Music History Monday

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton (1926-1984) We mark the death on July 25, 1984 – 38 years ago today – of the American Rhythm and Blues singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton.  Born on December 11, 1926, she died in Los Angeles of both heart and liver disease brought on by alcohol abuse.  According to Gillian Gaar, writing in She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (Seal Press, 1992), during the brief period of her final illness, Thornton went from 450 pounds (Big Momma!) to 95 pounds, a weight loss of some 355 pounds. Thornton scored her one-and-only hit when, on August 13, 1952, she recorded a brand-new, 12-bar blues song by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller entitled Hound Dog.   Released by Peacock Records in February 1953, Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog sold over 500,000 copies and spent fourteen weeks on the Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of those fourteen weeks at number one.  Thornton’s recording is linked below: (By the way: please ignore the photo of Josephine Baker at the top of the link; Big Momma’s left leg was bigger than all of Madame Baker.) Thornton’s recording of Hound Dog was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lists it as one of the “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.” For our information, Big Mamma Thornton made a total of $100 from the recording. Since Thornton made that first recording, Hound Dog has been recorded over 250 times.  But by far the best-known version was recorded in July 1956 by the King himself, Elvis Presley (1935-1977).  Presley’s version of Hound Dog sold over 10 million copies across the globe, making it Elvis’ best-selling record and one of the best-selling records of all time.  In 1956, it sat at number one on Billboard magazine’s pop chart for 11 consecutive weeks, a record that stood for 36 years: until 1992-1993, when Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You spent 14 weeks at number one.… Continue reading, and listen uninterrupted, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Under the Covers first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

The Dead Sea Before getting into the date specific event/discovery that drives today’s post, permit me, please, to tell the story of the greatest manuscript discovery of all time.  The ancient city of Jerusalem sits at nearly 2,700 feet above sea level. Less than 15 miles south of Jerusalem sits the Dead Sea, which at 1,300 feet below sea level is the lowest point on earth. Two of the three Bedouin shepherds who discovered the scrolls: Jum’a Muhammad, left, and Muhammad edh-Dhib, right In November of 1946, three Bedouin shepherds – Muhammed edh-Dhib, his cousin Jum’a Muhammed, and his friend Khalil Musa – were looking for a stray goat (or sheep; the story shifts) around the cliffs at the northern end of the Dead Sea. According to the story they told, Muhammed edh-Dhib threw a rock into a cave on the side of a cliff, thinking the stray animal was inside and that the rock would chase it out. Instead of a hearing a frightened bleat, he heard pottery breaking. Lowering himself into the cave, he found three ancient scrolls wrapped in linen. Having climbed out of the cave and shown them to his companions, the guys went back into the cave and found four more scrolls, seven in all. They put them in a bag and, on returning to their camp, hung the bag on a tent pole. It is believed that among the three scrolls Muhammed edh-Dhib initially removed from the cave was the Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest complete biblical manuscript ever discovered. Muhammed edh-Dhib, Jum’a Muhammed, and Khalil Musa initially brought the scrolls to a Bethlehem-based dealer in antiquities named Ibrahim ‘Ijha, who told them that they were worthless. Undaunted, the trio eventually found a buyer and sold four of the seven scrolls – including the Great Isaiah Scroll – to the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem, Metropolitan Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, for roughly $250; about $2,500 today.… On November 29, 1947 – roughly a year after the scrolls were discovered and on the same day the United Nations voted to create the State of Israel – a Jewish archeology professor at Hebrew University named Eleazar Lipa Sukenik (1889-1953) bought the other three scrolls in Bethlehem. He took the bus back to Jerusalem, carry the scrolls in a paper shopping bag.   In his effort to sell his four scrolls, Metropolitan Samuel placed an ad in The Wall Street Journal on June 1, 1954. The ad read: “Miscellaneous for Sale. ‘The Four Dead Sea Scrolls.’ Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 BC are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group. Box F 206, The Wall Street Journal.” After extended negotiations held at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, those four remaining scrolls were purchased on behalf of the State of Israel for $250,000 (roughly $2,500,000 today) by the Hebrew University professor Benjamin Mazar (1906-1995) and the son of Eleazar Sukenik: the Israeli soldier, politician, and archaeologist Yigael Yadin (1917-1984). Those seven scrolls found by three Bedouin shepherds that day in November 1946 – the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls to be found, and today owned (and treasured) by the State of Israel – collectively comprise the single greatest manuscript discovery of all time. I have offered up this extraordinary story because, after The Dead Sea Scrolls, any subsequent “discovery” of a manuscript or manuscripts seems rather, well, less significant.   Nevertheless. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) in 1908 On July 18, 2003 – 19 years ago today – a newly discovered work by the great French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was publicly performed for the first time by the French pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud (born 1943).  That premiere performance took place in a church on the Swedish island of Blidö. That newly discovered work, for piano solo, is entitled Les Soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon, which translates as “the evenings lighted by the glow of the coals.” The title is the first line of the second stanza of a poem by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) entitled “The Balcony.” As titles go Debussy’s is a great one, as it describes not just the glowing warmth of the music itself but the inspiration for its composition and the person to whom, in spirit, it was dedicated! … Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: A Debussy Discovery! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

George Gershwin (1898-1937) photographed by Carl Van Vechten on March 28, 1937, 3½ months before his death We mark the death on July 11, 1937 – 85 years ago today – of the American composer and pianist George Gershwin, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.  Born in Brooklyn New York on September 26, 1898, Gershwin was only 38 years old at the time of his death. This is going to be an unavoidably depressing post.  Dealing with anyone’s death is difficult.  Dealing with the death of a young person (and damn, from where I stand, 38 is still a kid) is both difficult and tragic.  When we add to that Gershwin’s dazzling talent and unlimited promise we are forced, as well, to ask “what if . . .?” George Gershwin (1898-1937) George Gershwin had it all.  Tall, athletic, good-looking (in his own lantern-jawed sort of way), he was blessed with preternatural talent.  As someone who had grown up poor on the streets of New York City, he was devoid of snobbery or pretense and could get along with just about anyone.  He suffered no childhood trauma; he adored and was adored by his family and friends and was filled with vitality and an infectious joie de vivre. We are told that given his gifts and effusive personality, he would have inspired envy (and perhaps even dislike!) had not been such a genuinely sweet, ingratiating, affectionate man. He had serious and lasting relationships with women but never married.  The bachelor’s life suited him just fine, and he lived a life that we all might envy.  An international jetsetter long before the invention of jet aircraft, he partied and performed; was feted and fawned over; and he ate, drank, smoked his cigars, played tennis, composed, and made love across the Americas and Europe at a time – the 1930s – when most people were doing their best to simply survive the Depression. … See the full post, loads of photos, videos, and more, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast See the latest Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Death of George Gershwin first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

We mark the completion on July 4, 1941 – 81 years ago today – of Igor Stravinsky’s reharmonization and orchestration of The Star-Spangled Banner.   Stravinsky in America In September of 1939, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and his long-time mistress Vera de Bosset (1889-1982) arrived in the United States from their home in Paris.  The couple were married in Bedford, Massachusetts six months later, on March 9, 1940. Stravinsky had come to the United States to spend the 1939-1940 academic year at Harvard University, where he was to occupy the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry and deliver six lectures on music that were that year’s Charles Eliot Norton Lectures.   By the time the academic year ended in June of 1940, the Stravinskys, Igor and Vera, had no home to return to. Nazi Germany had occupied Paris on June 14, and France surrendered to Germany 8 days later, on June 22, 1940. The couple settled in Los Angeles in 1941 and bought a house at 1260 North Wetherly Drive, just above the Sunset Strip, in Hollywood. Stravinsky and Vera would live there for the next 29 years, until his final illness forced a move to New York City. (For our information, Igor and Vera became American citizens in 1945; their sponsor was Stravinsky’s friend, the actor Edward G. Robinson.) In Los Angeles and in America, Stravinsky was a star among stars; a big fish in a big pond.  Having settled in LA, he made his fortune touring as a conductor of his own music.  At the time, like so many American sporting events to this day, an orchestral concert in the United States began with a rendition of the national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. (At the time Stravinsky settled in the United States in 1940,  The Star-Spangled Banner was the newly-minted national anthem, having been officially designated the national anthem of the United States by congressional resolution on March 3, 1931.  [For those who’d like to look it up, it is 46 Stat. 150; Pub. Law 71-823.]) Rather predictably, Stravinsky didn’t like any of the available orchestra arrangements of The Star-Spangled Banner, so in the great American spirit of DIY – when in doubt, do it yourself – he made his own arrangement, finishing it – coincidentally – on July 4, 1941, 81 years ago today. Speaking for myself, I can take-or-leave Stravinsky’s arrangement.  In an attempt to make the anthem more interesting, he changes the harmony on pretty much every beat, overwriting in the process and creating, what is to my ear, a rather clunky and ungainly arrangement.  Most listeners won’t be in the least bothered by what I’m talking about with the exception of one harmony, a “it-sticks-out-like-a-sore-thumb”, “what’s-that-doing-there?” Bb dominant seventh chord at 01:30 of the linked performance:  Continue Reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: As American as tarte aux pommes! Celebrating the Fourth with some Real American Music! or Tampering with National Property first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Humiliation Before getting to the anniversary we are honoring in today’s Music History Monday post, it is necessary for us to contemplate the painful issue of humiliation. “Humiliation” is a consequence of unjustified shaming, as a result of which one’s social status, public image, and self-esteem are decreased, often quite significantly. Humiliation hurts; humiliation sucks. We are not, for now, going to discuss the seemingly countless ways we can (and have! and will!) be humiliated.  Let us instead – for now – observe the difference between spontaneous humiliation and ritual humiliation. “Spontaneous” humiliations would be those unexpected moments of shaming, bullying, rejection, or deep embarrassment that come out of nowhere and have the emotional and physical impact of a punch to the gut.   “Ritual” humiliations are different, in that we know exactly what’s coming but are powerless to stop them.  Ostracism and its attendant processes – excommunication, shunning, and blackballing, whereby someone is purposely excluded from a community – is a form of ritual humiliation.  “Hazing rituals” are another: those activities that purposely humiliate, degrade, and even risk physical harm to someone wanting to join a group or maintain status within a group.   Please, God, find me a hole to crawl into . . . Then, there is – for me – that most horrific of all ritual humiliations.  That would be the public singing of Happy Birthday by a restaurant’s waitstaff as they deliver to my cringing self a melting piece of lava cake with a lone, crooked candle sputtering atop.  (Some would say that such moments are merely an “embarrassment.” But I would observe that embarrassment is fleeting and for me, such Happy Birthday moments scar.) At such times as these, I imagine my fist raised in defiance and bitterness to Mildred Jane Hill, who wrote the music for the song Happy Birthday to You in 1893. On To Business Mildred Jane Hill (1859-1916) We mark the birth on June 27, 1859 – 163 years ago today – of the American songwriter, composer, organist, pianist, and musicologist Mildred Jane Hill, in Louisville, Kentucky.  She died on June 5, 1916, in Chicago, three weeks shy of her 57th birthday.   Mildred Hill was the eldest of three sisters: after her came Patty (1868-1946) and then Jessica. Mildred Hill was a professional musician of real accomplishment.  Along with teaching and performing, she was a songwriter and composer of some reputation.  She was also a serious student and scholar of Negro Spirituals.  Under the pen name of “Johann Tonsor”, she wrote extensively on the subject of Black American music.  In 1892, she wrote an article called “Negro Music” that, as it turned out, had no small impact on the history of Western music!  Dvořák scholar and musicologist Michael Beckerman writes: “In December 1892, [the journalist James Gibbons] Huneker appeared at [Antonin] Dvořák’s apartment on 17th Street in Manhattan. [Dvořák had arrived in the United States in September 1892 to take up the Directorship of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City.] Huneker had with him, as he later stated, a copy of an article that he thought might interest the composer. Titled ‘Negro Music’ and written by one Johann Tonsor [a.k.a. Mildred Hill] of Louisville, Ky., it had just been published in an exciting new journal called Music and was nothing less than a manifesto. ‘When our American musical Messiah sees fit to be born,’ it read, ‘he will then find ready to his hand a mass of lyrical and dramatic themes with which to construct a distinctively American music. Dvořák sat down and read the article, with its six musical examples. We know this because [Dvořák’s] copy made its way to the Dvořák Museum in Prague with the words ‘I love you Daddy’ written upside down in the margin, letting us imagine that as Dvořák was engrossed in the article, his young son tried to get his attention. Within days [after having read the article], Dvořák was making the sketches that formed the basis of both the ‘New World’ Symphony and his American style in general.” Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen To the Music History Monday Podcast Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Fabulous Hill Sisters! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky (1843-1902) in 1887 We mark the birth on June 20, 1843 – 179 years ago today – of the Russia bass opera singer Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, in the city of Minsk, which is today the capital of Belarus but was then part of the Russian Empire. Considered one of the greatest singers of his time, Fyodor Ignatyevich has largely been forgotten because, one, he never recorded and, two, he’s been eclipsed by the fame of his son, the composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). He was born of Polish descent in the “Government (province) of Minsk”, in what had been part of Poland until 1793, when the Russian Empire sliced off and annexed a large chunk of Poland in what is euphemistically called the “second partition of Poland.”  (Today, the “province of Minsk” is part of the “nation” of Belarus, which is advised to mind its P’s and Q’s, as Tsar Putin no more considers Belarus to be separate country than he does Ukraine.  Not that you need me to point this out, but I’ll do it anyway: the “annexation” of Crimea in 2014 and the present attempts to destroy Ukraine and annex the Donbas demonstrate that Russian actions towards its neighbors have not changed a whit in hundreds of years: invade, occupy, and annex; invade, occupy, and annex; repeat as necessary until the desired result has been achieved.) In 1959, Igor Stravinsky explained the origin of his family’s name: “‘Stravinsky’ comes from ‘Strava’, the name of a small river, tributary to the Vistula, in eastern Poland. We were originally called Soulima-Stravinsky – Soulima being the name of another Vistula branch – but when Russia annexed this part of Poland the Soulima was for some reason dropped.” Fyodor Stravinsky grew up and attended gimnaziya (grammar school) in the formerly Polish city of Nezhin.  (For our information, Nezhin is today located in Ukraine. 72 miles northeast of Kyiv, it has been badly damaged by rocket attacks during Putin’s invasion.)  As a student, Fyodor Stravinsky sang as an amateur, first in choirs and then as a soloist.  Although he attended law school and had a career as a civil servant ahead of him, his abilities as a singer convinced him to take a shot at making a career of it.  In 1869, at the rather advanced age of 26, he enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.  On graduating in 1873, he sang the role of Don Basilio in a student performance of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.  Critics were in attendance, and they were impressed.   He was immediately engaged by the Kyiv Opera Theater in Ukraine, where he made his professional debut on September 3, 1873, in the role of Count Rodolpho in Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula (composed in 1831). And that was that:  Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky became an up-and-coming star in a country where audiences worshipped (not too strong a word) bass singers like himself.  … Continue reading, see more photos, and listen to the podcast without ad-breaks, only on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

King of Bavaria Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 1845-1886), circa 1864 We mark the death (the most suspicious death) on June 13, 1886 – 136 years ago today – of the ultimate Richard Wagner fanboy King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The Running Man Richard Wagner was among the least-athletic looking people to ever grace a composing studio or a conductor’s podium.  Depending upon the source, he was between 5’ 3” and 5’ 5” in heights.  His legs were too short for his torso, and his oversized square head was perched on an otherwise frail body.  In his lifetime, an unknown wag referred to him as “that shovel-faced dwarf”, an unkind if not inaccurate description of the man. But despite his physical shortcomings, Wagner – believe it or not – could run like the wind for remarkable distances. These miracles of sustained athleticism were inspired by Wagner’s creditors and/or the law, from which Wagner was forced to flee on a regular basis.   For example, in April of 1836, following the failure of his opera Das Liebesverbot (“The Ban on Love”; for your information, my spell check just tried to change “liebesverbot” to “lobster pot”).Again: in April of 1836, following the failure of his opera Das Liebesverbot in the central German city of Magdeburg, a warrant was issued for Wagner’s arrest due to his debts.  The 23-year-old Wagner ran away so fast that he left his shadow in the dust, and he didn’t stop running until he arrived in Königsberg, today Kaliningrad, Russia, a distance as the crow flies of 654 kilometers (or 406 miles).  That’s an impressive dash.  Three years later, on July 9, 1839, with his passport having been confiscated to keep him from running off, the 26-year-old Wagner nevertheless bolted from the Latvian capital of Riga, just minutes ahead of a posse of creditors who had tracked him down.  He didn’t stop running until he arrived in London, by his own account without a penny to his name, 3½ weeks later. 1849 saw Wagner living and working in the Saxon capital of Dresden.  Having gotten mixed up with a revolutionary group, a warrant was issued for his arrest by the Dresden police on May 16, 1849.  He was charged with treason, which carried the death penalty.  The now 36-year-old Wagner ran and didn’t stop running until he’d crossed the border from Germany to Switzerland.   (For our information: among the many things Wagner left behind in Germany was yet another mountain of debt, an estimated 20,000 thalers in debt.  This for a guy whose salary at Dresden was 1,500 thalers a year.  It’s the equivalent of someone today making $150,000 a year running up two million dollars’ worth of credit card debt.  Astonishing.) In sum: you can keep your Usain Bolt: Richard Wagner could run!… Continue reading – only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Ultimate Fanboy: The Mad King, Ludwig II first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Siegfried Wagner (1869-1930) We mark the birth of Richard Wagner’s son Siegfried Wagner on June 6, 1869 – 163 years ago today – in Lucerne, Switzerland.  Like the sons of so many great men groomed to follow in their fathers’ footsteps, he could never hope to measure up to or escape from his father’s shadow. Cliché We contemplate, for a moment, this thing called a “cliché.” Strictly defined, a cliché is: “an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.” Granted. But clichés didn’t become the tiresome, oft-repeated, over-used devices that – by definition – they are without carrying within them a kernel of truth. Admittedly, some clichés express stereotypes that may (or may not) be true, but the vast majority of them are analogies that do indeed express truisms.  In fact, when it comes to expressing a truism succinctly, nothing succeeds more quickly that a cliché. For example: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” (Parenthetically, some folks would tell us that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is an idiom.  But they’d be wrong.  An idiom is figurative: a phrase that cannot be literally understood; for example, “getting cold feet” or “I smell a rat.”  However, overuse an idiom and it becomes a cliché.) “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Long before we understood the science of genetic inheritance, we understood the existence of the commonalities between parents and their children: physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual commonalities.  “The apple” – an offspring – “doesn’t fall far the tree”: the parents. Here’s another cliché: “Like father, like son”; or “like mother, like daughter.” Mothers and daughters; fathers and sons.  On one hand, as teenagers, we spend no small percentage of our time rejecting our parents as we seek to define ourselves as independent, self-aware, pre-adults.  But heaven help us, we can no more escape our parents’ influence than we can our own shadows.  Now, speaking of fathers and sons. In the “olden days” – before the mid-nineteenth century, give-or-take – it was a given that lower, working, and middle-class sons, particularly first sons, would follow into their fathers’ trades, for which they were groomed from the earliest age.  Farmers begat farmers; blacksmiths begat blacksmiths; merchants begat merchants, and so forth. Despite this patrilinear profession track, sheer talent often demanded that a gifted child receive a musical education.  This was the case for George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), whose father was an eminent barber-surgeon (one wonders in which profession he was the most eminent).  It was the case for Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), whose father was a wheelwright; for Franz Schubert (1797-1828) and Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), whose fathers were schoolteachers; for Robert Schumann, whose father was a bookseller and writer; and for Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904), whose father was a butcher (young Dvořák himself served as a butcher’s apprentice until the age of 13).… Continue reading, only on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday PodcastThe post Music History Monday: Siegfried Wagner first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) taking tea during the rehearsals of his War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral, in Coventry, England, May 1962 We mark the premiere performance on May 30, 1962 – 60 years ago today – of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem.  Completed in early 1962, the War Requiem was commissioned to mark the consecration of the “new” Coventry Cathedral, which was built to replace the original fourteenth century cathedral that had been destroyed on the evening and night of November 14 and 15, 1940. Today’s post will deal entirely with the events that led up to the composition of Britten’s War Requiem: the destruction of Coventry’s Cathedral of St. Michael, the extraordinary spirit of forgiveness and redemption that came to be identified with its ruins, and the New Cathedral that was built between 1956 and 1962. We cannot appreciate the meaning and spirit of Britten’s War Requiem unless we first come to grips with the meaning and spirit of the destruction and rebirth of Coventry Cathedral. Tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post will get into the specifics of the Requiem itself, along with a recommended recording of the piece. Coventry, the historic central district circa 1930 Coventry and its Cathedral Coventry is a city in the West Midlands of England, 95 miles north-west of London.  Founded by the Romans, by the fourteenth century Coventry had become a major center of England’s fabric trade.  The cloth makers of Coventry were particularly famous for a blue fabric called “Coventry blue.” So permanent was the color that it led to the coining of the phrases “as true as Coventry blue” or in short, “true blue.” Such was the wealth of the city that during the late fourteenth century, a magnificent church was built in the Saint Michael district of the city center using red sandstone quarried in nearby Staffordshire. The Church of St. Michael – at 293 feet in length, 140 feet in width, with a floor area of over 24,000 square feet and featuring a towering spire 295 feet high – was the largest parish church in all of England. … Continue Reading only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast The Latest Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Benjamin Britten War Requiem first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Beethoven in 1812, from a life mask made by the sculptor Franz Klein We mark the premiere on May 23, 1814 – 208 years ago today – of Ludwig van Beethoven’s one-and-only opera, Fidelio, at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna. While Beethoven (1770-1827) had composed two preliminary versions of the opera, which had been performed in 1805 and 1806, it is this third and substantially different version that we will hear in the opera house today. It’s an odd but, in this case, an applicable idiom, “red herring.” Literally, a “red herring” is, believe it or not, a red herring (see image above): a dried and smoked herring that’s turned red due to being smoked.  However, for our purposes, a “red herring” is: “something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion.” The Beethovenian red herring to which we are referring started with the German author, legal scholar, composer, music critic, and artist Ernst Theodor Amadeus (or “E. T. A.”) Hoffman (1776-1822).  Hoffman wrote a lengthy and frankly worshipful appreciation of Beethoven’s instrumental music entitled “Beethoven’s Instrumental Music” in 1813, when Beethoven was in his 43rd year.  In the course of his essay, Hoffmann wrote this: “Beethoven’s [instrumental] music wields the lever of fear, awe, horror, and pain, and it awakens that eternal longing that is the essence of the romantic. If he has had less success with vocal music, this is because vocal music excludes the character of indefinite longing and [instead] represents the emotions [as described by] words.” Hoffman’s implication – that Beethoven was inherently less successful as a composer of vocal music than of instrumental music – ran like open carbuncle through the Beethoven literature of the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, it had become an article of faith among many musicians – who should have known better – that Beethoven couldn’t write properly for the voice because he could not compose “vocal styled” or so-called “lyric” melodies. … Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Beethoven and the Human Voice first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

The interior of the Teatro la Fenice in 2015 We mark the opening on May 16, 1792 – 230 years ago today – of Venice’s principal opera house, the Teatro la Fenice, meaning the “The Phoenix Theater.” Excepting, perhaps, the magnificent phallus that is the Washington Monument, dedicated as it is to “The Father of Our Country,” rarely – if ever – will a building be better named than La Fenice, which has risen from the ashes three times. Background The first public opera house – the Teatro San Cassiano – opened in Venice in 1637.  Public opera quickly proved to be tremendously popular and immensely profitable, and Venice – already the tourist capitol, the Las Vegas of the European world – had yet another recreational activity to offer its endless stream of visitors.  By 1700, there were some twenty opera theaters operating  in Venice, cranking out operas the way Hollywood cranked out movies in the pre-television glory days of the 1930s and 1940s.   As the popularity of public opera spread first across Italy and then all of Europe, so opera theaters were built across Europe.  No longer the singular purveyor of public opera, many of Venice’s opera houses closed, so that by 1770 only five remained.  Of those five, the most plush and the most prestigious (in terms of its productions) was the Teatro San Benedetto, which had opened in 1755. A gala dinner and ball being held at the rebuilt Teatro San Benedetto, February 1782; the Teatro San Benedetto would go on to have a series of different names over the subsequent 240 years: the Teatro Venier, Teatro Gallo, Teatro Rossini, the Cinema Rossini, and finally the Teatro Concordia In the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, and first half of the nineteenth century, theaters of every stripe burned down with alarming regularity.  This should come as no surprise, as candles and oil lamps – open flames – were employed in prodigious number to light both the stage and the house.  Some of these flammables were placed in rows at the front edge of the stage with mirrored reflectors behind them to light the stage.  This row of lights was called the footlights.  Other such lights illuminated the stage from above and from the sides; these were called, respectively, border lights and striplights. Boys were employed to scamper around during a performance, regulating the lights and cleaning up the candle wax that dripped, ran, and created smoke.   Given that these theaters were built from wood covered in fabric and papier-mâché, and were occupied – during a performance – by musicians, performers, stagehands, and such constantly scurrying around on stage and backstage, it is difficult to imagine a less “fire safe” environment outside of an active volcano.  Frankly, it’s something of a miracle that any theater survived at all before the use of reliable gas lighting around 1840. … Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: The Phoenix Rises! first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Richard Wayne Penniman (1932-2020) in 1972 We mark the death on May 9, 2020 – just two years ago today – of the American musician, singer, and songwriter Richard Wayne Penniman, known universally by his stage name of “Little Richard.” Born on December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, he died at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee two years ago today from bone cancer.  He was 87 years old. As a founding inductee to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, the following statement was read aloud: “He claims to be ‘the architect of rock and roll’, and history would seem to bear out Little Richard’s boast. More than any other performer—save, perhaps, Elvis Presley – Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally, and Good Golly, Miss Molly defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.” Along with Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Ike Turner, and Bo Diddley, Little Richard was one of that handful of Black American musicians who synthesized blues, rhythm and blues (or R&B), and gospel into what came to be called rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-1950s.  Penniman put it this way in an interview with Time magazine in 2001: “It [meaning rock ‘n’ roll] started out as rhythm and blues. There wasn’t nobody playing it at the time but black people — myself, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry. White kids started paying more attention to this music, white girls were going over to this music, [but] they needed somebody to come in there — like Elvis.” Yes, “like Elvis”, who hit the bigtime in 1956.  What Penniman is saying is that white audiences required a white performer to “legitimize” rock ‘n’ roll and make it part of the white, mainstream culture.  And sadly, to a degree, this is true.  But Little Richard, whose ego was ordinarily as over-the-top as his makeup and gender-bending personality – here does himself a rare disservice.  Because to no small extent, Elvis built his persona on that of Little Richard’s.  And so did almost everyone else. Little Richard: single-handedly raising androgyny in popular music to an art form No One No one had more impact on the emerging rock ‘n’ roll scene than did Richard Wayne Penniman: no one.  The androgynous flamboyance of David Bowie, Elton John, Michael Jackson, and Prince?  Little Richard had been there, done that, with even greater extravagance decades before. With his pencil moustache and pancake makeup, his gospel-strong voice and his hooting and hollering, his erotically wild, drag queen persona, Little Richard didn’t just tear down barriers; he nuked ‘em. All in all, it was no small thing for a black, openly gay man from the south to accomplish what he did in the 1950s.  His impact on the rock ‘n’ roll community was seminal. James Brown worshipped Penniman and imitated his screams and whoops.  Otis Reading (also from Macon, Georgia) and Sly Stone built their musical personas around Penniman’s.  When the Beatles met Little Richard after a performance at the Tower Ballroom in the Merseyside resort of New Brighton in October 1962, Penniman gave Paul McCartney a lesson on how to scream in tune (a lesson McCartney would put to good use on Hey Jude, Maybe I’m Amazed, and I’m Down). … Continue reading – and listening – on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Little Richard: The King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), circa 1863 We mark the death on May 2, 1864 – 158 years ago today – of the German-born opera composer Jacob Liebmann Beer, also-known-as Giacomo Meyerbeer.  Born in Berlin on September 5, 1791, he died in Paris during the rehearsals for the premiere of his opera L’Africaine – “The African” – which turned out to be, no surprise then, his final opera.   Let us get to know Herr/Signore/Monsieur Meyerbeer a bit even as we explore the tremendous popularity of his operas, the reasons behind that popularity, and the reasons for their fall from popularity! No Exaggeration: As Popular as Elvis Incredible though it may seem to us, here today, Meyerbeer was the Elvis Presley of nineteenth century opera.  Not that he was a pelvis gyrating,  groupie groping “rock star” as we understand a rock star to be today, no; but in the world of nineteenth century opera, he was the most popular musician of not just his time but of his century: the single most frequently performed opera composer of the nineteenth century.  In terms of his singular international fame and his income, Meyerbeer was – more than Gioachino Rossini, more than Giuseppe Verdi, more than Richard Wagner –the most successful stage composer of the nineteenth century.   Meyerbeer’s impact was not limited to the opera-going public. Au contraire, his operas were stunningly influential as well. Writes David Salazar: “Such noted composers as Verdi, Wagner, Berlioz, Massenet, Donizetti, Halevy, Dvořák, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Liszt, and Chopin, among others, all came under his [Meyerbeer’s] spell at one point or another in their respective careers.” And yet, here today, we would observe the sad truth: Meyerbeer’s operas are almost entirely unknown, a fall from artistic grace almost without equal in the history of Western music. … See the full post, only on Patreon (Patreon Subscribers also get an ad-free version of the podcast)! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Giacomo Meyerbeer and French PopOp first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

We mark the premiere performance on April 25, 1926 – 96 years ago today – of Giacomo Puccini’s twelfth and final opera, Turandot.  The premiere took place at Milan’s storied La Scala opera house and was conducted by Puccini’s friend (and occasional nemesis!) Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957).  At the time of the premiere, Puccini himself had been dead for 17 months.  And therein lies our tale.  Because given the delays in creating the libretto for Turandot, Puccini’s failing health, his leaving the opera incomplete at his death, and the controversy surrounding Turandot’s subsequent completion by the composer Franco Alfano (1875-1954), itwas indeed an opera that almost didn’t happen. Giacomo Puccini was born in the Tuscan city of Lucca on December 22, 1858, and died in Brussels, Belgium on November 29, 1924, three weeks shy of his 66th birthday.  Puccini’s operas remain among the most popular in the repertoire, but among the most critically controversial as well.  It is a controversary we will not discuss in this post; rather, I’d direct you to Music History Monday for January 14, 2019.  That post – on Puccini’s opera Tosca – wades chin-deep into the critical issues that continue to dog his work. Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) in 1905, with his ever-present cigarette (or cigar) Sometime in early March 1920, Puccini was having lunch in Milan with the librettists Giuseppe Adami (1878-1946) and Renato Simoni (1875-1952).  Discussing stories that could be turned into operas, Simoni brought up the name of the Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806), and suggested they look over his works.  Puccini, who knew something of Gozzi’s “theatrical fables” asked, “What about Turandotte?”   What about it indeed! It was a well-known story: the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) had translated it and staged it in German in 1801, and it had been the subject of an opera composed in 1854 by Puccini’s teacher Antonio Bazzani.  Simoni had a copy of the play in his nearby apartment; he ran home, retrieved it, and gave it to Puccini to read. Having read (and, we expect, reread!) the play, Puccini wrote Simoni a few days later, instructing Simoni and Adami to prepare a libretto about the haughty Chinese Princess Turandot, emphasizing, according to Puccini: “the amorous passions of Turandot, who has suffered for such a long time under the ashes of her great pride.” And then?  And then Puccini’s waiting began.  Spring turned to summer; summer to fall.  In October of 1920, a clearly frustrated Puccini wrote to his friend Sybil Seligman in London: “I’m not yet working [on Turandot] because they haven’t given me the libretto yet.  If they wait much longer I shall have to get them to put pen, paper, and ink-pot in my tomb! What a cheerful idea!  [But] that’s how I feel – just like that.” By December, Puccini’s frustration had turned to genuine worry.… See the full post, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast The Great Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Puccini’s Turandot: An Opera That Almost Wasn’t first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Home from the hospital circa April 25, 1954, “The Heir” (my father’s handwriting) On April 18th, 1954 – 68 freaking years ago today – the American composer, pianist, music historian, and bloviator-par-excellence Robert Michael Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York. The Teaching Company-slash-The Great Courses and My Favorite Things Since 1993, I have recorded 32 courses for The Teaching Company, rebranded as The Great Courses in 2006, and further rebranded in 2021 as “Wondrium.” (The less said about that latest rebrand, the better. To me, “Wondrium” sounds like an acne control or irritable bowel medication.) I am frequently asked “which is my favorite course.” That’s always an easy question to answer because the answer is whichever course I most recently recorded. As of today, that would be The Great Music of the 20th Century. (Sadly, it would appear that I am the only person who bears much affection for this course, as The Great Music of the 20th Century has proven to be among the least popular course I’ve recorded. A principal issue is the musical examples. The Teaching Company/The Great Courses could not afford to license the music I needed to play during the course, much of which was still under original copyright. So we hit upon the idea of providing URL’s to performances freely found on the web. It was a great idea, or so we (incorrectly) thought. In fact, the whole thing proved unwieldy and ineffective: unwieldy because it is a royal pain-in-the-you-know-what to be constantly diving into the web for the musical examples, and ineffective because so many of the links went dead so very quickly.) The 24th and final lecture of The Great Music of the 20th Century was, auspiciously, the 666th lecture I’d recorded for The Teaching Company/The Great Courses (auspicious because 666 is, after all, “the number of the beast!”). And indeed, the actual content of that 24th/666th lecture could be considered bestial (meaning “savagely cruel and depraved”), as it focused entirely on my life and my music. For the first and only time in 666 lectures – recorded over a period of 24 years – I dedicated a lecture to my own music. (The lecture, which is entitled “Among Friends”, might just as well have been entitled “Charity Begins at Home”, which is the title for today’s post.) Without a doubt, my experience as a composer had informed every one of those prior 665 lectures. But despite the fact that I’d been writing music down since I was five years old and have a Ph.D. in music composition, I had not talked about myself and my own music until then. So you will forgive me the dreadful conceit – here on the occasion of my 68th birthday – of drawing from (and extending) some of the biographical material that appeared in that 666th lecture for today’s post. I will not bore you nearly-to-death with the tale of my entire life (heaven forbid) but rather, I will bore you nearly-to-death with the story of my first thirty years, what we might consider my “making” as a composer. Tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post will finish up that bit of biography and will then delve into a subset of my output of which I am particularly proud, that being vocal works based on Yiddish poetry in English translation. From the Top I was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 18, 1954, 31 days before Charles Ives died across the East River in Manhattan on May 19. How I would love to believe that something of his spirit floated east to Brooklyn and found its way to me! My very self, surrounded by ladies: my mother Doris Faith Pollock Greenberg to the right, and my maternal grandmother Nancy Reiben Pollock to my left, July, 1954, somewhere in Brooklyn, New York I spent the first two years of my life in the “Madison” section of Brooklyn, living in an apartment at 2020 Kings Highway. In 1956, my parents escaped New York (and their parents) by moving to the South Jersey ‘burbs, first to Haddonfield and then, in 1959, to Levittown (now known as Willingboro; Exit 5 off the New Jersey Turnpike). And that’s where I grew up. My father Alvin (I know, I know; I hated when kids found out his name!) was a businessman who worked in Philadelphia and my mother Doris Faith (née Pollock) was a Ph.D. candidate in education at Rutgers University. I was the eldest of two; my younger brother Steve is today a radiologist living in Boston.… Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Charity Begins at Home first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

The St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) in 1723, the year Sebastian Bach was appointed Cantor; the St. Thomas School, where Bach taught, is on the left We mark the first performance on April 11, 1727 – on what was Good Friday 295 years ago today – of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the St. Thomas Church (or Thomaskirche) in the Saxon city of Leipzig. The Passion was performed three more times in Bach’s lifetime, all under his direction in Leipzig: on April 15, 1729; March 30, 1736; and on March 23, 1742. Bach revised his St Matthew Passion between 1743 and 1746, and it is this revised version that we will hear in performances and recordings today. The St. Thomas Church today Our game plan for this post will be, one, to discuss what a “Passion” is and what the “gospels” are; two, to observe the structure and scope and make some blanket observations about the artistic quality of Bach’s St Matthew Passion; three, to discuss “the masterpiece syndrome” and some of the good and bad things that phrase implies; four, to once again venture into the unmapped minefield that is contemporary identity politics and attempt to create a meaningful context for the St Matthew Passion; and finally, five, to speculate on how the parishioners and church officials who, having filed in and taken their seats at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche on Good Friday, April 11, 1727, reacted to hearing the St Matthew Passion for the first time. The Passion The “Passion” is the story surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion as told in the gospels. The word “gospel” comes from the Old English word “Gōdspel”, which means “good news” or “good tidings.” The gospels in the Bible’s New Testament, then, tell of “good tidings”: the story of Jesus’ birth and Baptism; his ministry of teaching and of healing; and his sacrifice: his trial, death, burial, and resurrection. There are four such gospels in the New Testament: Mark, Matthew, John, and Luke. (These names notwithstanding, all four of the gospels were written anonymously between about 66 CE and 100 CE.) These four gospels – Mark, Matthew, John, and Luke – make up 4 of the 27 books of the New Testament. The story of the Passion itself, that is, Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, takes up but a small part of each gospel. In Mark, the Passion story is told in chapters 14 and 15; in Matthew, Chapters 26 and 27; in John, chapters 18 and 19; and in Luke, chapters 22 and 23. Sebastian Bach set three of the four Passions to music: the St John Passion in 1724; the St Matthew Passion in 1727; and the St Mark Passion in 1731. Tragically, Bach’s St Mark Passion has been lost; we have the libretto – its words – but its music is gone. *Sigh*… Read the full post only on Patreon Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast See the latest Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: St. Matthew Passion first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters, 1913-1983) We mark the birth on April 4, 1913 – 109 years ago today – of the American blues singer, songwriter, and guitar and harmonica player McKinley Morganfield. He was born in either Rolling Fork or Jug’s Corner, Mississippi. Known professionally as “Muddy Waters” (as opposed to, say “Crystal Springs”, or “Briny Deep”, or “Silty Delta”, or “Occluded H20”), Maestro Morganfield-slash-Waters died in Westmont, Illinois on April 30, 1983, at the age of 70. We will get to Muddy Waters (as we will now refer to him) in a bit. But April 4 is a busy day in music history and thus, I’d like to observe three other date-related events. Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) We mark the birth – on April 4, 1922, exactly 100 years ago today – of the American composer Elmer Bernstein, in New York City.  He died in Ojai, California, on August 18, 2004, at the age of 82. Elmer Bernstein is among my very favorite film and television composers, and he would have been the lead story today if not for the fact that my Music History Monday post for April 3, 2017, already celebrated his birthday.  (I’ll own up to it: April 3 is a quiet day in music history, and in the earlier days of this post, when I couldn’t come up with a good date related item, I’d look to events that occurred on the day before or after.  Thus, in 2017, we celebrated Bernstein’s April 4th birthday on April 3rd.) That earlier post notwithstanding, Elmer Bernstein was such a fascinating, multi-talented person, and he composed so much music that we know (and love), that a little information about him here and now is most appropriate.   As a child, Bernstein performed professionally (on Broadway, no less) as an actor and dancer.  He was an award-winning painter and a novelist.  He loved the horses and was a co-owner of the Triad Thoroughbred Racing Stable for many years. He was an outstanding pianist and made his career on stage as a touring concert pianist between 1939 and 1950.  He was a professor of music at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California (USC) and during the 1970s, he was the conductor of the San Fernando Valley Orchestra. But it was Bernstein’s film, TV, and theater music for which he is remembered today. He composed the music for over 200 films and for hundreds more TV shows.  He composed the fanfare for the National Geographic specials that have been airing since the 1960s. He composed the scores for two Broadway musicals: How Now Dow Jones (1967) and Merlin (1983).  And while even a partial list of Bernstein’s outstanding film scores is lengthy, such a list must be provided in order to get a sense of his tremendous artistic range.  Indulge me: The Man with the Golden Arm (1955); The Ten Commandments (1957); The Sweet Smell of Success (1957); God’s Little Acre (1958); The Buccaneer (1958); The Magnificent Seven (1960); Summer and Smoke (1961); Walk on the Wild Side (1962); Birdman of Alcatraz (1962); To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); The Great Escape (1963); Hud (1963); The Carpetbaggers (1963); The Sons of Katie Elder (1965); The Hallelujah Trail (1965); Return of the Seven (1966); Hawaii (1966); I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968); The Bridge at Remagen (1969); True Grit (1969); Cahill U.S. Marshall (1973); The Shootist (1976); National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978); The Great Santini (1979); Meatballs (1979); Airplane! (1980); The Blues Brothers (1980); The Chosen (1981); An American Werewolf in London (1981); Stripes (1981); Ghostbusters (1984); The Black Cauldron (1985); My Left Foot (1989); The Grifters (1990); The Age of Innocence (1993); The Rainmaker (1997); The Wild Wild West (1999); Bringing Out the Dead (1999); and Far From Heaven (2002).   Whoa. For our information, my 2017 post on Elmer Bernstein was entitled “The Other Bernstein.” … Continue Reading, only on Patreon. Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: McKinley Morganfield, a.k.a. Muddy Waters first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) We mark the death on March 28, 1943 – 79 years ago today – of the composer, pianist, and conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff, at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He was born on April 1, 1873, and thus died just four days before his 70th birthday. This post, as well as tomorrow’s Dr. Bob Prescribes, will focus on the last year of Rachmaninoff’s life, during which he lived in Beverly Hills, California. Rachmaninoff – all 6’6” of him! – was one of the great pianists of his (or any) time; an outstanding composer; and a more than able conductor (he was, for example, the conductor of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow from 1904-1906). Lucrative though performing as a pianist and conductor were, what Rachmaninoff really wanted to be was a composer (the composition bug is, as I will attest, something of a disease). As is the case with so many “working” composers – meaning composers who make the bulk of their income doing something other than composing – Rachmaninoff composed primarily during the summer months. The Rachmaninoff house is Ivanovka, circa 1915 Between 1890 and 1917 – from the ages of 17 to 44 – Rachmaninoff spent those summer months composing at his home in Ivanovka, a sprawling family estate/compound roughly 260 miles south-southeast of Moscow. It was, by every account, a peaceful and idyllic place, one that both inspired Rachmaninoff and provided him the peace and quiet that he required to compose.… Continue reading on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Sergei Rachmaninoff in California first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

The only undisputed image of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is that painted and repainted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann between 1746 and 1748; the painting above is Haussmann’s second version of his original, 1746 canvas, in which Bach is seen holding a copy of his six-part canon BWV 1076 We mark the birth on March 21, 1685, of Johann Sebastian Bach in the Thuringian town of Eisenach, in what today is central Germany.  He died 65 years later, on July 28, 1750, in the Saxon city of Leipzig. I can hear the howling now, “Dr. B, hello, Bach was born on March 31, 1685, not March 21; March 31: it says so on Wikipedia!” Chill out and unknot those jockeys; let’s talk.   Wikipedia and various other sources do indeed indicate, not incorrectly, that Bach was born on March 31.  But according to the irrefutable and unassailable Bach scholar Christoff Wolff writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Sebastian Bach was born on March 21.  And in fact Bach celebrated his birthday on March 21.  So what gives? A Brief Contemplation of Dates (by which we do not refer to one’s social life but the calendar) Old style and new style; in style and out-of-style.  It is a question of almost Talmudic complexity.   We’re talking about calendars and the confusion wrought by changing calendars. The famed Tusculum bust of Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BCE-44 BCE), purportedly the only surviving portrait made in his lifetime In 46 BCE (two years before his conversion into a human pincushion), Julius Caesar proposed replacing what was the 10-month Roman Calendar with a 12-month calendar.  Appropriately called the “Julian” Calendar, it went into effect by edict on January 1, 45 BCE.  The Julian Calendar divided the year into 12 months and 365.25 days and stayed in effect for 1627 years: until 1582.   By 1582, a tiny but not insignificant flaw in the Julian Calendar had become glaringly apparent: over the 1627 years it had been in use, the Julian Calendar had drifted away from the solar year (meaning that the sun was no longer in the same position in the sky on the same date every year!). Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585) It was in 1582 then, that during the reign of Pope Gregory XIII (born Ugo Boncompagni, 1502-1585), that a slight but significant change was made to the calendar: instead of dividing the year into 365.25 days, the so-called “Gregorian” Calendar divided the year more accurately into 365.2425 days. In order to institute the Gregorian Calendar and correct for the solar drift that had taken place under the Julian Calendar, dates had to be adjusted.  Protestant Germany didn’t adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1700, at which time the calendar had to be adjusted by 10 days.  Thus, based on the position of the sun, Bach’s birthday – March 21, 1685, O.S. (“Old Style”, meaning the Julian Calendar) – became March 31 N.S. (“New Style”, in the Gregorian Calendar). Like everyone else who lived through the date change, Sebastian Bach had a choice: did he want to celebrate his birthday based on a date or based on the position of the sun? He chose the date, and we can name his birthday as being either March 21st or the 31st , provided an explanation is given. Here’s another reason for us to choose the March 21st date.… Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!  Listen on the Music History Monday Podcast Robert Greenberg Courses On Sale NowThe post Music History Monday: Ludwig van Beethoven and the Legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach first appeared on Robert Greenberg.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) circa 1745, engraving by Georg Lichtensteger We mark the birth of March 14, 1681 – 341 years ago today – of the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann, in the city Magdeburg, in what today is central Germany. A contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) (both of whom Telemann numbered as good friends; Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel was both the godson and namesake of Georg Philipp Telemann), Telemann was considered in his lifetime the greatest composer living and working in Germany, with our friend Sebastian Bach well down that list. Telemann died in Hamburg on June 25, 1767, at the age of 86. Georg Philipp was the youngest of three surviving children (two boys and a girl) of Maria and Heinrich Telemann. Young Telemann came from a long line of Protestant clergymen. His mother Maria’s father was a deacon, and his father Heinrich Telemann was a Lutheran pastor (as was Heinrich’s father before him). Sadly, Heinrich Telemann died his late 30’s in 1685 when Georg Philipp was just 4 years old, and the task of raising and providing for the family fell squarely on Maria Telemann’s shoulders. Single mothers are usually, by necessity, a tough bunch, and in this Maria Telemann was no exception. Despite the fact that her youngest child Georg Philipp displayed prodigious musical talents from a young age, she took it for granted that like his father and both his grandfathers before him, young Telemann was destined for the cloth and a career in the clergy. But as is so often the case, the young Georg Philipp Telemann had other ideas. By the age of 12, he had been taught to sing and play keyboards. He had, as well, taught himself to play recorder, violin, and zither; and on his own had learned the principals of composition sufficiently to have composed various arias, motets, and instrumental works. At the age of 12 he composed his first opera entitled Sigismundus to a libretto by the German poet and librettist Christian Heinrich Postel (1658-1705). (In 1739, the 58-year-old Telemann wrote a brief autobiography. Regarding his opera Sigismundus he wrote: “This [opera] was performed with a measure of éclat on an improvised stage, with me singing a rather arrogant version of my own hero. I really would like to see that music now . . .”) That’s some serious talent, but rather than be proud of her precocious son and his musical aspirations, Momma Telemann freaked out. Terrified that Georg Philipp was headed for a career in music, having “produced” his opera at the age of 12, his mother forbade him from having any further contact with music and confiscated his musical instruments. Telemann later described it this way: “Done! Music and instruments were whisked away, and with them half my very life.” But Georg Philipp was wily, or at least so he thought he was. He composed secretly at night and practiced on borrowed instruments in seclusion: “My fire burned far too brightly, and lighted my way into the path of innocent disobedience, so that I spent many a night with pen in hand because I was forbidden it by day, and passed many an hour in lonely places with borrowed instruments.” But in the end Georg Philipp fooled no one, not least his mother Maria, who was enraged by her son’s “innocent disobedience.” Extreme measures were called for. So she wrote her husband’s old friend and university classmate Caspar Calvoer in the town of Zellerfeld, about 50 miles southwest of Magdeburg. Calvoer was the superintendent of a school there in Zellerfeld, and he agreed to not just accept the now 13-year-old Georg Philipp, but to personally oversee his education. We imagine that Maria Telemann sighed with relief. Calvoer was a theologian, historian, mathematician, and a writer with a number of scientific papers and publications to his credit. Maria would seem to have had no idea that Calvoer had applied himself as well to a study of music and had written several papers on medieval music theory. Oops. According to Telemann biographer Richard Petzoldt (Georg Philipp Telemann, Oxford University Press, 1974): “Casper Calvoer rejoiced at his protégé’s musical gift. With Calvoer’s approval, the boy once again set about practicing his instruments, regularly writing pieces for the church choir, as well as [works] for the town musicians and occasional pieces for celebrations, weddings, and the like.” We don’t know how Maria Telemann reacted when she became aware of the situation with Calvoer in Zellerfeld, although we can safely assume she reacted poorly. We do know that seven years later, when Telemann was twenty and preparing to enter Leipzig University, she again demanded that he “leave music [and] abandon his entire musical household” in order to study law. But in the end, she was no more successful turning her son away from music when he was 20 than when he was 13, and we are all the richer for that fact.… Continue reading, only on Patreon! Become a Patron!&nb