NOVEMBER 1
Death of PIERRE van MALDERE
1768 in Brussels
Flemish composer.In 1746 he wasw a violinist in the royal chapel at Brussels;he seems to have remained in its
service for most of his life,in spite of tours that took hin to Dublin(where he directed the Philharmonic Concerts
(1751-3),Paris,Vienna,and elsewhere.He was director of the Brussels Grand Theatre from 1762 to 1767.
Aprolific composer,he wrote several operas,symphonies,and chamber music.
http://youtu.be/YvcdM5Jnfys
Death of HUGO DISTLER
1942 in Berlin
German composer,choral conducter,organist and teacher.He was organist at St Jakobi in Lubeck.
His sympathy for early German masters such as Schutz and Lechner allowed him to coexist uneasily with the
Nazis,who found his music bordering on the unacceptably modern;and though he shared their enthusiasm
... for choral singing,his Lutheran faith invited official suspicion.Well-placed friends initially enabled hin to avoid
call-up;when in 1942 he received the order to join a panzer division,he commited suicide.
His output includes two harpsichord concertos and a number of organ works;the bulk of it is for chorus,
setting both religious and secular texts.
http://youtu.be/Q6YyTrdgtpE
Birth of JOHAN WAGENAAR
1862 in Utrecht
Dutch composer and teacher.After studying in Utrecht and Berlin he became a teacher at the Utrecht Music
School and in 1887 was appointed its director.From 1919 to 1937 he was director of the conservatory in
The Hague.His best-known work is probably the overture ''Cyrano de Bergerac''(1905),but he also wrote operas,cantatas,and the symphonic poem''Saul en David''(1906).
http://youtu.be/dmO4qb5fgJI
http://youtu.be/DUP_zSzro4M
* NOVEMBER 2
Birth of JOHN(Herbert)FOULDS
1880 in Mannchester
English composer and conductor.A cellist in the Halle Orchestra(1900-6),he left to concentrate on composition.
He was a composer of light music for the theatre,a silent-film pianist in France,and Director of European Music
for All-India Radio in Delhi until his death from cholera.He enjoyed success with his theatre scores and his gargantuan'A World Requiem'(1919-21).Influenced by theosophy,he went to India where he collected folksongs and attempted to syncretize Indian and Western musical practices. The results are evident in 'Three Mantras' for
orchestra with female voices ad lib and the'Symphony of East and West'and his penchant for experimental techniques can be observed in the 'Essays in the Modes' for piano(1920-7).He wrote'Music To-day(1934
http://youtu.be/1jcW-t8-yew
Death of MANUEL ROLAND]
1966 in Paris
French composer and critic.He studied with Roussel and Ravel,and after service in World War I was
influenced by the aesthetic associated with Les *Six.He composed five operas,ballets,film scores,orchestral
music,oratorios,chamber music and songs. He was also a popular broadcaster on music,a professor at the
Paris Conservatoire from 1947, an influential critic,and the author of biographies of Satie,Falla,and Ravel.
http://youtu.be/xkWTVXli50M
Death of JAKOB JOHANN WALTHER
1717 in Mainz
German violinist and composer.Very few facts about his life are known.His poetry,which is of considerable literary importance has been fairly well preserved;music for it,however,was written down only long after his death,and it is unlikely that much of it survives in its original form.His early lieder del mainly with courtly love,
in an attractive,unstilted way.Later he turned to composing 'Spruche'-songs dealing with political and topical matters-and became a master of that genre.
http://youtu.be/Y0oc4CHdb-4
* NOVEMBER 3
Birth of SAMUEL SCHEIDT
1587 in Halle
German composer.He served Halle as court organist,Kapellmeister,and,in 1627-30,director musices.At an
early age(possibly when only 16) he became organist at the Moritzkirche,and some five years later went
to Amsterdam to study with Sweelinck. In 1618 he joined Schutz and Michael Pretorius at Magdeburg for the
introduction of a modernized musical repertory at the cathedral;and in the following year,with the same colleagues and JohannStaden,he visited Bayreuth to dedicate a new organ at the Stadtkirche.
He is chiefly renowned for his three-volume ''Tabulatura nova(Hamburg,1624) a collection of keyboard
(mainly organ)pieces comprising,in the first two volumes,canons,fantasias,fugue
s,and variations and in the
third,settins based on plainchant for use at Mass and Vespers in 'high'Lutheran worship.His only other work
for organ solo,the'Goplitzer Tablaturuch',comprising 100 sacred songs and psalms,was probably intended either
for alternatim performances between hymn verses sung by the choir or congregation,or simply for accompanying congregational singing
http://youtu.be/KsSr9L0XCz8
Death of PIETRO GENERALI
1832 in Novara
Italian composer [ see October 23 entry]
http://youtu.be/OwfO5KBLxwg
Birth of VINCENZO BELLINI
1801 in Catania Sicily
http://youtu.be/dU0B99Risck
* NOVEMBER 4
Death of FELIX Jacob Ludwig MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY
1847 in Leipzig
German composer,the grandson of the well-known Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.Although Felix,his
brothers ,and two sisters were all brought up by their parents in the Christian faith,the family's commitment to learning,to the arts,and to a highly disciplined life undoubtedly owed much to Jewish tradition.When Hamburg
(his birth place)was occupied by the French in 1812 the family left the city and went to Berlin,where he was tutored in literacy subjects by Karl Heyse and,from 1817,in music by Carl Zelter,a friend of Goethe.
His first dated composition was a cantata(13 January 1820) and from then on he composed prolifically,his early works including three piano quartets,a piano sonata ,and four concertos.In 1825 he paid a second visit to Paris,where Cherubini recognized his talent.In 1826 he followed up the Octet with the overture to
''A Midsummer Night's Dream.Mendelssohn's determinatio was shown in the fight he made to be allowed to organize and conduct the first performances for a century of Bach's'St Matthew Passion'given twice before packed houses in March 1829.Fresh from this triumph,he began a series of journies throughout Europe,
travelling now apart from his family.His visit to Britain took him to many places,generating sketches for the
'Scottish'Symphony and the overture'The Hebrides'respectively.
With his return to Germany in September 1831,he entered on the life
t the age of 26,found a post where he could operate as a dependable functionary,though there is no evidence
that the brilliance was in any way dimmed..The appointment is sure to have pleased his father,who had expressed doubts over his son's propensity for writing frothy scherzos and wanted to see him settle to
something more solid.But in November 1835 Abraham died without having heard the completed oratorio ''St Paul'',
which thus became Mendelssohn's tribute to his memory.St Paul had its premiere in 1836 in Dussedorf,and that summer Mendelssohn met his future wife,Cecile Jeanrenaud,the daughter of a Frankfurt pastor.They married in
1837 and in that year he also gave the first performance of his Second Piano Concerto in D minor.
Until now his health had been excellent.But in January 1838 he suffered the first headaches and attacks of
prostration that were to plague him at irregular intervals for the rest of his life.Five children were born to him and his wife between 1838 and 1845.
The last years of his life were busy and fruitful,though his health again took a turn for the worse at the end of 1844.His incidental music to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,commissioned by the King of Prussia,was immediately
hailed as a masterpiece.In September 1844 he completed the Violin Concerto for his friend Ferdinand David.
In 1847 he made his tenth and last visit to England,conducting'Elijah' six times in the course of April,with choirs that were not uniformly responsive.Exhausted by these efforts,he was then dealt a terrible blow by the sudden
death in May of his beloved elder sister Fanny.His responce to this can be heard in the desperate torment of his F minor String Quartet,his last major work.He seemed to rally slightly during a brief holiday in September,but he died on November of a celebral haemorrhage,leaving unfinished an opera,''Loreley,''and an oratorio,''Christus''.
http://youtu.be/8mz5Rtx-Eu0
Death of CHARLES TOURNEMIRE
1939 in Arcachon
French composer and organist.He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Franck and Charles-Marie Widor,becoming organist of Ste Clotilde from 1898 until his death.He produced an immense quantity of
compositions in all forms,inspired by his Roman Catholic faith and love of nature.Early organ works include the
Franckian'Piece symphonique(1899) and Triple choral(1910),but these are overshadowed by eight orchestral symphonies and three operas,of which'Les Dieux sont morts'was prodused at the Paris Opera in 1924.
Lack of success in the concert world,however, led to a rebirth of organ composition on a huge scale with'L'Orgue
mystique(1927-32),a litutgical cycle for the entire Christian year based on a Gregorian chant.Its stylistic
eclecticism,formal fluidity,and bold explorations of harmony and texture owe much to Debussy,and in turn strongly influenced Messiaen.
http://youtu.be/8Er92U0XCLo
Death of JOSEPH CANTELOUBE
1957 in Paris
French composer and collector of folksongs.Anative of the Auvergne'he became a leading figure in the regionalist movement in France.In 1902 he met d'Indy,who became his teacher and shared his deep respect for folk music.As well as his celebrated 'Chants d'Auvergne,which appeared in five books between 1923 and 1954,
he published many collections of songs from various regions of France.Among his original works are two operas,Verlaine settings,and two orchestral song cycles dedicated to Maggie Teyte.
http://youtu.be/b_LUu45cHPc
Death of FAUSTINA BORDON
I 1781 in Venice
Italian mezzo-soprano.Her singing teacher was Michelangelo Gasparini.In 1716 she made her debut in Venice
in Pollarolo's'Ariodante'.For the following nine years she sang regularly there in operas by,among others,
Albinoni,Lotti,and Orlandini.After her German debut in 1723 in Munich,she was in demand in Germany as well as in Austria and England.She created five new roles in Handel's works,including'Alessandro' and'Admeto'
In London she also sang in a notorious performance of Bononcini's'Astianatte' in which a fight broke out
between her and her rival Francesca Cuzzoni. She was acclaimed in Milan and Rome,and in 1731 she and her husband,Johann Adolf Hasse,were engaged by the court in Dresden.There they achieved outstanding success,
Bordoni singing in over 15 of Hasse's operas.
http://youtu.be/cV9nhdhhHnI
* NOVEMBER 4
Death of FELIX Jacob Ludwig MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY
1847 in Leipzig
German composer,the grandson of the well-known Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.Although Felix,his
brothers ,and two sisters were all brought up by their parents in the Christian faith,the family's commitment to learning,to the arts,and to a highly disciplined life undoubtedly owed much to Jewish tradition.When Hamburg
(his birth place)was occupied by the French in 1812 the family left the city and went to Berlin,where he was tutored in literacy subjects by Karl Heyse and,from 1817,in music by Carl Zelter,a friend of Goethe.
His first dated composition was a cantata(13 January 1820) and from then on he composed prolifically,his early works including three piano quartets,a piano sonata ,and four concertos.In 1825 he paid a second visit to Paris,where Cherubini recognized his talent.In 1826 he followed up the Octet with the overture to
''A Midsummer Night's Dream.Mendelssohn's determinatio was shown in the fight he made to be allowed to organize and conduct the first performances for a century of Bach's'St Matthew Passion'given twice before packed houses in March 1829.Fresh from this triumph,he began a series of journies throughout Europe,
travelling now apart from his family.His visit to Britain took him to many places,generating sketches for the
'Scottish'Symphony and the overture'The Hebrides'respectively.
With his return to Germany in September 1831,he entered on the life
t the age of 26,found a post where he could operate as a dependable functionary,though there is no evidence
that the brilliance was in any way dimmed..The appointment is sure to have pleased his father,who had expressed doubts over his son's propensity for writing frothy scherzos and wanted to see him settle to
something more solid.But in November 1835 Abraham died without having heard the completed oratorio ''St Paul'',
which thus became Mendelssohn's tribute to his memory.St Paul had its premiere in 1836 in Dussedorf,and that summer Mendelssohn met his future wife,Cecile Jeanrenaud,the daughter of a Frankfurt pastor.They married in
1837 and in that year he also gave the first performance of his Second Piano Concerto in D minor.
Until now his health had been excellent.But in January 1838 he suffered the first headaches and attacks of
prostration that were to plague him at irregular intervals for the rest of his life.Five children were born to him and his wife between 1838 and 1845.
The last years of his life were busy and fruitful,though his health again took a turn for the worse at the end of 1844.His incidental music to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,commissioned by the King of Prussia,was immediately
hailed as a masterpiece.In September 1844 he completed the Violin Concerto for his friend Ferdinand David.
In 1847 he made his tenth and last visit to England,conducting'Elijah' six times in the course of April,with choirs that were not uniformly responsive.Exhausted by these efforts,he was then dealt a terrible blow by the sudden
death in May of his beloved elder sister Fanny.His responce to this can be heard in the desperate torment of his F minor String Quartet,his last major work.He seemed to rally slightly during a brief holiday in September,but he died on November of a celebral haemorrhage,leaving unfinished an opera,''Loreley,''and an oratorio,''Christus''.
http://youtu.be/8mz5Rtx-Eu0
Death of CHARLES TOURNEMIRE
1939 in Arcachon
French composer and organist.He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Franck and Charles-Marie Widor,becoming organist of Ste Clotilde from 1898 until his death.He produced an immense quantity of
compositions in all forms,inspired by his Roman Catholic faith and love of nature.Early organ works include the
Franckian'Piece symphonique(1899) and Triple choral(1910),but these are overshadowed by eight orchestral symphonies and three operas,of which'Les Dieux sont morts'was prodused at the Paris Opera in 1924.
Lack of success in the concert world,however, led to a rebirth of organ composition on a huge scale with'L'Orgue
mystique(1927-32),a litutgical cycle for the entire Christian year based on a Gregorian chant.Its stylistic
eclecticism,formal fluidity,and bold explorations of harmony and texture owe much to Debussy,and in turn strongly influenced Messiaen.
http://youtu.be/8Er92U0XCLo
Death of JOSEPH CANTELOUBE
1957 in Paris
French composer and collector of folksongs.Anative of the Auvergne'he became a leading figure in the regionalist movement in France.In 1902 he met d'Indy,who became his teacher and shared his deep respect for folk music.As well as his celebrated 'Chants d'Auvergne,which appeared in five books between 1923 and 1954,
he published many collections of songs from various regions of France.Among his original works are two operas,Verlaine settings,and two orchestral song cycles dedicated to Maggie Teyte.
http://youtu.be/b_LUu45cHPc
Death of FAUSTINA BORDON
I 1781 in Venice
Italian mezzo-soprano.Her singing teacher was Michelangelo Gasparini.In 1716 she made her debut in Venice
in Pollarolo's'Ariodante'.For the following nine years she sang regularly there in operas by,among others,
Albinoni,Lotti,and Orlandini.After her German debut in 1723 in Munich,she was in demand in Germany as well as in Austria and England.She created five new roles in Handel's works,including'Alessandro' and'Admeto'
In London she also sang in a notorious performance of Bononcini's'Astianatte' in which a fight broke out
between her and her rival Francesca Cuzzoni. She was acclaimed in Milan and Rome,and in 1731 she and her husband,Johann Adolf Hasse,were engaged by the court in Dresden.There they achieved outstanding success,
Bordoni singing in over 15 of Hasse's operas.
http://youtu.be/cV9nhdhhHnI
* NOVEMBER 5
5 Νοεμβρίου 1921 γεννιέται στη Βουδαπέστη ο πιανίστας Gyorgy Cziffra.
____________-
Death of VLADIMIR(Samoylovich)HOROWITZ
1989 in New York
Ukrainian-born American pianist.His international career began in the 1920s but from 1936 he began a series of retirements from the concert platform.His appearances were always sensational events for,in personifying the eccentric virtuoso,he captivated audiences with his steely control,powerful climaxes,and dazzling technique.Though less comfortable in Beethoven and notoriously unauthentic in Scarlatti he excelled in the great Romantics,particularly Liszt,Tchaikovsky,Rakhmaninov,
Prokofiev,and Skryabin,all composers whose music
accorded perfectly with his temperament.
http://youtu.be/XhnRIuGZ_dc
Death of FRANZ TUNDER
1667 in Lubeck
German composer.He began his career as organist to the Schleswig court and in 1621 was appointed organist to the Marienkirche in Lubeck.He is chiefly remembered as the founder of the series of ''Abendmusiken''(evening
concerts comprising a mixture of sacred vocal and organ music),which was later taken over by Buxtehude.
Only 17 of Tunder's vocal works survive:they include solo motets and early examples of the kind of chorale
cantata later developed by Bach.Notable among his organ music are four ground-breaking preludes and seven chorale fantasias in antiphonal style.His importance lies in his contribution to the various types of Lutheran
church music later cultivated by Bach.
http://youtu.be/PjUynXCsUIo
* NOVEMBER 6
Death of PYOTR IL'YICH TCHAIKOVSKY
1893 in St Petersburg
Russian composer.
Tchaikovsky once wrote that his whole life was spent 'regretting the past and hoping for the future,never being satisfied with the present'.This feeling of unease and dissatisfaction with life imbued much of his music,particularly in his later years,when the disasters of his personal life found expression in music of extraordinary emotional anguish and tragic drama.
Although as a child Tchaikovsky took piano lessons his family did not envisage a musical career for him,and at the age of ten he entered the St Petersburg School of Jurisprudence,where he studied until 1859.After a period working in the civil service he resumed his study of musicith the theorist Nikolay Zaremba(1821-79) in the classes of the newly formed Russian Musical Society.When these classes blossomed into the St Petersburg
Conservatory in 1862 Tchaikovsky enlolled so that he could continue studying with Zaremba;he also took
lessons in compositions(1863-5) from Anton Rubinstein,a composer whom he held in lasting respect.In 1866,on the invitation of Rubinstein's brother Nikolay,Tchaikovsky moved to Moscow to teach harmony at the conservatory there:he held this point until 1878.
From 1872 Tchaikovsky began to appear in print as a music critic for the newspaper 'Russkiye vedomosti ',and
in 1876 he was sent to Beyreuth to cover the 'Ring'.However,he reported that food was the prime concern of
Bayreuth patrons('there was much more talk of beafsteaks,cutlets,and roast potatoes tha of Wagner's music')
and he summed up his opinion of Wagner,glimpsed from an upstairs window,as 'a sprightly little old man with an aquiline nose and thin,supercilious lips-the characteristic trait of the initiator of this entire cosmopolitan festival'.
Tchaikovsky remained unaffected by Wagner's style,and instead his own music of this period shows a developing of that open,emotionally charged idiom which was to become so familiar in his mature music
In the late 1870s Tchaikovsky's personal life and his creative career reached a watershed.He had long yearned for a settled domestic life;he was also haunted by feelins of guilt about his homosexuality,to which he had been giving covert expression in his letters and writings;and as a result he longed to free his family from any shame
and embarrassment at the prevailing rumours about his proclivities.By chance,in spring 1877 he received a letter brom a young admirer,Antonina Milyukova.At the time he was fired with enthusiasm for his opera 'Eugene
Onegin',and thoughts of the famous Letter Scene urged him to follow up Antonina's ptotestations of love.
They were married in July 1877,but within days of the wedding he was finding his wife'abolutely repugnant' and
living a life of torment.He swiftly found that mariagge required a commitment into which he was quite unable to enter,and he was tbe plagued with problems of separation and divorce proccedins for many years to come.
About the time of his marriage Tchaikovsky entered into a curious epistolary relationship with Nadezhda von Meck,who in 1876 had written him an admiring letter.Although(or perhaps because) they never met,Tchaikovsky poured out his innermost feelings to Madame von Meck in hundreds of letters,which have become an invaluable guide both to his creative processes and to his state of mind. Apart from providing him with an outlet for his thoughts,Mme von Meck also gave him a degree of security by settling on him a substantial allowance,though this was terminated in 1890 when she wrote to him declaring that she was bankrupt.Tchaikovsky was plunged into increasing depression at the abrupt breach in their distant frienship.His
last works were tinged with gloom,highlighted in such works as the opressive Sixth Symphony(Pathetique,1893).
Tchaikovsky died just nine days after he had conducted the premiere of the Sixth Symphony,when he was apparently in good health.According to the official account of his death he had contracted cholera by drinking unboiled water,but various rumours to the contrary have always had greater imaginative appeal: if suicide
were assumed,then the 'Pathetique'could be understood as the composer's own requiem,a la Mozart.
In the early 1980sAleksandra Orlova suggested that Tchaikovsky deliberately poisoned himself(possibly with arsenic) at the behest of a court of honour which had met to assess the implications og his alleged relationshi
with a male member of the imperial family.In the 1990s,however,this theory met a serious challenge from the painstaking scholarship of Aleksandr Poznansky,which effectively reinstated the official account;the debate
continues.
His works include operas,ballets,seven symphonies,four suites,symphonic fantasies,fantasy-overtures,
symphonic ballads,three piano concertos,and some smaller pieces for solo instruments and orchestra,
chamber,vocal duets, cantatas,church music,part songs.......
http://youtu.be/kHYwVfN3wY4
http://youtu.be/7PtIHBCuR-Q
http://youtu.be/xp8UNtzrq8s
http://youtu.be/9J2S4enmV4I
Death of HEINRICH SCHUTZ
1672 in Dresden
German composer.The leading figure in 17th-century German music,he was productive in nearly every branch
of composition except independed instrumental music.Together with Michael Pretorius and with his immediate contemporaries,Schein and Scheidt he played a crucial role in introducing into his native country the new Italian styles of the period,thus providing much of the initial impetus for the musicalBaroque in Germany.
In1598,when he was barely 13 ,the family inn at Weissenfels was vizited by the Landgrave Moritz of Hessen-Kassel who,greatly attracted by the boy's singing,engaged him as a chorister in his chapel and provided for his education at the Gymnasium in Kassel On his return home in 1613 he resumed his former place at Kassel and was appointed second organist with a modest salary
In 1619 he married Magdalena Wildeck,byt only six years later she died,leaving the composer with daughters,whom he entrusted to the care of their maternal grandmother.Shortly afterwards he returned to
Venice,where he learned,possibli from Monteverdi in person,the new techniques of composition which had developed there since the previous visit.Most of his work is contained in 13 printed collections,published
during his lifetime and mainly under his personal supervision.
Only one of Schutz's'historiae'(portrayals
in music of dramatic biblical accounts) was published complete in his lifetime,the ''Resurrection History''(1623),a beautiful setting of an Easter text compiled from all four gospels
The Christmas History(1664),of all his works the most overtly popular in style,was at first published incomplete,
with only the role of the Evangelist printed
http://youtu.be/gyQAkKHvBFo
Death of GERMAINE(Marcelle)TAILLEFERRE
1983 in Paris
French composer.She studied at the Paris Conservatoire and with Ravel,and spent most of her life as a composer,pianist,and teacher in France,except for a period in the USA between 1942 and 1946.
Early in her career she became a member of Les *Six,collaborating with the others on the piano'Album
des Six'(published 1920) and the ballet 'Les Maries de la Tour Eifell(1921)
Her output includes operas,ballets,many film scores,chamber music and songs.
http://youtu.be/-QqK04-JaHM
* NOVEMBER 7
Birth of WILLIAM ALWYN
1905 in Northampton
English composer,flautist,and teacher.He studied under J.B.McEwen at the RAM(1920-3),where he later taught composition(1926-55) In 1926 he joined the LSO as a flutist.After 1939 his creative output was dominated by five symphonies,together with operas,songs,and chamber pieces.He also produced scores for over 120 documentary films and 69 feature films.
http://youtu.be/TooYPQtVUik
Death of MATTIA BATTISTINI 1928 in Colle Baccaro,nr Rieti
Italian baritone.He studied with Venceslao Persichini and Eugenio Terziana and made his debut as Alfonso
XI in ''La favorita in Rome(1878).He soon became famous for his vocal strength,nobility,and characterization,
his mastery of bel canto phrasing,and his virtuoso agility.With a repertory of over 80 roles,he was particularly
acclaimed in parts as varied as Rigoletto,Boccanegra,Iago,Rena
to,Eugene Onegin,Don Giovanni,Tonio,Scarpia,
and Wolfram.Between 1903 and 1924 he recorded prolifically
http://youtu.be/CnkB1eS2sjI
Birth of MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH IPPOLITOV-IVANOV
1859 in Gatchina
Russian composer and conductor.He was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov at the St Perersburg Conservatory,
graduating in 1882.From 1882 to 1893 he lived in Tbilisi,directing the local division of the Russian Music Society and teaching.From 1893 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory,of which he was director from 1905 to 1922,and he simultaneously worked as an opera conductor.His music is heavily influenced by The Five,especially by the orientalist aspect of their style,and also,to a lesser extent,by Tchaikovsky. He
composed several operas,including the three missing acts for Musorgsky's''Marriage''(1931),
chamber ensembles
a symphony,and many programmatic orchestral works on oriental themes.
http://youtu.be/pl2fFnicm5o
Death of KARL GOTTLIED REISSIGER
1859 in Dresden
German composer.His opera ''Didone abbandonata''(1824) was given with some success in Dresden by Weber,
whom he succeeded as director of the Hofoper in 1826,becoming Hofkapellmeeister in 1828.He conducted the
succeesful premiere of Rienzi in 1842,but then antagonized Wagner by refusing to set his libretto ''Die bobe Braut''.His own most successful operas were ''Die Felsenmuble zu Etalieres''(1831),an old-fashioned rescue opera both containing a mixture of German,French,and Italian influences.The latter was generously praised
by Schumann.
http://youtu.be/EpzhrlQytn4
* NOVEMBER 8
Death of ANTON RUBINSTEIN
1894 in Peterhof nr St Petersburg
Russian composer and pianist.As a pianist he was a child prodigy,travelling widely throughout Europe before being appointed,at the age of 19,pianist to the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna.Under the grand duchess's patronage Rubinstein founded the Russian Musical Society in 1859,and then in 1862 the St Petersburg Conservatory,of which he was director until 1867,and again from 1887 to 1891.
Like his brother Nikolay,Anton was a stimulating and often exacting teacher,and he was revered by Tchaikovsky,who had studied under him at the conservatory.In all Rubinstein wrote 20 operas,and composed
a good deal of piano and chamber music,songs,and orchestral works,including five piano concertos.
Yet he is perhaps remembered chiefly for his work in music education,and during his time at the St Petersburg Conservatory he did much to raise standards of performance in Russia.
http://youtu.be/wNhX01wHcBg
Death of SERGEY MIKHAYLOVICH LYAPUNOV
1924 in Paris
Russian composer and pianist.He studied at the Moscow Conservatory.Later he moved to St Petersburg,where
he came under the influence of Balakirev,hence his many virtuoso piano pieces in the Lisztian tradition,and his symphonies set firmly in the mould established by the Five.
He taught the piano and composition at the St Petersburg Conservatory until 1923,when he left Russia on the pretext of a European concert tour. He died from a heart attack just before one of his concerts and was buried
in Paris.
http://youtu.be/kYO-0r0S1nk
Death of CESAR FRANCK
1890 in Paris
Belgian-born French composer.The son of a banker,he and his younger brother Joseph were both driven towards a musical career by their father,who arranged a concert tour for Cesar when he was only 11.The family moved to Paris in 1836 with a view to Cesar's entering the Conservatoire,which he did the following year.
He studied both composition and the piano and achieved distinction as a writer of fugues.In 1842 his father removed him from the Conservatoire,intending him for a career as a piano virtuoso,in obvious imitation of Liszt.
It was at this time that he composed his First Piano Trio,much admired by various critics and later by d'Indy.
Franck,however,met with little success and for some years had a difficult time,earning his living by teaching and giving recitals;he married in 1848 during the Revolution.Growing fame led to his appointment in 1872 as professor of organ at the Conservatoir.Subsequently he produced a steady stream of compositions until the end of his life.
Franck did make a few attempts to reach the operatic stage-'de rigueur'for any French composer seeking real success.Fragments from the opera''Hulda'',on a subject from Nordic mythology,were given in his lifetime,but it was staged complete only posthumously.His orchestration owes something to the organ loft,his piano writing to the enormous hands which allowed him to create large organistic sonorities:both are extremely effective.
His formal pupils included d'Indy,Vierne,and Lekeu,and both Bizet and Debussy attended his classes for a short time.Franck died as a result of a road accident,having been struck by a horse-bus.
http://youtu.be/1a11YheB2zM
* NOVEMBER 9
Death of EGON WELLESZ
1974 in Vienna
Austrian composer and musicologist.He studiedat the University of Vienna(1895-1908),and had private music
lessons with Schoenberg(1905-6)He remained a member of Schoenberg's circle,published the first book on the composer,and adopted serial methods in his music,on which Strauss was also an important influence.From 1913 to 1938 Wellesz taught at the University of Vienna. In 1939 he settled in Oxford,where he was appointed reader in Byzantine music.He continued to compose,writing a set of nine symphonies and a Violin Concerto(1961)
and re-examining tonality by way of Mahler and Bruckner.Besides his study of Schoenberg,he wrote'Eastern
Elements in Western Chant(Boston,1947) and 'A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography(London,1963).
http://youtu.be/2rC103Ornjg
Death of CARL STAMITZ
1801 in Jena
Composer and instrumentalist of Bohemian origin,son of Johann Stamitz.He was brought up at the court of Mannheim and was given his first musical instruction by his father,whose influence,though curtailed by his early death was doudtless embodied in the teaching of his successors Christian Cannabich,Ignaz Holzbauer,and F.X.Richter.In 1762 Carl became a second violinist in the court orchestra,where he remained until his departure for Paris in 1770.
In 1771 Stamitz began to pursue a somewhat perilous career as an itinerant virtuoso on the violin,viola,and viola d'amore,visiting London and the Hague;in the 1780s he travelled widely in Germany without securing any permanent post until 1789,when he took charge of a concert series in Kassel for a yearAfter settling in Greiz for a few years,in 1795 he moved with his family to Jena,where he had a post as Kapellmeister and music teacher.Neither permanent employment nor continued commissions and the sale of compositions were
sufficient to keep him out of debt,and his effects had to be auctioned at his death.
http://youtu.be/tGGzxgB0I2g
http://youtu.be/72M_z0YSBDM (Απο : Nikos Dotsikas)
Birth of ANNA AMALIA of Prussia
1723 in Berlin
German music patron and composer,the youngest sister of Frederick the Great.She was taught music by the cathedral organist,Gottlieb Heyne(1684-1758),and became a competent player of stringed keyboard instruments as well as the organ;she may also have played the violin,lute,and flute.She studied composition with J.P.Kirnbergeand wrote a Passion oratorio,''Der Tod Jesu'' to a libretto by the poet K.W.Ramler.Her musical soirees attracted illustrious artists from all over Europe,though she increasingly disliked the more modern styles of her time.She left an extensive music library,now in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek,Berlin.
http://youtu.be/MEu1a2sfr1w
Birth of Rudolf Karel ( 1880 in Pilsen - murdered March 6, 1945 in Theresienstadt) Rudolf Karel was a distinguished Czech composer.
Rudolf Karel was son of a poor railway employee. He studied composition from 1899 to 1904 with Antonín Dvořák and organ with Josef Klička in Prague. In Prague, he took part in the resistance and in the March 1943 was arrested.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Karel
http://youtu.be/FHZSaWR9pdU
* NOVEMBER 10
François Couperin (10 Νοεμβρίου 1668 – 11 Σεπτεμβρίου 1733) το τρίτο από τα περίφημα "Βασιλικά κοντσἐρτα" του γραμμένα για την αυλή του βασιλιά Λουδοβίκου ΙΔ'.
1. Prélude : Lentement
2. Allemande : Légèrement
3. Courante
4. Sarabande : Grave
5. Gavotte
6. Muzette : Naivement
7. Chaconne légère
3. François Couperin (1668-1733) - Troisième Concert en La majeur et mineur
http://youtu.be/7BPNeolOUrE
Birth of HENRI RABAUD
1873 in Paris
French composer,conductor,and administrator.He was the grandson of the celebrated flautist Louis Dorus
and his father was a professional cellist.A pupil of Massenet and Gedalge,he showed prodigious talent as a
student and remained faithful to his teachers' 19th century ideals all his life.His greatest successes as a
composer were the oratorio 'Job'(1900) and his opera'Marouf,savetier de Caire(1914);he wrote five other operas,symphonies,and film scores,his style appropriately dubbed'advanced Wagnerianism'.He frequenty
conducted at the Opera and the Opera Comique,but his main influence on French music was exerted,
perhaps,by his prolonged spell as director of the Paris Conservatoire(1922-41),where he succeeded Faure.
http://youtu.be/RYWgdm7uPfM
* NOVEMBER 11
Death of BARBARA STROZZI
1677 in Venice
Italian composer and singer.She was the adopted(perhaps illegitimate)daughter of the Venetian poet
Giulio Strozzi,and in her life occupied a difficult space somewhere between patron and courtesan.She was known
in Venetian intellectual circles both of her beauty and for her singing;she was also a prominent member of her father's Accademia degli Unisoni.She studied with Cavalli,and her eight published volumes of music comprise chiefly arias and cantatas for solo voice that are splendid contributions to developing forms and styles
http://youtu.be/aDBPfhG-gVk
Death of Sir EDWARD GERMAN
1936 in London
English composer.He studied the organ,violin and piano at the RAM(1880-7),then supported himself by playing
in theatre orchestras and conducting.He first attracted attention with incidental music for 'HenryVIII(1892) and
'English Nell(1900),together with the orchestral'Gipsy Suite(1892) and 'Symphonic Suite(1894).In 1901 he completed Sullivan's last comic opera,'The Emerald Isle,and he confirmed his position as Sullivan's heir with his
comic opera''Merrie England (1902),an Elizabethan extravaganza set to tuneful and effective music.Of his later works in this manner only 'Tom Jones(1907) enjoyed much success.He also wrote two symphonies and other serious orchestral works as well as such songs as 'Glorious Devon'(1905).
http://youtu.be/wjwPZ_MSK1o
* NOVEMBER 12
Death of WALTER PISTON
1976 in Belmont,MA
American composer.He first studied art,then turned to music and went to Harvad University,graduating in 1924.He spent two years in Paris as a pupil of Nandia Boulanger before returning to Harvard as a lecturer
and later professor(1944-59).Adiscipline
craftsman,he wrote influential textbooks of harmony,counterpoint
and orchestration,while in his music he consistently followed the neo-classical aims of the Boulanger school,preferring clear,sober musical argument to any kind of display.His output included eight symphonies,chamber pieces of various kinds,and a ballet,'The Incredible Flutist(1938).
http://youtu.be/Hjc19jEbEkQ
Death of UMBERTO GIORDANO
1948 in Milan
Italian composer.He studied at the Naples Conservatory,and in 1899,while still a student,won sixth prize in
a one-act opera competition sponsored by the publisher Sonzogno(the winner was Mascagni's'Cavalleria
rusticana).This led to further commissions,among which the most successful was 'Andrea Chenier'(1896),
one of bthe few verismo operas to remain in the repertory(chiefly as a vehicle for star tenors).Several further
operas now find occational revival,including'Fedora(Milan
,1898,on a play by Victorien Sardou)and 'Siberia
(La Scala,Milan,1903).'Andrea Chenier and 'Siberia'had librettos by Luigi Illica,the co-librettist of Puccini's
greatest successes of about the same period.Giordano's later operas were less well received,though
La cena delle beffe(La Scala,1924) is still sometimes seen.
http://youtu.be/ksVF282Poyo
* NOVEMBER 13
Death of NICOLAS(Nikolay Karlovich)MEDTNER
1951 in London
Russian composer and pianist.He studied the piano at the MoscowConservatory graduating in 1900.After a
career as a touring recitalist he settled in Moscow,teaching the piano at the conservatory(1909-10,1914-21)
and also widening his activities as a composer.He wrote much piano music,songs,three piano concertos,and a little chamber music.Brahms was a cinsiderabl influence on his piano music.His popularity as a pianist in Russia coincided with that of Rakhmaninov:both appeared to immense acclaim before the Revolution,but in 1927 Prokofiev noted sympathetically that his own return to the USSR had eclipsed Medtler's recital tour,which passed virtually unnoticed.
He was also highly regarded abroad;he settled in Paris in 1925 but was unimpressed by musical life there and
moved to London in 1935.A new generation of virtuoso pianists has rediscovered the individuality of his music in which,as the conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov has posted,expressive elaboration always remains part of the
essential design.
http://youtu.be/c2Qez1WB4hQ
* NOVEMBER 13
Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin(12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Borodin
Birth of MARGUERITE LONG
1874 in Nimes
French pianist.She won a first prize at the Paris Conservatoire in 1891,then studied with Antonin Marmontel.
She taught at the Conservatoire,1906-40,and in 1920,after a long campaign,took over a senior class on the death of Louis Diemer.Among the pupils there,and at her own school which she opened in 1941,were Jean
Doyen,Jacques Fevrier,Gaby Casadesus,and Gabriel Tacchino.
Her playing,coming mostly from the finger,knuckle,and wrist,was light and sparkling rather than powerful,and
she gave first performance of Ravel's 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' and G major Concerto.As a person,she
roused strong emotions,for and against.
http://youtu.be/bz7TREqNiFs
Birth of GEORGE CHADWICK
1854 in Lowell,MA
American composer and teacher.After starting a career in business he went,at the age of 23,to Germany to
study music.He returned to Boston in 1880,joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory two years
later,and stayed there as director from 1897 until his death.His works,in the highly traditional,German-influenced New England style,include three symphonies five quarters,and choral pieces.
http://youtu.be/qDKTLUQ6R2c
Death of GIOACHINO ANTONIO ROSSINI
1868 in Passy
Italian composer.His father was a trumpeter and horn player,his mother a singer.Both toured the theatres of
the Romagna,and from an early age Gioachino,their only child,accompanied them.The family moved in 1802 to Lugo,and two years later to Bologna,where with private tuition Rossini made rapid progress on the horn and
keyboard,and especially as a snger.
In 1806 he was admitted on the strength of his singing to membership of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna,a great honour for one so young.Earlier the same year he entered the Liceo of Bologna and the famous counterpoint class of Padre Mattei;there he emmersed himself in the music of Haydn and Mozart,
and two years later a cantata on the ''Lament of Harmony on the Death of Orpheus''won him a prize.
His first opera,''Demetrio e Polibio'',was composed for the Mombelli family,probablyin about 1810,but was not performed until 1812.
In 1813 he achieved a still greater double triumph in Venice with the heroic''Tancredi'' and the comic
''L'italiana in Algeri,both of which eventually carried his name far beyond Italy.In 1815 he signed a long-tercontract with Domenico Barbaia, impressario of the Neapolitan S.Carlo and Fondo theatres,to assume the musical directorship of both venues,with the obligation to produce annually a new opera at each.
This post effectively placed Rossini in the same position at Eszterhaza,with a captive audience before whom he
could experiment;at the same time it left him free to accept commissions
He married the prima donna Isabella Colbran,with he was to make a triumphal tour to Vienna in 1822 together
with Barbaia's Neapolitan troupe.There he met Beethoven and attended performances of both the 'Eroica'
Symphony and Weber's'Der Freischutz.On his return he composed his last opera for Italy,'Semiramide'
(Venice,1823).Late in 1823 he travelled to Paris and then to England,where he stayed for eight months,
visiting Brighton and Cambridge but spending most of his time in London.While in London he signed a
contract with the French goverment,and on his return to Paris he took up the post of music director of the
Theatre Italien.Rossini's fame and influence were now at their zenith.He left Paris for Bologna,where he had built himself a villa,intending to return the following year for a new opera on the subject of Faust.But in the
meantime the Bourbon monarchy had been overthrown,the Opera had changed hands,and former
commitments were diswned.
He had parted from his first wife,who died in 1845,leaving him free to marry Olympe Pelissier,who had nursed him for over a decate through bouts of ill health that were becoming increasingly frequent.
Rossini used to describe himself as 'the last of the classicists'.Yet though he never fully entered the world
of Italian Romanticism he was in a sense its architect.The plan of cantabiles,cabalettas,multimovement duets,
and finales that served Bellini,Donizetti,and the young Verdi had been defined by him.
To the modern listener,for whom Wagner's way with opera is not the only one,Rossini has much to offer,in both serious and comic works:melodic vitality,anunerring sense of proportion,and in the case of 'Moise'and'Guillaume Tell' moments of unforced grandeur worthy of a late Haydn mass.
http://youtu.be/7KWS7Zd8GJ4
http://youtu.be/IzvGGy3NJ4k
http://youtu.be/xQ6MBf7XjdA
* NOVEMBER 14
Death of CHRISTOPH BERNHARD
1692 in Dresden
German composer and theorist. In 1649 he became a singer in the court chapel of Dresden under Schutz.
Although disappointed at his lah of promotion,because of a strong prejudice in favour of Italians,he stayed in Dresden for most of his life,eventually becoming Kapellmeister.Schutz asked that Bernhard should compose a funeral motet for him,and this was performed at the ceremony in 1672.Bernhard is most important for his
musical treatises,and especially for his classification of the styles of Baroque music
http://youtu.be/_GV7QA3qjM0
Birth of AARON COPLAND
1900 in Brooklyn,New York
American composer.The son of immigrant Jewish parents from Lithuania,he learnt the piano from the age of 13 and had theory lessons from Rubin Goldmark.He then studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1921-4)and,as one
of her American pupils,gained a facility for neo-classicism which he skilfully and brashly combined with jazz in his Piano Concerto(1926).This aqnd other early works,including the 'Dance Symphony'(1925) and Piano Variations(1930),quickly gained him a reputation in America as a daring modernist.He taught at the New School for Social Research in New York(1927-37)and did much to promote contemporary music in the city:to the endof his professional life he was exceptionally generous to other composers.
His output includes a series of ballets,symphonies,an opera(The Tender Land),songs,a piano quartet,and piano fantasy.''Appalachian Spring,originally a chamber score for Martha Graham,gained enormous popurarity in its orchestral version and proved that Copland had indeed found an American style,spare in harmony and sensitively coloured.He taught composition at Tanglewood(1940-65) and appeared internationally as a conductor of his own music and that of younger Americans from 1965 until the early 1970s,the period of his last compositions:Night Thoughts' for piano(1972)and Two Threnodies for flute and string trio(1971-3).His later years were clouded by mental decline.
http://youtu.be/XiLTwtuBi-o
Death of MANUEL de FALLA 1946 in Alta Gracia,Argentina
Spanish composer.After studying the piano at the Madrid Conservatory in the mid-1890s he tried to establish himself as a composer of zarzauelas.Of much greater importance to his development was the friendship of Felipe Pedrell,from whom he took composition lessons,1901-4.His influence was decisive,and Falla was able to
overtake his teacher in the short opera''La vida breve'',to a libretto by Carlos Fernandez Shaw,which also owes something in theme,content,and musical ambience to Geronimo Gimenez's one-act zarzuela''La tempranica(1900).In spite of its uneven musical quality'La vida breve,in two short acts,is the first of Falla's works to reveal
his personality,in its imaginative,atmospheric scoring as much as its driving Spanish rhythms and brooding melody.'La vida breve'was not produced until 1913,when it was warmly received in France,and especially in Madrid.Falla,however,had alredy left Spain,moving to Paris in 1907,where he lived in straitened circumstances until the financial success of the opera.There he was befriended by Debussy,Ravel,and Dukas,and the four
'Pieces espagnoles'for piano solo(1909)reflect their influence.
At the outbreak of World War I Falla returned to Spain,where he wrote two ballet scores,'El amor brujo and 'El
sombrero de tres picos.In 1920 he went to live in Granada.The major works of his Spanish neo-classical period are the one-act chamber opera'El retablo de Maese Pedro' and the Concerto for Harpsichord and five instruments(1923-26)
Most of the remaining 20 years of Falla's life were devoted to work on the'cantata scenica'Atlantida,a setting of the Catalan poet Jacint Verdaguer's epic retelling of the destruction of Atlantis and foundation of Spain,which remained unfinished at his death.Ill,and unhappy with the political state of Spain under Franco,Falla emigrated in 1939 to Argentina,where he published his last orchestral score'Homenajes'(1920-38),a collection of pieces written over the years to commemorate E.F.Arbos,Debussy,Dukas,and Pedrell,and orchestrated for publication in 1939.The fact that Falla's reputation continues to grow,in spite of the limited size of his published output,
testifies to the quality and diversity of his creative work.
http://youtu.be/Z4ayc6Fb3hI
http://youtu.be/Ftd8tIdiYq4
Birth of JOHANN NEPOMUK HUMMEL
1778 in Pressburg[now Bratislava]
Austrian composer and pianist.In 1785 his family moved to Vienna,where he gained useful experience through his father's post as director of the Theater auf der Wieden.An infant prodigy,he impressed Mozart,who gave him lessons.A four -year concert tour with his father took him through Bohemia,Germany,Denmark,and Britain.
He4 was in London from 1790 to 1792 but returned in 1793 to Vienna,where he studied with Salieri and Haydn,and began his close and sometimes stormy relationship with Beethoven;they were to be both friends and rivals until Beethoven's death.In 1804 Haydn recommended Hammel as Konzertmeister to Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy at Eisenstadt; he was eventually dismissed in 1811 when he returned to Vienna. In 1813 he married the singer Elisabeth Rockel,whose encouragement led to his triumphant return to the concert platform in 1814 in time for the Congress of Vienna.After an unsatisfactory sojourn as Kapellmeister in Stuttgart,he moved to Weimar in 1818. He remained there until his death,though he continued to tour widely.He was finally reconciled
to Beethoven,at whose wish he improvised at the funeral concert,and his fried
http://youtu.be/vihBwt6suqE
Death of IGNACE JOSEPH PLEYEL
1831 in Paris.
Austrian composer,publisher and piano manufacturer.From about 1722 he studied with Haydn at Eisenstadt,where he remained for about five years.During this time his puppet opera 'Die Fee Urgele'was
performed at Eszterhaza(1776) and at the Vienna Nationaltheater.Later he became Kapellmeister to Count
Erdody,to whom he dedicated his String Quartets(1782) He travelled in Italy in the early 1780s and,through
the services of the composer Norbert Hadrava,was commissioned to write some pieces and the opera'Ifigenia in Aulide(1785).On his returnto Strasbourg he became the cathedralKapellmeister in 1789.He spent some months in London in 1791-2,conducting the Professional Concert,and then returned to Strasbourg where he was arrested for suspected pro-Austrian or aristocratic sympathies.He was released only after he had written a patriotic hymn.In 1795 Pleyel set up as a music publisher in Paris,founding a piano factory in 1807.The firm
issued the first miniature scores ,a series entitled'Bibliotheque musicale',beginning with four of Haydn's symphonies and continuing with chamber works by Beethoven,Hummel,and others.
http://youtu.be/WnYfxim2v_M
Birth of GASPARE(Luigi Pacifico)SPONTINI
1774 in Maiolati,nr Ancona
Italian composer.He came from a peasant family and at first was destined for the Church,but his parents were persuaded to allow him to study at one of the Neapolitan conservatories.In 1796 he had success in Rome with
a comic opera,following it up with several others in Palermo,where the Naples court had fled to avoid the French
invasion.
In 1803 Spontini went to Paris where his operas became popular at the Theatre Italien;but it was not well
received in 'opera comique'.He learnt a geat deal from the operas of Gluck,and 'La Vestale'combined that peculiarly French taste in classical drama and romantic attitudes to such effect that it was one of the greatest successes of its time.He was immediately taken up by the Empress Josephine,and after a second opera in the same manner,''Fernand Cortez(1809)'',he became the major figure in French music,conducting the official Italian opera and composing various political'pieces d'occasion'.
In 1814 Spontini came to the notice of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia,who tempted him with an enormous salary to become chief Kapellmeinster in Berlin,and achieved a reputation as a conductor.He was pensioned off to retire,first to Paris,later to his native village.
http://youtu.be/gaFI0f-ieYI
Birth of LEONIE RYSANEK
1926 in Vienna
Austrian soprano.She studied in Vienna and sang in Innsbruck before making her Beyreuth debut as Sieglinde
(in Die Walkure) in 1951,establishing herself immediately as one of the finesr postwar Wagner sopranos.
At the Bavarian State Opera in 1953 she sang the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten,the first of a series of definitive Strauss assumptions which included Chrysothemis (in Elektra).She joined the Vienna State Opera
in 1954In 1959 Rysanek took New York by storm when she stood in at short notice for the indisposed Maria
Callas as Lady Macbeth;she remained a favourite at the Metropolitan Opera,where she also frequently appeared in the Italian repertory and later gave outstanding performances.Towards the end of her 40-year
career she sang dramatic mezzo-soprano roles.
A singing actress of often overwhelming force,she was famous for a voluptious beauty of tone,particularly
in her voice's upper registers,and for the emotional intensity of her performances.
http://youtu.be/x2TzKC67o9I
* NOVEMBER 15
Death of ALEXANDRE TANSMAN
1986 in Paris.
Polish-born French composer.He studied composition with Wojciech Gawronski and Piotr Rytel at Warsaw
University(1915-19),then moved permanently to Paris.There he was deeply influenced by Stravinskian neo-classicism,which he combined in his music with Polish and Jewish elements.His output included eight symphonies
and other orchestral pieces,ballets,operas,and choral works.He toured widely as a conductor and pianist,and wrote'Igor Stravinsky:The Man and his Music(New York, 1949).
http://youtu.be/6Ebb9gLpNZU
Death of FRITZ REINER
1963 in New York
Hungarian-born American conductor.Initially trained as a composer at the Liszt Academy in Budapest,he
became a repetiteur at the Budapest Opera in 1909;he was catapulted to stardom the same year,taking
over a performance of 'Carmen' at short notice when the scheduled conductor fell ill.In 1914 he was
appointed conductor of the Dresden State Opera,where he gave the German premiere of Strauss's 'Die Frau
ohne Schatten(1919).
In 1922 Reiner was invited to the USA by the Cincinnati Symphony,with which he remained until 1931,
subsequently conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra(1931-8) and the Pittsburgh Symphony(1938-48) before
becoming music director of the Metropolitan Opera,New York(1948-53),where his interpretations of Mozart,Wagner,and Strauss became legendary.From 1953 until his death he was conductor of the Chicago Symphony.
http://youtu.be/mgaS9CZ7KsQ
* NOVEMBER 16
Birth of PAUL HINDERMITH
1895 in Hanau
German composer.A gifted child,he entered the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt as a scholarship pupil at the
age of 12 where he was taught composition.He spent a period of employment in the orchestra at the Frankfurt Opera and also played second violin in the quartet of his violin teacher Anton Rebner;his first published works include a quartet(no.I,1918)These and other works,are richly chromatic,influenced by Reger and above all,by
Strauss.In 1922 he wrote the piano suite '1922'.Duringthe next few years ,he produced a large number of similar suite-like works,often loosely based on Bach but expressing a modernist urgency in their motor rhythms
and their chords rich in 4ths.He later used the same style,in his opera''Cardillac''(1926).
He worked with Bertolt Brecht on the 'scenic cantata'Lehrstuck('Lesson',192
9) and with Brecht and Weill on the cantata 'Das Lindberghflug(The Lindbergh Flight',1929),later colllaborating with Gottfried Benn on the oratorio 'Das Unaufborliche(The Perpetual,1931),when his relationship with Brecht turned sour.
Between 1935 and 1937 he spent considerable time abroad:first in Ankara,to which he was invited by the Turkish government to assist in the foundation of a new musical academy;then in Italy,where he worked with the choreographer Leonid Massine on the ballet 'Nobilissima visione,inspired by the life of St Francis of Assini.
By 1937 the threat to both his personal life(his wife was Jewish) and his music could no longer be ignored and he finally resigned his teaching post in Berlin,leaving Germany for Switzerland the following year.In 1940 he
settled in the USA as professor of theory at Yale,taking American citizenship six years later.
The w3orks he composed in the USA included 'The Four Temperaments for piano and strings(1940),'Lubus
tonalis',an ambitious cycle of'studies in counterpoint,tonal organization,and piano technique'(1942)the
ebullient 'Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber(1943),the ballet 'Herodiade'(1944,
commissioned by Martha Graham),and the symphony'Die Harmonie der Welt'(1951)He returned to Europe in 1953,to form an opera on the life of the astronomer Johannes Kepler.
Hindermith spent his last years teaching at Zurich University,no longer composing so speedily;his last work
was an unaccompanied Mass(1963).
http://youtu.be/iTpAIEp6DUo
Birth of ALFRED HILL
1870 in Melbourne
Australian and New Zealand composer,conductor,and teacher.He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and
played the violin in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.He spent the rest of his life conducting in New Zealand
and Australia.He was the first composer to use Maori material,in his cantata'Hinemoa'(1896).
His vast output,over 500 works,includes 13 symphonies and nine operas.
http://youtu.be/Hh77gYg5Gr8
Birth of RODOLPHE KREUTZER
1766 in Versailles
French violinist and composer. He worked mainly in Paris,before the revolution in the chapel of Louis XVI,
afterwards in that of Louis XVIII.During the Republic he worked for Napoleon and as professor of violin at
the Institut National de Musique,remaing there when it became the Conservatoir in 1795.He met Beethoven
in Vienna while on a concert tour in 1798,but Beethoven's 'Kreutzer'Sonata op.47 was composed and dedicated to him after he returned to Paris,and he is thought never to have played it in public.Kreutzer composed several concertos,etudes,and chamber music,and wrote a violin method(Paris,1803);he also composed 'operas comiques'and other dramatic works for theatres in Paris.
http://youtu.be/ZiSnFULVEao
Death of LAWRENCE TIBBETT
1960 in New York
American baritone.He began his career as an actor and a church and light opera singer nd then he took singing lessons from Frank La Forge and Ignaz Zitomirsky in New York.He made his opera debut in Los Angeles in 1923 and that year sang Lewicki in Boris Godunov at the Metropolitan Opera ,New York.His major success was tho years later at the Metropolitan as Ford in Falstaff. He sang at the Metropolitan for 25 reasons,highly acclaimed
for his warm,resonant sound,controlled but expressive legato,and vibrant acting.He also created several roles in new works.His successes in New York were equalled at Covent Garden,Paris,Vienna,and Prague,as well as other American houses.He made several films,gave concerts,and made recordings.
http://youtu.be/I9ChiBPJqmg
* NOVEMBER 17
Death of HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS
1959 in Rio de Janeiro
Brazilian composer.His father's death in 1899 marked the end of his son's formal musical studies.Joining one of
the popular Rio street bands as a guitarist,he was working as a cellist in a theatre orchestra by the age of 16.
Two years later he made the first of many long journeys into the interior,which deepened his knowledge of Brazil's folk music.Befriended by Artur Rubinstein,he was sent to Paris by the Brazilian government in 1923 with the object,as he saw it,not to study but to advertise his achievements.Returning to Brazil in 1930,he held various official positions in music education and was responsible in 1945 for the foundation of the Brazilian Academy of Music.International fame was secured by Leopold Stokowski's tireless promotion of his works from the early 1940s.
He produced over 1000 works,a steady stream of music diverse in form and in worth,but all animated by passionate devotion to his native land.Among his best pieces are thr four epic orchestral and choral suites taken from the film'Descobrimento do Brazil(1937),the 17 string quartets,and the varied series of 16 Choros-the name is taken from the street bands of the composer's youth.
http://youtu.be/crL1H8INb8c
Death of EDUARD TUBIN
1982 in Stockholm
Estonian composer.After training as a teacher(1920-6) he studied with Eller at the Tartu Conservatory(1924-6)
He became a conductor at the Vanemuine Theatre;he also conducted a number of choirs,in both Tartu and Tallinn.When the Soviet army invaded Estonia,Tubin,like thousands of his compatriots,fled to Sweden;in Stockholm he worked at the Royal Drottningholm Court Theatre and was again active as a choral conductor.He revisited his native country several times before his death.
The backbone of Tubin's output is a series of ten symphonies(written between 1931 and 1973;an 11th was unfinished when he died)with stylistic origins in the music of Sibelius and Prokofiev.Inspired by Bartok and Codaly,he also introdused elements of Estonian folk music into some of his scores.He wrote three works for the stage,a ballet and two operas,'Barbara von Tisenhusen(1968) and Reigi opetaja91971),and much piano and chamber music.
http://youtu.be/c1_YB6m8H58
* NOVEMBER 18
Death of GIOVANNI MARIA BONONCINI
1678 in Modena
SEE birth September 23 (music diary doc)
http://youtu.be/Ke8ZLmGtGRA
Birth of Sir HENRY R(owley) BISHOP
1786 in London
English composer and conductor.He studied with Francesco Bianchi. In 1810 he was appointed composer and musical director at Covent Garden,and in 1841 he began to 'adapt' other composers' operas for the English stage.As well as composing operas,he wrote songs for mangled versions of Shakespeare's plays and found time to travel abroad.He was a founder member in 1813 of the Philarmonic Society,for which he conducted ceveral concerts directed performances of the Lenten Oratorio Concerts from 1819,and was a professor of harmony at
the RAM.
Bishop resigned from Covent Garden in 1824 and moved to Drury Lane,where in 1826 he staged'Aladdin'as
rival to Weber's'Oberon'-in vain.In 1830 he became director at Vauxhall Gardens,continuing to write prolifically for the stage until 1840;his last opera,'The Fortunate Isles',was produced that year at Covent Garden during Queen Victoria's wedding celebrations.Bishop is best known today for his glees and songs(including Home
Sweet Home).He was married twice:his second wife,Ann Riviere,sang by the name of Madame Anna Bishop'but she disgrace
http://youtu.be/6Mu7oZXcYxg
Birth of AMADEO VIVES
1871 in Collbato
Catalan composer.He was a pupil of Pedrell.His early reputation was built on choral works,notably 'Emigrantes'(1894),which became a rallying-cry for Catalan exiles throughout the world.Though semiparalysed from childhood,he went on to write songs and operas,as well as the many zarzuelas on which his reputation rests.These include 'Bohemios'(1904),the through-sung Maruxa(1914),and 'LA villana(1927).His finest work is ''Dona Francisquita(1923),the best-loved of all three-act zarzuelas and typical of Vives's graceful melodic charrm and delicate orchestration.
http://youtu.be/r6uFw7JUlU0
Birth of CARL MARIA VON WEBER
1786 in Eutin, Holstein,
http://youtu.be/j5wI16vset4
* NOVEMBER 19
Death of FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT 1828 in Vienna
Austrian composer.The only one of the great composers to be born in Vienna,Schubert was also the only one who failed to win international recognition in his own lifetime.For that his untimely death is only a partial explanation.The reasons for the world's neglect of his genius are to be sought rather in his own nature,shy of the limelight, and totally indifferent to the arts of self-assertion.He had neither the talent nor the inclination for the role of virtuoso performer,and he disliked the regular routine imposed by continuous employment.He never travelled to any of the European capitals outside Vienna and he lacked percipient champions who could both recognize his worth and noise his talents abroad.He was depended throughout his life on the fees he could earn from patrons and dedicatees,from the publication of his songs and keyboard compositions(which did not begin until he was 24),and occasional teaching or performing.He never achieved financial security,except for a year or two;on the other hand,the idia that he lived in feckless bohemian poverty is a popular myth. Schubert was the fourth surving son of a school assistant from Moravia and a domestic servant from Silesia who met and married in the suberb of Lichtental.Franz learnt to play the piano and the violin from his father and brothers,and later the viola.He had a few lessons in counterpoint from the local church organist,Michael Holzer. But his serious musical education began at the age of 11,when he won a choral scholarship to the Imperial College.There,under the supervision of the court organist Wenzel Ruzicha and the Kapellmeister Anton Salieri, his gifts soon revealed themselves.From Salieri he inherited conservative notational habits and a reverence for the music of Gluck,as well as a coolness towards that of Mozart and Beethoven that he was later to outgrow. The most impressive achievement of these years is the series of string quartershe wrote in 1812.
The major achievement of his early years was an outburst of text-inspired song that laid the foundation for the romantic lied.Schubert's first love affair,with Therese Grob,drifted to its unhappy end.Deep feelings were involved,at any rate on the composer's part,but Therese-perhaps heeding maternal advice-saw no future in the relationship and soon found a marriage partner elsewhere.(The question whether Schuber was homosexual occupied some scholars in the late 20th century,but the issue remains unresolved.) In 1818 his orchestral compositions began to make occasional appearances at public concerts.Wider horizons and new opportunities opened up.The Quintet in A for piano and strings('The trout'),finished in Autumn 1819, is the first instrumental work that can be called thoroughlySchubertian in spirit and in idiom,though it represents but one aspect of his musical personality.The years 1820-3 were largely taken up with a fruitless pursuit of operatic success.Those years were also marked,however,by a series of vocal and instrumental works of striking brilliance and originality. If,as seems probable,the 'Unfinished'Symphony was occasioned by some emotional crisis in Schubert's life, it may well have some connection with his illness.Towards the end of 1822,or early the next year,he began to show the symptoms of venerial disease,almost certainly sy philis.His condition deteriorated rapidly in the first half of 1823,and then began ti improve slowly.In 1824 he rsumed a more or less normal life,but the evidence suggests that the bouts of sicknessand headaches by which he was plagued for the rest of his life were induced by his chronic complaint. The compositions of his last year,especially the F minor Fantasy,the three piano sonatas,and the incomparable String Quintet in C,are 'private' works which seem to embody the personal vision of a composer whom Liszt called 'le plus poete que jamais'.His final illness was diagnosed as 'typhus abdominalis',which seems to have been equivalent to typhoid fever.It may well have been hastened by the disease which he knew to be incurable. If so,the clairvoyant quality of these last works,their vision and authority,reflects the fate of a man who knew himself to be doomed.That he was poised for stylistic development at the time of his death is evident from the sketches for a visionary'Tenth'Symphony,which he worked on during his last weeks.
http://youtu.be/JtA9Js-22ko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QOeS93VATck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dpBcnPUkLmU
* NOVEMBER 19
Death of JOHANN HERMANN SCHEIN 1630 in Leipzig German composer.Despite ill health and personal tragedy(the early death of his first wife and the death in infancy of seven of the nine children of his two marriages),his life was a richly productive one. After school years at Schulpforta,he studied law at Leipzig University,and subsequently taught music privately at Weissenfels,where he first met Schutz and probably Scheidt also.In 1615 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the ducal court at Weimar,but after only 15 months was elected Kantor at St Thomas's,Leipzig,a post(later held by Kuhnau and Bach) which he occupied until his early death at the age of 44.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EtYrB12Txt0
* NOVEMBER 19
Death of JAN VACLAV VORISEK 1825 in Vienna Bohemian composer and keyboard player.He was first taught by his father,a choirmaster and organist;his remarkable abilities as a keyboard player led to a brief career as a child prodigy touring Bohemia.While studying law in Prague he continued his musical studies with Tomasek.In 1813 he moved to Vienna to observein particular the music of Beethoven at closer quarters. There he was active as composer,pianist,and(from 1818)conductor of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.He was appointed court organist in 1823.Vorisek's early death occasioned numerous tributes from the musical community in Vienna.Beethoven ha spoken well of his Rhapsodies op.1,and Schubert,with whom Vorisek was friendly,seems to havebeen influenced by the piano writing in the Impromptus op.7.Vorisek's style owed virtually nothing to his Czech origins:melodically he showed an interest in motivic thematic material akin to Beethoven's,harmonically an absorption with diminished chords which sometimes anticipates Schumann and Mendelssohn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XTOUckHSWAw
* NOVEMBER 19
Death of HUBERT WAELRAND 1595 in Antwerp Flemish composer,teacher,theorist,and music publisher.His printing house,set up jointly with Jean de Laet in Antwerp in 1554,issued important collections of music by Clemens,Crecquillon,and others,as well as chansons and Protestant psalm settings in French.He ceased publishing in 1558,although in 1585 he arrarently acted as editor of a collection of madrigals issued by Phalese.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Dd4e0u9kKfE
* NOVEMBER 20
Death of PIERRE de LA RUE 1518 in Kortriik
Franco-Flemish church musician and coposer.His career,which was spent almost entirely in the Low Countries began with appointments as a singer in Brussels,Chent,Nieuwpoort,and Cologne.In 1492 he became a member of the Habsburg-Burgundian chapel,and travelled twice to Spain on diplomatic missions.Many of his works were copied into exquisite manuscripts produced by the court scriptorium,some of which were destined to become gifts to political leaders across Europe.He retired from his position in 1516.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1hZZTfDIgY&feature=share
* NOVEMBER 20
Death of FRANCESCO CILEA 1950 in Varazze,Savona
Italian composer.An early meeting with the Neapolitan librarian Francesco Florimo,a friend of Bellini,led to his enrolment in the Naples Conservatory in 1879.He wrote both piano and orchestral music,and a student opera,'Gina'(1889),attracted the attention of the publisher Sonzogno,who commissioned a series of dramatic works over the next two decates.'L'arlesiana(Milan,(1897)was well received.Cilea's most successful opera was 'Adriana Lecouvreur'(1902),which assured his position as a leading figure of the so-called Giovane Scuola of Italian composers.Subsequent operas did not equal this success.Cilea was also a distinguished teacher,ending his career as director of the Naples Conservatory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS23YgCJpPI&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 20
Death of ARTHUR GORING THOMAS 1892 in London
English composer.He studied with Emile Durand in Paris(1873-5) and later with Sullivan and Ebenezer Prout at the RAM(1877-80).He enjoyed brief success with his two French influenced operas,'Esmeralda'(1883) and
Nadeshda(1885),at Drury Lane under Carl Rosa,the former to great acclaim.After a decline in his incentive to compose,and the onset of depression,he committed suicide,leaving a cantata'The Swan and the Skylark'and an operetta'The Golden Web'unfinished;both were completed by others and performed shortly afterwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8OYSAIFoug&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 20
Death of WILHELM STENHAMMAR 1927 in Stockholm
Swedish composer,pianist ,and composer.Born into a musical upper-class family,he showed early promise as both composer and pianist.He had private tuition in the organ,piano ,and theory,but as a composer he was self-taught until he was well into his 20s,when he began a nine-year-private cource in counterpoint.
He made his conducting debut(1897) with the premiere of his overture'Excelsior,which has remained in the repertory.His earlier works were heavily influenced by Wagner,Bruckner,Liszt,and Brahms,but a deepening appreciation of Beethoven and Haydn,combined with admiration for Nielsen and Sibelius,helped him to develop a leaner,more concentrated symphonic style,evident in the Second Piano Concerto(1907),the Second Symphony(1915),and the last three of his six string quartets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Gff5iXLRY&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 20
Death of JOHAN HELMICH ROMAN 1758 in Haraldsmala nr Kalmar
Swedish composer.He flourished at a time when Sweden had withdrawn from its role of power after the death of Charles XII and had turned to the pursuit of the arts of peace.Roman showed such early talent as a violinist and oboist that the court took the unprecedented step of payinh for his studies abroad.He spent five years in England(1716-21),probably studying with Pepusch and certainly acquiring an admiration for Handel,and returned home to become in 1727 Kapllmastare to the court.
In 1735 he made a second journey abroad,which again took him to England(where he met Handel,Bononcini,
Geminiani,and others)as well as to France and Italy.It sees,however,that declining health and increasing deafness caused him to take a less active part in Stockholm musical life after his return to Sweden in 1737.
Roman's music is a compound of Italian and Englishh influences,and his enthusiasm for Handel left an indelible imprint though he never developed a pronounced personal idiom.The two sinfonias by which he is best known
outside Scandinavia,no.16 in D and no.20 in E minor,reveal a crisp,fresh,and engaging melodic style.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqljdUm84cE&feature=share
* NOVEMBER 21
Death of ROBERT SIMPSON 1997 in Tralee
English composer.He studied at Durham University,and served on the music staff of the BBC(1951-80).
Influenced by the progressive tonality of Nielsen,he maintained an adherence to focused,though not conventionally tonal,harmony,and to extended symphonic structures that have their origin in the fugal and sonata designs found in Beethoven and Bruckner,as well as Sibelius and Nielsen.His output centres on ten symphonies and 15 string quarters,which are among the most significant contribution to these genres since
those of Shostakovich.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1huFQvyLk7w&feature=share
* NOVEMBER 21
Death of BERNARDO PASQUINI 1710 in Rome
Italian composer,harpsichordist,and organist.In 1663 he was appointed organist at S.Maria Maggiore,Rome,and the
following year at S.Maria in Aracoeli,where he remained for the first of his life.He was a celebrated keyboard player:
his patrons included princes and cardinals,as well as Queen Christina of Sweden.He was a close associate of Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti,and all three were honoured in 1706 by admission to the elite Arcadian Society.
Rasquini composed operas and oratorios byt is best known for his keyboard music,which includes suites,variations,toccatas,and sonatas.Among the distinguished musicians he taught was Domenico Scarlati.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAOW7X0zd0s&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 21
Death of HENRY PURCELL 1695 in Westminster
English composer.There is some doubt to whether he was the son of either Henry Purcell(i)and his wife Elizabeth or his brother's Thomas.He became a Child of the Chapel Royal,following in the footsteps of Blow and Humfrey,both of whom may have taught him.He proved from the start to be exceptionally gifted,composing songs at the age of eight.During the next few years Purcell copied music for Westminster Abbey,until in 1677,at the death of Matthew Locke,he was appointed composer fo the violins.Two years later John Blow resigned as organist of Westminster Abbey and Purcell took his place.
Purcell married Frances Peters probably in the autumn of 1680,and in 1682 was appointed one of the organists to the Chapel Royal.The following year a set of 12 trio sonatas was published.During the 1680s in particular,Purcell's energies were devoted to the verse anthem,especially those written for the Chapel Royal with parts for a string band to play overtures and ritornellos.
Purcell contributed the magnificent anthem'My heart is inditing'to James II's coronation in 1685.The new reign brought substantial changes to the court establishment.The Chapel Royal was virtually sidelined when James established his own Catholic Chapel-served mainly for foreign musicians,where Purcell was sworn as 'Harpsicall' in the new group.The context of his short opera 'Dido and Aeneas' is the subject of much debate.
The accession of William III in 1689 effectively marked the of court patronage as the chieb pinnacle to which a musician could aspire.Altough a music esteblishment was retained,the king seems to have had little regard for it,preferring martial expeditions.In spite of the king's indifference,musicians continued to serve the arts-loving Queen Mary and Purcell wrote some fine birhday odes for her.
Between 1690 and 1695 he contributed to more than 40 theatre works,the music varying from single numbers to lengthy suites of dances.Hisoperatic ventures include four extensive examples:'Dioclesian'(1690),'King Arthur' (1691),The Fairy Queen'(1692),and The Indian Queen(1695).Purcell provided the music for Queen Mary's funeral in 1694.The following year he himself died,and some of it was used again at his funeral in Westminster Abbey,on November 26th,attended by the choirs of the abbey and the Chapel Royal.As with Mozart and Schubert.Purcell's early death was the greater tragedy because there are signs that he was still ripening as a composer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-WyxbwU82A&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-WyxbwU82A&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhPQQ4DOOTs&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 20
Death of PIERRE de LA RUE 1518 in Kortriik
Franco-Flemish church musician and coposer.His career,which was spent almost entirely in the Low Countries began with appointments as a singer in Brussels,Chent,Nieuwpoort,and Cologne.In 1492 he became a member of the Habsburg-Burgundian chapel,and travelled twice to Spain on diplomatic missions.Many of his works were copied into exquisite manuscripts produced by the court scriptorium,some of which were destined to become gifts to political leaders across Europe.He retired from his position in 1516.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1hZZTfDIgY&feature=share
* NOVEMBER 22
Death of Sir ARTHUR SALLIVAN 1900 in London
English composer and conductor.In collaboration with the librettist W.S.*Gilbert he contributed to English music a dinstinctive style of light opera,a mixture of parody.burlesque,and satire,which has achieved immense popularity in B ritain and the USA.
The son of an Irish bandmaster,Sullivan entered the Chapel Royal as a chorister in 1854 and had a sacred song published by Novello in 1855.He studied at tha RAM under Sterndale Bennett in 1856 and went to the Leipzig Conservatory from 1858 to 1861.His first success as a composer was in 1861 when his incidental music to 'The Tempesr' was performed in Leipzig.His first success in comic opera was with the one-act'Cox and Box'(1867).
During its run he met Gilbert,and their first collaboration was in 1871 in 'Thespis'(now lost).'Trial by Jury'(1875) was more successful and stimulated the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte to form a company specially to perform works by Gilbert and Sullivan.He conducted for many organizations and was principal of the National Training School from 1876 to1881.He was knighted in 1883.In 1891 his romantic opera'Ivanhoe' ran for 150 performances.A quarrel with Gilbert in 1890,though later resolved,ended their run of success.
He could draw on elements from a variety of styles,and his brilliant parodies of Handel,Bellinni,Purcell, Donizetti,Verdi and Mendelssohn,added to a natural gift for melody and the rhythmic basis of his word-settings, resulted in music that is both witty and accomplished.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idk7sGqThC8&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 22
Birth of CONRADIN KREUTZER 1780 in Messkirch,Baden
German composer and conductor.He produced several successful operas in Vienna before embarking on a career as musical director to several of the smaller German courts.From 1822 he worked again in Vienna,where 'Libussa'(1822),an uneven but not uninteresting work on the founding of the Bohemian state,gained him the directorship of the Karntnertortheater.He also held appointments at the Theater in der Josefstadt. His greatest success was 'Das Nachtlager in Granada'(1834),which includes some striking Romantic elements among more conventional 'Singspiel'gestures,as does'Der Verschwender'(1834).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Vos8VbDzo&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 22
Birth of BENJAMIN(Edward)BRITTEN 1913 in Lowestoft
English composer,pianist ,and conductor.He was the outstanding British musician of his generation both as creator and an executant,for his brilliance as a pianist and as an interpreter of his own and other composerrs' music would have ensured him a major career even if he had not been so great a composer.
Britten was the youngest of four children of a dentist and his musical wife.He was taught the piano from the age of five and began to compose at the same age.At ten he began viola lessons A major childhood event was a visit to the 1924 Norwich Festival when he was 'knocked sideways' by hearing Frank Bridge conduct his suite 'The Sea'.At the same festival three years later Bridge's'Enter Spring' made a similar impression on the boy,who then became his pupil,learning from him the elements of composition.After his public school Britten entered
the RCM in 1930 where he found the teaching and general conservative atmosphere uncongenial.
Britten's first large-scale work was the symphonic cycle for voice and orchestra,'Our Hunting Fathers',to a text compiled by the poet Auden.At its first performance,at the 1936 Norwich Festival,the audience was scandalized both by the audacity of the harmonies anv vocal writing and by the verbal sitire,whichsavagely indicted the hunting and shooting of animals.Warmer acclaim greeted the 'Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge'in which
Britten combined his talent for parody with a deeper vain owing something to Mahler's influence.His extraordinary sensitivity to instrumental timbres was also apparent in his Piano Concerto(1938).
After a second string quartet in (1945),opera occupied his attention.'The Rape of Lucretia'(1946) and 'Albert Herring'(1947) were produced at Glynderbourne and led to the formation of the English Opera Group.Having settled at Aldeburgh in (1947),Britten and Pears,with others,founded a festival there in 1948.
Britten reached his wider audience when his 'War Requiem'was performed during celebrations to mark the dedication of the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962.In this large-scale choral work,combining the LatinMass with war poems by Wilfred Owen,Britten's pacifism found its most public and eloquent outlet.
In 1973 he underwent an operation,not wholly successful,to replace a heart valve.For the last three years of his life Britten was an invalid,able to work for only short periods of each day and no longer able to play the piano.Yet he revised some earlier compositions and composed several vocal works,the orchestral'Suite on English Folk Tunes'(1947),and the Third String Quartet(1975).In 1976,six months before his death,he was created a life peer.In 1953 he had been made Companion of Honour and in 1965 a member of the Order of Merit..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR9nDnyIhAU&feature=share
* NOVEMBER 23
Death of THOMAS TALLIS 1585 in Greenwich
English composer.Between 1532 and 1543 he held posts as organist or singer at Dover Priory,the London parish church of St-Mary-at-Hill,Waltham Abbey,and Canterbury Cathedral.By 1543 he had been appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal,a position he held for the rest of his life.Latterly he acted as organist,sharing the job with his close friend William Byrd.In 1575 he and Byrd were granted a royal privilege to print music;later that year they issued a book of motets,'Cantiones sacrae',dedicated to Queen Elizabeth,to which both composer contributed 17 pieces,one each for every year of the queen's reign.The publication was not successful financially and they turned to the queen for assistance.
Tallis married in1554 but had no children.He is buried in the parish church of St Alphege in Greenwich.
Tallis was brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition,and his earlier work consists largely of Latin liturgical settings,often on a grand scale and intended either for major church festivals or for occasions of state.
He was among the first composers to write English-texted anthems and canticles for the new Protestant
litourgy.The strongly modal'Third tune' is the one on which Vaughan Williams based his 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis(1910).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8c3XvNZ3ns4
* NOVEMBER 23
Death of FRIEDRICH SCHNEIDER 1853 in Dessaug
German composer and teacher.After studies at the University of Leipzig he was appointed to a number of posts in the city including organist of the Thomaskirche(1812),conductor of the Singakademie(1816),and musical director of the city theatre(1817).It is thought that his performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto no.5 in 1811 was the work's premiere.He directed over 80 German music festivals,1820-51,and belong to many musical
societies.His large output includes the popular oratorio 'Das Weltgericht'(1820) and many other vocal and instrumental works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Bmqx3Ey1BOs
* NOVEMBER 23
Birth of THOMAS ATTWOOD 1765 in London
English organist and composer.He was educated in the Chapel Royal,then became a page to the Pnince of Wales
(later George IV),who sent him to study in Italy.After tuition in Naples he moved to Vienna(1783-5) with
Felipe Cinque and Gaetano Latilla he moved to Vienna(1785-7),where he was a favourite pupil of Mozart.
Returning to the English court in 1787,he was music instructor to members of the royal family.In 1796 he was appointed organist at St Paul's Cathedral and composed to the Chapel Royal.Mendelssohn,a close friend,dedicated his op.37 preludes and fugues to Attwood and stayed with him at his home in Norwood.
A composer of over 30 stage works,he published instrumental music,songs,and glees as well as the sacred music for which he is now chiefly remembered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8r8TA5pP-kE
* NOVEMBER 23
Birth of MANUEL de FALLA 1876 in Cadiz.
See November 14 (day of his death)for details at the Music Diary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=unR6coI5rgI
Krzysztof Penderecki--23.11.1933
* NOVEMBER 22
Death of Sir ARTHUR SALLIVAN 1900 in London
English composer and conductor.In collaboration with the librettist W.S.*Gilbert he contributed to English music a dinstinctive style of light opera,a mixture of parody.burlesque,and satire,which has achieved immense popularity in B ritain and the USA.
The son of an Irish bandmaster,Sullivan entered the Chapel Royal as a chorister in 1854 and had a sacred song published by Novello in 1855.He studied at tha RAM under Sterndale Bennett in 1856 and went to the Leipzig Conservatory from 1858 to 1861.His first success as a composer was in 1861 when his incidental music to 'The Tempesr' was performed in Leipzig.His first success in comic opera was with the one-act'Cox and Box'(1867).
During its run he met Gilbert,and their first collaboration was in 1871 in 'Thespis'(now lost).'Trial by Jury'(1875) was more successful and stimulated the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte to form a company specially to perform works by Gilbert and Sullivan.He conducted for many organizations and was principal of the National Training School from 1876 to1881.He was knighted in 1883.In 1891 his romantic opera'Ivanhoe' ran for 150 performances.A quarrel with Gilbert in 1890,though later resolved,ended their run of success.
He could draw on elements from a variety of styles,and his brilliant parodies of Handel,Bellinni,Purcell, Donizetti,Verdi and Mendelssohn,added to a natural gift for melody and the rhythmic basis of his word-settings, resulted in music that is both witty and accomplished.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idk7sGqThC8&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 24
Death of IRMGARD SEEFRIED 1988 in Vienna
German soprano.She studied at the Augsburg Conservatory and made her debut in Aachen in 1939,remaining with the company until 1943.In 1944 she became a member of the Vienna State Opera,where she made her debut as Eva(in Die Meintersinger von Nurnberg) and famously sang the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos as part of Strauss's 80th birthday celebrations.She first appeared in London as Fiordiligi(in Cosi fan tutte) during the Vienna company's visit to Covent Gardem in 1947.She sang regularly at the Salzburg Festival from 1946 until her retirement in 1971.
Seefried had a bright,sensuous voice and was a superlative interpreter of Mozart and Strauss,though she also championed her modernist repertory,including Marie(in Wozzeck) among the operatic roles andgiving the world premieres of Hindemith's Motets(1951) and Henze's Ariosi(1964).She was one of the greatests of all lieder singers,matchless in Schubert and Wolf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqO6dYeXxtg&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 24
Death of JOHANN ADAM REINCKEN 1722 in Hamburg
Dutch composer and organist,of German descent.He studied with Heinrich Scheidemann in Hamburg and succeeded him at St Catherine's in 1663;his playing was so famous that Bach waloked from Luneburg to hear him.He wrote some virtuoso organ music as well as a set of sonatas in which the dance rhythms of the sonata
da camera are used in a sequence of movements in the manner of the sonata da chiesa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YlOs7Ccvrg&feature=share
* NOBEMBER 24
Birth of LILLI LEHMA 1848 in Wurzburg
German soprano.She studied in Prague with her mother,Marie Loewe,and made her debut there in 1865 as the First Boy in Die Zauberflote.Her debut in the Berlin Hofoper as Marguerite de Valois in ''Les Huguenots'' established her as an outstandingly musical coloratura soprano with technical brilliance and flexibility,and she was engaged as permanent member of the company(1869-85)Her fame spread:as the first Bayreuth Festivashe sang two of the Rhinemaidens and the Woodbird in the first complete performance of Wagner's Ring,and,in marked contrast,shemade her successful London debut in the role of Violetta in 'La Traviata'.She moved to New York in 1885 and after her debut as Carmen gained fame in a variety of roles,notably as Brunnhilde and Isolde.
She was a fine Mozatr singer and sang at the Salzburg Festival ,of which she became artistic director.
A remarkable actress,she had a huge repertory:170 roles in 119 operas.She was an admired teacher and translator;among her own books is an autobiography ''My Path through Life''(Eng.trans.1914)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NUyCMF67jc&feature=player_embedded
* NOVEMBER 24
Death of GUIDO CANTELLI 1956 in Paris
Italian composer.He studied at the Milan Conservatory and made his deput in opera in Novara in 1943 becoming internationally celebrated after his American deput with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 949.He conducted at
yhe Salzburg Festival from 1953.A fanatical perfectionist,he achieved his demands with fierce consentration and a vivid baton technique.His wide repertory included contemporary and American music. He died in an air
crash a few days after he was appointed music director of La Scala,Milan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RypZBrJcMA&feature=share
* NOVEMBER 25
Death of Dame MYRA HESS
1965 in London
English pianist.A pupil of Tobias Matthay,she first appeared in 1907 but it took years for her career to develop(her American debut was in 1922).She played much chamber music,culminating in the lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery in London during World War II.She was much admired in Bach,Scarlatti,Mozart,and Beethoven,but music from Schumann and Brahms to Debussy also featured in her programmes.Her playing was notabre for its warmth,charm,and inne poetry,while her transcriptions became extremely popular.She was
created DBE in 1941.
http://youtu.be/UNlyxn2Y4_E
Death of JOSEF(Gabriel)RHEINBURG
1901 in Munich
German organist and composer.A professional organist from childhood,he studied at the Munich Conservatory
(1850-4),where from 1859 he was a respected teacher of the organ and composition.He produced an enormous output of composition in all genres but is remembered almost exclusively for his 20 organ sonatas,solidly constracted in a Brahmsian style
http://youtu.be/56OiwHF_vGg
* NOVEMBER 26
Death of BENEDETTO PALLAVICINO
1601 in Mantua
Italian composer.He spent most of his career in Mantua in the service of the Gonzagas,succeeding Wert as maestro di cappella in 1596.Although he published some church music,he is best known for his eight volumes of five-voice madrigals;the vert fine sixth book(1600) in particular reveals not just the influence of Wert but also
the emergence of other expressive techniques in the context of 'seconda practica'.Monteverdi saw him as a rival but did not ignored his music,particularly when setting the same text.
http://youtu.be/_3KhQfQT8ME
Death of ALBERT WILLIAM KETELBEY
1959 in Cowes
English composer.He studied composition at Trinity College of Music,London,and his proficiency on the piano,cello,clarinet,oboe,and horn contributed to the development of his career as a composer and conductor.His tuneful,sentimental compositions 'In a Monastery Garden(1915),'In a Persian Market (1920),
and Sanctuary of the Heart (1924) became immensely successful.Some of his piano works were published under the pseudonym Anton Vodorinski.
http://youtu.be/6Ede2QMi5JM
Death of NICOLAS-MARIE DALAYRAC
1809 in Paris
Freanch composer.He was trained as a lawyer before turning to music as a career,and was fortunate in attracting the patronage of Marie Antoinette before the Revolution and that of Napoleon later.He composed nearly 60 operas comiques,which were hugely successful in the 1790s.He was also a resourceful orchestrator.Among his most popular operae were''Nina,ou La Folle par amour''(1786).''Raoul sire de Crequi''
(1791).Camille,ou Le Souterrain''(1791),and''Maison
a vendre''(1800).His other works include violin duos,string
quartets,trios,instrumental overtures,and songs.
http://youtu.be/RbT-2_mCVYI
* NOVEMBER 27
Birth of GAETANO(Gerolamo)PUGNANI 1731 in Turin
Italian violinist and composer.He played in the Turin court orchestra,1741-67,though during this time he visited Rome(1749-50)andParis(1754).In 1767 he went to London as a conductor at the King's Theatre;after two years he returned to Turin,where he held several important appointments.He made further concert tours in the 1780s and 90s.Pugnani wrote a lqarge number of operas,symphonies,and chamber music-though the Praeludiumj anAllegro in E minor for violin once attributed to him is in fact the work of its 'editor',Kreisler.Viotti was one of Pugnani's pupils.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_172a1SVN-c
Birth of Sir JULIUS BENEDICT 1804 in Stuttgart
German-born British composer and conductor.He studied with Hummel and Weber in Germany before moving to Naples as conductor of the S.Carlo and Fondo theatres.In 1835 he moved to London and soon became musical director at Drury Lane(1838-48) during a fertile period of English Romantic opera.In spite of his German roots,Benedict was influ...enced most in his operas-even those for the English stage-by the Italians.
He wrote a number of cantatas fror Norwich,including 'The Legent of St Cecilia'(1866) and the oratorio St Peter for Birmingham(1870) He also prodused two piano concertos,overtures,a symphony,and many solo fantasias for piano on operatic themes.He was knighted in 1871 after becoming a naturalized British citizen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1BjdRgqYTN0
Death of GUILLAUME DUFAY 1474 in Cambrai
French composer.He is the most acclaimed musician of the 15th cencury.Almost 200 of his works survive including 84 songs,eight complete masses,13 isorhythmic motets,and numerous hymn settings,single mass movements,and works in honour of the Virgin Mary and various saints and liturgical feasts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O-25R_SaDao
* NOVEMBER 28
Death of HAVERGAL BRIAN
1972 in Shoreham
English composer.He first made a reputation as a composer of festival choral pieces with ''By the Waters of Babylon''(Hanley,1907) and ''The Vision of Cleopatra''(Southport,(1909),a
nd Henry Wood conducted his English Suite no.I(completed in 1904) at the Queen's Hall. In all he prodused 32 symphonies including the ''Gothic''(1919-27),for large orchestra,quandruple chorus,children's chorus,and four brass bands,symphonic poems,orchestral suites,five large-scale operas,and the lyric drama 'Prometheus Unbound'(1937-44).
http://youtu.be/CgUmpSWB-fc
Birth of ANTON RUBINSTEIN
in Vikhvatintsi,Podolsk
SEE details of his death on November 8th(Music Diary)
http://youtu.be/cyKTe6NlFCE
Birth of FERDINAND RIES
1784 in Bonn
German pianist,composer,and conductor.He was the son of Franz Anton Ries(1755-1846),a violinist and a close friend of Beethoven.Ferdinand studied with his father and Beethoven in Vienna,then toured Europe and Scandinavia. He settled in London(1813-24),then returned to Godesberg(1824-7) and finally to Frankfurt.
His works include symphonies,piano concertos,operas,oratorios,cha
mber works,and much piano music.With
Franz Gerhard Wegeler(1765-1848) he wrote an important early biography of Beethoven.
http://youtu.be/rUSujXSJmJM
* NOVEMBER 29
Death of CLAUDIO(Giovanni Antonio)MONTEVERDI 1643 in Venice
Italian composer.The son of a barber-surgeon.He studied music with the maestro di cappella of C remona Cathedral,Marc'Antonio Ingegneri,and was evidently a precocious pupil,publishing several books of sacred and secular music when he was still in his teens.This early period culminated in two madrigal books published by theprestigiousGardano press in Venice in 1587 and 1590;they contain some extremely attractive works and are more modern in approach than Ingegneri's,perhaps as a result of Monteverdi's having studied the madrigals of Marenzio and other composers popular in the 1580s.
It is not known exactly when he left his home town,but he entered the service of the Duke of Mantua as a string player in 1590 or 1591. In Mantua he was immediately thrown into contact with some of the finest musicians of the time.The most influential for him seems to have been the Flemish composer Giaches de Wert,
the crux of whose style was that music must exactly match the mood of the verse.Monteverdi's next book of madrigals shows all the hallmarks of Wert's style.
He accompanied Duke Vincenzo onexpeditions to Hungary in 1595 and to Flanders four years later;in 1599 he also married a singer,Claudia Cattaneo,by whom he had three children,one of whom died in infancy.He had
been passed over when the post of maestro di cappella became vacant on Wert's death in 1596,and felt bitter aboyt it,but in 1601 he was appointed at the very reasonable age of 35.In 1603 and 1605 he published two
more books of madrigals.
If these madrigals gave him a reputation which extended well beyond northen Italy,it was his opera ''Orfeo''
that finally established him as a composer of large-scale music ,rather than an exquisite miniaturist.In''Orfeo''
he showed that he had a much broader conception of the new genre than had his predecessors,combining the opulence of the late Renaissance intermedio with theessential simplicity of the pastoral tale told in recitative
which was the ideal of the Florentines.
A few months after the production of Orfeo Monteverdi suffered the loss of his wife and retired in a state of deep depression to his father's home at Cremona.However,he was summoned back to Mantua almost immediately to compose a new opera as part of the celebrations surrounding the marriage of the Gonzaga heir,Francesco,to Margherita of Savoy.He returned unwillingly but composed not only an opera,''L'Arianna''
but also a ballet,''The Ballo delle ingrate'', and music for a play.
We know little of his life for the next few years until July 1612,when Francesco Gonzana,having succeeded
his father,suddenly dismissed Monteverdi from his service.Without a job Monteverdi returned to his father's
house,with his two sons,remaining there for about a year.Then the maestro di cappella of St Mark's,Venice died,and after an audition he was invited to take his place.
In 1627-8 Monteverdi suffered further anxiety on yhe imprisonment of his eldest son,Massimiliano,in Bologna for reading books banned by the Inquisition;it was some months before he was finally cleared of the charge.
Although Monteverdi wrote an opera(Proserpina rapita)in 1630,the plague which broke out later that year effectively stopped all musical activities there for about 18 months.He and his family seem to have emerged brom the plague unscathed,and he himself took holy orders during this period.
He wrote a grand Mass,church music,a book of lighthearted songs and duets, his eighth book of madrigals,
and no fewer than three new operas were composed during the following three years.Only two have
survived in score:'Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'(1640)and'L'incoronazio
ne di Poppea(1643).
With these works Monteverdi confirmed his position as one of the greatest musical dramatists of all time.
He died after a short illness,and the Venetian public showed their esteem at his funeral;a copy of there monument to him has been placed in the chapel of St.Ambrogio at the church of the Frari.
http://youtu.be/WQCOr8UiS7I
http://youtu.be/e6tJWY2Vaz4
http://youtu.be/yxBT1pfVAKQ
Death of ERNESTO LECUONA
1963 in Tenerife
Cuban composer.Aprolific composer of songs and film music,he also prudused the ''Rapsodia negra' for piano
and orchestra(1943),such colourful zarzuelas as Maria la O(1930) and many piano pieces,notably the suite'Andalucia(1929) incorporating the vivid 'Malaguena'(1919).
http://youtu.be/vXMt-I-6luA
*ΝΟΕΜΒΡΙΟΣ
Στις 30 Νοεμβρίου 1897 γεννήθηκε ο σπουδαίος Έλληνας συνθέτης Ανδρέας Νεζερίτης, σημαντικός εκπρόσωπος της Εθνικής Μουσικής Σχολής.
Το κουαρτέτο εγχόρδω
ν του σε Ρε Μείζονα γράφτηκε το 1936 και αποτελείται από τέσσερα μέρη.
Το κουαρτέτο εγχόρδω
Δύο σπουδές για πιάνο που ταιριάζουν στη σημερινή μέρα γραμμένες από δύο διαφορετικούς συνθέτες και πιανίστες που γεννήθηκαν σαν σήμερα, τον Γάλλο Charles-Valentin Alkan (30 Νοεμβρίου 1813 – 29 Μαρτίου 1888) και τον Ρώσο Sergei Lyapunov (30 Νοεμβρίου 1859 – 8 Νοεμβρίου 1924).
* NOVEMBER 30
Birth of TURE RANGSTROM
1884 in Stockholm
Swedish composer and conductor.He studied composition privately in Berlin where he also took singing lessons.In later years he worked as a music critic,singing teacher,as press adviser at the Swedish Royal Opera,
and during 1922-5 as chief conductor of the GoteborgSymphony Orchestra.In 1918 he helped found the Society os Swedish Composers.He composed three operas and four symphonies,the First(1914) written in
memory of his great compatriot,the playright August Strindberg.These large-scale works reveal a potent influence of German Romantic models,especially Wagner.
http://youtu.be/zt8buPr0kcM
Death of BENIAMINO GIGLI
1957 in Rome
Italian tenor.After winning an international competition in Parma in 1914 he made his debut in Ponchielli's
'La Gioconda' at Rovigo and the following year won acclaim for the ardour and beauty of his Faust in Boito's
'Mefistofele in Bologna.Repeating the part at La Scala,Milan,in 1918 and at the Metropolitan Opera,New York,for his debut there in 1920, brought him international fame.
The strenght and beauty of his mellifluous voice and his perfect intonation made him one of the most popular of all 20th-century artists,and a successor to Caruso.
http://youtu.be/wHqP5FFoyf0
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