Did You Know?

Iphigenia in Brooklyn

2008-01-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

From: Iphigenia in Brooklyn, a cantata, S.53162
Composer: P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele)
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Aria: "As Hyperion across the flaming sky his chariot did ride, Iphigenia herself in Brooklyn found."

Recitative: "And lo, she found herself within a market, and all around her fish were dying; and yet their stench did live on."

Ground: "Dying, and yet in death alive."

Recitative: "And in a vision Iphigenia saw her brother Orestes, who was being chased by the Amenities; and he crie out in anguish: 'Oh ye gods, who knows what it is to be running? Only he who is running knows'."

Aria: "Running knows."

As featured on "The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach," (LP 1977)

Putting It Simply

2007-09-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Did you know. . . ,"Most of what any conductor accomplishes takes place in rehearsal?" This statement by music critic Tim Mangan seems so simplistic that it hardly seems necessary to say, but for any musician who has conducted, it shouts volumes!

Source: Tim Mangan, The Arts Blog:"Bernstein Rehearses 'The Rite'" (September 18, 2007) http://artsblog.freedomblogging.com/category/uncategorized/

Copland v. McCarthy

2007-09-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Did you know there is a complete transcript of Aaron Copland's inquisition by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1953? Here is a link to the Senate website. Select S. Prt. 107-84, Vol. 2, pp. 1267-1289 [PDF pages 362-384].

Source: Alex Ross, (Blog) The Rest is Noise, August 31, 2007

France 1940-1944

2007-03-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

Did you know that during the Occupation of Paris (1940-1944) during WWII, financial support for the four orchestras of Paris—Pasdeloup, Colonne (renamed Pierné during the war because Colonne was a Jew), Lamoureux, and Société des concerts du Conservatoire—actually increased during the four years of the Occupation as much as 459 percent? The latter, under conductor Charles Münch, gave concerts in the provinces in 1942 despite the difficulties of traveling during the war.

Source: French Music Since Berlioz, Richard Langham Smith and Caroline Potter (Burlington:2006), p.283

Nicolas Breakspear and Leonin of Paris

2006-04-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

Did you know there was an English Pope? Nicolas Breakspear served as Pope Adrian IV from 1154 to 1159. In 1152, shortly before his papacy began, Breakspear was sent as papal legate to Scandanavia. As he returned to Rome in 1154, he met Leonin (ca.1135- ca.1201), poet, priest, musician and the founder of the Notre Dame School. He also composed the collection of organa called the Magnus Liber Organi. According to musicologist Craig Wright, when the two men met in Paris, Breakspear "promised the young cleric [Leonin] his assistance." Such help never came, but Leonin found favor with the next pope, Alexander III (1159-1181). Alexander III lived in France from 1162 to 1165 and it was he that supposedly "laid the first stone of he new catherdral." (Source: Craig Wright, "Leonius, Poet and Musician," Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. XXXIX, No. 1, Spring 1986, pp.23-25)

Musicians Incognito

2006-03-31T14:17:00.000-08:00

Did you know that former FED Chairman Alan Greenspan (b. 1926) in1943 enrolled in the Juilliard School to study the clarinet and that he dropped out the next year to join Henry Jerome and His Orchestra, a travelling swing band? That former British Prime Minister Edward Heath (1916-2005) was an organ major at Oxford University? That U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (b. 1954) first studied to be a concert pianist?

Condoleeza Rice the Musician

2006-03-31T14:05:00.000-08:00

Did you know that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is a musician? During a radio interview January 2, 2005 on Mad About Music with Gilbert Kaplan, Rice expressed her views about music and her tastes in musical style. Condi Rice was a piano prodigy at three and a concerto competition winner at age 15. Kaplan explained that her name is “a variation of con dolcezza which means, of course, ‘with sweetness,’ a direction of how to play the music.” She started piano lessons at three with her grandmother and by ten, she went to the Birmingham Southern Conservatory of Music – “the first black student to go to that newly-integrated conservatory in Birmingham,” said Rice. Her family moved to Denver and she won a young artists' competition playing the Mozart D Minor Piano Concerto. At 15, she entered the University of Denver as a music major. Rice explained, “I planned a career as a concert pianist but I realized in my sophomore year that I was pretty good, but not great.” Her two favorite operas are both Mussorgsky: Khovanschina and Boris Godunov. She said, “I’m quite a fan of Prokofiev and of some Shostakovich.” Rice admitted, “I've always been much more attracted to Brahms, to Schumann, to a certain extent to Schubert. I don't particularly like programmatic music and Liszt . . . has never been particularly interesting to me.” Though obviously accomplished, she says about ability: “I'm one of those people now if you put it in front of me, I can read it. But if you ask me to play it by ear or with improvisation, I have much harder time. . .” With her busy life as Secretary of State, Rice says she has little time to practice. “I now play almost exclusively chamber music and I have to be selective,” said she. Her favorite symphony is the Beethoven Seventh. (Source: Transcript at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/mam/episodes/2005/01/02 )

Biographical notes: Rice was born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master’s from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.

Vaughn Williams on Bellini

2006-03-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

"Personally," says John Klein, "I have never been able to understand the violent prejudice against [Vincenzo] Bellini in English musical circles; it was glaringly revealed in [Ralph] Vaughn Williams's strange outburst on the historic occasion of the successful revival of Norma at Covent Garden in 1952. 'We have only two opera houses here,' he exclaimed, 'but in the centenary year of [Charles Villiers] Stanford's birth, when they might have given us an opportunity of hearing such splendid works as Shamus O'Brien or Much Ado, they chose to shake the dead bones of Norma.'" (Source: John Klein's review of Bellini by Leslie Orrey (London:1969) in Music and Letters, Vol. 50, No. 4, October 1969, p. 491)

Thomas Weelkes's Last Will & Testament

2006-02-13T17:08:00.000-08:00

"In the name of god Amen. That I Thomas Wilkes of Checester in the County of Sussex gent sicke of bodye but of good and p[er]fect mynde & memory god can be thancked do make this my last will and Testament in these words followinge. That is to say I bequeath my soule to god who gave it. And my bodye to the earth from whence it came and as for all othermy landes tenementes goodes chattells bills bondes debts or demaundes dewe to me by any p[er]son or p[er]sons what soever unto my trustic and welbeloved fri[en]d Henry Drinckewater of the p[ar]ishe of Sa[i]nt Brydes London cutler whom I make my full and absolutw executor of this my said last will and Testament. And the reason why I should make the foresaid Henry Drinckewater my Executor is, for that I the said Thomas Wilkes at the makinge and day and date hereof am indebted unto him he said Henry Drinckewater in the some of fiftye shillinges of good and lawfull englishe money for meate drincke and lodginge, and such lyke necessaryes which is alreddy dewe unto him. And do further lykewise desire the said Henry Drinckewater if it shall please god to take me out of this world into his heavenly mercy to se me buryed lyke a man of my profession, and to pay him selfe as well such monys as shall hereafter be layd out and disbursed aboute my buryall as also all such monyes as formerlye he hath layd out and disbursed and dewe unto him before the day and date herof, and the rest of my goodes and chattelles to be divided amoungst my children, that is to say, to my Sonne Thomas Wilkes five shillings to my daughter Katheryne Wilkes five shillings, and all the rest of my goods lands chattelles and hereditam[en]tes whatsoever to my daughter Alce Wilkes, And do as is before mencioned and expressed make him the said Henry Drinckewater my full and absolute Exeecutor of this my Last will and Testament. In witnes whereof I have hereunto putt my handle and Scale the xxxth. day of November in the one and Twentith yeare of the Raigne of our Soveraigne Lord King James ad in the yeare of our Lord God 1623." -- from "The Death of Thomas Weelkes in 1623" by Timothy J. McCann; Music and Letters, Vol. 55, No. 1, January 1974, pp. 45-47

Haydn Meets Liszt

2005-10-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

Did you know. . . that it is likely that Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) met Franz Liszt's father, Adám Liszt (1776-1827)? According to a letter by F. Liszt dated June 5, 1885, Liszt says: "My father told me several times about his contacts with Haydn and the daily [card] parties--I forget which games--he played with him." Adám Liszt was a young cellist in Haydn's orchestra at Eisenstadt. Both Adám Liszt and Joseph Haydn were servants of Prince Nicholas II Esterházy. For perspective, in 1795, when Haydn, then 63, returned from London to resume conducting the court orchestra, Adám Liszt was only 19. (Sources: Alan Walker, Franz Liszt--(Vol 1.) The Virtuoso Years 1811-1847, (1990) p. 38-39. Also see, "Lisztiana with Three Unpublished Letters," Musical Quarterly, Vol. XLVII, No.4, (October) 1961, p.474

Christoph von Dohnanyi

2005-02-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

Did you know. . . that the eminent conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi was the nephew of Protestant theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)? Bonhoeffer's older sister, Christel (1895-1965), married Hans von Dohnanyi (1902-1945). Their son was Christoph. Bonhoeffer was an influential Christian writer and preacher. His stance against the Nazis in Germany was heroic. He became involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler for which he was executed.

Eiffel Tower

2005-02-13T00:44:00.000-08:00

Did you know? A month after Gustave Eiffel was given the contact to build the now landmark tower, a petition appeared in Le Temps on February 14, 1887 to demand that "in the name of good taste, Eiffel cease and desist with his menace to French history." The petition was signed by, among others, Charles Gounod (composer), Charles Garnier (architect of the Paris Opera) and writers Alexander Dumas and Guy de Maupassant. (Source: Elaine Brody, Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope 1870-1925 (New York:1987) p.87

Adolphe Nourrit (1802-1839)

2004-11-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

Did you know...famous French tenor Adolphe Nourrit commited suicide after becoming despondent? After a glorious career in France, he went to Italy and changed his style, much to his musical detriment. His career did not go well in Italy. (Ref. MQ:XXV (1939) No.1 : p .11)

Camerata

2004-11-11T19:15:00.000-08:00

Did you know...the camerata was an assembly of Florentine (Florence, Italy) noblemen [e.g. literary men, musicians, and amateurs) who cultivated early dramatic music? (MQ: XXV (1939), No.1:p. 26.). The "moving spirit" of this group was Count Giovanni Bardi (1534-1612).