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Post by jk on Apr 14, 2023 2:22:10 GMT -5
1638: The French composer Nicolas Formé (1567–1638) joined the choir of the Sainte-Chapelle in 1587, aged 20, but was excluded from the fraternity for drunkenness and womanizing. He was reinstated in 1592, to the Chapelle royale; in 1626, with the support of King Louis XIII, he returned to the Sainte-Chapelle as a canon, where he worked under the protection of the King until his death. Formé paid no attention to publishing his compositions; the only ones to survive are the sacred works preserved in the private archive of the French crown, one being the motet Ecce tu pulchra es, published in the year of his death by the Parisian firm of Ballard: 1978: I first became aware of Nina Hagen on seeing her perform an almost operatic track on Dutch TV. I learned later she had studied ballet at an early age and had a reputation as an opera prodigy by the time she was nine! After graduating from a vocal training performance programme in her native East Berlin in the early 1970s, La Hagen (born 1955) rose to prominence during the punk and German new wave movements later in the decade. Her debut album, Nina Hagen Band, places her often outrageously theatrical vocals against a highly imaginative musical backdrop courtesy of her fantastic backing band, in which one occasionally hears whiffs of Frank Zappa (coming up soon). From her consistently excellent debut, this is track #3, "Unbeschreiblich weiblich" (indescribably feminine):
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Post by jk on Apr 15, 2023 3:56:11 GMT -5
1637: Tarquinio Merula (1595–1665) was an Italian composer, organist and violinist of the early Baroque era. Although mainly active in Cremona, stylistically he was a member of the Venetian School. He was one of the most progressive Italian composers of the early 17th century, especially in applying newly developed techniques to sacred music. From Merula's *deep breath* Canzoni, overo Sonate Concertate per Chiesa e Camera a due e a tre, libro terzo, op. XII, this is No. 5, "Ballo detto Eccardo": 1979: Founded in 1972 by Nile Rodgers (born 1952) and Bernard Edwards (1952–1996), Chic has been described as a disco band but surely it defies classification, falling somewhere between disco, soul, funk and rock. I was never a great fan of "Le Freak", although it was a fixture in the repertoire of the semi-pro band I was in from 1988 to 1995, but its successor, another US chart-topper, grabbed me from day one. "Good Times" is one of those less-is-more songs (Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People" is another, to say nothing of Duane Eddy's "Peter Gunn" [ 1959]) that use a minimum of material to maximum effect. It's almost as if they'd compressed "Le Freak" into a smaller space:
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Post by jk on Apr 16, 2023 5:25:17 GMT -5
1636: Melchior Franck (c.1579–1639) was a German composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. A hugely prolific author of Protestant church music, especially motets, he assisted in bringing the stylistic innovations of the Venetian School (see [ 1637]) north across the Alps into Germany. His Paradisus Musicus is a unique collection for one to two voices (?) and continuo; it includes expressive settings in German of the principal "comforting" texts from each of the 66 chapters of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: 1980: Written and sung by John Lennon (1940–1980), "Woman" is quite simply one of the greatest love songs ever committed to wax. And one of the saddest, in view of John's murder at the close of the year.
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Post by jk on Apr 17, 2023 2:42:19 GMT -5
1635: Annibale Gregori (second half of the 16th century–1633) was born in Siena and spent his whole life there. He received his first lessons from his father Alberto, a leading musician, and became a cornettist at the Palazzo Pubblico. He also worked in the hospital church of San Maria della Scala, before being appointed maestro di cappella at Siena Cathedral in 1612. Dismissed six years later, he then became choirmaster at the Church of Santa Maria di Provenzano. He was reinstated at the cathedral in 1623 and remained there until his death. He seems to have died quite young, since it was his father who posthumously published his opus 9, Ariosi concento, in Venice in 1635. (Adapted from AG's French wiki, with thanks to Google Translate.) 1981: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was recorded by Brian Eno and David Byrne before their work on Talking Heads' 1980 album Remain in Light, but problems clearing samples delayed its release by several months. Described by Eno as "a vision of a psychedelic Africa", MLITBOG eschews conventional pop or rock vocals in favour of samples from commercial recordings by Arabic singers, radio disc jockeys and even an exorcist. I recall from the CD booklet stories of wrapping festoons of tapes round chair legs -- this was very early days in the history of sampling! "Regiment" was one of two tracks to sample the voice of Lebanese singer Dunya Younes (spelt Yunis in the album's liner notes). Although Byrne and Eno took care to clear the samples with the label that released the album her vocals had been sampled from, and paid for the sampling accordingly, Ms Younes only found about the use of her voice on the album six years ago. Eventually the issue was settled amicably out of court.
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Post by jk on Apr 18, 2023 6:55:41 GMT -5
1634: Domenico Freschi (1634–1710) was an Italian composer and Roman Catholic priest. Born in Bassano del Grappa, Freschi was appointed maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of Vicenza in 1656 and remained in that post until his death. In addition to his work as a church musician and composer, Freschi enjoyed an active career as a composer of operas from 1671 to 1685. Of the 16 he is known to have written, 11 premiered at theatres in Venice and five, including this Ermelinda (libretto by Francesco Maria Piccioli), at the opera house in Villa Contarini, Piazzola sul Brenta. Premiered in either 1680 or 1682 (depending on where you look), Ermelinda is set in Phoenicia. Its principal characters are two young lovers, Ermelinda and Ormindo, a tyrannical father and two trouble-makers. Ermelinda is not allowed to love Ormindo and has to endure the stratagems and machinations fabricated by the other characters who want to keep them apart. From mad scenes to fake deaths, every ruse and artifice is used to make mischief. Will Ermelinda's determination and cleverness outsmart her enemies? [ Source] 1982: The extremely prolific Rolande Falcinelli (1920–2006) wrote much of her work for her own instrument, the organ. This quote from her wiki gives an idea of just how musical she was (my italics): "In 1948, at Salle Pleyel in Paris, Rolande Falcinelli performed from memory the (then) complete organ works of Marcel Dupré, whose music was in the center of her interests throughout her career as a performer and teacher." Her Le Mystère de la Sainte-Messe for two organs, op. 59 (1976-82, unpublished) is little short of thrilling. The first of its three parts consists of "Introïtus", "Kyrie eleison", "Gloria" and "Evangelio":
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Post by jk on Apr 19, 2023 3:53:20 GMT -5
1633: Antonio Maria Abbatini (c.1609 or 1610– c.1677 or 1679) was born in Città di Castello, but spent most of his working life in Rome. One of his pupils was Antonio Cesti [ 1657]. Of Abbatini's three operas, Dal male il bene (1654), written in collaboration with Marco Marazzoli, is one of the earliest comic operas and historically important as it introduced the Final Ensemble. He also collaborated with the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher on the latter's encyclopaedic Musurgia Universalis. Abbatini composed extensively for the church, publishing collections of masses, psalms, antiphons and motets. This is from a secular work, his "dramatic cantata" Il Pianto di Rodomonte: 1983: The ill-starred US electro-funk band Zapp is just one of a number of favourite acts where I've had to compromise somewhat in order to squeeze them into this thread. (Many others never made it at all.) "Heartbreaker" comes from Zapp III, when in my opinion they'd peaked with its similarly named predecessor which includes three absolutely stunners, the eleven-minute "Dance Floor", "Playin' Kinda Ruff" (with its killer brass stabs) and the preposterous "Doo Wa Ditty (Blow That Thing)". Still, "Heartbreaker" ain't bad by any standards and has all the Zapp hallmarks:
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Post by jk on Apr 20, 2023 2:52:43 GMT -5
1632: Walter Porter (c.1587–1659) was an English composer and church musician. He travelled to Italy to study under Monteverdi (see also Cavalli [ 1666]); the Italian influence is discernible in his madrigals and his one surviving anthem. In 1639, Porter was appointed master of the choristers of Westminster Abbey. Dismissed from his post during the First English Civil War, Porter was subsequently supported by the wealthy politician Sir Edward Spencer. In 1632, William Standsby published Porter's *deep breath* Madrigales and Ayres of two, three, foure and five Voyces with continued Base, with Toccatos, Sinfonias and Ritornelles to them after the manner of consort musique. To be performed with the Harpsechord, Lutes, Theorbos, Basse-violl, two Violins or two Viols. The book contains 26 pieces; this is "Oh Praise The Lord": 1984: In a composers' poll held by BBC Music Magazine, Kaija Saariaho (born 1952) held the top spot (#17) among those who are still with us. And I'd never even heard of her… Verblendungen is an early work of hers (1982/84). Scored for orchestra and magnetic tape, it is in fact one long decrescendo accompanied by gradually thinning textures:
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Post by jk on Apr 21, 2023 3:18:21 GMT -5
1631: The German composer and organist Sebastian Anton Scherer (1631–1712) was born in Ulm and spent his entire life there. Elected "town musician" in 1653, it was around then that he became assistant to Tobias Eberlin, organist of the famous Ulm Münster. Scherer probably started studying with Eberlin at the same time; in 1671 he succeeded him as cathedral organist (a position he held until his death in 1712) after marrying Eberlin's daughter (often a condition in those days). One of Scherer's few surviving works is a two-part volume of organ music. Operum musicorum secundum, distinctum in libros 2 (Op. 2) exhibits an Italian influence, particularly that of Girolamo Frescobaldi (this Sunday’s choice), which was typical of the south German tradition Scherer represented. The second part contains eight toccatas, all of which are sectional pieces that make heavy use of pedal point and contain much imitative counterpoint as well as free writing: 1985: Here's a rare glimpse into alternative Yugoslav pop before that country fell apart. It's lifted from a jk thread dedicated to "ex-Yu" mid '80s stuff, most of which come from the YouTube channel of Dronemf S., my guru on the subject. Originally, I hoped to dig out more information on these relatively obscure acts, even if it meant google-translating contemporaneous articles. But it was a dicey business (read: pop-up hell) getting onto Bosnian and Serb websites -- I had to force-quit Safari more than once to get out of trouble. These are La Card performing "Jedno zbogom za tebe" (literally "one goodbye to you") on the Belgrade-based TV show Neki drugi rock and roll (what's in a name?):
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Post by jk on Apr 22, 2023 3:14:48 GMT -5
1630: Claudia Francesca Rusca (1593–1676) was a soprano, composer, organist and music teacher. She began her musical education at home before taking vows at the Umiliate monastery of S. Caterina a Brera in Milan, the city where she spent her entire life. Like Chiara Cozzolani [ 1642], several members of whose family entered the same convent together, it is believed that Rusca's aunts, cousins and sisters also took vows at S. Caterina with her. Rusca composed sacred concertos, Vespers and motets; her two canzoni francesi are the first known preserved instrumental works by a woman. During the 17th century, music performance and composition in convents in Milan was heavily moderated by Archbishop Federico Borromeo to ensure that all music performed there emphasized penitence and humility. For better or for worse, he wanted to shape convent music while also ensuring that the nuns' music education helped them achieve musical competence. Of the 29 pieces in Sacri concerti a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, e 8 voci e Canzoni francesi a 4, a collection dedicated to Borromeo, this is no. 17, "La Borromea", presumably one of the two unique instrumental canzoni mentioned above: 1986: The music of Frank Zappa (1940–1993) was a major part of the soundtrack of my early adult years. As before in this thread, I found myself confined in my choice of music -- Frank's music from the 1960s and '70s means so much more to me. Still, Jazz from Hell marks an interesting departure in that it's all Zappa (with one exception). He often complained about the problems of working with real live musicians (maybe the feeling was mutual!); indeed, JfH was the last studio album to be released during his lifetime. All but one of its tracks were executed by Frank on the Synclavier DMS, my favourite being the sprightly album opener "Night School". Even so, I've opted here for the one exception. "St. Etienne" is a Zappa guitar solo excerpted from a live performance of "Drowning Witch" from his 1982 album Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch during a concert he gave that year in the French city of Saint-Étienne. Frank's ridiculously talented band on this track consists of Steve Vai and Ray White (rhythm guitars), Tommy Mars and Bobby Martin (keyboards), Scott Thunes (bass guitar), Chad Wackerman (drums) and Ed Mann (percussion):
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Post by jk on Apr 23, 2023 3:49:07 GMT -5
1629: Francesca Campana, likely born in Rome in the early 1910s, was a "brilliant singer, keyboard (spinet) player and composer", according to poet Fulvio Testi. In 1629, she published a book of twelve Arie a una, due e tre voci (Arias for one, two and three voices) that was presented to Signor Don Luigi Gonzaga with this dedication: "I dedicate it to Your Excellence because, should I be accused of being too daring for publishing it, at least I must be commended as judicious for the dedication, since, with the patronage of such a Prince, I acquire singular merit for my compositions." Also in 1629, two of her works, Pargoletta vezzosetta for soprano, lute and viola da gamba and Donna, se'l mio servir, a continuo madrigal for two voices, were published by Robletti, a major printer in Rome, indicating the popularity of her compositions. Campana continued singing after this point but there is no record that she published further. She died in 1665. [ Principal source] One of those twelve arias is "Voi luci altere". This is for my erstwhile occasional partner in crime in the women composers' threads, hoping they're doing well: 1987: Last April, while waiting for an operation, my go-to listen and principal means of keeping it together during those uncertain times was this YouTube channel devoted to the music of the Russian composer and musician Alexander Yakovlev. Starting in 1987 (during the Soviet Era) with his first band, Bioconstructor, it is almost exclusively given over to its long-standing successor, BIO, with occasional forays into his ambient instrumental project Geotronika. (Yakovlev even figured in my desktop wallpaper in a picture that reflected my mood at the time.) To complete the circle with my interest in music from former Yugoslavia (see [ 1985]), this comes courtesy of my main ex-Yu man, uploader Dronemf S.. It's a track I'd often seen when scouring his channel for stuff but had always passed over as not applicable. Here are Bioconstructor with "Bjurokrat", one of their best songs in my view:
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Post by jk on Apr 24, 2023 4:21:50 GMT -5
1628: Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643) was a Ferrarese composer and virtuoso keyboard player. A child prodigy, he was one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, whose work influenced the likes of J.S. Bach [ 1722] and Henry Purcell [ 1692]. However, it is his supremely colourful and imaginative instrumental canzonas that appeal to me the most. Il Primo Libro delle Canzoni was published in two different editions in Rome in 1628 and reissued with substantial revisions in Venice four years later. The three editions together contain a total of 48 canzonas for one, two, three or four instrumental voices in various combinations, all with basso continuo (the revisions have meant that sixteen exist in two substantially different versions): 1988: The first song I heard by The Stone Roses was "Fool’s Gold" on Dutch radio in 1989, the year it reached #10 in NL. I only discovered their self-titled debut album in the early years of the new millennium after reading Mark Prendergast's seminal The Ambient Century. Its reputation, which took a while to grow, as one of the greatest UK albums of all time makes sense to me. It's a fascinating cocktail of jangly rock (think Byrds and Hollies) and EDM, somewhat analogous to New Order's Power, Corruption & Lies of six years earlier. As for this next song, "Elephant Stone", I heard it some years later after buying Turns into Stone, a 1992 compilation of early singles and B-sides that never made the debut album:
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Post by jk on Apr 25, 2023 4:07:48 GMT -5
1627: Johann Ulrich Steigleder (1593–1635) came from a family of musicians and held important organist's posts during his short life. Major innovations connected with his work include the adoption of five-line notation with notes instead of letter notation and the transition from modal indications such as primi toni, secundi toni, etc. to keys in keyboard music. Steigleder's Tabulaturbuch consists of 40 variations on Luther's chorale "Vater unser im Himmelreich". Intended for the church organist, Steigleder specifically states that the performer may choose how many variations to play, which ones and in what sequence. Certain variations call for a supporting instrument or singer to reinforce the chorale melody. Steigleder employs a vast array of techniques from simple two-voice settings to double counterpoint, extensive multi-sectional fantasies and toccatas, various canons, hocket and many more: 1989: Shoot me, but I have never warmed to the qualities of the prodigiously talented Laurie Anderson (born 1947) -- too theatrical perhaps? The one exception is a track from her album Strange Angels. On "Coolsville", Ms Anderson is credited with providing the ticking percussion. It is this effect, which eats its way into your brain, and the occasional three-chord motif that drew me into this incredible sound world:
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Post by jk on Apr 26, 2023 10:06:04 GMT -5
1626: Little seems to be known about the violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Buonamente (c.1595–1642), except for a few dates regarding the positions he held. He served the Gonzagas in Mantua until about 1622 and, from about 1626 to 1630, the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II in Vienna. In 1627 he played for the coronation festivities in Prague of the emperor's son Ferdinand III. He then briefly served as the violinist at the Madonna della Steccata church in Parma before being appointed maestro di cappella at Assisi in 1633, the last position he would hold. From Il quarto libro de varie sonate, sinfonie, gagliarde, corrente, e brandi, this is "Sonata quarta": 1990: The Estonian Arvo Pärt (born 1935) is best known for the work he has written since 1976. The avant-garde spirit of Pärt's early works as well as its religious aspect got him into trouble with Soviet officials and even forced him to emigrate. Since the late 1970s, after a period of crisis, he reemerged armed with a minimalist style that employs a new and highly original musical language, which he called tintinnabuli (from tintinnabulum, Latin for "little bell"). From 2011 to 2018, Pärt was the world's most performed living composer. The Beatitudes for mixed choir or soloists and organ, composed in 1990 and revised in 1991, is one of the first works in which the composer sets the English language. It is based on a text from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew -- a passage of blessings (5:3–12) in which Godly virtues are highlighted line by line. The closing section in which the organ takes flight reminds me of similar passages in tracks by Pink Floyd, most notably "Cirrus Minor".
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Post by jk on Apr 28, 2023 3:35:34 GMT -5
1625: Johann Rudolph Ahle (1625–1673) was a German composer, organist, theorist and Protestant church musician. Born in Mühlhausen (Thuringia), he spent most of his life there. In 1648 he published the Compendium per tenellis, a theoretical treatise on choral singing which was reprinted several times during his lifetime and again fifty years later by his son Johann Georg. Ahle was a town councillor in Mühlhausen in the 1650s and was elected mayor shortly before his death. Although long celebrated in his home town for his ability as an organist, it was only at the end of 1654 that he seems to have obtained his first and only position as a musician there, as the organist at Blasiuskirche; J.S. Bach [ 1722] would briefly occupy the same position half a century later. Ahle is best known for motets and sacred concertos (most in German, some in Latin) contained in the collection Neu-gepflanzte Thüringische Lust-Garten (1657–65). From the Missa a 10 in this collection, this is the third of its five movements, "Herr nun lässestu deinen Diener a 5": 1991: The classic rave album Screamadelica by Scotland's Primal Scream draws together a welter of influences, from free jazz to psychedelia and ambient. Much of the album's production was handled by acid house DJ Andrew Weatherall and engineer Hugo Nicolson, who remixed original recordings made by the band into dance-oriented tracks. Lead singer and principal lyricist Bobby Gillespie has said that after discovering Pet Sounds, their songs became much softer. (The instrumental "Inner Flight" has a particularly strong Pet Sounds ethos without being merely derivative.) "Slip Inside This House" is the one track not written by the Gillespie-Innes-Young team. It's also the only track on which band guitarist Robert Young sings lead. Originally recorded by The 13th Floor Elevators, it features early on the sampled voice (from an interview) of co-author Roky Erickson announcing "War of the Worlds, the Martians have landed!" It additionally samples "Sex Machine" by Sly and the Family Stone and the Amen break.
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Post by jk on Apr 29, 2023 4:22:36 GMT -5
1624: Nicolò Corradini (1585?–1646) seems to have spent his entire life in his birthplace Cremona, where Tarquinius Merula [ 1637] held musical sway. In 1622, as the organist at Cremona Cathedral, he directed the musical performances at the Accademia degli Animosi with a local noble who had launched the institution. In 1635 he served under Merula as "maestro di Cappella delle Laudi". His 1624 collection of canzonas and sonatas represent the transitional period of musical forms, out of which the sonata became the established form of the later Baroque era. From Il primo libro de canzoni francesi a 4, this is Sonata a 2 ("La Golferamma"): 1992: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (born 1939 in Miami) was the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music (in 1983) with her Symphony No. 1 (Three Movements for Orchestra). Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, neo-romantic style. To quote Grove Music Online, Ms Taaffe Zwilich's compositional style is marked by an obsession with "the idea of generating an entire work -- large-scale structure, melodic and harmonic language, and developmental processes -- from its initial motives". Her two-movement Bassoon Concerto is accompanied by an orchestra of ten wind instruments, percussion and strings:
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Post by jk on Apr 30, 2023 1:24:46 GMT -5
1623: Composer, singer and organist Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana seems to have spent her entire life in Bologna, Italy. The 20 motets she wrote at the Convent of Santa Cristina were published in 1623 when she was in her thirties, a unique honour for a nun from that town. Her life seems not to have ended happily (see her wiki). From that collection, this is "O invictissima Christi martir et virgo". The Spanish YouTube blurb translates online as follows: "Lucrezia Vizzana entered the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Cristina in her hometown, Bologna, in 1598. This motet is dedicated to Santa Cristina. The work praises the life of the saint, accentuating her irreducible faith that led her to martyrdom. A beautiful echo appears in the voices with the words 'Cristina santa'. The voices are moving homorhythmically and those suspended dissonances typical of the early Baroque appear very often. Also noteworthy are the melismas on the word 'cantare' that lead to the final alleluia. The work ends as it began: in a reverential way and in praise of the patron saint of the convent." 1993: I first became aware of the English composer John Tavener (1944–2013) in 1969 when his cantata The Whale, based on the Old Testament story of Jonah, was performed at the London Proms (I believe it was played twice). As it happens, Tavener's younger brother Roger was then doing some building work on Ringo Starr's home and, gaining the musician's interest, persuaded the Beatles to have The Whale recorded by Apple Records and released in 1970. While Tavener's earliest music was influenced by Igor Stravinsky [ 1945] and Olivier Messiaen [ 1948] -- often invoking the sound world of Stravinsky and the ecstatic quality found in various works by Messiaen -- his later music became more sparse, using wide registral space and was usually diatonically tonal. Tavener recognized Arvo Pärt [ 1990] as "a kindred spirit" and shared with him a common religious tradition and a fondness for textural transparency. Fellow English composer and conductor John Rutter describes Tavener as having the "very rare gift" of being able to "bring an audience to a deep silence." Song for Athene was written for a young friend killed in a cycling accident but is best known from its performance at the funeral service of Diana, Princess of Wales, on 6 September 1997 as her cortège left Westminster Abbey.
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Post by jk on May 1, 2023 4:28:01 GMT -5
1622: Vinko Jelić (1596–1636?) was a Croatian Baroque composer, singer and musician. He was born in Rijeka (Fiume) and spent his youth there. He received his general and musical education in Graz (Austria) between 1606 and 1618. In that year he moved to the Alsatian town of Zabern (Saverne), where he was active as a clergyman, until he is lost from view in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War. His Op. 1, Parnassia Militia, contains 24 concertos (motets) for one, two, three and four voices or instruments with organ accompaniment, as well as four ricercari from two instruments (brass, apparently). It was published in Strasbourg by Paul Lederz. With grateful thanks to Lovro Županović for the additional information. 1994: Morten Lauridsen (born 1943) has been described as "the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic, [whose] probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered". His setting of O magnum mysterium is one of the crowning achievements of late 20th-century religious choral music and one of a handful of compositions that have made Lauridsen world-famous:
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Post by jk on May 2, 2023 3:06:16 GMT -5
1621: Dario Castello (bapt. 1602–1631) seems never to have left his birthplace Venice. Like Tarquinio Merula [ 1637], he was a member of the Venetian School, albeit a latecomer, and was instrumental in transforming the instrumental canzona into the sonata. A violinist himself, it can be deduced from the title page of the 1621 edition of Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro 1, that he led a Venetian company of piffari, a mobile band of musicians that could include sackbuts, cornetts and shawms but also violins and viols. From that first book, this is "Sonata Terza": 1995: Much like New Order with Power, Corruption & Lies and The Stone Roses [ 1988] with their self-titled debut, The Shamen's transition from psychedelic rock to EDM yielded a remarkable album, 1989's In Gorbachev We Trust. Three years later the Scottish outfit would top the UK singles charts with the irascible "Ebenezer Goode". So like Zapp [ 1983] and, it might be argued, Zappa [ 1986], The Shamen had already peaked before their entry in this project. Still, like Zapp(a), they didn't sink far. Indeed, Axis Mutatis displays a more detailed, trippy approach than before -- the lads liked their MDMA -- and positively shimmers at times. (The initial release added a second album, the all-instrumental Arbor Bona Arbor Mala.) This is "Prince Of Popocatapetl":
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Post by jk on May 3, 2023 4:02:27 GMT -5
1620: Giovanni Battista Riccio (late 16th century–after 1621) was a musician and composer of the early Baroque era. A native of Venice, Riccio contributed much to the development of instrumental forms, with a prominent role allotted to the recorder. His Terzo libro delle Divine Lodi, the last of his three published books of vocal and instrumental music, comprises thirty-six vocal works and a further twelve instrumental pieces mostly described as canzonas. Most feature two main instruments (recorder, cornetto, violin, trombone or sometimes contemporary bassoon or dulcian). The following canzona entitled "La Grimaneta con il tremolo" is one of the first pieces to make use of the tremolo technique for Flautin (recorder) and fagoto (bassoon): 1996: The life of the Ukrainian composer Julia Gomelskaya (1964–2016) was cruelly cut short by a car accident that also claimed the life of her husband. Ms Gomelskaya wrote for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal combinations. Her Memento Vitae is scored for one each of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone and harp, two percussion players and strings. " Memento Vitae encapsulates the idea of spiritual movement and the concept of the afterlife. In its nine minutes it presents a constant flurry of sounds from within the orchestra, with the composer utilizing all areas of the ensemble as well as some extended techniques, among the most prevalent being pitch-bending and flutter-tonguing. The most exciting parts of this work are the constant changes between very busy and much sparser sections. Ms Gomelskaya's use of tuned percussion makes these quieter sections much more atmospheric, with the vibraphone and tubular bells creating celestial effects. The choice of confining this music to a smaller orchestra means it is much more intense and concentrated in places. The work ends eerily with static strings and a simple melodic input from the winds before just drifting off." [ Source]
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Post by jk on May 4, 2023 3:20:32 GMT -5
1619: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621) was a Dutch composer, organist and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance era and the beginning of the Baroque. It is generally agreed that Sweelinck is the Netherlands' greatest composer. As such, he represents the highest development of the Dutch keyboard school and marks a pinnacle in keyboard contrapuntal complexity and refinement before J.S. Bach [ 1722] stole the show. He was also a skilled composer for voices and produced more than 250 vocal works (chansons, madrigals, motets and Psalms). The choir I used to accompany at rehearsals had his joyous "Hodie Christus natus est" in its repertoire: 1997: Like the Piero Piccioni track [ 1969], this and the next entry feature music I was introduced to by my blogger friend. Indeed, "Miss Modular" describes her rather well in the days when she analysed SMiLE to within an inch of its life. It comes from the blissed-out Stereolab album Dots and Loops. To expand on a sentence from the album's wiki, "Miss Modular" is built on a two-chord pattern augmented by brass arranged by High Llama Sean O'Hagan (then a band member who plays keyboards on the album) and sees co-founder Tim Gane using the guitar as a percussive element to complement Andy Ramsay's drumming:
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Post by jk on May 5, 2023 3:08:53 GMT -5
1618: Francesca Caccini (1587–after 1641) has the honour of likely being the first woman to write an opera. The 75-minute La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d’Alcina (premiered 1625) is the only one of at least sixteen staged works of hers to survive (it's on YouTube in numerous renditions). Her first published volume of works, however, was Il primo libro delle musiche of seven years earlier. Divided into two very large sections, the first, "spirituali", sets sacred texts including sonnets, madrigals, arias, motets and hymns. The second section, "temporali", consists of secular texts and lighter melodies. The songs are advanced in terms of both the breath control needed for their performance and the vocal range. Ms Caccini was very particular as to where the syllables of words were placed in relation to the harmonic development. "Lasciatemi qui solo" is the 12th piece in the book. Her use of ornament can be heard throughout this secular aria: 1998: It was my blogger friend who introduced me to the music from the Japanese anime television series Cowboy Bebop, which is regarded as one of the greatest animated TV series of all time. Credited with helping to introduce anime to a new wave of Western viewers in the early 2000s, Cowboy Bebop has been described as a gateway series for the genre as a whole. From the first, self-titled album from the series, this is "Rain" (music by Yoko Kanno, lyrics by Tim Jensen), sung by former New York Dolls guitarist and vocalist Steve Conte:
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Post by jk on May 7, 2023 5:06:02 GMT -5
1617: The German composer Michael Altenburg (1584–1640) studied theology at the University of Erfurt (near his birthplace Alach), where he was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1599 and a master's in 1603. After holding several teaching posts, he become a pastor. He began publishing music in his early thirties and was compared by his contemporaries to the great Orlando di Lasso (end of the month). Much of Altenburg's compositional output consists of vocal concertos, motets and chorales. His Gaudium Christianum is real wall-of-sound-stuff that would have made even Uncle Phil drool: 1999: Thea Musgrave (born 1928) is another of those contemporary British composers I avoided when living in the UK (luckily my perspective has changed since then). When questioned by the BBC on her view of being a woman composer Ms Musgrave replied, "Yes I am a woman, and I am a composer. But rarely at the same time." I've always had a soft spot for the viola. Traditionally one of the middle voices of the string ensemble with a lot of hard work to do and not much to show for it, its otherworldly timbre is endlessly fascinating, to say nothing of that additional fifth below the violin's G-string. Thankfully, many great composers have written works that feature the viola as a solo instrument, not least Thea Musgrave, whose Lamenting with Ariadne requires just eight players on flute, bass clarinet (later clarinet), trumpet, harp, percussion, violin, solo viola and cello: "At the beginning, imagine Ariadne and her companions standing on a lonely seashore watching a tall ship departing into the misty distance. Ariadne (represented by a solo viola) is desolate at the sudden unexplained departure of Theseus; she has outbursts of despairing anger. These two moods of desolation and anger alternate, with slow 'anchor chords' (always returning at the same pitches) separated by passionate cadenza-like passages. Ariadne's companions are unable to comfort her. "Then, in the distance, Dionysus (represented by an offstage trumpet) approaches. At first, Ariadne doesn't even hear him. Eventually he enters and the music suddenly changes; not only the tempo, which speeds up considerably, but also the instrumental colour: the bass clarinettist switches to clarinet and the percussionist changes from metals -- tam-tam, tubular bells, vibraphone and cymbals -- to the marimba, with its wooden slats. "Dionysus then invites each of the players to join in a whirling celebration and, in the end, even Ariadne is roused from her grief to take part with joy and abandon. As the trumpet and viola sing a duet together, the music rises to a climax. Then the viola's 'anchor chords' return transformed in a soft and serene coda." [ Source]
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Post by jk on May 8, 2023 2:46:33 GMT -5
1616: Domenico Belli (died 1627) was an Italian composer who worked at the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence between 1610 and 1613. He is best known for his setting of Pianto d'Orfeo (or Orfeo dolente) by the Genoese poet Gabriello Chiabrera as a set of five intermedii, performed between the acts of Torquato Tasso's play Aminta in Florence in 1616. According to The Gramophone in 2008, "There is no Charon [in Chiabrera's libretto], or indeed Eurydice, as the action begins after Orpheus has lost her": 2000: The music of the Frenchwoman Éliane Radigue (born 1932) is most succinctly described by these three enlightening YouTube comments on her Transamorem Transmortem, recorded by its composer in The Kitchen (NYC) on 6 March 1974: "I have found this sort of music extremely conducive to states of meditation and concentration recently but it has also strangely increased my appreciation of the sound of my central heating boiler and my refrigerator!" (Jason White) "It's actually difficult to imagine a piece being any more minimal than this and still having people want to hear it, but this turned out to be quite absorbing once I hit upon the perfect combination of volume and focused attention." (Crane MP) "There's a fine line between messing around at random on an analog synth and messing around with a definite purpose. Keep in mind that she was using an ARP 2500 modular synth -- no presets, takes an hour to set up and tweak a sound, etc; you can be sure that whatever she put down on tape is there for a reason." (moogyboy6) According to the IMA page linked above, "In 2000 [Ms Radigue] composed her last electronic work, L'île re-sonante [the Echoing Isle], which won her the Golden Nica at the Electronic Arts Festival in Linz in 2006":
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Post by jk on May 9, 2023 5:38:32 GMT -5
1615: Sethus Calvisius or Setho Calvisio, originally Seth Kalwitz (1556–1615), was a German music theorist, composer, chronologer and teacher of the late Renaissance. He was also a significant astronomer: in his Opus Chronologicum (first ed. Leipzig 1605), he expounded a system based on the records of nearly 300 eclipses. An ingenious, though ineffective, proposal for the reform of the calendar was put forward in his Elenchus Calendarii Gregoriani (Frankfurt, 1612); and he published a book on music, Melodiae condendae ratio (Erfurt, 1592). The choral works he composed include Der 150. Psalm Davids, published in Leipzig in 1615: 2001: The career of the prolific ambient composer Robert Rich (born 1963) got off to a curious start. At an early age, Rich thought he disliked music. Around age twelve, he began growing succulent plants as a hobby. He would leave a radio tuned to classical music for his plants. This experience influenced his interest in avant-garde and minimal composition. In 2001, he released Somnium, a 7-hour album divided into three tracks on one DVD video. For a brief period at the beginning there is a slightly more active texture while the listener adjusts the volume and settles down to sleep. As the music progresses it slowly drifts through a variety of electronic drones as well as acoustic source material and nature recordings. The third and final track gradually fades into a morning atmosphere filled with bird songs. You are advised to listen to it here; there are brief breaks between the six parts into which it is divided but there is no risk of intrusive ads, unlike on YouTube:
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Post by jk on May 10, 2023 9:07:23 GMT -5
1614: Robert Ballard II (c.1572 or 1575–after 1650) was a prominent French lutenist and composer and was probably born in Paris. His father, Robert Ballard Senior (c.1527–1588) was the head of the well-known music publishers Le Roy & Ballard, founded in 1551 with cousin Adrian Le Roy (a notable virtuoso lutenist and composer of the period). From 1612 he entered the service of the French Regent Maria de Medici and was tutor to the young King Louis XIII, becoming a lutenist and composer ( Musicien ordinaire du roi) at the royal court in 1618. He published two books of lute works: Premier Livre de tablature de luth (1611) and Diverses Pièces mises sur le luth (1614), from which this is "Huitiesme courante (L'Espagnolle)": 2002: Howard Skempton (born 1947) is an English composer, pianist and accordionist. Formative influences on Skempton's music included the works of Erik Satie [ 1893], John Cage [ 1942] and Morton Feldman [ 1970]. Since the late 1960s, when he helped to organize the Scratch Orchestra, he has been associated with the English school of experimental music. Skempton's work is characterized by a stripped-down, essentials-only choice of materials, an absence of formal development and a strong emphasis on melody. This is Rise up, my love for SATB chorus:
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