operatic basso Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky. Considered in his lifetime to be among the greatest bass singers of his time, Fyodor Stravinsky’s memory has been almost entirely eclipsed by that of his son, the composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Fyodor Stravinsky died in 1902 at the age of 59. Sadly, he never recorded. But yesterday’s post on Fyodor Stravinsky got me to thinking about my favorite bassi, and thus today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes featuring Matti Salminen and Samuel Ramey. (Yes, of course, there are tens of other bassi deserving of our attention. In the spirit of sharing, I would ask you to name your favorite bass singers and recordings in the comments below.) The Bass The bass is the lowest male singing voice, the lowest vocal range of all voice types. Leading bass roles run a certain dramatic gamut, from old, wise, and perhaps priestly men (Mozart’s Don Alfonso from Cosí fan tutte and Sarastro from The Magic Flute); to old and foolish men (Pergolesi’s Uberto in La Serva Padrona and Rossini’s Dr. Bartolo in The Barber of Seville); to comic relief foolish men (Mozart’s Leporello in Don […]
Continue ReadingIf we want to own a facsimile of one of Wagner’s handwritten, manuscript scores, we’ve got limited options, because a great many of Wagner’s manuscripts have not survived. Their disappearance has everything to do with Wagner’s relationship with King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who was the subject of yesterday’s Music History Monday post. We’ll get into the particulars of the disappearance (and likely destruction) of the manuscripts in a bit. But first, let us contemplate the nature and importance of a composer’s hand-written manuscript scores. Composers’ Holographs A “holograph” is a manuscript or document written in its composer’s or author’s hand. There was a time when a composer’s most prized possessions were their holographs: their hand-written, autograph manuscripts: complete scores notated in pencil or ink. (We pause to rue the passing of such hand-written manuscripts. As a new generation of composers notates their music using computer programs, the art of music calligraphy is presently going the way of hand-copied illuminated manuscripts, and thus technology will soon claim another victory over a time-honored craft. But even worse, we – as students and lovers of music – will lose an irreplaceable resource: hand-written manuscripts from which we can learn a remarkable amount about […]
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