Music History Monday

Robert Moog (1934-2005) We mark the death on August 21, 2005 – 18 years ago today – of the American engineer and electronic music pioneer Robert Moog.  Born in New York City on May 23, 1934, he died of a brain tumor in Asheville, North Carolina, at the age of 71. First things first: let us pronounce this fine man’s surname properly.  It is not pronounced as “moo-g.”  “Moo-g” is a sound made by a cow after she painfully stubs her hoof.  Despite its double-o, the name is pronounced “mogue,” as in “vogue.” Moog didn’t invent the sound synthesizer.  Rather, he (and his inventing “partners,” the composer Herbert Arnold “Herb” Deutsch, 1932-2022 and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Wendy Carlos, born 1939) democratized the thing, making it affordable, portable, and playable enough to be bought and used by anyone who could get around a piano-like keyboard. Our Game Plan Today’s Music History Monday and tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes posts are conceived as a single post, one that I’ve divided in half and will post on two successive days.  As my Patreon subscribers know, I’ve done this before; it’s no big deal and I will certainly do it again.  However, for those of you who are listening solely to the podcast of Music History Monday and have not subscribed to my Patreon page (at Patreon.com/RobertGreenbergMusic), tomorrow’s second half of this fascinating story will remain unheard (or unread, as the case may be). To my mind, this is a sorry state of affairs, like eating half a potato chip or watching just the first half of Gone with the Wind.  The solution is simple: subscribe. Just a suggestion. Music and Electricity Now bear with me, as I will do my darndest to briefly explain the development of electronically produced and manipulated sound as it evolved in the twentieth century without confusing either you or myself. The Grid A momentary but heartfelt bit of praise for the grid: how do we love thee?  Can we even hope to count the ways?  Personally, I cannot count them.  When our power goes out here in Oakland, CA – infrequent an event though it may be – life as I know and understand it comes to a screeching halt, so completely dependent am I on devices that employ the controlled movement of electrons between atoms. My dependence is a recent phenomenon. Mass electrification in Europe and North American did not begin until the early twentieth century, first in major cities and in areas served by electric railways. By 1930, roughly 70% of all households in the United States had electricity. That might sound like a high number, but huge swatches of American territory and population were without electric power (and, for that matter, often without plumbing, sanitary sewage and storm drainage, and telephone service); in 1934, fewer than 11% of all farms in the United States had electrical power. A poster dating from the 1930s, promoting the ‘Rural Electrification Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture It wasn’t until 1935, with the creation of the Rural Utilities Service by executive order of President Franklin Roosevelt, that this issue was systematically addressed.  By 1942, nearly 50% of all farms in the United States had electricity, and by 1952 almost all farms in the United States – finally! – had electricity. 1952.  For some of us, 71 years might seem like a long time ago but, in fact, it was, by any historic measure, yesterday.  And so the development of electronic musical instruments during the twentieth century, something that went hand-in-hand with electrification was, likewise, a very recent event.  Strictly defined, an “electronic musical instrument” (or an “electrophone”): “is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic, or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which then drives a loudspeaker, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener.” Precursors Because I know you come to Music History Monday (meaning me) for the whole story, I am compelled to point out that the first electrified musical instruments date to the eighteenth century. The first so-called “electronic musical instrument” was very likely a specialized harpsichord-like device designed and built by a Czech cleric, natural scientist, and musician named Václav Divíšek (1698-1765).  Sometime around 1748, Divíšek built a large keyboard instrument (which is long since lost) that sent an electrical charge through its iron strings in order to enhance and vary the quality of its sound. Václav Divíšek called his electro-toy a “Denis d’or” (meaning “Golden Dionysus”).   Other such experimental, metal-stringed instruments came and went, including something called a “clavecin électrique” built by a French Jesuit priest named Jean-Baptiste de Laborde in 1761.… See the full post, and listen with out interruption, on

If physical appearance had been the criterion, and not the ability to play the drums . . . On August 14, 1962 – 61 years ago today – the manager of the Beatles Brian Epstein made a phone call to the drummer Ringo Starr, inviting him to join the band.  As I suspect we are all aware, Starr said “yes.”   Two days later, on August 16, Epstein had the unenviable task of firing the band’s present drummer, Randolph Peter “Pete” Best (born Randolph Peter Scanland, 1941), who had been the Beatles’ drummer for almost exactly two years, since August 1960.  Best’s firing, effective on August 18, 1962, was, for Best, the worst timing ever.  17 days later, on September 4, 1962, a reconfigured Beatles with Ringo Starr as drummer recorded their first #1 hit and went from nobodies to superstars in the span of a few weeks. Pete Best (Born 1941) Best circa 1962 Peter Best was born on November 24, 1941, in Madras, which was then part of British India.  His father, a marine engineer named Donald Peter Scanland, died during World War Two.  Pete’s mother Mona went on to marry a British officer from Liverpool named Johnny Best, with whom she had a second son, this one named Rory.  In 1945, the Best family returned to Britain on the MV Georgic, the last British troop ship to leave India.  It docked in Liverpool on December 25, 1945. It was in Liverpool that Pete Best grew up.  Writes the Beatles’ “biographer” Mark Lewisohn: “Pete grew into a strong, muscly lad, exceptional at sports and carrying no excess weight, eminently capable of taking care of himself in a physical confrontation, which in Liverpool could always happen at any moment.  He was also handsome and knew it.” At the age of 17 (or so), Pete Best showed some interest in the drums.  His mother Mona, who was running a club called the “Casbah Coffee Club” in her basement (it was a large basement!) was thrilled that Pete had expressed interest in anything: she “hurried down” to Rushworth & Draper’s music store and bought her son: The “bandstand” at the Casbah Coffee Club as it exists today, as a shrine to the Beatles “a smart-looking Premier kit in blue mother of pearl.” Being a rank beginner as a drummer never stopped Pete Best (nor has it ever stopped any wannabe rock ‘n’ roller), and he organized a band called the Black Jacks. Having a doting mother who owns a nightclub never hurts when it comes to bookings, and it didn’t hurt the Black Jacks, amateurish though they were.  It was at his mother’s “Casbah Coffee Club” that Pete Best also met the local talent, including an up-and-coming band called the Quarrymen, which featured Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison.  In the spring of 1960, the Quarrymen changed their name to the Beatles, and a couple of months later their first manager – Allan William – secured the band an extended gig in Hamburg, Germany.   Paul McCartney (born 1942) and John Lennon (1940-1980) playing at the Casbah on August 29, 1959 There was a problem, though: the Beatles, consisting of McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison – were without a drummer.  Paul McCartney was tasked with finding one.  McCartney knew Best through the Casbah, and he knew that Best had one very important thing going for him: he actually owned a set of drums.  McCartney also heard, as he later stated in an interview, that Pete Best’s female fans considered him as being: “mean, moody, and magnificent,”  a James Dean/Marlon Brando-like trifecta that convinced McCartney that Pete Best would be a good match for the Beatles. Garbage In, Garbage Out Brian Epstein (1934-1967) in 1965 Sadly, Pete Best wasn’t much of a drummer when he joined the Beatles in Hamburg, and he wasn’t much of one when they returned from Hamburg two years later, in 1962.  By 1962, almost everyone associated with the Beatles except their manager Brian Epstein (1934-1967) wanted Best to make like a tree and leave.  Nevertheless, had Pete Best been a little better; had he been willing to grow out his hair like McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison; had he spent some off time schmoozing with the other three bandmembers; if, in a phrase, he had made any attempt to behave like a member of the band, he might have lasted a bit longer.  And had he managed to last just a bit longer, he might today be a household name (instead of being an object lesson in failure), because the Beatles caught fire just weeks after his departure. How many different ways can we say, “bummer, dude”?  Bummero; bummerissimo, bummersky, bummah.  I would suggest that the next time any one of us suffers a professional reversal, a disappointment, or even, heaven forbid, a firing, let us count our blessings that, in fact, we are not Randolph Peter Best and that we have not had to spend our lives explaining our firing to an endlessly curious world.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, on Patreon! Become a Patr

Elvis Presley (1935-1977) wearing his peacock jumpsuit in concert, circa 1974 We mark an online auction that concluded on August 7, 2008 – 15 years ago today – at which Elvis Presley’s white, sweat-stained, high-collared, plunging V-necked jumpsuit, decorated with a dazzling, hand-embroidered blue and gold peacock – sold for $300,000.  (Because I know you want to know, the jumpsuit is cinched at the waist by a wide belt decorated in gold medallions in a design meant to resemble the eye of a peacock feather, all of it an ongoing reflection of Elvis’ fascination with peacocks as being his personal good luck symbol.) The outfit cost Elvis a cool $10,000.  It was designed by the Los Angeles couturier Bill Belew (1931-2008), who designed all of The King’s stage wardrobe between 1968 and 1977. Bill Belew (1931-2008) Talk about provenance (something we’ll define and discuss in just a bit)!  Aside from Elvis’ personal sweat stains (do they still . . . give off an odor?), he performed wearing the jumpsuit for the better part of a year.  Elvis first wore the “peacock” at a concert at the Forum in Los Angeles on May 11, 1974.  He then performed wearing it in Las Vegas and wore it as well on the cover of his album “Promised Land,” which was released in 1975. In their pre-sale estimate, the auction house, Gotta Have It!, had anticipated that the jumpsuit would bring between $275,000 and $325,000. The $300k hammer price was, then, nothing short of a surgical strike. At the time of that auction, which closed exactly 15 years ago today, the peacock jumpsuit was the most expensive piece of Elvis Presley memorabilia ever sold at auction.  (Up to that time, the previous record for an Elvis collectible was $295,000, for his 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II, which was sold in 1999 at an auction held at Graceland.) The peacock jumpsuit might have been the most expensive piece of Elvis Presley memorabilia sold at auction up to 2008, but its selling price has long since been surpassed.  Do not fret; we’ll talk about some of those more expensive items in due time. As for the identities of the jumpsuit’s seller and its buyer, well, who knows? We only know that the seller was described by the auctioneer as: “a Big Elvis collector.” As for who ponied up the $300k for the outfit, the auction house Gotta Have It! has declined to identify the buyer.   What’s it Worth? The ubiquitous “Red Book” guide to American coins, which has been inflating coin values – sometimes comically so – since 1947 Collectors almost inevitably believe their stuff is worth more than it really is.  Part of the problem is the legion of collectors’ books that contain price guides.  In order to sell more copies of the books, such coin and antique collectors’ guides are far more often than not filled with atmospheric price valuations: “OMG, Edgar, according to this-here price guide, my 1909 Indian Head penny is worth $30,000!!” Sorry Chauncy; it’s only worth $30k if you can convince some poor, dumb sucker to pay $30k for it.  Until then, it’s worth all of . . . 1 cent. When it comes to high-end stuff, auctions – and the open market they represent – are probably the best way to gauge what something is worth at a given point in time. … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Best Selling Robert Greenberg Courses Mozart In Vienna $80.00 – $150.00Price range: $80.00 through $150.00 Select options Great Music of the 20th Century $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Music as a Mirror of History $219.95 – $334.95Price range: $219.95 through $334.95 Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition $349.95 – $599.95Price range: $349.95 through $599.95 Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The Concerto $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works $249.95 – $439.95Price range: $249.95 through $439.95 Select options Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas $129.95 – $214.95Price range: $129.95 through $214.95 Select options The Symphony $129.95 – $214.95Price range: $129.95 through $214.95 Select options The Symphonies of Beethoven $249.95 – $439.95Price range: $249.95 through $439.95 Select options The Stri

Before we get to the actual date-related topic for today, I beg your indulgence, as I need to tell you a story.  It’s a story that most of you know, at least in part. Again, indulge me. A partial reunion of the stars of The Godfather films I and II in 2017, on the 45th anniversary of the release of The Godfather I; from left-to-right: Diane Keaton, Robert de Niro, Robert Duvall, director Francis Ford Coppola, James Caan, Al Pacino, and Talia Shire; missing are Marlon Brando – Don Corleone himself – who died in 2004; and John Cazale, who portrayed Fredo Corleone, who passed away in 1978 The Godfather III – the third film in the storied Godfather franchise, released in 1990 – was one of the most anticipated films of all time.  And no wonder: the first of the Godfather movies – The Godfather, or “G1”, released in 1972 – was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and received three, including Best Picture and Best Actor (for Marlon Brando). G2, released two years later in 1974 was also nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning six of them, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (for Robert DeNiro).   So G3 – The Godfather III – had a lot riding on it. Much of the casting was easy.  Al Pacino returned in the role of Michael Corleone; Diane Keaton in the role of Kaye Corleone; and Talia Shire in the role of Connie Corleone. But there were new roles to fill, none more important than Mary Corleone, the now grown-up daughter of the “godfather” himself, Michael Corleone. G3’s writer and director, Francis Ford Coppola (born 1939), wanted Julia Roberts for the role of Mary Corleone. Unfortunately, Ms. Roberts was not available, so Coppola tested a number of other actresses for the part, including Madonna (whose own Italian heritage did not, in the end, help her get the part). In the end, the part went to Winona Ryder. (Born Winona Horowitz in Winona, Minnesota in 1971, Ms. Ryder grew up in Northern California and graduated from Petaluma High School in 1989 with a 4.0 average).  The 18-year-old Ms. Ryder was up-and-coming at the time she was chosen for the role of Mary Corleone, having scored major successes in the movies Beetlejuice (1988) and Heathers (1989). Winona Ryder (born Horowitz, 1971) in 1990 with Johnny Depp (born 1963), her boyfriend at the time Ryder arrived at the G3 set in Italy and rehearsed for a day.  The next morning, her boyfriend, a young actor named Johnny Depp, called in to say that Ms. Ryder was “indisposed” and unavailable.  Her issues were, in fact, a bit more serious than that.  Suffering from what was later diagnosed as “nervous exhaustion,” Ryder left the movie, never to return, after just that one day of rehearsals. Okay: I trust we all appreciate the expenses involved in having the cast and crew of a big-budget movie on set in a foreign country, twiddling their thumbs and sitting on their collective rear ends, with no female lead anywhere in sight.  Coppola considered replacing Ryder with either Madonna, Annabella Sciorra, or Laura San Giacomo, but wasn’t happy with any of those choices.  Meanwhile, principal photography, which was slated to begin on November 15, 1989, there at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios (meaning “Cinema City Studios”) was pushed back three weeks, during which Coppola’s ongoing expenses forced him to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Francis Ford Coppola, who had not wanted to make a third Godfather movie in the first place, was pushed to the brink; he needed a female lead, and he needed her yesterday.  So in his desperation, he made what turned out to be the worst decision of his career: he gave the role to his youngest child and only daughter, Sophia (born 1971).  … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Best-Selling Courses Mozart In Vienna $80.00 – $150.00Price range: $80.00 through $150.00 Select options Great Music of the 20th Century $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Music as a Mirror of History $219.95 – $334.95Price range: $219.95 through $334.95 Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition $349.95 – $599.95Price range: $349.95 through $599.95 Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The Concerto $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works $249.95 &ndas

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) circa 1950 We mark the birth on July 24, 1880 – 143 years ago today – of the Swiss-born American composer and educator Ernest Bloch, who was born in Geneva, Switzerland.  He died in Portland, Oregon, on July 15, 1959, at the age of 78. Establishing a Genealogy People trace their family trees for all sorts of reasons: to establish family connections, to collect family medical information, to meet other people engaged in such research, and so forth.  But at the root (pun intended) of these (and other) reasons to establish a family tree is the issue of self-identity: the desire to connect with oneself by connecting with one’s ancestors: learning what we can of who they were; where they came from; what sort of lives they led; and what they accomplished. With the advent of genetic testing sites like “23 and Me,” “AncestryDNA,” “LivingDNA,” and “HomeDNA,” the whole family tree trip has taken a crazy-giant step forward, in that our family trees have gone from saplings to 400-year-old oaks. A couple of years ago, bored to death during the pandemic and unable to resist any longer, my wife and I were so tested using the site “23 and Me.”  Here are my results: Ashkenazi Jewish: 98.9% French and German: 0.6% Sudanese: 0.2% Northern Indian and Pakistani: 0.1% Unassigned: 0.2% (You betcha that 0.2% Sudanese caught my attention!)  The major drawback of having multiple testing sites is that your DNA can only be compared to others who have been tested using the same site.  Nevertheless, my results are fascinating.   Not unexpectedly, the person with whom I share the most DNA is my brother Steve: we share 53.1% of our DNA and 45 segments, those “segments” being sections of DNA that are identical between two individuals. According to “23 and Me,” at number 1508 of my 1510 DNA relatives is my wife, Nanci Tucker, who is rated as being a “Distant Cousin” with 0.12% DNA shared and 1 segment.  (According to “23 and Me,” Nanci and I have in common a pair of ancestors more distant than our 5th-great-grandparents, making us more that sixth cousins.) Experiential DNA Might I be so bold as to suggest that family members are not the only people who share, in quotations, “DNA”?  By “DNA” in quotations I’m not referring to the chemical deoxyribonucleic acid but rather, what we might call “experiential DNA”: wisdom passed down from one generation to the next via one-on-one relationship; one-on-one mentorships. Edward Toner Cone (1917-2004) This is precisely the sort of “DNA” that is shared by musicians – composers, instrumentalists, and singers – musicians whose education consists of a series of one-on-one relationships with their teachers.  For example, as an undergraduate, I studied composition primarily with Edward T. Cone (1917-2004).  When it came time for graduate school, Ed wanted me to continue my studies with his friend Andrew Imbrie (1921-2007) at the University of California, Berkeley.  And so I did; Andy Imbrie became not only my composition mentor but served as my Ph.D. thesis advisor. Andrew Imbrie (1921-2007) While at UC Berkeley, I developed another very close mentor-student relationship with the composer Olly Wilson (1937-2018).   Olly Wilson (1937-2018) Ed Cone, Andy Imbrie, and Olly Wilson are, and always will be, my most treasured and most important composition teachers.  Just so, Ed, Andy, and Olly were shaped by their own mentors, mentors whose experiences, knowledge, and wisdom they passed on to me.   For genealogists, tracking their family’s genetic roots allow them to connect more deeply with themselves by learning about their family’s past.  For the musicians among us, tracing our teachers’ roots – our “experiential DNA” – allows us to connect with our artistic forebearers and to understand those artistic proclivities that have literally been “bred” into us.  … Continue reading only on Patreon Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Related CoursesThe post Music History Monday: Ernest Bloch first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Elaine Stritch (1925-2014) circa 2012: a self-professed “tough old dame” We mark the death on July 17, 2014 – 9 years ago today – of the Broadway and television actress Elaine Stritch, in Birmingham, Michigan, at the age of 89.  I personally have a soft spot in my heart for Ms. Stritch the size of Manitoba. She was your quintessential brassy, tart-tongued (a euphemism for foul mouthed), cigarette smoking, alcohol-soaked blonde who took nothing from no one and could sell a song like nobody’s business. (Please note that I didn’t say “sing a song” but rather, “sell a song.” Her ability to do so will be discussed in tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post.) Elaine Stritch “singing” (selling!) a song during her final engagement at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City, 2013 It is my great hope that by the time you finish this Music History Monday and tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes posts, you will have come to love her almost as much as I do. My decision to profile Elaine Stritch is, in my estimation, a great sign of respect, given the other musical events of the day.  Both the tenor saxophonist John Coltrane and the singer Billie Holiday died on this date, in 1967 and 1959, respectively.  (Be assured that both of these luminaries – Coltrane and Holiday – will receive their due on these pages sooner or later.)  On this date in 1972, James Brown released the seminal funk song, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, which went on to sell over 2 million copies and received a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording.  On this date – again, in 1972 – a bomb exploded under an equipment van in Montreal belonging to The Rolling Stones. Believed to be the work of French separatists, we’d observe that the bombing might have simply been intended as a critical statement.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Best Selling Courses Mozart In Vienna $80.00 – $150.00Price range: $80.00 through $150.00 Select options Great Music of the 20th Century $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Music as a Mirror of History $219.95 – $334.95Price range: $219.95 through $334.95 Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition $349.95 – $599.95Price range: $349.95 through $599.95 Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The Concerto $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works $249.95 – $439.95Price range: $249.95 through $439.95 Select options Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas $129.95 – $214.95Price range: $129.95 through $214.95 Select options The Symphony $129.95 – $214.95Price range: $129.95 through $214.95 Select options The Symphonies of Beethoven $249.95 – $439.95Price range: $249.95 through $439.95 Select options The String Quartets of Beethoven $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options How to Listen to and Understand Opera $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Great Masters: Beethoven — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options Great Masters: Haydn — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options Great Masters: Mozart — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options Great Masters: Robert and Clara Schumann — Their Lives and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The Music of Richard Wagner $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Great Masters: Shostakovich — His Life and Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Great Masters: Brahms — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options Great Masters: Stravinsky — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select

We mark the birth on July 10, 1895 – 128 years ago today – of the German composer and educator Carl Heinrich Maria Orff. Born in Munich, he died in that city on March 29, 1982, at the age of 86. Carl Heinrich Maria Orff (1895-1982) circa 1955 Bild: Brille, ernst The Good News Orff lived a long and productive life.  He was a composer of considerable 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 (of 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, and that is play.  Today, the Orff Approach is employed around the world and is one of the four major developmental music educational methodologies. The other three are the Kodály Method (created by the Hungarian composer and educator Zoltán Kodály, 1882-1967); the Suzuki Method (created by the Japanese violinist and educator Shinichi Suzuki, 1898-1998), and Dalcroze Eurhythmics (created by the Swiss composer and educator Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, 1865-1950).   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 in the order Pour le Mérite, an honor awarded by the German government in recognition of extraordinary personal achievement.  (During World War One, the military version of the Pour le Mérite was referred to as the Blauer Max, the “Blue Max.”)  In 1959, Orff received an honorary doctorate from the University of Tübingen; in 1972 he received another from the University of Munich.  That same year he was awarded the Grosses Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (“Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany”), and in 1974 he received the Guardini Prize from the Catholic Academy of Bavaria. It all sounds lovely: a composer and educator honored in his lifetime and esteemed after his death. Except. Except for … The Bad News Orff in 1940 From 1933 to 1945, Orff lived, worked, and – for all of his postwar statements to the contrary – thrived in Nazi Germany.  For reasons we will observe, the exact nature Orff’s life in Hitler’s Third Reich remains a mystery and will almost certainly never be known for sure.  One thing we do know, however, is that by remaining in Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933, Carl Orff’s life and career became a Cautionary Tale for any artist who would dance with the devil. There are three schools of thought regarding Orff’s relationship with the Nazis.  The first claims that he was, at best, tolerated.  The second maintains that Orff not only collaborated but was, himself, a tried-and-true National Socialist who composed music in the service of Nazi ideology.  The third school of thought is complicated, and lies somewhere between the first and second.  I let you guess which school we are about to attend. Yes: the middle ground, somewhere between collaboration and not.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Robert Greenberg’s Best Selling Courses Mozart In Vienna Select options Great Music of the 20th Century Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music Select options Music as a Mirror of History Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart Select options The Concerto Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works Select options Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Select options The Symphony Select options The Symphonies of Beethoven Select options The String Quartets of Beethoven Select options How to Listen to and Understand Opera Select options The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works Select options Great Masters: Beethoven — His Life and Music Select options The post Music History Monday: When You Dance with the Devil first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) circa 1925, at the age of 71 We mark the birth on July 3, 1854 – 169 years ago today – of the Moravian (meaning Czech) composer, music theorist, folklorist, and teacher Leoš Janáček. Born in the village of Hukvaldy in what today is the Czech Republic, he died on August 12, 1928 in the city of Ostrava, today the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It’s All in the Name! Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) was an American writer and lecturer known for his self-help guides to self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. If he were alive today, he’d be on the speaking circuit, doing Ted Talks and, perhaps, making a fortune through a video self-help network. But given the comparatively limited technology of his day, Carnegie made his living writing books, books with such titles as The Art of Public Speaking (first published in 1915); How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), and The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking (1962). But Dale Carnegie’s most famous and influential tome – one that remains in print today after 87 years! – is How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936. Among the thousands of assuredly useful tidbits Carnegie shared with his readers was: “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Meaning that nothing makes a better, more positive impression than saying someone’s name when speaking to them. This seems to me to be self-evidently true. If you want someone to feel noticed, valued, and important, well, say their name to their face with a tone that connotes kindness, warmth, and respect. However, for the purposes of this post we would – with all due – ever so slightly amend Dale Carnegie’s maxim: “A person’s name – correctly pronounced – is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” As a public service, then, let us start this homage to Leoš Janáček by learning how to pronounce his name correctly. This is not just an issue of politeness, because while the mature Leoš Janáček might have looked like a snuggly little teddy bear, he was – in fact – an often irascible, highly emotional man, someone who suffered insult easily and angered quickly. Let us not insult him and thus trigger that anger by mispronouncing his name! 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: place an accent on the first syllable as well – “YA-NA-check” – and say it quickly: “YA-NA-check”. Excellent. Brief Biography Janáček’s birth house; the bottom floor was a schoolhouse supervised by Janáček’s father, a schoolmaster named Jiří Janáček (1815–1866) He was born 169 years ago today in the village of Hukvaldy in the Moravia-Silesia (that is, the 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 had 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 Teachers’ Training Institute for three years, after which he was appointed Deputy Choir Master for the city of Brno. He began composing at around the age of 21; his first compositions were simple, folk-influenced choral works for the various amateur choral societies he conducted.… Continue Reading (and listen without ads) on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Favorite Robert Greenberg Courses Mozart In Vienna Select options Great Music of the 20th Century Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music Select options Music as a Mirror of History Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart Select options The Concerto Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works Select options The post Music History Monday: Leoš Janáček: Composer, Patriot, and Patriot Composer! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

‘Fessing Up THE SCENE from the John Carpenter movie The Thing (1983) Okay: you’re going to have to bear with me for one of my idiotic tangents, one that nevertheless explains precisely how I feel about Mozart and his music at a gut level.  What follows is a deep confession, something I’ve never shared before.  Be forewarned though, that once you’ve read and/or heard this confession (depending upon whether you’re reading Music History Monday as a blog or listening to it as a podcast), it cannot be unread or unheard. Here goes. John Carpenter in 1982, during filming of The Thing Since childhood, I have had a deep and abiding affection for horror films, the gnarlier, the gnastier, the better.  Yes, color me juvenile if you must, but there it is.  Among the very greatest masters of the genre is the American filmmaker John Carpenter (born 1948), whose oeuvre includes such classics as the Halloween franchise, Escape From New York, Escape from L.A., Christine, The Fog, Assault on Precinct 13, They Live, and Prince of Darkness.  But for my dinaro, Carpenter’s magnum opus is The Thing (which was released in 1982).  Critically panned when it first opened, it is today considered (by those of us who consider it at all) to be a masterwork of graphic, on occasion inadvertently comedic, over-the-top horror. (In 2008, the British film magazine Empire designated The Thing as being number 289 on its list of “The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time,” calling it: “a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina-wrecking visual excess, and outright, nihilistic terror.” It is an appraisal with which I wholeheartedly agree!) Starring, among others, Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley, with a musical score by Ennio Morricone, The Thing tells the story of a group of American research scientists on station in Antarctica and their horrific encounter with an alien presence: the “Thing” itself. The Thing’s “thing” is to consume, assimilate, and then imitate other life forms, and as such, the members of the station – who, as we would expect, are picked off one at a time – are overcome by paranoia, not knowing who or what among them is the Thing.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Related Robert Greenberg CoursesThe post Music History Monday: You’ve Got to be Kidding first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Ferdinand David (1810-1873) (photo © Robert Whitehouse Eshbach We mark the birth on June 19, 1810 – 213 years ago today – of the German virtuoso violinist and composer, Ferdinand David.  Born in the exact same house in Hamburg that saw Felix Mendelssohn’s birth 16½ months before, David died while on vacation in Switzerland on July 18, 1873, at the age of 63.  We will get to the specifics of Maestro David’s life and career and why, to my mind, he is “our kind of musician” in a moment.  But first, with your indulgence, a brief bit of editorializing. When the Performer Becomes the Show Marlon Brando (1924-2004) in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (FYI: I have a granddaughter named Stella and find it difficult to resist calling her “Hey Stellaaa!”) Marlon Brando (1924-2004).  Yes, Marlon Brando: actor, director, activist, and father of at least 16 children (at least 16 children).  I would respectfully suggest that a movie with Marlon Brando is not so much a movie in which Marlon Brando plays a role as it is a movie in which Marlon Brando plays Marlon Brando playing a role.  Accordingly, I would assert that in A Streetcar Named Desire, Marlon Brando portrays Marlon Brando portraying Stanley Kowalski; in The Godfather, Marlon Brando portrays Marlon Brando playing Vito Corleone; in Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando portrays Marlon Brando playing Colonel Walter Kurtz, and so forth.  Brando was so brilliant, his persona so larger than life, his affectations so uniquely individual, that his personal brand always seemed to overshadow the actual characters he portrayed. Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in 1839, by Henri Lehmann So it is with certain musicians, and so it has been since the pianist Franz Liszt (1811-1886) blazed across the European musical firmament during the mid-nineteenth century.  Liszt was not just the greatest pianist of his time but the greatest pianist ever to have lived up to his time, and arguably the greatest pianist of all time.  But mere pianistic greatness was not enough for Liszt.  He composed a huge body of piano music that, initially, only he could play, music often calculated to stun simply by its technical excess.  Blessed with movie-star good looks and a fearless, aristocratic bearing, he toured tirelessly with this music, performing in a fashion that was calculated – always – to call attention to himself. Let there be no mistake about it: Franz Liszt was almost certainly the greatest performing musician of the nineteenth century.  But his legend was a not just a product of his pianism but of his performing persona, which often bordered on carnival hucksterism.  Many of his greatest contemporaries, including Robert and Clara Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim, were awed by Liszt’s pianism but physically sickened by his onstage shenanigans.   But it was Liszt’s persona – those onstage shenanigans – that put derrieres in seats and money in the bank, and many – if not most – of those people who paid to see Liszt perform did so not for the music he played but for the show he put on.   The Liszt-inspired instrumental performer-as-hero, as God, as an object-of-sexual-desire, pretty much disappeared by the early twentieth century, only to return with a vengeance by the end of the twentieth century.  Part of it was rock ‘n’ roll, as some young concert musicians wanted for themselves the same sort of money, popularity, and notoriety enjoyed by rock ‘n’ roll musicians.  … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Robert Greenberg CoursesThe post Music History Monday: Our Kind of Musician first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Chick Corea (1941-2021) in 2019 We mark the birth on June 12, 1941 – 82 years ago today – of the pianist and composer Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea, in Chelsea, Massachusetts.  He died of cancer after a brief illness on February 9, 2021, at his home just outside of Tampa Bay, Florida, at the age of 79. Chick Corea’s spectacularly varied, 50-plus year career as a professional musician offers an object lesson in both the necessity and futility of labels. “Spectacularly varied” is the operative phrase in the sentence above. In the mid-1960s Corea became deeply involved in Latin American music, having broken in with the Cuban bandleader and percussionist Mongo Santamaria (1917-2003) and the Puerto Rican-American bandleader and percussionist Willie Bobo (whose real name was Willie Correa, no relation, 1934-1983). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Corea played with the Miles Davis (1926-1991) band (he played piano on seven of Miles Davis’ albums, including Davis’ classic Bitches Brew album of 1969). As such, the Chick-Meister was a full-participant in Davis’ electrified experiment in fusion, in synthesizing jazz and rock ‘n’ roll. In 1970 and 1971 Corea led his own, avant-garde, free jazz band called Circle. In 1972, Corea formed his jazz/Latin fusion progressive rock band Return to Forever, which performed both electronic and acoustic instrument music that fused jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and Latin music. Along the way Corea played and recorded bossa nova with João Gilberto and Stan Getz; he fused jazz and flamenco (shall we call it “jazzmenco”?) with the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and the great flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses Available NowThe post Music History Monday: Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, 1948) with his beloved boa, Julius Squeezer, before the “breakfast incident” On June 5, 1977 – 46 years ago today – the shock-rock superstar Alice Cooper’s pet boa constrictor and concert co-star, a creature rather cleverly named “Julius Squeezer,” suffered what turned out to be a fatal bite from a live rat it was eating for breakfast. No doubt: Julius probably should have ordered the scrambled eggs and toast, and in doing so would have heeded the advice offered by the title of this post: “never eat anything that can bite you back.” This is a heartbreaking tale, a tragic love story between a boy and his reptile, a love story brought to an ignominious end by an alpha-rodent. But it is also a story of hope, renewal, and love rekindled, as the auditions Alice Cooper subsequently held for a replacement snake allowed him to discover his new boa, a precious girl-snake named “Angel.” Now of course we’re going to expand on this saga of reptilian eradication-by-rambunctious-rat and subsequent replacement in just a bit. But first, we’d observe two other, date-relevant items. Martha Argerich (born 1941) in 2015 First, we mark the birth on June 5, 1941 – 82 years ago today – of the pianist Martha Argerich, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. To my ear and mind, Argerich the pianist is an enduring miracle. When she plays in public (which, since the 1980s, has happened with painful infrequence) we listen, because her technically flawless pianism is expressively and intellectually compelling. Like the greatest of actors – and I’m thinking here of people like Laurence Olivier, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Katherine Hepburn – actors who become one with the roles they play, so Martha Argerich has that alchemical ability to become one with the music she plays. Speaking as a composer, this is, to me, the greatest (and rarest!) gift a musician can have: to remove one’s own ego from a performance and live entirely through music as it is written. That might sound a bit flakey, but still, it’s true. A Martha Argerich performance – “volatile, explosive, quixotic, astounding and mesmerizing” though it may be – is never “about” Martha Argerich. Rather, it is “about” the music she is performing. Like her living pianistic contemporaries Vladimir Ashkenazy (born 1937), Maurizio Pollini (born 1942), Murray Perahia (born 1947), András Schiff (born 1953), and Krystian Zimerman (born 1956), Argerich is truly an advocate for the composers whose music she plays. But unlike all the marvelous pianists just mentioned, Argerich’s legend is such that the mere implication that she might show up to a venue and actually perform will sell out a house in minutes. In order to discuss Maestra Argerich in the manner she justly deserves and, as well, to recommend three of my favorite Argerich recordings, she will be the topic of tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post. Be there. Moments ago, I mentioned that we’d get back to Alice Cooper’s snake and the rat after having discussed two other date-related items. The first was Martha Argerich’s 82nd birthday. The second item follows, under the heading of “can we really blame him?” On June 5, 2003 – an even 20 years ago today – a pirate radio station in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, was shut down by local authorities. The “pirate” himself has been identified only as a “grandfather” who went by the rather questionable name of “Ricky Rock.” Grandpa Rock had set up a 32-foot-high radio transmitter in the garden of his house, and had taken it upon himself to illegally broadcast hits by Elvis Presley and such bands as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. When questioned as to why he had done such a thing, this Robin Hood of the air waves told the authorities that his local radio stations did not address the listening needs of his generation, instead playing music by what he called: “talentless boy bands and dance music.” Can we blame Grandad Ricky Rock for doing what he did? No, we cannot.… Continue reading – and listen without interruption – only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg’s Must Have Courses Mozart In Vienna Select options Great Music of the 20th Century Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music Select options Music as a Mirror of History Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart Select options The Concerto Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works Select options Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Select options The Symphony Select options The Symphonies of Beethoven Select options The post Music History Monday: Never Eat Anything That Can Bite You Back! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) in 1901 On May 29, 1860 – 163 years ago today – the composer and pianist Isaac Albéniz was born in Camprodón, Spain.  Albéniz was a brilliant pianist and, as evidenced by his 12-movement suite for piano entitled Iberia (written between 1905-1909), a composer of genius.   However, before we can get to Maestro Albéniz, I would beg your indulgence while we celebrate this remarkable day in music history! Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1893-1957) in 1934 Also born on this date was the Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who came into this world in 1893 in Brno, in what today is the Czech Republic; he died in Los Angeles in 1957.  The Romanian-born Greek composer Iannis Xenakis was born on this day in 1922 in Brâila, Romania; he died in Paris in 2001.  The American singer, songwriter, and composer Danny Elfman was born on this day in 1953; the singer LaToya Jackson in 1956; and the Academy Award and Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge in 1961. Sadly but not unexpectedly, notable people from the world of music passed away on this date as well. Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) circa 1908 May 29,1910, saw the death of Mily Balakirev in St. Petersburg;he was 73 years old. On this day in 1911, the poet and librettist William S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) left this vale of tears at the age of 74. On this day in 1935, the Czech violinist and composer Joseph Suk died at the age of 61; and on May 29, 2005, the American composer George Rochberg died at 86. Philip Kramer (1952-1995) Here’s a particularly grim date-related item.  On May 29, 1999 – 24 years ago today – a group of photographers looking for old car wrecks to photograph at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California, found a bit more than they bargained for: a wrecked car tricked out with its own skeletal remains still inside.  Those remains belonged to Philip Kramer, the former bassist with Iron Butterfly, who had disappeared four years before, on February 12, 1995.  His death was eventually ruled a suicide.   Sticking with grim, May 29 also marks the 326th 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, 1697, on the road between Bologna and Ferrara at the hands of “bravi” (meaning thugs/muscle) in the employ of a nobleman with whose wife Siface had had a . . . liaison. So much for the erroneous perception that those without balls cannot have a ball.  (A crude statement, yes, but physiologically accurate). And still May 29 is a gift that keeps on giving! On May 29, 1942, Bing Crosby recorded Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.  Crosby’s recording won an Oscar for “Best Song” and sold over 50 million copies world-wide.  The link provided transits to Der Bingle and Marjorie Reynolds introducing White Christmas inthe movie Holiday Inn (1942). But wait!  There’s more!  Because on May 29, 1913, 110 years ago today, the most famous riot in Western music history broke out during the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring at Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.  (The riot was the topic of Music History Monday on May 29, 2017.) Okay; deep, cleansing breath. It is time to talk about Isaac Albéniz and his supreme masterwork, his 12-movement suite for solo piano entitled Iberia. As happens not infrequently here on these august pages, our exploration of Albéniz’ life, his Spanish heritage, and the impact of that heritage on the creation and content of Iberia will take us through both today’s Music History Monday and tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Best-Selling Robert Greenberg Courses Mozart In Vienna $80.00 – $150.00Price range: $80.00 through $150.00 Select options Great Music of the 20th Century $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Music as a Mirror of History $219.95 – $334.95Price range: $219.95 through $334.95 Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition $349.95 – $599.95Price range: $349.95 through $599.95 Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The Concerto $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The 30 Greatest Orchest

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 Opera Theater.  The Khedive Ismail Pasha of Egypt personally handled the negotiations, as the opera was to celebrate nothing less than the opening of the Suez Canal.  No expense was spared, either on the opera or on Verdi, who received the unheard-of commissioning fee of 150,000 gold francs: roughly $1,935,000 today! The opera – Aida – received its premiere in Cairo on December 24, 1871.  With no disrespect intended towards either the Khedive Ismail Pasha of Egypt or the Cairo Opera Theater, the opera’s real premiere – as far as Verdi and the larger opera world were concerned – took place six weeks later: at La Scala in Milan on February 8, 1872.  That Italian premiere was a triumph, the greatest of Verdi’s career to date.  He himself received 32 curtain calls! Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873) The only contemporary Italian artist who could possibly be considered as beloved as Giuseppe Verdi was the novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1883).  Manzoni’s most famous work is a novel entitled I promessi sposi (“The Betrothed”), which was written initially between 1821 and 1827; Manzoni completed the final, “definitive” version in 1842.  Manzoni wrote this final version in what was (and still is) considered the stylistically superior Italian dialect of Tuscany.  This final, “Tuscan” version of “The Betrothed” had a pivotal impact on the development of a consistent Italian-language prose style.  At a time when the Italian peninsula boasted more dialects than varieties of pasta, Manzoni, more than any other single person, helped to popularize a single, ideal way of writing and speaking Italian, based on the dialect of Tuscany.   The importance of this cannot be overstated.  At a time when Italian nationalism sought the creation of a single, unified Italian nation with a single national identity, Manzoni’s work offered his nation a single, universally understood Italian language.  Manzoni came to be perceived – rightly – as not just the greatest Italian writer of his generation, but as a great Italian patriot as well.  What Verdi did for his nascent Italian nation through the medium of opera, so Manzoni accomplished through the medium of literature: he inspired a national Italian identity through its oh-so-special language. Giuseppe Verdi considered Manzoni to be a living saint, a man who combined astonishing talent with great personal virtue and nobility.   Manzoni died at the age of 88 on May 22, 1873.  The following day Verdi wrote to his friend and publisher Tito Ricordi: “I am profoundly saddened by the death of our Great Man!  But I shall not go to Milan, for I do not have the heart to attend his funeral.  I will soon come to visit his grave, alone and unseen, and perhaps (after further reflection, having weighed my strength) to propose something to honor his memory.”  A Requiem Ten days after Manzoni’s death, Verdi did indeed go to the cemetery in Milan, where he stood at Manzoni’s grave and formulated a plan.  He returned to his suite at the Grand Hotel de Milan and wrote another letter to his publisher Tito Ricordi, proposing that he compose a Requiem Mass for Manzoni, to be performed on the first anniversary of his death.  Verdi’s intention was to write a work that, following its first performance, would be performed not in churches but rather, in concert halls, with each such performance offering a proper memorial to the memory of Manzoni. … Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Courses How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition How to Listen to and Understand Opera The Life and Operas of Verdi The post Music History Monday: Giuseppe Verdi and the Requiem for Alessandro Manzoni first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Frontispiece to the Harmonice musices odhecaton A, published on May 15, 1501 On May 15, 1501 – 522 years ago today – the first polyphonic (that is, 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” followed in 1502 and 1503, respectively). In fact, “One Hundred Pieces of Harmonic Music, Volume A” consists of 96 (not “100”, as the title claims) instrumental works and French-language songs 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 Ockeghem, Jacob Obrecht, Antoine Brumel, and Alexander Agricole – were all originally from northern France and southern Belgium: the so-called “Franco-Flemish” composers from the “oltre montani” (“the other side of the Alps”) who were so popular in Italy at the time. I am aware that that previous, opening paragraph, filled with relatively obscure Italian and Franco-Flemish names, musicological rubric, and featuring an obscure, Latin-titled anthology – Harmonice musices odhecaton A -might have crossed your eyes and loosened your bladders even as it threatened to put you to sleep. But! But, but! But in fact, the publication of “One Hundred Pieces of Harmonic Music, Volume A” in 1501 was a huge, big deal in the history of Western music, an event we can accurately call a “game changer”! In reference to human evolution and development, there have been all sorts of large-case game changers: the control of fire; the invention of clothing; the development of tools and the invention of the wheel; the rise of agriculture; the ability to smelt, forge, and alloy metals; the harnessing of steam, and so forth.  But I would argue that collectively, the most important game-changers in the evolution and development of humanity have to do with information transfer, starting with the development of language. While it now appears likely that our ancestor homo erectus “invented” some sort of “grunted” language as long as 2 million years ago, complex language only emerged among the most loquacious of human species – that being we homo sapiens – some 150,000 years ago, as a systematic way for modern humans to communicate.  Next to language, sliced bread as a game changer is, well, overrated. … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Robert Greenberg Courses How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition $349.95 – $599.95Price range: $349.95 through $599.95 Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Music as a Mirror of History $219.95 – $334.95Price range: $219.95 through $334.95 Select options The post Music History Monday: All the Music That’s Fit to Print first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) circa 1864 We mark the birth on May 8, 1829 – 194 years ago today – of the American composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, in New Orleans. He died, all-too-young, on December 18, 1869 at the age of forty, in exile in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Events that occurred in September of 1865 in San Francisco, California and across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland led directly to Gottschalk’s “exile” to South America. Those frankly tawdry events, most unfairly, have been recounted way too often and as a result, they have come to obscure Gottschalk’s memory as a composer, pianist, patriot, and philanthropist. That’s because people like me continue to write about them as if they, somehow, encapsulated the totality of who and what Louis Moreau Gottschalk was. I hate myself for having participated in this unholy example of scandal mongering – I do – and I stand before you filled with shame and remorse. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, I fully intend to rehash these salacious events here and now with the understanding that following that rehash, we will spend the remainder of this post and all of tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post doing penance, by providing a proper account of the cultural importance of Gottschalk’s hometown of New Orleans, as well as his life, times, and musical career. Background Gottschalk circa 1850, at the time he was being called “Chopin’s Successor” During his lifetime, Louis Moreau Gottschalk was considered to be the greatest pianist and composer ever born in the Western hemisphere, the “Chopin of the New World.”  An American patriot, he foreswore his allegiance to his native South and embraced the Northern cause during the Civil War because of his unreserved hatred of slavery. During the Civil War he travelled and concertized tirelessly across the North and Midwest of the United States, inspiring his audiences with compositions and arrangements of patriotic melodies. He gave away much of his earnings to veterans’ organizations. He was born in 1829 in what was then the most highly cultured and diverse city in the United States: New Orleans. Gottschalk’s personal heritage was diverse as well. His father was a Jewish businessman from London and his mother a Creole, that is, a Louisiana native of French descent. He was a musical prodigy whose compositions synthesized the incredibly different sorts of music he heard around him in New Orleans: African music, Caribbean music, Creole music, as well as the classics of the European concert tradition. Trained at the Paris Conservatoire, the 20-year-old Gottschalk was called “Chopin’s Successor” when Chopin died in 1849. Subsequent concert tours took him across Europe, North America, Central America, and South America made him a legend in his time.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses Mozart In Vienna Great Music of the 20th Century Understanding the Fundamentals of Music Music as a Mirror of History How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music The Chamber Music of Mozart The Concerto The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works The post Music History Monday: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, or What Happens in Oakland Does Not Stay in Oakland first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, title page of the first edition of the score, published by the firm of N. Simrock in 1819 On May 1, 1786 – on what was also a Monday, 237 years ago today – a miracle was heard for the first time: Wolfgang Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro received its premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna.   Some 100 years later, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) wrote this about The Marriage of Figaro:  “Every number in Figaro is for me a marvel; I simply cannot fathom how anyone could create anything so perfect.  Such a thing has never been done, not even by Beethoven.” Herr Brahms, when you’re right, you’re right, and this case you are so right! 237 years after the premiere, Brahms’ awe of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro mirrors our own. For many of us – myself included – it is, simply, the greatest opera ever composed. Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) in 1783, by Joseph Lange Composing an Italian Language Opera for the Viennese On May 7th, 1783 – some three years before the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro – Mozart wrote the following in a letter to his father back in Salzburg: “The Italian opera buffa [here in Vienna] is very popular.  I have looked through more than a hundred libretti [meaning literally “little book,” the script of an opera] but I have found hardly a single one that satisfies me.  That is to say, there are so many changes that would have to be made that any poet, even if he were to undertake to make them, would find it easier to write an entirely new text.  Our poet here now is a certain Da Ponte.  He has an enormous amount to do, and he is at present writing a libretto for Salieri, which will take him two months. He has then promised to write a libretto for me.  But who knows if he will be able to keep his word, or whether he will want to?  As you know, these Italians are very civil to one’s face . . . I should dearly love to show what I can do in an Italian opera.” That Mozart would “dearly love” to compose an Italian language opera for the Viennese was an understatement; “desperately want” would have been a far more appropriate way to put it! When the 27-year-old Mozart wrote that letter to his father in May, 1783, he had been living and working as a freelance musician in Vienna for almost exactly two years.  The young dude was, at the time, filled with inestimable energy, ambition, and – of course – fathomless talent.  Italian language opera was the most prestigious (and potentially profitable) entertainment medium of the day, and Mozart desperately wanted a piece of that action.  But he was also savvy enough to know that composing an Italian language opera in the 1780s for the Viennese was an entirely different ball-of-notes than composing one for audiences in Salzburg, Munich, and even Milan, which he had done already.  He was no longer a child prodigy, for whom the composition of any opera would stun audiences merely by dint of its exitance.  By the 1780s he was a seasoned pro, composing for a Viennese audience that was, at the time, arguably the most discriminating one in Europe.    Consequently, Mozart knew that when the time came for him to throw his compositional hat into the Viennese ring (pun intended) by composing an Italian language opera for the toughest crowd this side of the Roman Colosseum, it couldn’t be just any opera. It would have to represent his best work, and as such it would have to be based on a really good story with a libretto by a first-rate poet. Which is why – during the course of his letter to his father – Mozart mentioned Lorenzo Da Ponte, the official “poet” (meaning the official “librettist”) of the Viennese Court.… Continue Reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Courses from Robert GreenbergThe post Music History Monday: The Enduring Miracle first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Barbra Streisand (born 1942) in 1965 We mark the birth on April 24, 1942 – 81 years ago today – of the American singer, songwriter, actress, and filmmaker Barbara Joan “Barbra” Streisand, in Brooklyn, New York.   But first, before we get to the magnificent Babs, a brief but spirited edition of “This Day In Music History . . .” okay, “stupid” is too strong a word, so let’s just call it, “This Day In Music History . . . Dumb.” On April 24, 2007 – 16 years ago today – the American musician, actress, singer, and songwriter Sheryl Crowe (born 1962) declared on her website that in order to help the environment, the use of toilet paper should be limited to: “only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required.”  We cannot help but wonder precisely what “pesky occasions” Crowe might be referring to.  Additionally, we must assume that Ms. Crowe’s proscription again TP overuse was intended to be voluntary, as the issues surrounding enforcement are, indeed, troubling. Sheryl Crow’s environmental concerns extended, as well, to what she deemed to be the profligate use of napkins. She went so far as to design a line of clothing that featured what she called a “dining sleeve.” Those sleeves – what amounted to wearable napkins – were “replaceable”: they could be detached after diners had used them to wipe their mouths and replaced with clean sleaves. What a shock that “dining sleeves” never caught on! Sheryl Crowe (born 1962) demonstrating (wastefully demonstrating!) how to properly employ toilet paper While we would acknowledge that Sheryl Crowe’s environmental heart is in the right place, we would respectfully suggest she aim a bit higher than toilet paper and for example, stop drinking from plastic water bottles, as seen in the image above.  Just suggesting. Barbra Streisand (born 1942) There is nothing I can say about Maestra Streisand that has not already been said a thousand times. Regarding her talents as a singer, actress, and filmmaker; her command of the stage; her intelligence and sense of humor; her ego and ambition; her philanthropy and activism; the clichés be damned, she is truly a force of nature: one-of-a-kind. She has been a constant presence in our cultural lives for seven decades: her first network television appearance occurred on April 5, 1961, when she appeared on The Jack Paar Show (later, The Tonight Show), which was guest-hosted that evening by Orson Bean (1928-2020). Orson Bean (1928-2020) in 1965 Bean late recalled: “I met Barbra when she was 18 and singing at a place in Greenwich Village. When I guest-hosted The Jack Paar Show I got them to fly her in from a club she was playing in Detroit. She was a nervous wreck. But then when she started singing – [the song] ‘A Sleepin’ Bee’ – it was like God singing through her. She got a standing ovation, which doesn’t happen on TV. It was an incredible moment.” … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Top Robert Greenberg Courses Mozart In Vienna $80.00 – $150.00Price range: $80.00 through $150.00 Select options Great Music of the 20th Century $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Understanding the Fundamentals of Music $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options Music as a Mirror of History $219.95 – $334.95Price range: $219.95 through $334.95 Select options How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition $349.95 – $599.95Price range: $349.95 through $599.95 Select options Great Masters: Mahler — His Life and Music $89.95 – $169.95Price range: $89.95 through $169.95 Select options The Chamber Music of Mozart $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The Concerto $199.95 – $319.95Price range: $199.95 through $319.95 Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works $249.95 – $439.95Price range: $249.95 through $439.95 Select options The post Music History Monday: A Voice Like Buttah! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

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 (between 2nd and 3rd Streets) was not intended to have been Caruso’s last local appearance, but circumstances beyond his control assured that it was! Enrico Caruso (1874-1921) Enrico Caruso in one of his first publicity photos, taken in Sicily 1896 at the age of 24; he is wearing a bedspread draped like a toga since his only dress shirt was at the laundry Caruso was born into a poor family in Naples, Italy, on February 24th, 1874.  He was the third of seven children (and not the nineteenth of twenty-one, as Caruso himself often claimed!).  Following in the professional footsteps of his father, Marcellino Caruso, who was a mechanic, young Enrico was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer at the age of 11.  He “discovered” his voice singing in a church choir, and as a teenager he made a few extra dinero singing on the streets and in the cafes of Naples. At the age of 18, Caruso had something of a revelation, when he used money he had earned as a singer to buy his first new pair of shoes.  Realizing his real professional potential, he began taking voice lessons, and his progress was rapid. The 21-year-old Caruso made his professional debut as an opera singer on March 15, 1895, when he sang in a now-forgotten opera (entitled L’Amico Francesco by Mario Morelli) at Naples’ Teatro Nuovo. He proceeded to pay his dues, singing a wide variety of roles in various provincial opera houses while continuing his vocal studies.  He made his La Scala debut at the age of 26 on December 26, 1900, singing Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. Caruso quickly became a fan favorite throughout Italy, but it was technology – a brand-new technology – that made him world famous. Self-caricature by Caruso himself, making his first records in a hotel room in Milan in April 1902; note the drawing of Nipper the dog listening to “his master’s voice” at the upper right, originally the logo of Emile Berliner’s The Gramophone Company On April 11, 1902, Caruso walked into a hotel room in Milan which had been outfitted as a makeshift recording studio.  On that day, for a fee of 100 pounds sterling, Caruso recorded 10 discs, becoming in the process the first opera singer to make a flat disc, 78 rpm record.   (For our information, those records were made for Emile Berliner’s The Gramophone Company. Founded in London in 1898, The Gramophone Company was the parent company of the record label His Master’s Voice (HMV), which was the American affiliate of the Victor Talking Machine Company. The Victor Talking Machine Company was acquired by RCA in 1929 and the new label was initially known as RCA Victor.  In London, in a separate transaction, His Master’s Voice merged with the Columbia Gramophone Company in 1931 to create Electric and Musical Industries Limited, better known as the classical labels EMI and Angel.) The records Caruso recorded in that Milanese hotel room made him an overnight sensation.  Just weeks after they were released, Caruso was signed to sing at London’s Covent Garden.  He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in a new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto on November 23, 1903, and from that day forward became the Met’s most popular tenor.  It was as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company that Enrico Caruso came to perform in San Francisco, California, on April 17, 1906.… Continue reading, and listen uninterrupted, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Robert Greenberg CoursesThe post Music History Monday: I Left My Nerve in San Francisco first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

We mark the premiere on April 10, 1868 – 155 years ago today – of Johannes Brahms’ magnificent A German Requiem, for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) in 1866 Johannes Brahms, Again? I know I’ve been going heavy on Brahms (1833-1897) as of late. I would apologize if he wasn’t so fascinating a person and if his music wasn’t so darned good, but he was a fascinating person and his music is superb, so our continued attention is well deserved. It’s not as if we didn’t have other topical options for this date. For example, on this date in 1970 – 53 years ago today – Paul McCartney “officially” announced the split-up of The Beatles. Okay; whatever; if there’s one topic that’s gotten more play here in Music History Monday than Bach, Brahms and Beethoven combined, it’s the fourth “B”: The Beatles. The breakup of The Beatles? Sorry, but yawn. The “Wilhelm Scream” Shelby Frederick “Sheb” Wooley (1921-2003) Then there’s this. April 10, 1921, marks the birth – 102 years ago today – of the American singer, songwriter, actor, and comedian Shelby Frederick “Sheb” Wooley, in Erick Oklahoma (he died in Nashville, Tennessee on September 16, 2003, at the age of 82). For the vast majority of us who do indeed remember him, Wooley is best known for his 1958 rock ‘n’ roll comedy single The Purple People Eater, which he wrote in a matter of minutes and which sat at number 1 on Billboard’s Hot Pop Chart for six weeks between June 9 and July 14, 1958. The so-called “Official Video” is linked below. But for those “in the know” (which is about to include all of us), Wooley’s greatest contribution to Western culture is not The Purple People Eater but rather, something called the “Wilhelm Scream.” Here’s the scoop. Among his various roles as an actor, Sheb Wooley made an uncredited appearance as one “Private Jessup” in a 1951 Gary Cooper movie called Distant Drums. At one point during the movie, a company of soldiers is fleeing through the Florida Everglades, pursued by a pack of Seminole Indians. Several soldiers die during the chase, including one who emits a blood-curdling scream as he is dragged underwater to his death by an alligator. Here is that scream: The scream was created and recorded by none-other-than Sheb Wooley, and it has long outlived him. Wooley’s screeching sound-bite got its name when it was used again – in 1953 – in the movie The Charge at Feather River, when a character named “Private Wilhelm” got hit in the thigh with an arrow: The now so-called “Wilhelm Scream” became part of Hollywood’s stock sound library, and as such, it went on to be been used – often multiple times in a single film – in hundreds of movies, TV shows, and video games, including the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill, Toy Story, Cars, The Incredibles, and Lethal Weapon franchises; Reservoir Dogs; Aladdin; Beauty and the Beast; The Fifth Element; Breaking Bad; The Simpsons; The X–Files; The Mandalorian; the list goes on and on! I offer up two video links. The first one features what WatchMojo considers the “10 best” Wilhelm Screams: $bp("myDiv", {"id":"18480","width":"842","height":"474","video":{ "src": "https://d2rt038i8fguog.cloudfront.net/8e7ed78eb84358a6ddb5c6e7a4a3110b.mp4", "name": "Top 10 Wilhelm Screams", "image": "https://www.watchmojo.com/uploads/blipthumbs/Fi-M-Top10-Wilhelm-Screams-720p30_480.jpg"},"autoplay":0,"shared":true}); The second link below features literally hundreds of Wilhelm Screams – that is, the same scream as recorded by Sheb Wooley in 1951 – over the course of its 12 minutes and 22 seconds! Maestro Wooley, yours is a cinematic legacy of which to be proud! We Transition! Okay, enough screaming. We proceed to Johannes Brahms and A German Requiem. For your information, the remainder of this post and tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes is going to constitute a “twofer”, as Dr. Bob Prescribes will pick up where today’s Music History Monday leaves off.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Robert Greenberg Courses How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition Select options Concert Masterworks Select options The Symphony Select options The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works Select options The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works Select options Great Masters: Brahms — His Life and Music Select options Great Masters: Robert and Clara Schumann — Their Lives and Music Select options The post Music History Monday: A Mama’s Boy, and Proud of It! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Johannes Brahms on his deathbed, April 1897 We mark the death on April 3, 1897 – 126 years ago today – of the German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms at the age of 63.  One of the great ones and along with Sebastian Bach and Louis van Beethoven one of the three bees – the killer bees – Brahms was born in the Hanseatic port city of Hamburg on May 7, 1833. We will get to Maestro Brahms in just a moment but first – with appropriate fanfare – I offer up this edition of “This Day in Music History Stupid.” Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust; Be Kind to My Ashes, Though Snort if You Must On April 3, 2007 – 16 years ago today – the Reuters news agency reported that Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (born December 18, 1943) admitted in a soon-to-be published interview with NME (New Musical Express) magazine that he had snorted his father’s ashes during a drug binge. Keith Richards (born 1943) I think we’ve all wondered the same thing at some point or another: given his personal habits and corpse-like appearance, how and why is Keith Richards still alive, yet still performing at nearly 80 years of age? Richards would seem to be as surprised as we are that he is still among the living.  For decades he has expressed his (dubious) pride at having survived his legendary lifestyle.  Back in his sixties Richards told an interviewer: “I was number one on the ‘Who’s Likely to Die’ list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list.  Some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to his funeral.” According to an NME magazine spokesperson, the interview in which Richards claimed to have snorted his father’s ashes was genuine and not a late April Fool’s joke. During that interview, Richards was asked what the strangest thing was he ever snorted.  His response: “The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared. It went down pretty well and I’m still alive.” For our information, Keith Richards’ father, Bert Richards, died in 2002 at the age of 84.  Will his son Keith outlive him? On this we’ll simply have to wait and see. Johannes Brahms Approaching 60 Johannes Brahms in 1889, at the age of 56 Johannes Brahms in his late-fifties was a picture of ruddy good health.   His schedule remained fixed: vacation in Italy during the early spring; compose in the countryside during the late spring and summer; return to Vienna in the fall to polish what he had written during the summer, conduct, or simply loaf around, as he pleased.  Despite his bulky physique, Brahms remained quite spry, and despite the countless cigars and the gallons of beer and wine he consumed he remained a picture of health.   While in Vienna, he dined religiously – lunch and dinner – at the Zum rotten Igel – “The Red Hedgehog” – in the Wildpretmarkt.  As far as he was concerned, the Hedgehog served the best cheap food in Vienna, a double positive if there ever was one, something he never tired of telling his less frugal friends and associates.   What Brahms did spend his money on were the Viennese ladies of the evening, with whom – we are told – he was kindly, caring, and generous, sometimes to a fault.  Of the older Brahms writes biographer Jan Swafford: “In his fashion, Brahms remained modest and generous and often self-deprecating, but he did not escape the effects of fame.  In his age he could not abide being contradicted, took for granted that he was the center of every company.  He maintained his chosen masks:  the Master to be approached at peril; the gruff, hard drinking bourgeois man preferring the company of men or in mixed company telling naughty stories to the ladies.  He played the old scamp, the old rogue, flirting with every pretty face and everyone’s daughter.  But he looked, and did not touch, beyond a playful squeeze, laughed and held forth and gave lavish gifts but in the end gave nothing of himself beyond his art.  Ruthlessly, he had sunk his fair features and moonstruck young soul under the patriarchal beard and forbidding bark of Herr Doktor Brahms.”  By the late 1880s and early 1890s, the awards, laurels, and prizes began to pour into Brahms’ Viennese flat, unbidden but not unwelcome. Brahms kept the lid on his grand piano down, and instead of the usual family photographs, he covered the piano with a rotating display of his medals and certificates. By far the most welcome honor to come his way arrived in May 1889: Brahms was informed that his hometown of Hamburg was to award him the “Freedom of Hamburg” prize, the city’s greatest honor. Only twelve people had ever received the prize, the most recent two being Otto von Bismarck and the Prussian general Helmut von Moltke. … Continue reading – and listen without interruptions – only on Patreon! Become a Patron!&nb

A quick comment in reference to the title of today’s post, “Papa’s Last Appearance.” Not that you really need me to tell you, but by “Papa” we are not referring to Papa John Schnatter, who founded “Papa John’s Pizza” in 1984. Neither are we referring to the stand-up comedian Tom Papa, the sportscaster Greg Papa, the American rock band Papa Roach, nor the American Paul Karason (1950-2013), also-known-as “Papa Smurf,” whose skin turned to a purplish-blue color as a result of ingesting a home-made brew of silver chloride colloid. Papa Smurf (Paul Karason; 1950-2013) By “Papa,” we are referring to Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) who was once-and-forever nicknamed “papa” while still in his thirties by the grateful musicians who worked for him! We mark what turned out to be the final public appearance of “Papa” Joseph Haydn on March 27, 1808 – 215 years ago today – at a concert held in honor of his upcoming 76th birthday.  The gala concert, held at Vienna’s University Hall, featured a performance of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, which had been completed ten years before, in 1798.  The concert was what we would call today a “star-studded event”: everyone who was anyone in Vienna’s musical world was there, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonio Salieri, and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Background Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) in 1791, at the age of 59 Haydn was born on March 31, 1732, in the Austrian village of Rohrau, which at the time was just a hop-and-a-skip from the border with Hungary.  He was a small, wiry, energetic, and genial boy, and he grew up to be a small, wiry, energetic, and genial man.   At a time when the average European life expectancy was just 33.3 years, Haydn remained a remarkably healthy man well into what was then considered to be old age.  Having never travelled outside the immediate vicinity of his birth, Haydn undertook the arduous journey to England in 1791 at the age of 59, and then again in 1794, at the age of 62.  Still composing masterworks into his 69th year (he completed his oratorio The Seasons in 1801), Haydn was considered an ageless wonder by everyone around him. Unfortunately, no one of us is in fact “ageless,” and time caught up with Haydn when he was in his late sixties.  Though he lived until May of 1809, his last years were marred by increasingly bad health.  His symptoms – swollen legs, exhaustion, failing memory – point to a general case of arteriosclerosis, or “hardening of the arteries.” While symptoms of the disease first became apparent in 1799, Haydn’s health declined precipitously after 1805, by which time, at the age of 73, he was for all intents and purposes an invalid.   However, Haydn had the rare pleasure of knowing that in his old age he had not been forgotten. His ongoing popularity was astonishing, and from every corner of Europe, medals, awards, honors, and proclamations poured into his home in the Viennese suburbs. … Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe on the Music History Monday Podcast Related CoursesThe post Music History Monday: Papa’s Last Appearance first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

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 the Italian city of Pesaro, on the Adriatic Sea. He died of colorectal cancer on November 13, 1868, in his villa in Passy, which today is located in Paris’ chic, 16th arrondisement. He was the only child of Giuseppe Rossini (1758-1839) and Anna (née Guidarini) Rossini (1771-1827). Giuseppe Rossini (1758-1839) Rossini’s father Giuseppe was a professional trumpet and horn player, and as such was Gioachino’s first music teacher.  (The adult Rossini liked to say that: “Sono figlio di corna,” “I am the son of a horn!”) Anna (née Guidarini) Rossini (1771-1827) “Son of a horn” he might have been, but when it came to his real musical education, it was as the son of an opera singer.  Rossini’s mother Anna was, at the time of his birth in 1792, a seamstress by trade.  But changes in Italian society allowed her to make a second career as a professional singer.  According to Rossini’s biographer Richard Osborne (Rossini; Oxford University Press): “Italian Society began to change in the late 1790s, not least in the arts, where a process of democratization set in.  Admission to academic institutions became easier for ordinary folk; new music was encouraged from a wider variety of sources; ticket prices fell; women found it easier to take paid employment on the stage.  The last development had enormous repercussions for the Rossini family, as it allowed Anna Rossini to earn useful money as a singer.” According to her son Gioachino, Anna Rossini was a “natural,” with a voice, to quote her son: “as sweet as her appearance.” She wasn’t able to read music, but like her son Gioachino, she had a phenomenal musical memory.  All together, she mastered and performed 15 roles, all of them from comic operas. Anna Rossini began her singing career in the 1797-1798 season at Ancona’s Teatro della Fenice, where she performed as the second soprano in operas by Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816), Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), and Giovanni Battista Martini (1706-1784). She concluded her career in the fall of 1808 as the prima donna assoluta (“the absolute first lady”: the starring soprano) at the Teatro Communale in Bagnacavallo, a town about 50 miles northwest of Pesaro. By the time Gioachino was ten years old, he was going on tour with his mother, watching rehearsals from the house and following performances from backstage. It was a musical and operatic education like no other, and by the age of 13, he was hooked: he was a person of the theater.  As it turned out, Anna wasn’t the only musical “natural” in the Rossini clan. … Continue reading, and listen uninterrupted, on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related CoursesThe post Music History Monday: The First Night: Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) in 1871 We mark the death, on February 13, 1883 – 140 years ago today – of the German composer Richard Wagner, in Venice, at the age of 69.  He had been born in the Saxon city of Leipzig on May 22, 1813. Wagner’s Health Writing in Hektoen International – A Journal of Medical Humanities, George Dunea, MD, states that: “[Richard] Wagner was an extraordinarily highly strung individual.” Do you think, Dr. Dunea?   In fact, he was a pathologically overwrought individual, a certifiable narcissist who required maximum stimulation at all times whether he was awake or asleep.  (Yes, even asleep.  As a young child he kept his many siblings awake at night by shouting and talking while he slept.) Wagner was not born a particularly healthy person, and as an adult, his personal habits and constant excitability exacted a considerable toll on his already compromised constitution.  Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 1903 (Gould, George M.; The Ill-health of Richard Wagner, JAMA 1903; 51: 293 and 368; as articles go, this is an oldie but a goodie!), Dr. George Gould described Wagner as having the collective symptoms of: “[Thomas] DeQuincy [best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater]; [Thomas] Carlisle; [Charles] Darwin, [Thomas Henry] Huxley; [Robert] Browning, [Herbert] Spencer, and [James] Parkinson all together and all at once.” The illnesses shared by these illustrious individuals included migraine headaches, severe gastric issues, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. They were all workaholics who, according to Dr. Gould, drove themselves until they were:  “threatened either by disease or by despair.” From childhood on, Wagner suffered recurrent skin disease that has been variously diagnosed as eczema or erysipelas.  He suffered from what were likely migraine headaches his entire life, complaining about “the nerves of his brain.” As an adult he suffered from depression and severe anxiety, and thought obsessively about death.  (As early as 1852, as a young man of 39, he wrote: “I am daily thinking of my death.”) He was an insomniac and subject to rheumatic pains and constant gastric discomforts.  Physically, he was a mess.  But migraines and dyspepsia were not likely to kill Wagner, as opposed to his problems with his heart. Those problems began in December of 1873, when Wagner was 60, at a time when he was desperately trying to put together the funding for his Bayreuth Festival, his grand monument to himself and his art (more on the festival in just a moment).  The anguish and stress he put himself through and the anxiety and depression he experienced began to affect his heart.  (According to Wagner’s wife Cosima, writing in her diary: “by starting the festival, he signed his own death-warrant; he seldom had a good night and his attacks of cramp about the heart became more and more frequent.”) The Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival – held in the picturesque, medieval Bavarian city of Bayreuth in southern Germany – is an annual music festival/Wagner lovefest dedicated to performing the works of Richard Wagner his very self.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related CoursesThe post Music History Monday: A Man for All Symptoms: The Death of Wagner first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

We mark the death on February 6, 1497 – 526 years ago today – of the composer and singer Johannes Ockeghem, in Tours, France, at the age of 87 (or so). He was born circa 1410 in the French-speaking city of Saint-Ghislain in what today is Belgium, about 5 miles from the border with France. Anonymous portrait believed to be that of Johannes Ockeghem (circa 1410-1497) The title of this post – “Johannes Ockeghem and the Oltremontani” – employs a Italian word that may not be familiar to everybody: “Oltremontani.”  It’s a word that means, literally, “those from the other side of the mountains.”  The mountains in question are the alps, so in fact, generally, the word refers to people “from the other side of the alps”: from northern and northwestern Europe.  But when used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it meant something quite more specific than that: it referred to musicians from what today are northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg.  Johannes Ockeghem was just such an oltremontano, having been born in Belgium close to the northern border of France. Johannes Ockeghem (circa 1410-1497) “Born circa 1410, died 1497.”  Back in the fifteenth century, if someone became famous – and at the time of his death, Johannes Ockeghem was famous across Europe – their death date was (and remains) common knowledge.  But for people born in the fifteenth century (and earlier), birth dates and early accounts of their lives before they became famous, well, that’s a different matter entirely.  Generally, we know next to nothing about the birth dates and early lives of ordinary people born in the fifteenth century and before, and that includes Johannes Ockeghem.  In fact, we’re not even sure how he spelled his name.  We use “Ockeghem” today because that spelling came from a document – now lost – in which he supposedly signed his name using that spelling.  But other spellings of his name include Ogkegum, Okchem, Hocquegam, and Ockegham. Here’s some stuff we do know.   Johannes Ockeghem was considered by his contemporaries, as he is considered today, to be – along with Guillaume DuFay (circa 1397-1474), Antoine Busnois (circa 1430-1492), and Josquin Desprez (circa 1450-1521) – the greatest and most influential composer of the fifteenth century.   (For those of us who may not be familiar with the names of the oltremontani Ockeghem, DuFay, Busnois, and Desprez, I would be so bold as to suggest that they were equivalent, in their time, to the Vienna-based quartet of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.  In terms of these Renaissance composers’ talent and impact on the history of Western music, I am not exaggerating.) For reason’s already explained, we know nothing about Ockeghem’s early life.  Like most composers of his time, he almost certainly started his musical life as a church chorister, likely in the city of Mons, a few miles east of his hometown of Saint-Ghislain. The first documentary mention of Ockeghem’s activity as a musician date to June, 1443, when he is listed as being among the chanteurs – the singers – at the Church of Our Lady, in Antwerp. His initial fame was, indeed, as a singer: he was a basso and was reputed to have a rich, flexible, and unerringly accurate voice.   He was described by the people that knew him, including the famed humanist Erasmus, as being: “exceptionally engaging: honest, virtuous, kind, generous, charitable, and pious.”  Ockeghem’s friend, the cleric Francesco Florio (1428-1484) described him this way in the 1470s: “I am sure you could not dislike this man, so pleasing is the beauty of his person, so noteworthy the sobriety of his speech and of his morals, and his graciousness. He alone of all the singers is free from vice and abounding in all virtues.” Okay: combine a brilliant singer and composer with physical beauty, a great attitude, and a long life and you have the prescription for success.   And Ockeghem was nothing if not successful.… Continue reading, see photos, and listen uninterrupted, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Great CoursesThe post Music History Monday: Johannes Ockeghem and the Oltremontani first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) in Paris, circa 1955 We mark the death on January 30, 1963 – exactly sixty years ago today – of the French composer and pianist Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc, in Paris.  A Parisian from head to toe, he was born in the tres chic 8th arrondisement in that magnificent city on January 7, 1899.  He died of a heart attack not far from where he’d been born, in his flat opposite the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris’ 6th arrondisement.  Before we can get down with the magnifique Monsieur Poulenc, we have an important event in rock ‘n’ roll history to mark. The Beatles rooftop concert, January 30, 1969 On January 30, 1969 – 54 years ago today – the Beatles, joined by the keyboard player Billy Preston, performed their final live concert.  The venue was unusual: a hastily constructed stage on the rooftop of their five-story Apple Corps (their record company) headquarters, at 3 Savile Row: smack dab in the middle of the fashion district in London’s tony Mayfair neighborhood.  (I cannot resist the joke: how do you get a rock band onto a roof?  You tell them the beer is on the house.) Badaboom. A couple of weeks before the rooftop concert eventually took place, Paul McCartney had suggested that the Beatles should perform a concert: “in a place we’re not allowed to do it … like we should trespass, go in, set up and then get moved. Getting forcibly ejected, still trying to play your numbers, and the police lifting you.” The shock value of such a “concert” was sure to generate awesome publicity for the Beatles just released (on January 13, 1969) Yellow Submarine album.  Still, it wasn’t until January 26 – just four days before the concert – that the Beatles and their management decided to go ahead with their impromptu, rooftop recital.   No announcement of the event was made ahead of time.  Instead, the Beatles and Billy Preston took their places on the rooftop stage and started playing at around 12:30 pm, smack-dab in the middle of London’s lunchtime break, with lots of people out and about.  Word quickly spread that a sensational event was taking place on Savile Row, and it wasn’t the opening of a new haberdashery; after all, The Beatles had not played in public for 2½ years: not since their performance at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 29th, 1966.    Crowds quickly began to assemble in the surrounding streets, and in the windows and on the roofs of surrounding buildings. (So much for George Harrison’s fear that they would be performing “only for chimneys.”) Soon enough, streets became impassable and the doors to businesses blocked. Given that the blocked streets included Savile Row and Regent Street (the latter a major thoroughfare); and that the blocked businesses constituted some of the ritziest in the city, not everyone was overjoyed with the spontaneous concert. … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Related Robert Greenberg CoursesThe post Music History Monday: Francis Poulenc: “a bit of monk and a bit of hooligan” first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Paul Leroy Robeson (1898-1976) in 1942 We mark the death on January 23, 1976 – 47 years ago today – of the American bass-baritone singer, stage and screen actor, civil rights activist, professional football player, and graduate of Columbia University Law School Paul Robeson at the age of 77, in Philadelphia.  Born in Princeton, New Jersey on April 9, 1898, the son of an escaped slave turned Presbyterian minister, Robeson had more intellectual, artistic, and athletic gifts and lived more lives than any 10 (20? 50? 100?) so-called “normal” people.  And he had to fight for every one of those lives, growing up a black person in early twentieth century America. “Larger than Life” The English-language idiom “larger than life” describes people “who are better and stronger and smarter than the average Joe”: individuals imbued with characteristics and abilities far beyond those of “ordinary” human beings. Typically, the idiom is reserved for fictional characters, who are gifted with superhuman (or nearly so) qualities and abilities. The heroes, warriors, gods, and goddesses of myths and legends are, by definition, “larger than life.” Achilles, Hercules, Zeus, Odysseus, Thor, Brünnhilde (and many, many more) would all qualify.  Comic book characters and superheroes are likewise, by their nature, “larger than life.” Certain other fictional characters become larger than life thanks to their singular identity: thanks to their stature, their presence, and their flair. Love them or hate them, we remember them.  For example, Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins; Cruella de Vil and Scarlet O’Hara; Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes would all qualify. Employed judiciously, “larger than life” can also be used to describe an actual human being, providing that person’s life, abilities, personality, and accomplishments truly distinguish them from the rest of us.  When used to describe an actual person, the idiom gets its power from its use of figurative license, since, in fact, it’s impossible to actually quantify the “size” of a life. According to an entry in languagehumanities.org: “The use of exaggeration is what gives this phrase its particular power. Especially when it is used in reference to an actual person, there can hardly be a greater compliment than to call someone “larger than life.” That is why it is usually reserved for only the most noteworthy personalities, or else its impact would be somewhat lessened.” “Larger than life,” a physical giant among men: the larger than life Paul Robeson leading workers in singing The Star-Spangled Banner at the Moore Shipyard in Oakland, California, September of 1942 Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was truly “larger than life.” Robeson’s life as a singer, actor, athlete, intellectual, and activist; as a Black American aggressively and publicly battling racism and Jim Crow; as a socialist and, to many, a communist dupe and traitor to America defies easy telling. As such, this post is going to focus on Robeson’s preternatural talent and artistry, and will trace his life though 1933, the year he made the film, The Emperor Jones. Through interviews and archival footage, tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post will briefly observe his political awakening and subsequent activism, finally focusing on the controversial but still breathtaking The Emperor Jones, “breathtaking” thanks to Robeson’s for-the-ages performance.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday PodcastThe post Music History Monday: Paul Robeson: Truly Larger Than Life first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Anton Felix Schindler (1795-1864) We mark the death on January 16, 1864 – 159 years ago today – of Anton Felix Schindler, in Frankfurt, at the age of 68. Born on June 13, 1795, in the town of Medlov in today’s Czech Republic, Schindler was, for a time, Beethoven’s “factotum”: his secretary and general assistant. He was also a scoundrel and a profiteer, who after Beethoven’s death lied about his relationship with Beethoven, stole irreplaceable objects and documents from Beethoven’s estate, and falsified and destroyed many of those documents (some of which he later sold off) in order to make himself look better in the eyes of history. Boo-hoo for Schindler: the “making-himself-look-better-in-the-eyes-of-history” thing didn’t work, and today he is regarded as the patron saint of lying and thieving employees. Among the Beethovenian documents Anton Schindler took upon himself to “remove for safekeeping” were Beethoven’s so-called “Conversation Books.” Beethoven’s Conversation Books Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) in 1803 It took an agonizingly long time for Beethoven to go completely deaf. His hearing loss began in 1796, in his 26th year: a buzzing in his ears and a slow but progressive loss of high frequency hearing. By the fall of 1802, Beethoven had cut himself off from much of his world out of fear his infirmity would be discovered. Having been assaulted by doctors and the useless (and often painful) remedies they prescribed, Beethoven had come to realize that his condition was incurable and irreversible, and he considered suicide. But he survived his crisis by convincing himself that like the great man of his age – Napoleon Bonaparte (1767-1821) – he (Beethoven) would struggle against his “enemies” (fate, despair, and physical disability) and emerge victorious through his music! Beethoven’s ear-trumpets, as displayed at the Beethoven Haus Museum in Bonn Beethoven was still playing the piano in public and attempting to conduct as late as 1812. Between 1816 and 1818 he employed various ear-trumpets built for him by his erstwhile friend (and the presumed inventor of the metronome) Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (1772-1838). Sadly, by 1818 Beethoven’s deafness had advanced to the point where the ear-trumpets had become useless. From 1818 to 1827 (the year of his death), Beethoven carried around blank books in which friends and acquaintances could write down their side of a conversation, conversations during which Beethoven would speak out loud. Beethoven also used the books for “private” purposes: to jot down notes and ideas, drafts for letters and other documents, shopping lists, and even some brief compositional sketches. … Continue reading (and listen without interruption), only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and subscribe to the Music History Monday PodcastThe post Music History Monday: The Blockhead – Anton Felix Schindler – and Beethoven’s Conversation Books first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Rudolf Bing (1902-1997) circa 1944 We mark the birth on January 9, 1902 – 121 years ago today – of the opera impresario Rudolf Bing, in Vienna Austria.  The general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1950 to 1972, Bing died in Yonkers, New York in September 1997 at the age of 95.  His was a long life by any standard, but particularly by the standards of an opera impresario, whose professional livesare marked by a degree of life-threatening stress and anxiety that, perhaps, only has its equal in combat and divorce court.   Impresario The term “impresario” originated in the world of Italian opera in the 1750s.  Deriving from the Italian word “impresa,” which is “an enterprise or undertaking,” an impresario was that single individual who organized, financed, and produced operas (and later, concerts).  It was a job similar to what a film producer does today; a high stress job not for the faint of heart or weak of bladder. Apropos of the impresarios of his day, the great Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) wrote in reference to how he went about composing his opera overtures: “Wait until the evening before the opening night.  Nothing primes inspiration more than necessity, whether it’s the presence of a copyist waiting for your work or the prodding of an impresario tearing at his hair.  In my time, all the impresarios of Italy were bald at 30.” For our information, Rudolf Bing was bald at thirty. At left, a bald Rudolf Bing at Glyndebourne in 1935 Rudolf Bing (1902-1997) Rudolf Franz Joseph Bing was born into a well-to-do Jewish family in Vienna 121 years ago today.  By his own admission a terrible student, Bing’s parents allowed him to drop out of high school (or gymnasium) at sixteen.  He went to work at the prestigious Viennese bookshop of Gilhofer & Ranschburg before moving on to the shop of a bookseller named Hugo Heller, who also ran a theatrical and concert agency.  By the age of 19, Bing was deeply immersed in the running of Heller’s concert operation, and he was hooked, later writing in his memoir 5000 Nights at the Opera: “I enjoyed the atmosphere of the theater, with its nightly deadline; only journalism and the theater give you this daily excitement, and it is a poison far more habit forming than coffee or nicotine.” (For our information, Bing grew up speaking German and English, and as such, was completely fluent in English. His two memoirs, 5000 Nights at the Opera [of 1972] and A Knight at the Opera [of 1981] were both written in English.)… Continue reading and listen without interruption on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday PodcastThe post Music History Monday: An Impresario for the Ages: Rudolf Bing first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Édith Piaf (1915-1963) We mark the birth on December 19, 1915 – 107 years ago today – of the French singer and actress Édith Piaf in the Belleville district of Paris. Born Édith Giovanna Gassion, she came to be considered France’s national chanteuse, one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century, a French combination of Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and Billie Holiday. She died in Plascassier, near the French Riviera city of Nice, on October 10, 1963, all-too young at the age of 47. Way Too Personal I will be forgiven for making today’s post personal. (It’s just going to happen sometimes.) I was first married in August of 1981.  I was 27 and my betrothed was 23 at the time of our marriage.  We were . . . young.  Frankly, chronological years notwithstanding, I was far “younger” than my bride.  Together, we made two wonderful babies: our daughter Rachel, now 36 years old, and our son Samuel, now 32.   Our marriage lasted for seventeen years.  Based on the frankly terrifying statistics out there, our marriage lasted considerably longer than the seven-to-eight-year average of the 50% of marriages that fail in the United States.   Three years after our breakup, I became involved with another woman, someone who was twenty years my junior.  Yes, the age difference was extreme (and it did not go over well with my ex).  But once again, chronological age meant nothing.  Diane was an old soul, with an emotional age many decades beyond mine.  She was smart, funny, and a brilliant, professional-grade flutist.  I was smitten, besotted, hopelessly and forever taken with her.  We moved in together in 2000. On September 11, 2001, our phone rang at a little after 6am Pacific Time; we were still asleep.  It was my daughter Rachel, 15 years old at the time and an early riser, telling us to turn on our television.  We did so and proceeded to watch – like every one of us, with our jaws hanging open – as that awful day’s events unfolded.  (My parents were among the many millions who watched everything live and in real time from their apartment terrace high on New Jersey’s Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River and Manhattan.) Looking back, it’s difficult to believe – given our present national dysfunctionality – how united we were as a nation during that post-9/11 autumn of 2001. I can only wish that we could recapture something of that spirit without first having to suffer a national trauma. … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Getting Personal: Édith Piaf first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

“The Garden State” (having been born in Brooklyn, New York, I grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey, just northeast of 75° latitude and 40° longitude December 12 is a crazy day in American jazz and popular music history, a day that saw the births of five – count ‘em, five – significant musicians, three of whom have something very special in common. Let us first recognize the birthdays of the two jazz/pop musicians who do not share this special commonality. Joe Williams (1918-1999) We start with a big, happy birthday to the jazz singer Joe Williams, who was born on December 12, 1918, 104 years ago today.  Born Joseph Goreed, he came into this world in Cordele, Georgia, and left it on March 29, 1999, in Las Vegas at the age of 80.  Big Joe had a gorgeous, warm baritone voice that was as smooth as a peeled onion.  Long associated with Count Basie (1904-1984) and his big band, Williams sings one of his trademark songs – Alright, Okay, You Win – with the Basie Band in the link below, recorded circa 1970. Sheila E. (born 1957) Another big, happy birthday to the singer, drummer, and percussionist Sheila E. (“E” for Escovedo), who was born right here in Oakland, California, on December 12, 1957, 65 years ago today.  Sheila Escovedo came by her musical bona fides honestly.  Her father is the Latin jazz percussionist Peter (“Pete”) Escovedo (born in 1935 in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Pittsburg, California), and her Godfather was the great American Latin, Afro-Cuban, and mambo musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer Tito Puente (1923-2000).  She is a singer of talent and a killer-fine drummer.  The link below dates to 1987, with Sheila E. playing a knockout drum solo with her frequent collaborator, Prince. And now, three more birthday babies, all with something special in common beyond the shared date of their births, and that is their roots (or “ruts”, as it might be locally pronounced) in the great Garden State of New Jersey! … Continue Reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Garden State Hall of Fame first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Here We Go Again . . . It has come to pass. I have been writing these Music History Monday posts for long enough that Monday dates and events have begun to repeat. And as a result, December 5, which was a Monday in 2016, once again falls on a Monday today. Ordinarily there are enough events on any given Monday to keep me from having to deal with the same topic. But December 5 is a special date for one particularly terrible musical event, an event that demands to be revisited. Dates That Will Live in Infamy We consider: there are some dates that, for events that marked them, will live in infamy. I would suggest that what qualifies as an “infamous date” – that is, a date we will all remember to our dying day – is generally dependent upon when one was born. For example, for someone born in the United States in 1854 (that’s 100 years before I was born), those dates of infamy might include: Dred Scott (1795-1858) in 1857 March 6, 1857: the date of the Dred Scott decision, which saw the U.S. Supreme Court rule 7-2 that an enslaved human being (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory where slavery was prohibited was not entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (which had declared all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′ to be free from slavery) was unconstitutional. Some other such infamous dates for someone born in the United States in 1854: April 12, 1861: the opening of the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, which initiated the American Civil War. April 14, 1865: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, who died early in the morning of April 15. Now: for me and my generation, such “dates of infamy” would include: November 22, 1963: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. April 4, 1968: the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, in Memphis, Tennessee. September 11, 2001. We all know what happened on that day. January 6, 2021. Again, we all know what happened on that day. For those good people who will be born in 2054, their dates of infamy will – again – reflect their own time and experience. Mozart at 24 in 1780; detail from portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce However, there are some dates of infamy we can all agree on, whether we were born in 1854, 1954, or 2054. Among them is December 5, 1791, 231 years ago today: the day Wolfgang Mozart died in his Viennese flat at the age of 35 years, 10 months, and 9 days. As previously observed, December 5 last fell on a Monday in 2016. My Music History Monday post for that day was entitled “Mozart: A diagnosis.” Based on contemporary reports of Mozart’s symptoms and modern interpretations of those reports and symptoms, that post offered up what is almost certainly the correct cause of Mozart’s death: a relapse of Rheumatic fever. Today’s post – “Myths of Murder and Mayhem!” – will deal with some of the many falsehoods that came to surround Mozart’s death almost from the moment of his death! But first, a little background.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Myths of Mayhem and Murder! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) in 1933 We mark the New York premiere on November 28, 1925 – 97 years ago today – of Aaron Copland’s Music for the Theater, at a League of Composer’s concert conducted by Serge Koussevitzky at New York’s Town Hall. The actual world premiere of the piece took place eight days before, when Koussevitzky conducted Music for the Theater in Boston. But Copland was a native New Yorker and Music from the Theater is about the New York theatrical and musical world. So – and for this you’ll have to excuse me, particularly the Bean Town babies among us – the so-called “Boston Premiere” was nothing but a warmup, a preview, a promo, an hors d’oeuvre akin to trying out a Broadway play in New Haven or Philadelphia before taking it to the house, to the big time, the Apple, to the city that never sleeps, to the burg so big they had to name it twice: New York, New York! Coming Clean We all have to make decisions, the vast majority of which are, gratefully, relatively insignificant. (I cannot imagine having to make decisions that would affect the health and welfare of entire communities. It’s difficult enough for me to figure out what to make for dinner.) The decisions I do make are for myself and for my families: my immediate family and my Patreon family. Here’s a decision I made for my Patreon family two weeks ago today, on November 14. You see, November 14 is one of those crazy dates when so much happened in the world of music that I was hard put to decide what to feature in that day’s Music History Monday. Check it out. Leopold Mozart (1719-1787) On November 14, 1719, the composer, violinist, teacher, and tennis-father-supreme Leopold Mozart (father of you-know-who) was born in the German city of Augsburg. On November 14, 1778, the composer and pianist Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born in the city of Pressburg, today Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. On November 14, 1805, the composer and pianist Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel was born in the German city of Hamburg. On November 14, 1831, the Austrian-French composer and piano builder Ignaz Joseph Pleyel died in Paris at the age 74. On November 14, 1900, the composer Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York. On November 14, 1939, the composer and synthesizer virtuosa Wendy (“don’t call me ‘Walter’”) Carlos was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. On November 14, 1946, the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla died in Alta Gracia, Argentina, at the age of 69. (And finally, on that very day two weeks ago – November 14, 2022 – the wonderful Robert Flack [born 1937) revealed that she is suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and is no longer able to sing.) Heavens: and to think that on some dates, nothing happened. Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757-1831) Okay; when deciding what to write about two weeks ago on November 14, I was able to knock a couple of names off this list. My Music History Monday post for June 18, 2018, celebrated the birth of Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831), and Music History Monday of October 17, 2022 (six weeks ago today) noted the death (and celebrated the life) of Johann Nepomuk Hummel. As it turned out, I chose to feature Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel in my Music History Monday post of November 14 past (and my Dr. Bob Prescribes post on November 15). I was comforted in making this decision by the fact that I knew I’d be writing about the November 14 birthday boy Aaron Copland in today’s Music History Monday (and in tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes as well). Aaron Copland in New York (?) The question mark attached to the post title above is appropriate, because as a native New Yorker who lived the great bulk of his life in that singular town, we might rightly wonder when was Aaron Copland not in New York? In fact, the title of today’s post refers to two very specific periods of Copland’s life in New York: his childhood and the period after his return to New York in 1924 after three years of study abroad, primarily with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Aaron Copland in New York first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Henry Purcell (1659-1695), portrait by John Closterman, circa 1695 We mark the death on November 21, 1695 – 327 years ago today – of the English composer and organist Henry Purcell, in London. He lies buried today in a place of singular honor, adjacent to the organ on which he performed in Westminster Abbey in London. He had been born there in London on (or about) September 10, 1659, making him only 36 years old when he died. But like both Mozart and Schubert after him, Purcell’s terribly premature death did not preclude him from writing a tremendous amount of music of the very highest quality. Purcell’s music – sacred and secular – utterly defined his time, a time known in British history as the Restoration. Timing I know that the realtors among us will tell us that in the end, everything is all about location, location, and location. Well, sorry to disagree but, in fact, in the end, nothing is more important than timing, timing, and timing. Hey: I love the city of Paris; it is my favorite urban location. But a successful visit to that magnificent location is dependent on timing. Black Death victims unearthed in central Paris in 2014 Had I chosen to visit in August 1348, I would have arrived simultaneously with the Black Death and may very well have perished along with roughly 80,000 Parisians, fully one-third of the population. When I bought my first house in 1986, I would have loved to have been able to buy one in a location called Piedmont, a lovely enclave located in the heart of Oakland. Typical Piedmont shack, currently on sale for a cool $16.8 million A great location, yes. But I (we; my wife and I) couldn’t buy in Piedmont because we didn’t have the bucks at the time (or at any time, for that matter). The message? Location without timing is useless. So: location verses timing. Henry Purcell could have been born in any major metropolitan area in England in 1659: in London, Norwich, York, Bristol, Newcastle, Exeter, Ipswich, Great Yarmouth, or Oxford. Every one of those locations had institutions that would have allowed Purcell to be educated as a musician. But the extraordinary opportunities that allowed him to not just become a composer but to thrive as a composer were strictly a matter of timing. Writes Robert King: “Purcell began his musical upbringing as a boy chorister. There is nothing inherently unusual about that, for many British musicians have, over the years, been fortunate enough to have that unequalled education. But had he been born just a few years earlier, this [Purcell’s musical education] would have been impossible. Fortunately, within a few months of his birth the puritan rule of Oliver Cromwell came to an end, and the monarchy and the Anglican Church were restored to Britain, releasing with it a burst of musical creativity and life that has never since been repeated. By the 1680s, when Purcell’s genius was flowering, London was buzzing with newly written music for the church, the royal and private chapels, the newly founded concert halls, the theaters and even the taverns.” Timing.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen and Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Henry Purcell and British Music Restored! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (1805-1847), drawn by her Husband Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861) in 1829, the year they were married We mark the birth on November 14, 1805 – 217 years ago today – of the German composer, pianist, wife, mother, and hausfrau Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. She died on May 14, 1847, all-too-young at the age of 41, at her home in the Prussian capital of Berlin. Fanny Cäcille Mendelssohn was the first child (of an eventual four) of Lea and Abraham Mendelssohn. Lea Mendelssohn took one look at her infant daughter’s hands and famously exclaimed: “Look!  She has Bach fugue hands.” And that she did. The next Mendelssohn child was born three years and three months later, Fanny’s baby brother – the “genius” – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). “Genius” Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) in 1821 at the age of 12, by Carl Joseph Begas The word “genius” is so overused as to be almost useless.  Nevertheless, it is necessary that we define it and then discuss an aspect its usage.   Definition.  Admittedly, while there is no precise, scientific way to measure and define genius, the following definition, by Walter Isaacson, will do. (Isaacson “knows” genius; his biographies of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo da Vinci are must reads.)  “Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabilities of competitors. Genius is associated with intellectual ability and creative productivity, and may refer to a polymath who excels across diverse subjects.” A most intriguing question: when was the last time any of us heard of a woman being referred to as a “genius”?  Before setting out to write this blog, I’d never asked myself that question. But after a proper bit of brain wracking, my personal answer is never. Dr. Katherine Johnson (1918-2020) in 1966 Yes, Marie Curie (1867-1934) remains the only woman to have won the Nobel Prize twice. (Perhaps Walter Isaacson would consider writing a biography of Madame Curie?)  The actress Hedy Lamar (1914-2000) was a self-taught inventor who, among many other things, helped create frequency-hopping, a technology that today lies at the heart of wi-fi and Bluetooth.  As a mathematician for NASA, it was Dr. Katherine Johnson (1918-2020) who calculated the flight paths for the Apollo moon missions. I could go on, but I don’t need to, because whatever we choose to call them, there always have been and always will be geniuses that are women.  The issues for us, right now, are, one, whether or not their societies allow women to develop their genius and two, whether their societies are willing to designate them as being geniuses.  Alas, male-dominated societal machinations have traditionally conspired against smart women.  Sadly, it’s an undeniable fact: such women have historically been perceived as presenting a threat to patriarchal order, and were kept at home, there to protect the patrilinear family.  As such, writes Françoise Tillard: “the notion of ‘genius’ belongs to a world of masculine concepts that do not include female creativity.” The distinction between “talent” and “genius” was formulated by German writers and philosophers in the eighteenth century.  By the nineteenth century, the prestigious French Le Robert Dictionary defined “genius” (génie) as (the following italics are mine): “a superior aptitude of the mind that lifts a man above the common measure and renders him capable of creations, inventions and undertakings which seem extraordinary or superhuman to his peers.”  “Man”, “him”, and “his.” This is not just old-style pronoun usage. It is a mindset that takes as an ironclad given that men create and women procreate, and never shall that twain meet!… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Other Prodigious Mendelssohn: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Joan Sutherland (1926-2010) in make up for her role as Lucia di Lammermoor in Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor; at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, circa 1965 We mark the birth on November 7, 1926 – 96 years ago today – of the dramatic coloratura soprano Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, in Sydney, Australia.  She died on October 10, 2010, in Montreux, Switzerland at the age of 83.   I want you all to know upfront that Joan Sutherland was the first singer on whom I had a major crush, both because of her stupendous voice (hey: she wasn’t called “La Stupenda!” for nothing) and for reasons to be described below. In this post I will be using the occasion of Ms. Sutherland’s birth to not just talk about her extraordinary talent, but to wax nostalgic, for which I trust you’ll indulge me.  While that nostalgia might dominate this post, be assured that tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post will be dedicated entirely to Joan Sutherland’s artistry and recordings.   Records and Record Players A child record player, circa 1960, not unlike the one we owned I’m going to talk about “sound reproducing equipment” for a bit. Please: though it might, momentarily, appear that I am geeking out here, I am – in fact – not. Because for people of a certain age, our records and the gear on which we played our records were for our younger selves (and perhaps our older ones as well) an essential, irreplaceable part of our lives. Like most kids born around the time I was (1954), I (actually we: my brother and I) had a portable record player on which we played the 45-rpm records our family bought for us.  The two records I remember as being my six-or-seven-year-old self’s favorites were Shadrach, Meshack & Abednego and Gerald McBoing-Boing at Professor Wumple’s Music School.  Thanks to the world-wide-web, I found both recordings online and offer up links below! The Wanderers: Shadrach, Meshack & Abednego (recorded 1959). Gerald McBoing-Boing at Professor Wumple’s Music School (circa 1957): I remember feeling that there was magic in those records, with their tiny grooves somehow containing music.  And I was mesmerized by the record player itself: the tone arm swinging back-and-forth, the spinning turntable and, of course, the music that came out of the thing.  It was the best toy I ever owned! Downstairs, in the living room, my parents had a somewhat higher fidelity record player, not at all unlike the one pictured below. Record Player, circa 1964 My parents had an eclectic mix of records: “classical” (mostly orchestral), jazz (mostly piano players), Broadway shows, lots of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and lots of Joan Sutherland (more on those Sutherland recordings in a moment). And then came 1965. For the wonderful musical satirist and math professor Tom Lehrer, 1965 was “That Was the Year That Was.” For the Greenberg family at 11 Belhurst Lane in Willingboro, N.J., that was the year we went from being technologically deficient to the techno-forefront! Because that was the year we got our first color TV (an RCA) and the year that my father (who was a fine musician in his own right) upgraded to what we all considered, at the time, to be a high-fidelity system: a monaural rig consisting of Dynakit/Dynaco tube preamplifier and amplifier, a Garrard turntable, and a single Acoustic Research AR2 speaker. Dynakit/Dynaco tube preamplifier Garrard turntable Acoustic Research AR2 speaker It was a rather crude system by modern standards, but considering what we were coming from (the “record player” above!), it was a revelation, and the pleasure it gave my father could not have been greater had it consisted of Wilson Audio WAMM Master Chronosonic Speakers (at $850,000 a pair), Ultrasound Otello amplification (at $650,000) and a Goldmund Reference II turntable (a relative bargain at $250,000). (However, let it be noted that the pleasure I myself would receive from the equipment just mentioned would indeed exceed what I felt listening to my father’s system.  So should any of you have any of that rather pricey gear hanging about unused and unwanted, you will let me know.) To the point.  As often as not on Sunday afternoons, particularly during the winter, I would find my father on the living room couch, listening primarily to opera singers on his new semi-hi-fi.  Not to operas, per se, but to albums of arias.  Far and away, the singer whose albums he listened to the most – and I know this because I listened with him – was Joan Sutherland.  The result, for me, was that Joan Sutherland’s was the first operatic voice I got to know well, a voice that became – for the younger me – the benchmark of what an operatic soprano was supposed to sound like. Admittedly, as a kid, I had no reference point for what a coloratura soprano (FYI, an operatic soprano who specializes in music distinguished by its virtuosity) was supposed to sound like. I was completely ignoran

Before moving forward, the title of this post – “The Grandmother of All Drop Parties!” – demands an explanation-slash-definition.   Naked woman (center) frolicking in a casket beneath the stage at Led Zeppelin’s famed drop party in the Chislehurst Caves in southeast London, October 31, 1974 A “grandmother” is the mother of a parent, though in this usage, thank you, it is meant to indicate the ultimate example of what follows, as in “the grandmother of all drop parties.” I know you knew that.  On to the important definition. A “drop party” or “release party” or “launch party” is a festive event sponsored by someone or some corporate entity to celebrate the release of a new product or service.  In these here parts – meaning the San Francisco Bay Area – the most familiar sort of drop parties are those usually lavish affairs thrown by tech companies to launch new hardware or software (as opposed to underwear, overwear, everywhere, nowhere, or whatever-ware).  Certainly, the pandemic put a major crimp on such parties, but I have little doubt they will be back, and that’s because they check off so many important boxes.  They allow a company to celebrate itself and to entertain its employees and clients while also drawing in potential customers at the same time. They increase brand visibility and status, and presumably serve as venues for networking.   They can also cost a freaking fortune as companies continue to up the ante in order to one-up the competition. Yes: of course such parties will be held in desirable, exclusive, high-end venues. Of course they will offer copious amounts of the best quality food and drink, often prepared by celebrity chefs and bartenders. And of course there will be entertainment, typically provided by everyone from famous musicians to circus performers, and perhaps even a few “celebrity guests” circulating around as well, celebrity guests that will press the flesh, take selfies with, and provide autographs for the attendees. And let’s not forget the freebies and gift bags, containing everything from branded clothing to expensive foodstuffs to jewelry, electronics, and so forth. Writes tech industry observer Mary McMahon: “In the late 1990s, the launch party took off, with some cities such as San Francisco hosting upwards of 20 such parties a week in spaces ranging from exclusive venues to rented convention centers. As more companies started to have these events, the pressure to have a catchy gimmick or draw increased, with most companies consulting with party planning firms for their expensive soirees. Many firms also hoped to use the launch party for new employee recruitment, projecting a forceful, trendy image of the company to prospective new employees.” Question: are such launch parties, in fact, outdated rituals, resource-wasting exercises in corporate hubris?  Many folks today would say yes.  But there are a lot of event planners and caterers out there desperate to get back into business, so I wouldn’t count them out just yet. The Musical Launch or Drop Party Led Zeppelin, clockwise from left: John Bonham (1948-1980), John Paul Jones (born 1946), Robert Plant (born 1948), and Jimmy Page (born 1944) For our information, it wasn’t the high-tech industry that created the lavish, over-the-top launch party.  Long before the phrase “high-tech” ever entered our vocabulary, there was the musical drop party. A musical “drop party” or “release party” or “launch party” is a gathering held to celebrate the release of a new song or album (or even the creation of a new record label!).   We’re not talking about the smallish, ultra-civilized, wine-and-cheese soirees that pass for the parties surrounding the release of a concert recording.  No, no: we’re talking about pop and rock ‘n’ roll drop parties, which are (or at least were) a different animal entirely.   Which brings us, finally, to the grandmother of all drop parties, what is generally considered the craziest drop party of all, one that took place 48 years ago today. Swan Song Records On October 31, 1974 – 48 years ago today – the band Led Zeppelin threw a drop party to celebrate both their new, in-house record label called “Swan Song Records” as well as the label’s first United Kingdom release, an album called Silk Torpedo by the band “Pretty Things.” Swan Song” logo It was the drop party by which all subsequent musical drop parties have been measured and found wanting.   Led Zeppelin had initially launched their new label – named after an unfinished and unreleased instrumental number called Swan Song – in May of 1974.  In an interview conducted in 1977, Jimmy Page (born 1944), guitarist and founder of the band, explained why the members and management of Led Zeppelin had created their own record label: “We’d been thinking about it for a while, and we knew if we formed a label there wouldn’t be the kind of fuss and bother we’d been going through over album cov

George Crumb (1929-2022) Before moving on to Carl Ruggles, the featured composer of today’s post, we would offer the warmest of happy birthdays to one of the most brilliant composers of the twentieth century, who also happened to be one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met, George Crumb.  He was born in Charleston, West Virginia on October 24, 1929 – 93 years ago today – and died at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Media, Pennsylvania, on February 6, 2022, at the age of 92. I offered up an appreciation of Crumb in my Music History Monday post on the occasion of his 87th birthday on October 24, 2016. We will revisit Crumb in my Music History Monday and Dr. Bob Prescribes posts for March 13 and 14, 2023 (yes, I plan ahead!) when we tackle his Black Angels for electric string quartet. On to the featured event for today’s post. Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) circa 1950 We mark the death on October 24, 1971 – 51 years ago today – of the American composer, teacher, and painter Charles Sprague (“Carl”) Ruggles, in Bennington Vermont. Born in Marion, Massachusetts on March 11, 1876, Ruggles was 95 years old at the time of his death. C-level People Ordinarily when we refer to “C-level people”, we are talking about those people who constitute the upper echelons of a corporation’s senior executives and managers.  “C” means “chief”, and such “C-level” individuals include CEO (chief executive officer); CFO (chief financial officer); COO (chief operating officer); and CIO (chief information officer).   Much as I’d love to discuss the leadership issues and workforce empowerment challenges faced by such C-level/C-suite executives, we’d observe that there is another sort of “C-level people”, folks who are, by their nature: Crusty. Curmudgeonly. Cantankerous. Crabby. Cranky. And Cross. Let us now get a bit more specific.  Let’s talk about “C-level Composers.” BTW, this isn’t to say that the individuals on the following list of (C-level) composers didn’t have good reason to be the way they were; that they didn’t have “hearts of gold” and various saving graces: and that they weren’t capable of the warm-‘n’-fuzzies.  Just that on a day-to-day basis they could be . . . crotchety. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).  Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).  Charles Ives (1874-1954). Carl Ruggles (1876-1961).  (Those people in-the-know will wonder why I didn’t put the American composer David Diamond [1915-2005] on this C-level composers list.  A truly wonderful composer whose Symphony No. 2 was featured in my Dr. Bob Prescribes post on May 21, 2019, David Diamond, bless him, crossed the line from being a just a curmudgeon to genuine douchebag.  Sorry, but that’s just how he was.) (Neither is Richard Wagner on my “C-level” composer list.  See David Diamond, above.) Carl Ruggles (he changed his first name from “Charles” to the German equivalent of “Carl” out of his love for things German) was of that generation of American modernists (which included his friend, Charles Ives), who were bound up in a “dissonance equals machismo” thing. Born in New England (as was Ives) in 1876, Ruggles grew up at a time when real American men weren’t professional musicians, a career considered fit only for “foreigners” and “effeminates.” The result was an overcompensating, exaggerated machismo on the part of both Ives and Ruggles, both of whom felt that purposely “pretty” music (like that of Debussy) was the compositional equivalent of a limp handshake. Instead, they each cultivated edgy, chromatic music that, in their own minds, reinforced their masculinity.… Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg’s The Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Carl Ruggles first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Name the Composer/Pianist: he was a student of Wolfgang Mozart, Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi, and Joseph Haydn; friend to Franz Schubert and a friend (and rival!) of Ludwig van Beethoven; and teacher of – among many others – Carl Czerny, Ferdinand Hiller, Sigismond Thalberg, and Felix Mendelssohn; in his lifetime considered one of the greats and in ours almost entirely forgotten? With a title like that, the subject of this post better be good. And good he was! Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) in 1820, by Joseph Karl Stieler We mark the death on October 17, 1837 – 185 years ago today – of the composer and pianist Johann Nepomuk Hummel in the Thuringian city Weimar.  Born in Pressburg (today Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia) on November 14, 1778, Hummel was 59 years old at the time of his death. A Preliminary: What’s in a Name? Listen, the last thing in the world I want to be accused of (okay, maybe not the last thing . . .) is name shaming: making fun of someone’s name.  But let’s be serious: what sort of middle name is “Nepomuk”?  And it’s not just Hummel: “Nepomuk”, a name that most certainly does not ring beatific for native English speakers, was a fairly common middle and surname among central Europeans, particularly those in Czech lands.   John of Nepomuk (circa 1345-1393), painted in Augsburg, Germany, during the late eighteenth Century The name comes from the town of Nepomuk, in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic, some 60 miles southwest of Prague.  The town’s claim-to-fame is as the birthplace of Saint John of Nepomuk, who was born there around 1345.  John of Nepomuk earned his sainthood by defending the sanctity of the Confessional.  As the story goes, he was the confessor of Queen Sophia of Bohemia, the wife of King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia (1361-1419).  King Wenceslas suspected his queen of indulging in extra-marital hanky-panky and demanded that John of Nepomuk – as her confessor – spill the beans.  But John refused, even under torture.  On March 20, 1393, he was – we are told – thrown off the newly completed Charles Bridge (in Prague) into the Vltava River.  Whether he died under torture or was drowned is unknown.  Whatever; John of Nepomuk’s martyrdom in defending the sanctity of the confessional eventually earned him his sainthood (although not until March 19, 1729, when he was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII). o the name Nepomuk became an honorable – and common – name in Czech lands.   Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) Hummel’s birthplace in Klobučnícka Street in Bratislava, today a Hummel Museum Again: Hummel was born in Pressburg – as previously observed, what is now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia – on November 14, 1778.  He died in Weimar, in what today is central Germany, on October 17, 1837, where he held the position of Kapellmeister for eighteen years.   Hummel was a spectacular child prodigy as both a pianist and as a violinist.  His father, Johannes, was himself a string player, conductor, and music educator, and like Leopold Mozart before him, he observed his son’s musical development with slack-jawed amazement. According to Johannes Hummel, young Johann could read music at four, play the piano and violin like a seasoned pro at five, and sing with perfect intonation.  Hummel’s parents realized that Pressburg (Bratislava) could not offer their prodigious son anywhere near the musical education and experience that he required, so in 1786, when Johann was eight years old, they pulled up stakes and moved to Vienna. It took the 8-year-old Johann Nepomuk Hummel but a few weeks to make his mark in Vienna.  Soon after arriving there, he played piano for Wolfgang Mozart who, no exaggeration, flipped his gourd.  Writes musicologists Joel Sachs and Mark Kroll in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: “Mozart was so impressed by the young prodigy that he taught him free of charge; and as was often the arrangement at the time, Hummel lived with the Mozarts and became a de facto member of the family. He played billiards with Mozart and tried out his teacher’s newest compositions, and the pair were often seen together on the streets of Vienna. While living at the Mozarts,’ Hummel also had the opportunity to meet, or at least observe, the distinguished guests who frequently visited the Mozart household during this period. These included Lorenzo da Ponte and none other than Haydn, who would sometimes come over to read through string quartets, with Mozart playing viola, Vanhal the cello and von Dittersdorf the second violin.” …continue reading, and listen ad-free, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Name the Composer/Pianist first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky/Vernon Duke (1903-1969) We mark the birth on October 10, 1903 – 119 years ago today – of the Russian-American composer of concert music Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky.  As a composer of popular music, and as a major contributor to the Great American Songbook, he is known as Vernon Duke. The Great American Songbook The Great American Songbook refers to neither a book nor a specific list of songs.  Rather, the phrase encompasses the repertoire of American popular song, written between about 1915 and 1955 that are today collectively referred to as the “standards.”  According to what should be the unimpeachable source, the “Great American Songbook Foundation”:  The “Great American Songbook” is the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century that have stood the test of time in their life and legacy. Often referred to as “American Standards”, the songs published during the Golden Age of this genre include those popular and enduring tunes from the 1920s to the 1950s that were created for Broadway Theater, musical theater, and Hollywood musical film.” Irving Berlin (1888–1989), circa 1935 Now, you didn’t have to be born in America to be a contributor to the Great American Songbook.  In fact, some of the greatest contributors to the “Song Book” were not born in America.  For example, among the “greatest” of them all was Irving Berlin (1888-1989), whose catalog as both a composer and lyricist includes not just hundreds of songs but songs that have become virtual American anthems, including: God Bless America; White Christmas; Alexander’s Ragtime Band; Cheek to Cheek; Puttin’ on the Ritz; and There’s No Business Like Show Business. Irving Berlin was born “Israel Beilin” in the Siberian city of Tyumen, where his father was an itinerant Jewish cantor.  The family emigrated to the United States when Berlin was five, arriving on Ellis Island (where they were quarantined) on September 14, 1893.  Berlin grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he learned his life lessons (and presumably his music, as well) on the streets and in the cafes, saloons, and restaurants of the Lower East Side. The point: to be a recognized composer of the Great American Songbook, you don’t have to be American by birth; you just had to be living and working in America at the time you wrote your hit song (or songs) to be so included. Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky (1903-1969) Dukelsky was born on October 10, 1903 – 119 years ago today – in the Belorussian town of Parafianovo, near Minsk, in what was then the Russian Empire.  His family was of the minor nobility, specifically the “small gentry class”, which meant they could own and hold hereditary land.  (Dukelsky’s hereditary ties to the Russian “nobility” might well have been more impressive than that.  According to the 1954 edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, his paternal grandmother, who was born as “Princess Tumanishvili”, was “directly descended from the kings of Georgia.”  We’d observe that the most recent edition of Grove’s Dictionary – in an article updated in 2010 – makes no such mention.) Dukelsky remembered: “My parents were well-to-do people in the sugar business. I was slated for a diplomatic career, so at age 4 I started the study of languages. But before I was 7, I was trying to compose.” … Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday PodcastThe post Music History Monday: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky, AKA “Vernon Duke” first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) in 1917 We mark the death on October 3, 1931 – 91 years ago today – of the Danish composer and violinist Carl Nielsen in Copenhagen, at the age of 66. Nielsen had what we colloquially call “a bad ticker.”  He suffered his first heart attack in 1925, when he was sixty years old.  A nasty series of heart attacks put him in Copenhagen’s National Hospital (the Rigshospitalet) on October 1, 1931.  He died there at 12:10 am on October 3.  Surrounded by his family, his last words were: “You are standing here as if you were waiting for something.” (We could take those last words a variety of ways. For example, we might assume that Nielsen, suffering from delirium, was genuinely curious as to why his entire family was gathered around his bed. But knowing Nielsen as we do – he was a salty, funny, straight-shooting person and a proud family man, married to a famous sculptress and the father of five kids – we’d like to think that Nielsen went to his death cracking an ironic joke. Not quite as ironic as Chicago’s founding guitarist and vocalist Terry Kath’s last words, “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded”, but ironic enough.) Nielsen clowning around for the camera, circa 1890 Despite the fact that Nielsen was born in 1865 and, as such, reached his compositional maturity in the musical environment of nineteenth century Romanticism, he lived and composed long enough into the twentieth century to have been influenced by the revolutionary new musical languages of the twentieth century.  For example, given its musical content, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 of 1916 – which will be the topic of tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post – could not have been composed in, say, 1890. Carl Nielsen was and remains the central figure in Danish music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His music, his writings, and his attitudes about music exert a decisive influence over Danish music today and have been a source of inspiration for composers across Scandinavia as well. … Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Musich History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Carl Nielsen first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and his second wife, the pianist Ditta Pásztory (1903-1982), photographed in New York City circa 1942 We mark the death on September 26, 1945 – 77 years ago today – of the pianist, composer, and Hungarian patriot Béla Bartók. Born in what was then the Hungarian town of Nagyszentmiklós(now Sînnicolau Mare in Romania) on March 25, 1881, Bartók died – during what he called his “comfortable exile” – in New York City. Before moving on to Bartók’s “American Exile”, let’s establish –as we can from our vantage point in 2022 – his creds as a great and influential twentieth century composer! In 1961, 16 years after Bartók’s death, Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) – composer, conductor, and, in the words of his teacher Olivier Messiaen, the great insufferable one – wrote this about Bartók’s music: “The pieces most applauded are the least good; his best products are loved in their weaker aspects. His work triumphs now through its ambiguity. Ambiguity that will surely bring him insults during future evaluation. His work has not the profound unity and novelty of Webern’s or the vigorous controlled dynamism of Stravinsky’s. His language lacks interior coherence. His name will live on in the limited ensemble of his chamber music.” Boulez was not just wrong; he was snotty wrong.  But the degree of his “wrongness” has only became apparent in time. You see, Boulez and the modernist community he spoke for rejected Bartók’s music because they believed he had copped out, that he had squandered his potential as a compositional radical by employing elements of folk-music, tonality, dance rhythms, and Classical era forms to create a body of music that was on occasion – heaven forbid – viscerally exciting, and, even worse, accessible: music that employed such dreary and tired things as recognizable thematic melodies and was “expressive” in an unabashedly Romantic sense. (In direct response to Stravinsky’s assertion that music, in itself, “is powerless to express anything”, Bartók wrote: “I cannot conceive of music that expresses absolutely nothing.”) The post-World War Two modernists considered Bartók to be a dinosaur, an evolutionary dead-end, a Romantic nationalist holdover who composed music during the first half of the twentieth century that was irredeemably irrelevant to the second half of the twentieth century. Thankfully, we here in the twenty-first century know better. And it’s not just the fact that it is once again okay for “concert” music to be fun to listen to; or the fact that from a purely technical point of view, Bartók was one of the most accomplished composers ever to put pencil to paper. No, what truly makes Bartók a composer for the twenty-first century is the degree to which his music represents a synthesis nearly global in scope. His is a compositional language of purposeful diversity integrated into a singular and singularly personal musical language. Bartok’s music offers a model for one of the most pressing issues-slash-questions facing composers today: in an increasingly global culture, in which “diversity” and “variety” are not just buzzwords but real cultural descriptors, how might a composer go about incorporating and reconciling some aspects of that diversity into an integrated and personalized musical language? … Continue reading, and listen ad-free, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Béla Bartók’s American Exile first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

“Don’t give up your day gig.” Along with “don’t eat yellow snow” and “fake it ‘til you make it”, “don’t give up your day gig” remains one of the oldest, hoariest, clichéd pieces of advice anyone can give or receive. But unless you were lucky/wise enough to heed the other greatest piece of advice any musician can receive, that being “marry rich”, “don’t give up your day gig” is still among the very best pieces of advice a musician can receive. Very few of us get our dream job right out of school; hell, very few of us ever get our dream job. All too rapidly, reality intrudes on youthful artistic idealism and no matter how much one wants to compose, or play violin, or sing, unless we can find someone willing to pay us to do so, we must all do something to make money. And then, as we get older and develop a taste for the finer things in life – like feeding, clothing, and housing our children – our day gigs become not just a matter of survival for ourselves but for those around us. Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) circa 1961 Now, here and there and every now and then, someone gets very lucky and actually scores a career and, as a result, can give up their day gig. Such fine people are the subjects of today’s post. Let us begin, then, with our date-appropriate example. On September 19, 1960 – 62 years ago today – Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) went to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart with his performance of the rhythm & blues song The Twist. (For our information, on October 11, 2012, the Chubster set a “world record” in DeLand Florida. That’s when and where he sang The Twist to a crowd of some 4,000 people, who twisted along with him, breaking the previous Guinness World Record for most people twisting at once. One wonders what the record might be for the most people doing the boogaloo?) Young Ernest Evans was lucky enough to score what was his first major hit some 5 months before his nineteenth birthday. As a result, he was able to quit his day gig: that of a chicken plucker for a firm called “Fresh Farm Poultry”, which was located at the Italian Produce Market (or the South 9th Street Curb Market) in South Philadelphia. (For our information, though born in Spring Gully, South Carolina, Evans/Checker grew up in the projects of South Philly.) (A great story. The naturally outgoing young Evans entertained customers at the poultry market with his singing even as he shucked ‘n’ plucked. It was his boss at the market – someone known today only as “Tony A.”, who nicknamed him “Chubby.” But even more important was the owner of “Fresh Farm Poultry”, a man named Henry Holt. Holt was so taken with Chubby and his talent that he arranged for him to make a private recording with Dick Clark, the host of Philadelphia’s own American Bandstand. It was Dick Clark’s first wife Barbara – née Mallery – that completed Chubby’s stage name. She asked him what his name was, and he replied: “Well, my friends call me ‘Chubby.’” “As he had just completed a Fats Domino impression, she smiled and said, ‘As in Checker?’ That little play on words [‘chubby’ describing a degree of fatness and ‘checkers’ being, like ‘dominoes’ a tabletop game] got an instant laugh, and stuck: from then on, Evans would use the name ‘Chubby Checker.’”) To the point: after July of 1960, Earnest Evans/Chubby Checker never had to pluck another chicken (at least not for money!). I have done some research and have discovered that Chubby Checker’s day gig was not even close to being the worst among certain popular musicians of note.… Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Day Gigs first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Robert (1810-1856) and Clara Schumann (née Wieck, 1819-1896) in 1847 We mark the marriage on September 12, 1840 – 182 years ago today – of the pianist and composer Clara Wieck (1819-1896) to the composer and pianist Robert Schumann (1810-1856). The couple were married the day before Clara’s 21st birthday (September 13, 1840), for reasons that will be explained in detail in tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post. Not for the Timid I ask: what are the most difficult things any person can attempt?  To summit K2 and return alive?  To win Olympic gold?  To overcome addiction?  To row solo across the Pacific?  All tough things to accomplish, no doubt.   What are the scariest things anyone can do? Swim with piranhas? Eat at a barbecue restaurant next to a cat hospital?  Urinate on Mike Tyson?  Scary stuff, dangerous stuff, that. But to my mind, nothing is more soul-searingly difficult-slash terrifying than one, raising children and two, staying in a first marriage.  (Okay; I’ve probably told you more about my life than I intended to, but there it is.) Children are to people what water is to a house: children will find and reveal every flaw in your “structure” – your personality – while simultaneously sucking dry your money, patience, energy, and creative spirit like a lamprey does the innards of a trout.   And yet our babies make us immortal as virtually nothing else can.  The books we write, the paintings we paint, the buildings we design, and the symphonies we compose shrink to utter insignificance when compared to the life we create.   And then there are first marriages. A typical first marriage made problematic by the youth of the bride and groom By their nature, most first marriages are between two relatively young people, people whose lack of life experience should, in fact, disqualify them entirely from making a decision as important as getting married.  But if young people didn’t get married, most babies would not be made.  Which would be problematic for the survival of our species. For better or for worse, getting married (and perpetuating the species) is not a priority for everyone, particularly for artists, who by the nature of their calling must be selfish with their time and energy.  For example, the number of major composers who never married is a substantial one; whatever their domestic aspirations were vis-à-vis a mate, their needs for unrestricted independence and freedom from any external commitment precluded anything so imprisoning as a walk down the aisle.  Such unmarried composers include Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Giacomo Rossini (1792-1868), Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881), Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), and George Gershwin (1898-1937).   (We’d observe that collectively, that’s a helluva fine gene pool never to have been passed on.) Jean and Aino Sibelius; they were married for 65 years! Now: all of this is not to say that composers don’t marry. In fact, a few notable composers would seem to have had solid first marriages, although we’d point out that they were “solid” because their wives took care of everything, allowing their composer/husbands absolute freedom to do their thing. Among such first and only marriages were those of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) and Cécile Mendelssohn (née Jeanrenaud, 1817-1853); Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) and Carolina von Weber (née Brandt, 1794-1852); Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) and Anna Dvořák (née Čermáková, 1854–1931); and Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) and Aino Sibelius (née Järnefelt, 1871-1969). But unfortunately, the list of tragic or simply rotten first marriages of composers is longer than the list of good first marriages. A lot longer.… Continue reading, and listen without ad interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale Now The post Music History Monday: Robert and Clara, Sittin’ in a Tree… first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) circa 1913 We mark the premiere on September 5, 1913 – 109 years ago today – of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2.  Prokofiev (1891-1953) composed the piece while still a student at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory; it was completed in April of 1913.  (For our information, Prokofiev still had another year to go at the Conservatory; he didn’t graduate until May of 1914.)   The concerto received its premiere – 109 years ago today – at the Vauxhall at Pavlovsk, Pavlovsk being a sprawling Imperial palace, park, garden, and summertime concert venue some 19 miles south of St. Petersburg.  The orchestra was conducted by Alexander Aslanov, who for many years led the summer concert series there at Pavlovsk. The piano solo – with its spectacularly difficult piano part – was performed by the then 22-year-old Prokofiev himself. That premiere performance provoked quite an uproar from the audience.  That uproar will be discussed at length in tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post, which will be built around Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 2.   For now, we are going to talk about what happened to the actual score of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. But first, some historical background without which there would be no context for the fire that is, along with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, the subject of today’s post. Petrograd/Saint Petersburg on March 8, 1917: the Russian Revolution begins Petrograd/St. Petersburg in 1917 For the residents of what was then the capital city of the Russian Empire, Petrograd (better known as “St. Petersburg”), the year 1917 was a dangerous, passionate, heady, exhilarating, and ultimately tragic year. In was in March of 1917 that the horrific and ongoing sins of the Russian government under Tzar Nicholas II finally and forever came home to roost.  At war since July 1914, the Tsarist government had shown itself to be utterly inept and corrupt, incapable of supplying adequate arms and food to its soldiers who died by the millions, often forcing peasant conscripts into battle against the Austrian/German enemy without rifles.  On March 8, 1917, food riots broke out in Petrograd.  Troops were called out, but they refused to fire on the rioters.  Instead, by the hundreds, they themselves mutinied and joined the rioters.   It was anarchy. Seven days later – on March 15, 1917 – Tsar Nicholas abdicated his throne, bringing to an end 304 years of Romanov family rule. The New York Times, March 16, 1917 On March 17, 1917, two days after Nicholas’ abdication, Russia became a republic ruled by a temporary, or “Provisional” Government.  Sadly (and not for the last time), Russia’s brief flirtation with a republican government was not to last.  The Provisional Government was, from day one, fatally flawed: it was far too moderate and far too closely associated with the Tsarist regime to be taken seriously by such far-left Marxist Socialist parties as the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the Social Revolutionists. On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, 1870-1924) and his Bolshevik homies rode into town. Lenin had been in “exile” in Zurich, Switzerland. In what turned out to be a foreign policy triumph, the German government facilitated Lenin’s return to Russia, believing that his presence in Saint Petersburg (then the capital of the Russian Empire) would further destabilize Russia and help bring the war in the East to its conclusion. Which is exactly what happened. Promising the soldiers, peasants, and workers “peace, land, and bread” the Bolsheviks quietly consolidated their power.   On the night of November 6-7, 1917, Lenin and his Bolsheviks made their move: they took over the telephone switchboards, the railway stations, and electric plants in Petrograd.  The cruiser Aurora trained its guns on the Winter Palace, headquarters of the Provisional Government.  A quickly assembled “Congress of Soviets” declared the Provisional Government dead as dial up and created in its place a “Council of People’s Commissars”, with Vladimir Lenin at its head.  Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was named commissar of foreign affairs, and the 38-year-old Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) became the commissar for nationalities.    All of these events were witnessed by an increasingly agitated (perhaps even an increasingly freaked-out?) Sergei Prokofiev.… Continue reading, and listen ad-free, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Subscribe to the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Fire first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Charlie Parker (1920-1955) performing at the Three Deuces in New York City in 1947 We mark the birth on August 29, 1920 – 102 years ago today – of the alto saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker. The trumpet player (and one-time member of Charlie Parker’s quintet) Miles Davis (1926-1991) famously said: “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker.” Miles Davis never minced words, and he does not mince them here. Along with Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker was (and remains) the most innovative, influential, and technically brilliant jazz musician to have yet lived. However, before moving on to Parker, we have one other piece of date-related musical business. I know, I know: I am most aware that having broached the subject of Charlie Parker, it behooves us – out of awe and respect – to get on with his story. But along with Parker’s birth, one other event occurred on this date that demands – demands! – our attention. So please, allow me this brief excursion. On this Day in Music History Stupid The New York Post, August 29, 1977 On August 29, 1977 – 45 years ago today – three people were arrested in Memphis after trying to steal Elvis Presley’s body. (The New York Post headline pictured above indicates that four people were arrested for the attempted heist, but this is incorrect.) As I think we all know (or should know, at least), Elvis died while sitting on the toilet of his mansion in Memphis – “Graceland” – on Tuesday, August 16. He was laid to rest at Memphis’ Forest Hill Cemetery in a huge, flower-strewn mausoleum two days later, on August 18, 1977. On August 29, 11 days after Presley’s interment, the following appeared in The New York Times: “Early this morning three men entered the cemetery over a back wall and made their way toward the white marble mausoleum. The men apparently became suspicious and turned to leave, the police said. They were then arrested. No charges were filed immediately against the men, and the police refused to identify them.” The men had broken into the cemetery – presumably – to steal Elvis Presley’s corpse. We should all be struck by two bits of information in that brief report in The New York Times. One, that the “men apparently became suspicious and turned to leave.” Suspicious of what, we rightly ask? And two, why weren’t they charged or identified? (FYI: they were never identified.) These questions were not answered definitively until 2002, 25 years after the purported grave-robbery-gone-wrong had occurred. Here’s the story! Immediately after Elvis’ death, his family requested that he be allowed to be buried on the grounds of his “Graceland” estate. But the Memphis Board of Health said no. Whispered inquiries were made; money changed hands; and a Shelby County Deputy named Bill Talley was hired by the Presley family to stage a fake corpse-snatch. The hoax achieved precisely what it was intended to achieve: it convinced Shelby County officials and the Memphis Board of Health that the body of Elvis Presley and, for that matter, the corpse of his mother Gladys be moved to Graceland for security reasons. On Oct. 3, 1977, Elvis’ and his mother’s coffins were moved to Graceland. Two years later, Elvis’ father Vernon died and was buried next to his wife and son. The so-called “meditation garden” where the family rests today is an absolutely must-see on any visit to Graceland.… Continue reading on Patreon (and subscribe to listen without ad interruption) Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Bird first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) in 1902 We celebrate the birth on August 22, 1862 – 160 years ago today – of the French composer and pianist Claude Debussy.  Born in the Paris suburb of St. Germain-en-Laye, he died in Paris on March 25, 1918, at the age of 55.  Let’s tell it like it is: Monsieur Debussy was one of the great ones.  For all of its sensual beauty – and Debussy did indeed compose some of the most gorgeous music ever written – his music is among the most original, revolutionary, and influential ever composed.  At a time when young composers like Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Béla Bartók (1881-1945) were casting about for new musical models, it was Debussy’s music that became their essential inspiration. Along with Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) Debussy was the most influential composer of the twentieth century. Among the radical triumvirate of Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, it was Debussy who was the “breakout” composer, the first composer to cultivate a musical language that broke free of the melodic and harmonic traditions of tonality, traditions that had governed Western music since the fifteenth century.  That the musical revolution started in France is most significant, for reasons to be discussed in a moment. Our Game Plan  Here’s how we are going to approach our celebration of Debussy and his remarkable music. Today’s Music History Monday post will be dedicated to understanding the anti-German origins of his distinctly French musical revolution and we’ll start to get know Debussy as a person. In tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post, we will pick up from where we leave off today and then we’ll tackle Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (of 1894) and his 12 Études for piano (of 1915), for which I will recommend recordings. France France and Germany: uneasy neighbors According to the musicologist Arthur Locke writing in the Musical Quarterly in April 1920: “German tendencies both in music and literature strongly affected the course of the romantic movement in France.”  Merci, Professor Locke; I needed someone else to say that because, for your average Francophile, it is heresy to even imply that the French turned to German models for anything! But it is true that for the first 70 years of the nineteenth century, many French composers looked to Germany for their inspiration.  For example, the French Romantic Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) bemoaned the state of music and opera in France and Italy and looked to Germany for his inspiration.  And it’s no overstatement to say that in the 1850s and 1860s, young French composers were as addicted to the music dramas of Richard Wagner as they were to claret, cigarettes, and to arguing with one another. But that all changed in 1870, a year that would haunt Europe well into the twentieth century.   1870 was the year that the issue and conflict that would upend Europe for the next 75 years began. The issue was the unification of Germany, and the conflict was the Franco-Prussian War between France and Germany.… Continue reading, and listen with ad interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Great Courses on Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Debussy first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

We mark the opening of the so-called “Woodstock Festival” on August 15, 1969 – 53 years ago today – “so-called” for the following reasons. “Woodstock.” Even without considering the original festival that bears its name, “Woodstock”, as a placename has a homey, countryside-like quality to it. And a beautiful, quaint town it is, with a population – in 1970 – of 5714 people (it’s just about the same today). Eighty-eight miles north of New York City, within the borders of the Catskill Mountains Park, Woodstock has been a hub for musicians, writers, artists, and actors going back to the 1940s. The Band at home in Woodstock, 1968: Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Levon Helm (Even a short list of just the musicians associated with Woodstock should make our saliva run down our chins. That short list includes The Band [the members of which shared a house and two of whom – Rick Danko and Levon Helm – are buried in Woodstock Cemetery], Carla Bley, David Bowie, Jimmy Cobb, Henry Cowell, Jack DeJohnette, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Pat Metheny, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Van Morrison, Pauline Oliveros, Graham Parker, Bonnie Raitt, Sonny Rollins, Todd Rundgren, David Sandborn, Carlos Santana, and Peter Schickele [“P.D.Q. Bach” his very self!]) Woodstock Festival co-creator principal producer, Michael Lange (1944-2022) at center, during the festival The festival was created by an operation called “Woodstock Ventures”, which was run by three producers – Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, and Joel Rosenman – and one money man, John Roberts, who bankrolled the operation. The original plan was to hold the festival in Woodstock, NY, where it would bask in the reflected glory of the town’s storied artistic reputation. But the locals nixed the idea almost immediately; they had zero interest in hosting what was then projected to be 50,000 assorted rock ‘n’ rollers/hippies/druggies in what was their backyard. Organizers Joel Rosenman and John Roberts then came upon a 300-acre site at Mills Industrial Park in the town of Wallkill, New York, some 40 miles south of Woodstock. Woodstock Ventures leased the site for $10,000 (roughly $80,000 today) in the Spring of 1969. But the Wallkill Town Council was no happier about hosting the festival than had been the good people of Woodstock, and it created a byzantine permitting process that made the festival an impossibility. As the projected date of the festival approached and a venue had yet been secured, we would imagine that a lot of hair was ripped and clothing rent from the heads and bodies of Messrs. Lang, Kornfeld, Rosenman, and Roberts.… Continue reading, and listen without interruption, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Woodstock: A Triumph of Locational Branding! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

August 8 is a great day, a signal day, an epic day for both good and bad reasons in the history of popular, rock, and jazz music.  We’d observe a few of today’s date-related events before moving on to our featured story. First, with heads respectfully bowed, we would note some of those who have passed away on this date.  Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five: standing left to right: Johnny St. Cyr (1890-1966; banjo and guitar); Edward “Kid Ory” (1886-1973; trombone); Louis Armstrong (1901-1971; trumpet, cornet, vocals) Johnny Dodds (1892-1940; clarinet, alto saxophone); Lil Hardin Armstrong (1898-1971, piano); circa 1925 On August 8, 1940 – 82 years ago today – the jazz clarinetist and alto saxophonist Johnny Dodds died of a heart attack in Chicago, all-too-young at the age of 48.  I have known Dodds’ wonderful, blues-inspired playing since I was a teenager, because that’s when I fell under the spell of two of the greatest jazz ensembles of all time: Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven, groups in which Dodds played and recorded. I wrote about Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven in Dr. Bob Prescribes on July 7, 2020. The Miles Davis Sextet recording Kind of Blue in 1959; left-to-right Bill Evans (1929-1980), Miles Davis (1926-1991), Cannonball Adderley (1928-1975), and John Coltrane (1926-1967); not in photo: bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb On this date in 1975 – 47 years ago today – the jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderley also died all-too-young at the age of 46 in Gary Indiana, from a stroke.  Talk about being a member of an all-time great band and making all-time great recordings: Adderley signed on with the Miles Davis band in October 1957, which eventually also included Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb.  This Miles Davis Sextet recorded an album entitled Kind of Blue (in 1959).  Kind of Blue remains (and will always remain!) among the most important recordings in jazz history.  It will be the subject of tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post. Barbara Cook (1927-2017) as Ado Annie in the 1953 Broadway revival of Oklahoma! On August 8, 2017 – 5 years ago today – the American musical theater singer and actress Barbara Cook died at the age of 89, in New York City.  Blessed with a gorgeous, clear-as-a-bell lyric soprano voice, Cook was one of the outstanding interpreters of the songs of The Great American Songbook.  She was also one of those special Broadway performers who was totally dissed by the movie industry.  Despite having won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Marian, the librarian, in The Music Man (which opened in 1957), she was bypassed for the role in the movie version (of 1962), which was given, instead, to the lesser but more “bankable” singer/actor Shirley Jones (born 1934).   Glen Campbell (1936-2017) in 1967 Glen Campbell also died on this date in 2017, he at the age of 81, in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1960s and 1970s, Glen Campbell was everywhere, the Renaissance man of the American entertainment industry.  He was a Grammy Award-winning, Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated actor and country-pop singer, whose hits included By The Time I Get to Phoenix; Wichita Lineman; Rhinestone Cowboy; and Gentle on My Mind.  He was a highly sought after session guitarist who recorded with The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, The Monkees, and Phil Specter.  He was a television personality: from 1969 to 1972 he hosted his own, weekly variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (the comedy writers on that show included Steve Martin and Rob Reiner!).  As an actor, he co-starred with John Wayne and Kim Darby in True Grit (1969; a movie for which John Wayne – in the role of Rooster Cogburn – received his one-and-only Oscar, for Best Actor). … Continue reading, see all the photos, videos, and more, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast https://feeds.podcastmirror.com/mhm Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Abbey Road, and This and That first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784) circa 1760, oil on canvas by Wilhelm Weitsch We mark the death on August 1, 1784 – 238 years ago today – of the German composer and organist Wilhelm Friedemann Bach in Berlin at the age of 73.  Born in the central German city of Weimar on November 22, 1710, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who from here on we will refer to as Friedemann Bach, was the second child and first son of Johann Sebastian Bach (who from this point forward we will refer to as Sebastian Bach). Friedemann Bach was a gifted musician, the equal (in my opinion) to his more famous brothers Carl Philip Emanual and Johann Christian Bach.  But unlike his brothers, Friedemann harbored personal demons that poisoned his relationships with others and led to his financial ruin later in his life.  We’ll discuss these issues in detail in tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post, as well as the singular disaster Friedemann’s poverty eventually wrought, when he chose to the sell off so many of his father’s precious musical manuscripts, which were then lost for all time. For the remainder of this post, we’re going to shift our focus to Friedemann Bach’s only surviving child, his daughter Friederica Sophia, who was born in the Saxon city of Halle (today in central Germany) on February 27, 1757. On the Move On May 29, 1746, Friedemann Bach took up the position of organist at the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle. On February 25, 1751, the 40-year-old Bach married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi (1725–1791). Though the couple eventually had three children, only one survived her infancy. Her name was Friederica Sophia Bach. After unsuccessfully trying to find a new job for many years, Friedemann walked off his job in Halle in 1771, with no new prospects of employment. After kicking around Germany for three years, the family settled in Berlin in 1774, where Friedemann lived in increasing poverty and abject bitterness until his death on August 1, 1784, 238 years ago today.… Continue reading, listen without interruption, and more, only on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Wayward Bach, His Wayward Daughter, and the Bachs of Oklahoma first appeared on Robert Greenberg.