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Post by jk on Jan 4, 2023 4:42:55 GMT -5
1736: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) wrote an astonishing number of works in his brief life. Of these, it is his Stabat Mater, written in the year he died, that has earned him everlasting fame. From it, this is the opening duet, "Stabat Mater Dolorosa": 1880: The music of the Russian composer Alexander Borodin (1833–1887) is noted for its strong lyricism and rich harmonies. In 1953, some of his pieces were adapted for the musical Kismet, for which Borodin was posthumously given a Tony Award! Actually, Borodin was a chemist by profession, who made important early contributions to organic chemistry. His orchestral works are colourful and wonderfully evocative. I first became acquainted with In the Steppes of Central Asia at the same time as the Beethoven symphony that prompted this thread. It was part of the same batch of LPs I was given back in 1962 (see the OP):
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Post by jk on Jan 5, 2023 6:53:44 GMT -5
1735: Jean-Baptiste Barrière (1707–1747) was a French virtuoso cellist and composer. Having first studied and written for the viol, he took up the cello at a time when it was gaining popularity over the viol in France and would eventually replace it. From Livre II de sonates pour violoncelle et la basse continue, this is the third movement, "Larghetto" from Sonata No. 6 in C Minor: 1881: "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean" has wonderfully ambiguous lyrics. It could be about Bonnie Prince Charlie but it could also be a love song to a woman! In 1881, one Charles E. Pratt (under the duo of pseudonyms H.J. Fuller and J.T. Wood) published sheet music for "Bring Back My Bonnie to Me", as he called it. Requested at sheet music stores since the 1870s, the published version became a big hit and was especially popular with college singing groups.
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Post by jk on Jan 6, 2023 4:18:33 GMT -5
1734: Francesco Domenico Araja (or Araia; 1709–between 1762 and 1770) was an Italian composer who spent 25 years in Russia and wrote at least 14 of his operas for the Russian Imperial Court including Tsefal i Prokri, the first opera to be sung in Russian. That said, the majority he wrote in that country were to Italian libretti. From La forza dell’amore e dell’odio, the first Italian opera to be performed in Russia, this is the aria "Vado a morir": 1882: Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850–1927) suffered from the same stifling male-dominated world of composers as Clara Schumann [ 1833], with whom she studied briefly (her primary instructor was J.G. Rheinberger [ 1864]), although she seems to have eventually had more success as a composer. This is the third and final movement, "Allegro Vivace", from her Cello Sonata in D Major, Op. 17, for which she was awarded first prize in an international composition contest:
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Post by jk on Jan 7, 2023 5:09:46 GMT -5
1733: Pietro Locatelli (1695–1764) was an Italian Baroque composer and virtuoso violinist who spent the entire second half of his life in Amsterdam. He died at his house at Prinsengracht 506, which now bears a commemorative plaque. When Locatelli moved to Amsterdam in 1729, he discovered the centre of European music publishing. He then took great care to achieve flawless editions, giving the well-arranged works to publishers and editing and selling the less-arranged works himself. Indeed, Locatelli is treated in NL as if he were a Dutch composer, much like Handel in the UK. Of the 12 concerti comprising L'arte del violino, this is the twelfth in D major, which Locatelli nicknamed "Laberinto armonico" (see here for an explanation): 1883: Augusta Holmès (1847–1903) was a French composer of Irish descent on her father's side. Holmès added the accent to her last name when she became a French citizen in 1871. She wrote the texts to almost all of her vocal music and the libretto of her only staged opera La Montagne noire, as well as programmatic poems (regrettably unfindable) for symphonic poems including Irlande and this Andromède:
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Post by jk on Jan 8, 2023 5:21:41 GMT -5
1732: Nicola Porpora (1686–1768) was an Italian composer and teacher of singing, celebrated for his linguistic skills. While employed at the Dresden court, Porpora gave the struggling young Joseph Haydn [ 1764] a break as his accompanist and valet. Haydn "profited greatly from Porpora in singing, in composition and in the Italian language" as well as learning from him "the true fundamentals of composition". His opera Germanico in Germania was very popular in its day but fell into obscurity until it was revived in 2015 at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. From Act 1, this is "Qual turbine": 1884: I have been a fan of the music of Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) ever since hearing his second Norwegian dance played on the violin at the local school of music when I was five or six. My most recent Grieg memory is listening to a cassette tape of his orchestral music while holidaying on a small island (owned by friends!) off the coast of Norway, the country Grieg put on the musical map. Amongst the works on that tape was his Holberg Suite, Op. 40, of which this is the second movement, "Sarabande: Andante":
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Post by jk on Jan 9, 2023 4:59:57 GMT -5
1731: The Frenchman Louis-Antoine Dornel (1680–1757) occupied several organist posts in Paris over a period from 1714 to 1748. His music for harpsichord was as well regarded as his works for organ. Dornel's surviving work includes four books of chamber music, a collection of pieces for harpsichord whose miniature movements bear fashionably evocative titles (see video), a book of vocal music, four cantatas and a series of unpublished organ pieces, together with a book of music theory, Le tour du clavier sur tous les tons. From his Pièces de Clavecin, this is "Les Tourterelles" (the doves): 1885: The name Alexander Glazunov (1865–1936) always evokes mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, his symphonies are wonderfully serene -- the battle has already been fought and won, to quote a long-mislaid description -- and, he taught Dmitri Shostakovich, one of my favourite composers. On the other hand, he set Rachmaninoff's career back several years after conducting a disastrous first performance of the younger man’s Symphony No. 1, through his poor use of rehearsal time and in all likelihood for being inebriated that evening (Glazunov liked to drink). This is his symphonic poem Stenka Razin, Op. 13, a rare work on a nationalist subject from Glazunov's pen:
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Post by jk on Jan 10, 2023 4:58:07 GMT -5
1730: Thomas Roseingrave (1690 or 1691–1766) came from a musical family. His father Daniel was Organist of Christ Church and St. Patrick's Cathedrals; his brother, Ralph, succeeded Daniel in both instances. Thomas himself was sent to Italy for "musical improvement" part-financed by the Church. There he met Domenico Scarlatti [ 1703], later publishing an edition of Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas, which led to a "Scarlatti cult" in England. Thomas's own music, which seems to have been criticized as outdated by his contemporaries, saw a revival two centuries later largely thanks to the good offices of the 20th-century British composer Constant Lambert. All three Roseingraves died in Dublin. From Thomas Roseingrave's Twelve Solos for Flute and Basso Continuo this is Sonata No. 3 in G Major, in four movements marked "Adagio", "Allegro", "Largo" and "Vivace": 1886: Vincent d'Indy (1851–1931) studied under César Franck [1862]. An influential teacher himself, his composition students included Albéric Magnard, Albert Roussel, Arthur Honegger [ 1920], Isaac Albéniz, Darius Milhaud and d'Indy's future biographer Joseph Cantaloube. Another was Erik Satie [ 1893], who later regretted it, feeling his music had been led off course. According to The Times, the influence of Franck on d'Indy's own compositions showed itself "chiefly in the shapes of his tunes, that of Wagner [ 1874] in their development, and that of Berlioz [ 1849] in their orchestration". His best-known and most performed work is this Symphony on a French Mountain Air, Op. 25:
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Post by jk on Jan 11, 2023 5:26:01 GMT -5
1729: John Baston (fl. 1708–1739) was an English Baroque composer, recorder player and cellist. He performed in his own "interval music" concertos in London; several of these lively pieces were published as Six Concertos in Six Parts for Violins and Flutes (1729). That was Mr B's wiki in its entirety. From the aforementioned publication, this is Concerto No. 5 in D Major (Allegro – Largo – Presto): 1887: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) occupies a special place in my musical firmament. His Scheherazade (one of the LPs I received from the record club man in 1962) and even more so his Russian Easter Festival Overture are firm favourites of mine (but see below!). Rimsky is second to none when it comes to painting orchestral canvases that draw the listener in. Well, this entry marks an even more momentous discovery than that of the Beethoven symphony that prompted this thread. Along with the LPs I was given in '62 were a handful of EPs, one of which was of the exceedingly colourful and evocative Capriccio Espagnol. (I think it had ended up in the record club corner because of an iffy chord on the harp.) I was mesmerized -- I borrowed the miniature score from the local library and read it endlessly. From then on, I was hooked on orchestration! This was a subject Rimsky himself had written a book about, as had fellow composers Berlioz [ 1849], Cecil Forsyth and Walter Piston, to name only those volumes I myself have read. After two years of abstinence (my youthful piano lessons had emphasized all the wrong aspects), I was back on the "classical" trail with a vengeance:
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Post by jk on Jan 12, 2023 8:02:44 GMT -5
1728: Uh-oh, here comes another big fish. George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) was one of the three principal Baroque composers (the others being Bach and Buxtehude) I was initiated into three years ago by my "Baroque guru". Described by her as "an extremely gifted, sassy, competent melodist", Handel was revered by Mozart [ 1779] and worshipped by Beethoven [ 1808], who urged his fellow composers to "go to him to learn how to achieve great effect, by such simple means". From the third act of Handel's opera Siroe, re di Persia, the future King of Persia, right now under threat of execution, sings "Son stance, ingiusti numi... Deggio morire, o stelle": 1888: John Knowles Paine (1839–1906) was the first American-born composer to achieve fame for large-scale orchestral music. The senior member of a group of composers collectively known as the Boston Six (another member being Amy Beach, coming up soon), Paine was one of those responsible for the first significant body of concert music by composers from the United States. His final orchestral work (or so I'm told) was written the year Giorgio de Chirico, one of my favourite painters, was born. Poseidon and Amphitrite: An Ocean Fantasy is a radiant vision of the calm before the storm:
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Post by jk on Jan 13, 2023 16:11:23 GMT -5
1727: Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689–1755) was one of the first composers to have no patrons: having obtained a royal licence for engraving music in 1724, he made enormous sums of money by publishing his music for sale to the public. He was also the first French composer to use the Italian concerto form, in the six concertos for five flutes, op. 15 (see below). And two years later, in 1729, he wrote the first French solo concerto for any instrument, a concerto for cello, viol or bassoon. A pioneer, you might say. From his "VI Concertos pour cinq Flûtes-Traversières ou autres instrumens, sans basse", this is Concerto No. 6 in E Minor: 1889: Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Rossini [ 1813], Donizetti [ 1817] and Bellini [ 1831], whose works significantly influenced him. Verdi's operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his "middle period": Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. From Quattro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces) this is the first, a hauntingly beautiful setting of the Latin "Ave Maria" for four solo voices a cappella:
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Post by jk on Jan 14, 2023 4:16:25 GMT -5
1726: William Babell (1690–1723) was an English musician, composer and prolific arranger of vocal music for harpsichord. A pupil of Pepusch (and possibly Handel [ 1728]), Babell was said to have surpassed even GFH as an organist. Concerto in G Major for Soprano Recorder, 2 Violins & Basso Continuo Op. 3, No. 4 (Allegro – Adagio – Allegro) can be characterized as Baroque music verging on the galant style, "a return to simplicity and immediacy of appeal". 1890: My first major encounter with the music of Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) was through his Requiem. It differs from most others in the genre by focussing on the aspects of eternal rest and consolation. (My second encounter came with a family performance, with appropriately altered lyrics, of Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine at my son's wedding reception.) Actually, I'd bought my precious LP of the Requiem in the mid 1960s quite simply because I couldn't find anything else on my weekly Saturday afternoon visit to the local record department! It was in this luminous rendition by Nadine Sautereau (soprano) and Bernard Demigny (baritone) with the Paris Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra conducted by René Leibowitz, a fascinating figure in 20th-century music:
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Post by jk on Jan 15, 2023 6:04:59 GMT -5
1725: The highly influential Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was also regarded as an exceptional technical violinist. It was in this capacity that in 1703, aged 24, he was taken on as maestro di violino at an orphanage called Pio Ospedale della Pietà (Devout Hospital of Mercy) in Venice, where he soon became a successful teacher of music. Over the next thirty years he composed most of his major works for the Ospedale's all-female music ensemble. This is the first of three entries to feature the four concertos that constitute Vivaldi's world-famous piece The Four Seasons. First off, the original, or rather the fourth part, "Winter". The other two much later entries are given over to Max Richter's beautiful "recomposed" ambient version (2012) and the thoroughly terrifying The [Uncertain] Four Seasons (2021). You may have to turn the volume up to catch the hushed start: 1891: A famous Dutch talk show host once quoted his mother as saying "If you can't identify the piece of music you're hearing, it must be Dvořák!" Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) -- or Deverack, as Marc Bolan pronounces his name in "Child Star") -- is one of the least demanding composers I know, in the best possible sense. His orchestral music is always a joy to listen to. In Nature's Realm, Op. 91 is the first in a trilogy of overtures representing "Nature, Life and Love" (the other two being, successively, the Carnival Overture, Op. 92 and Othello, Op. 93):
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Post by jk on Jan 16, 2023 8:52:41 GMT -5
1724: Domenico Sarro (1679–1744) is best remembered today as the composer of Achille in Sciro, the opera that was chosen to open the new Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in 1737. Only recently, he and his compositions are enjoying something of a revival after literally centuries of neglect. From his three-act opera Didone abbandonata, this is the instrumental "Sinfonia": 1892: Like Sarro, Ruggero (sometimes Ruggiero) Leoncavallo (1857–1919) is best known today by one work, the world-famous opera Pagliacci. But unlike Sarro's Achille, Leoncavallo's opera has been regularly performed and recorded and even filmed throughout its career. I recall back at PSF my blogger friend wanting to learn more about opera and linking the following number from Pagliacci as an example of the direction she wanted to take. From the end of Act One, this is "Recitar!... Vesti la Giubba":
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Post by jk on Jan 17, 2023 5:04:49 GMT -5
1723: The Italian composer Attilio Ariosti (1666–1729) began his adult life as a Servite Friar before engaging in more worldly matters such as writing stage works to be performed for the court in Berlin. His favourite instrument was the viola d'amore, for which he wrote 21 solo sonatas. He himself played it in an entr'acte in Handel's Amadigi di Gaula while residing in London. From Ariosti's opera Coriolano, this is the aria "Voi d'un figlio tanto misero": 1893: The French composer Erik Satie (1866–1925) began life as Eric but after 1884 began signing his name as we know it today. Best known to the general public for his Gymnopédies, Gnossiennes and other works for solo piano, he wrote much more besides, including ballet music ( Parade, Mercure, Relâche) and the extraordinary Socrate, best heard in the version for four female voices and small orchestra. Vexations is arguably Satie's most outrageous composition, although this may not have been his intention. The piece for solo piano bears the following inscription (in French): "In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." Did Satie really mean it to be played 840 times? He's been taken at his word on several occasions. This is the only long version I could find on YouTube. My rough calculation seems to confirm that this is indeed the full 840 times -- the pianist is alternating the one-line theme with the top harmonization only (other versions alternate the theme with each harmonization in turn):
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Post by jk on Jan 18, 2023 5:19:08 GMT -5
1722: And now it's the turn of a composer often described as the greatest of them all. It's the original "Big Daddy", Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). Bach has the distinction of featuring three times -- more than that of any other composer -- on the Voyager Golden Record (Beethoven [ 1808] has two and Mozart [ 1779] one). My favourite works of his (thank you, JH) include The Art of Fugue and The Musical Offering, both preferably conducted by Neville Marriner, and The Well-Tempered Clavier, of which this is Book One. To quote Joshilyn at Smiley: "I would heartily recommend seeking out recordings by the sensational French harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï. He gets the baroque thing without going over the top, and is a very sensitive, methodical player. I love his interpretations of Couperin, but he is also an excellent Bachist." 1894: It has been said by his detractors that Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) didn't write nine symphonies (actually ten) but wrote the same symphony nine times. It's true you can identify a work as being by Bruckner from just a few seconds of music but that's hardly the same thing! Bruckner composed the Symphony No. 9 in D Minor in the last decade of his life. Indeed, he never lived to complete the finale, but the first three movements feel complete in themselves, an epic musical arch of slow-quick-slow. He himself described the concluding "Adagio", linked below, as his "Farewell to Life". The latter part of this overwhelming movement with its massive crescendo (here beginning just after the 19-minute mark) has everything of a titanic struggle to come to terms with approaching death. The serene, chorale-like episode that closes the work marks the end of that struggle and an acceptance of the inevitable. Bruckner is said to have dedicated his Ninth Symphony to "the beloved God" -- Bruckner was a deeply devout Catholic. My own favourites among his symphonies are #1 and this #9, a truly profound piece of symphonic writing:
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Post by jk on Jan 19, 2023 5:06:02 GMT -5
1721: Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747) was an Italian Baroque composer, cellist, singer and teacher, one of a family of string players and composers. A well-travelled man as well as a prolific composer, Bononcini lived in London from 1720 to 1732, where his popularity for a time rivalled that of Handel [ 1728], who had arrived there in 1712. This competition extended to politics: the Whig party favoured Handel while the Tories championed Bononcini. From his opera Crispo, this is the aria "Cosi stanco Pellegrino": 1895: Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity unique in late Romantic music. Plagued by depression throughout his life, Wolf ended his days in a Vienna asylum. The comic opera Der Corregidor is Wolf's lone contribution to the genre. Its German libretto was written by Rosa Mayreder. based on the short novel El sombrero de tres picos (The three-cornered hat) by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, a literary work that would also inspire Manuel de Falla's ballet of that name, premiered in 1919.
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Post by jk on Jan 20, 2023 3:34:11 GMT -5
1720: The English composer and church music compiler Thomas Tudway (before 1650?–1726) has a curious claim to fame. Noted for punning, and having made an offensive comment of this nature slighting Queen Anne, in 1706 Tudway was sentenced to be "degraded from all degrees, taken and to be taken", and was deprived of his music professorship at Cambridge University and his three organist's posts. Within a year he had publicly apologized and was formally absolved and reinstated in all his appointments! Tudway wrote this Te Deum late in life for the consecration of a private chapel that never took place; it was probably never performed during his lifetime: 1896: Amy Beach (née Cheney, 1867–1944) is arguably America's greatest woman composer. Like J.K. Paine [1888], she was a member of the Boston-based Second New England School. Largely self-taught in theory and composition, she translated Gevaert's and Berlioz's French treatises on orchestration into English to learn from them. Her Symphony in E minor, Op. 32, subtitled "Gaelic", was the first symphony to be composed and published by an American woman. Premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, its four movements are marked "Allegro con fuoco", "Alla siciliana – allegro vivace – andante", "Lento con molta espressione" and "Allegro di molto":
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Post by jk on Jan 20, 2023 13:26:37 GMT -5
Another brief progress report, folks: I've been filling in many of the holes left in the backward-facing half of the equation -- even 1593, the furthest back down the line, has an entry, a woman composer, whereas its forward-facing counterpart will have to wait another year to be posted. There are now thirty-something gaps left and I have at least four months to fill them! On the subject of women composers, I recently borrowed this splendid book from the local university library: "Presenting information on 875 women composers who have made a significant contribution to Western classical music, [ The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers] spans from the monodies of Hildegard von Bingen to the multimedia creations of the late 20th century. The aim of the book is to address the lack of information about women composers. For each composer the book contains a biography, a list of works and a select bibliography. The book is fully cross-referenced. There are contributions from 450 contributors from 20 countries." [ Source] It yielded a few names for this project but in many cases the years in question were already taken. On the other hand, I noticed many names in its pages that were already on my list, mainly lifted from the trio of relevant threads here at EH. I'm pleased to say the percentage of women composers is comfortably high, something LS might appreciate. I may return to this book and to my most recent "women composers" thread later in the year.
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Post by jk on Jan 21, 2023 7:15:58 GMT -5
1719: Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (1673–1763), also known as Jacques Martin or Jacques Hotteterre, was a French composer and flautist who was the most celebrated of a family of wind instrument makers and wind performers. This "Prelude in D" is the first of two preludes that conclude Hotteterre's L'Art de Préluder sur la Flûte Traversiere, sur la Flûte a Bec, sur le Hautbois et Autres Instrumens de Dessus (1719), an exhaustive treatise on the "how-to's" of improvising preludes in early 18th-century French style. Hotteterre makes it abundantly clear that while these preludes sound very free, "improvised" or not they must have a clearly defined underlying structure: 1897: The music of the Englishman Frederick Delius (1862–1934) has followed me over the years. I used to get up my schoolmates' noses by studying the miniature score of his Sea Drift on the bus on the way home. (It was the only Delius score at the local library.) Later while looking for cheap albums on my Saturday afternoon excursions after work, I found an EP containing this absolute jewel, "La Calinda" from Delius's third opera Koanga:
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Post by jk on Jan 22, 2023 5:49:30 GMT -5
1718: Francesco Manfredini (1684–1762) was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist and church musician recently described as well versed in the mainstream Italian school of composition. Much of his music is presumed to have been destroyed after his death; only 43 published works and a handful of manuscripts are known. After 1711, Manfredini spent an extended stay in Monaco, apparently in the service of Prince Antoine I. The precise nature of his relationship to the court of Monaco, and the length of his stay, are not known (Manfredini is first mentioned in court records in 1712). In 1718 he would publish, in Bologna, his Concerti Grossi for two violins and basso continuo, Op. 3, Nos. 1–12, which he dedicated to the prince. Of those, this is Concerto Grosso in C Major, which my spies tell me is the last in the series: 1898: John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), known for all time as "The March King", held a very low opinion of the emerging recording industry in the early 1900s. He derided recordings as "canned music", a reference to the early wax cylinder records that came in can-like cylindrical cardboard boxes. Sousa's antipathy to recording was such that he did not conduct his band when it was being recorded, which was often. This march was extracted from Acts II and III of Sousa's operetta The Charlatan (1898, also known as The Mystical Miss, book by Charles Klein and lyrics by Sousa), and despite a wealth of published editions it seems not to have been regarded as one of his most memorable efforts and was soon all but forgotten:
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Post by jk on Jan 23, 2023 3:57:21 GMT -5
1717: François Couperin (1668–1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. Known as "Couperin le Grand" to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family, he was musically active at the court of Louis XIV for nearly a quarter of a century. As a composer, Couperin acknowledged a debt to the Italian Arcangelo Corelli (coming up soon); he in turn would influence the piano music of Johannes Brahms [ 1869]. From Couperin's Second livre de pièces de clavecin, Ordre No. 9, this is the opening piece, "Allemande à deux clavecins": 1899: The Frenchman Claude Debussy (1862–1918) is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. That aside, he was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His L'après-midi d'un faune (1894) is considered a turning point in the history of Western art music. Those who attended its premiere were so taken aback by the new sounds that they asked for the work to be repeated! My own first contact with the orchestral music of Debussy was through an LP bought with birthday money in 1963 that combined La Mer (1903–1905) with Trois Nocturnes (completed in 1899), of which this is the opening movement, "Nuages" (clouds):
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Post by jk on Jan 23, 2023 7:36:03 GMT -5
A final progress report: Well it had to happen sooner or later -- a few days ago, while lining up future posts, I reached my first year on the backward trail (1661) where there are no dated or reliably dated compositions, or at least none that I could find. What I've done in such cases is to take the year of birth of a composer I hadn't featured yet, maybe someone with all undated works. If I'd taken the year of death instead, I stood to lose a future candidate! Anyway, I'm done now. All I need to do from now on (bar unforeseen removals of videos, inadvertent double-posting of composers, etc) is expand each entry into a post, upload these one at a time (one a day or thereabouts) and organize their codes, followed by the inevitable last tweak. I should be finished by late May, early June -- and then it's once a year, like my alternative BB timeline.
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Post by jk on Jan 24, 2023 4:17:57 GMT -5
1716: The life of the Italian baroque composer Giovanni Mossi (c.1680–1742) is largely shrouded in mystery. Active in Rome around 1700, Mossi has been grouped stylistically with the " Roman School", although this "style" seems to have run its course by then. The works by Mossi that have survived reveal a skilled and innovative composer. He is best known for his violin sonatas, such as this Sonata in B minor for Violin & Basso Continuo, Op. 1, No. 5: 1900: The Englishman Edward Elgar (1857–1934), unlike his US contemporary John Philip Sousa [ 1898], was a great believer in the gramophone and rerecorded many of his orchestral works as techniques developed. He was also at the forefront of putting British creativity back on the world map after a long period dominated by composers from abroad. Following hot on the heels of The Enigma Variations (1899), which established Elgar's reputation overnight, The Dream of Gerontius is a setting for voices and orchestra of a poem by the Roman Catholic cardinal John Henry Newman. This caused some disquiet in Britain's Anglican establishment but the two-part composition, regarded by some as Elgar's masterpiece, became and has remained a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere:
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Post by jk on Jan 25, 2023 5:05:31 GMT -5
1715: Antonio Caldara (c.1670–1736) was born and raised in Venice, the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's Basilica, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi (of whom more later). In the early 1760s, while chamber composer at the court of Charles III at Barcelona, he wrote some operas that were the first in Italian to be performed in Spain. He would go on to write over seventy in that genre, in Barcelona, Rome and then Vienna following his appointment there as vice- kapellmeister to the Imperial Court for the last twenty years of his life. Caldara also wrote over 30 oratorios, including La Conversione di Clodoveo Re di Francia, of which this is the overture to act one: 1901: George Enescu (1881–1955) was a Romanian composer, violinist, conductor and teacher and is regarded as one of the greatest musicians in Romanian history. A child prodigy, he wrote his first work of significant length at five years and three months. In October 1888, aged seven, he became the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory, graduating at the age of twelve! He was still only nineteen when he completed his most famous work, the thrilling Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major. Yet this and its companion rhapsody in D major were felt by Enescu to be an albatross round his neck, lamenting in later life how their popularity had dominated and narrowed his reputation as a composer (a bit like Holst and The Planets, I suppose):
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Post by jk on Jan 26, 2023 9:47:31 GMT -5
1714: Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713) was an Italian composer whose music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto. It also helped to establish the preeminence of the violin and represented the first coalescing of modern tonality and functional harmony. An accomplished violinist himself, Corelli introduced a style of execution, perpetuated by his pupils who included fellow violinists Francesco Geminiani [ 1746] and Pietro Locatelli [ 1733], that was of vital importance for the development of violin playing. Corelli was the first major composer to use the term "concerto grosso"; a collection of twelve of his concerti grossi was published after his death. Of these, this is the five-movement Concerto grosso for two violins, cello, strings and basso continuo in F major Op. 6 No. 2: 1902: Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871–1942) was an Austrian composer, conductor and teacher. He may have been born Alexander Zemlinsky; at some point his father had added an aristocratic "von" to his name, though neither he nor his forebears were ennobled. Alexander, who soon enjoyed the support of Johannes Brahms [ 1869], later became close friends with Arnold Schoenberg (coming up next); indeed, Schoenberg would marry Zemlinsky's sister Mathilde. Zemlinsky himself had a short-lived affair with Alma Schindler, later the wife of Gustav Mahler (two days away); it would take a second marriage for him to find happiness. Fleeing Nazism via Prague to New York in 1938, he suffered the neglect that befell the less lucky Europeans who relocated to America for that reason. This is the first of the "Drei Ballettstücke" from his full-length ballet Triumph der Zeit:
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