Grace Notes

Norman Gilliland gives the stories behind the struggle to create great music.

In the spring of 1561 the Santa Maria Maggiore church in Rome hired a new choirmaster. His name was Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina, and his abilities as a composer of church music would become legendary.

Santa Maria Maggiore had a down-to-earth problem that persists in many church choirs today. It was summarized in a complaint by a bishop who informed church officials that after listening very closely to the choir, he had been unable to distinguish a single word they had sung.

There were other difficulties that the new choirmaster faced. Church composers had fallen into the habit of appropriating...

Dvorak Goes to the Fair

Thursday, July 26, 2018, 11:30am

In the summer of 1893 the great Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak paid a celebrated visit to the Bohemian community of Spillville, Iowa. It was a peaceful sojourn during which Dvorak made a side trip to a vortex of chaos known as the World's Columbian Exposition Quadricentennial in Chicago.

The "white city," as it was known, rose up in Jackson Park on Lake Michigan, at the edge of the second biggest metropolis in the country. It had a Venetian theme of canals and gilded gondolas and palaces. Packed into its midway was a dizzying multitude of ethnic encampments--including miniature villages from...

The Literary Critic

Wednesday, July 25, 2018, 11:30am

Peter Tchaikovsky had nothing but praise for the French music of his time. He valued George Bizet's opera Carmen above anything produced by the Russian national school, and he was so taken with Jules Massenet's opera Maria Madeleine that he wrote a duet based on words by Tolstoi to a tune inspired by it. But when it came to French literature Tchaikovsky's opinions ran strongly counter to the trends of the day. In July 1880 he wrote to his brother Modeste:

“When it comes to your advice to read The Laughing Man, I thank you, but facetiously. Don't you know...

The Boy Who Dared

Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 11:30am

The young soloist had made up his mind. He was going to play Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the New York Symphony-even though the conductor and the New York music critics scoffed at the idea. When push came to shove, they all gave way for Yehudi Menuhin.

The year was 1927. Walter Damrosch was America's best-known conductor. He tried to reason with the boy. "Now, Yehudi, you probably realize that Beethoven is to music what Shakespeare is to the stage. What is it, then, that makes you think you can play his concerto?"

"I don't know," Menuhin said. "I never thought...

Respect for a Master

Monday, July 23, 2018, 11:30am

By 1750, Francesco Geminiani had been in England off and on for more than 35 years. He had become known as one of Europe's finest composers and violinists. Running short of money, he decided to conduct a benefit concert at Covent Garden. Unfortunately, conducting was not his strong suit, but his reputation and sheer musicianship carried him through a looming disaster, as becomes apparent in an eyewitness account of the concert:

The Concert from Hell

Friday, July 20, 2018, 11:30am

Call it the concert from hell. In his autobiography, Louis Spohr tells of a performance that got off to a bad start and hit the skids to disaster.

It happened during a German tour in 1811. Before the concert a wealthy amateur treated the musicians to a lavish evening of dinner and champagne. The musicians grew so merry that they forgot all about the concert and rushed to the hall at the last minute.

The concert began with an overture by a composer named Romberg, who overreacted to criticism that he conducted too slowly. He conducted so fast that the...

The Innovator

Thursday, July 19, 2018, 11:30am

He was a major innovator in the insurance industry. He created the concept of estate planning and introduced the idea of training schools for insurance agents. When it came to composing music Charles Ives was also a mover and shaker, but followers were few.

In 1910, a business acquaintance talked the celebrated conductor Walter Damrosch into having the New York Symphony Orchestra play through parts of Ives' First Symphony during a rehearsal. Although he had misgivings, Ives needed to hear his music performed so he offered the second movement of his symphony for the exercise.

At first the playing went...

The Masterpiece

Wednesday, July 18, 2018, 11:30am

Peter Tchaikovsky had reservations about his fellow Russian composers, but great respect for a contemporary from France—George Bizet, composer of Carmen. In a letter to his brother Modeste he wrote on July 18", 1880:

“To refresh myself last night I played Carmen from start to finish and all my admiration and love for that wonderful opera came rushing back. [I even conceived an article in which Carmen, in spite of its modest claim to be only an opera comique, and not grand opera, is really one of the most prominent lyric-dramatic creations of our time.

“In my...

The Theft

Tuesday, July 17, 2018, 11:30am

Musicians are never far from the possibility of a professional catastrophe. But when it became known that composer Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst suffered from an incurable illness, his friend, violinist Joseph Joachim, participated in a benefit concert for Ernst. Then came a second blow, which Ernst described in a letter to Joachim on July 17, 1862:

I've been somewhat better for the last few days. I'm in less pain and the weather is so splendid that I can go for an unbroken swim in the sea. I hope I'll get some relief, and build up enough strength to get me
...

Grieg's Rambunctious Move

Monday, July 16, 2018, 11:30am

Occasionally an artist becomes too popular for his own good. In his autobiography, Edvard Grieg tells about trying to find a place to put up a hut where he could work undisturbed by his public.

He built on a secluded hill overlooking a fjord, to which there was no visible path, hoping to be free from intruders. But unbeknownst to him an old right-of-way path led right to it. So all winter long, if the weather wasn't too bad, Grieg heard people tiptoeing around the hut as he worked.

It also turned out that the hut was exposed to powerful...

A Tune for Revolution & Revelry

Friday, July 13, 2018, 11:30am

The young captain of engineers in the French army was popular as a poet, violinist, and singer among his fellow officers in Strasbourg. He wrote a hymn to liberty and several plays but, above all, Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle is remembered for his war song for the army of the Rhine-better known as the Marseillaise.

France declared war on Austria in 1792, and on the night of April 25, Rouget de Lisle wrote hastily a rousing song vowing death to the enemy. The song was quickly arranged for a military review, and was snapped up by volunteers from Marseilles, who...

Haydn Takes London

Thursday, July 12, 2018, 11:30am

Joseph Haydn had been in London for three months and was succeeding mightily with English audiences. On March 14th, 1791 he wrote to a friend in Vienna:

“I have plenty to do because of all the concerts and opera, and I am hounded all the time by the subscription concerts. Our opera hasn't opened yet, and since the king won't grant the license, the director of the opera plans to open it as if it were a subscription concert because if he doesn't he just may lose twenty thousand pounds sterling. I won't lose anything because my bankers in
...

The Sunday Pianist

Wednesday, July 11, 2018, 11:30am

Franz Liszt was not only a masterful pianist and a world-class composer. He also fostered the talent of other composers. Alexander Borodin wrote of a formative encounter with Liszt in July 1877.

The Ruins of Babylon

Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 11:30am

Greatness in ruins-it was a popular theme for poets and composers in the early 19th century. A little too popular as far as Beethoven was concerned. In July 1811, he found himself being upstaged, and he wrote to a Viennese theater director to do something about it.

Your Excellency-I hear that the actor Scholz will shortly be giving as a benefit for the Theater An der Wien the melodrama The Ruins of Babylon. I wished to write an opera on the subject, as I have already announced to you. I cannot comprehend this complication! I dare say you know
...

The Starving Artist

Monday, July 9, 2018, 11:30am

The starving artist. The phrase is a cliche, but it is also a literal description of composer Karl Goldmark as a young theater musician.

In 1851, at age 21, Goldmark was scraping out a living as a theater musician in Budapest. He and a friend rented a single room with a kitchen. They slept in the kitchen on a bag stuffed with straw. Their only other furniture was a chair and a piano. Goldmark practiced diligently, h oping to become a capable self-taught pianist so that he could supplement his income as an accompanist for singers. He also played for...

Too Much of a Good Thing

Friday, July 6, 2018, 11:30am

Was it too much of a good thing? He was born with the best musical heritage imaginable and his talent was considerable, but Wilhelm Friedemann Bach fell short of everyone's expectations. He was the first-born son of Johann Sebastian Bach, and that in itself may have proved a handicap. Friedemann was his father's favorite among his four composer sons, and among the four it was Friedemann who wrote music most like his father's.

By the 1730's,though, Friedemann found himself defending his and his father's harmony-rich music against those favoring a newer style that Fridemann disdained as mere "ear-tickling" and "bouncing...

The Summer Job

Thursday, July 5, 2018, 11:30am

In the 1920s the most reliable way for a young composer to make money was to teach--without being too picky about the quality of the students. When twenty-five-year-old Aaron Copland had a chance to make money by performing in a trio at a Pennsylvania summer resort, he took it.

Copland was working on a Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. He imagined a perfect summer with leisurely mornings in which to compose, free meals, and playing easy pieces for afternoon teas and genteel dinners.

It was not to be.

The Milford Inn was running in the red and had so few...

A Versatile Tune

Wednesday, July 4, 2018, 11:30am

The song began humbly and rose to great heights over the course of 150 years. Our story begins in London in 1780 with a social club named after a fun-loving Roman poet said to have died at 86 from choking on a grape seed.

Most of the members of the Anacreontic Society were amateur musicians, though a few of them were professionals. [They met every two weeks at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand. The evening's entertainment consisted of a concert, dinner, and drinking songs.] The society began each evening with a song tailor-made by two...

Sad Thoughts from Paris

Tuesday, July 3, 2018, 11:30am

In 1778, 22 year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had gone with his mother to Paris, hoping to enhance his international reputation. He had gone reluctantly, and once he got there, he found one obstacle after another. On July 3, he wrote to his father in Salzburg:

"I have very painful and sad news to give you, which in fact accounts for my n ot having replied sooner to your letter. My dearest mother is very ill. They have bled her according to custom, which was indeed quite necessary and did her a lot of good. But a few days later
...

Stravinsky's Star-Spangled Banner

Monday, July 2, 2018, 11:30am

Igor Stravinsky had been living the in the United States for two years and he wanted to make a patriotic gesture. But America didn't exactly appreciate Stravinsky's gift-an arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Two Things gave Stravinsky the idea of writing the arrangement. A composer who visited him twice a week "to have his works re-composed" suggested it. And since Stravinsky was obliged to begin all of his concerts with the National Anthem anyway, and didn't care for any of the existing arrangements, he set to work. He finished it in Los Angeles on July 4, 1941. Shortly afterward an...

Villa-Lobos Plays the Guitar for Segovia

Friday, June 29, 2018, 11:30am

It was only natural that Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos would write for the guitar. And maybe it was inevitable that he would meet the world's greatest guitarist, Andres Segovia. But exactly what happened at that first meeting is not so certain because Villa-Lobos and Segovia gave sharply contrasting accounts of it.

It happened in Paris in 1924. They were at a party given by a mutual friend. According to Villa-Lobos, Segovia didn't recognize him at first and remarked that the composer wrote music that was at odds with the guitar since it required impossible techniques. Then, according to Villa-Lobos, the...

Mahler's Appointment with Freud

Friday, June 22, 2018, 11:30am

It was to be a meeting of minds. The great symphonist Gustav Mahler had an appointment with the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

Although he initiated it, Mahler was clearly uneasy about the meeting. He canceled three times before finally coming face to face with Freud in 1910. By the time the session was finally arranged Freud was vacationing on the Baltic coast. Only Mahler's stature made him agree to interrupt his relaxation for professional work.

After a fitful exchange of telegrams, they met at a hotel in Leyden and spent four hours ambling through town as Freud delved into...

Saved By a Button

Thursday, June 21, 2018, 11:30am

The Water Music, the Royal Fireworks Music, Messiah. It's possible that none of them would have been written if it hadn't been for a lucky encounter with a button.

In 1704 George Frederick Handel was a 19-year-old hothead who took his music making very seriously. He was serving as harpsichordist in a Hamburg production of the opera Cleopatra by another young composer, Johann Mattheson. Mattheson was one of the stars of the production, playing the part of Antonius. After falling on his sword and going through his death scene, Mattheson was free to slip into the orchestra pit and pick...

An Improviser Par Excellence

Friday, June 15, 2018, 11:30am

By 1740, when Carl Philip Emanuel Bach went to Pottsdam to work for King Frederick the Great, his father, Johann Sebastian Bach, was famous throughout Europe, and King Frederick grew increasingly eager to meet the man known as "the Old Bach."

In 1747 Johann Sebastian Bach, age 62, finally left Leipzig and made the journey to Pottsdam with his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The king was in the habit of holding private concerts every night, during which he would solo in the performance of flute concertos. One evening as the king and his musicians were all ready to play, an...

The Rhapsody that Wouldn't Let Go

Tuesday, June 12, 2018, 11:30am

Composers have various reasons for writing--inspiration, pleasure, and money. In the case of Claude Debussy's Saxophone Rhapsody the motivation was provided by money and a persistent music-lover named Mrs. Elise Hall.

Mrs. Hall was a wealthy Boston matron who had taken up the saxophone. In 1895 she commissioned Debussy to compose a work for her instrument. As far as Debussy was concerned, Mrs. Hall's commission had a good side and a bad side. On the bad side was his lack of familiarity with the saxophone. On the good side was the payment enclosed. He accepted the...

More Than You Deserve

Monday, June 11, 2018, 11:30am

Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler

Ludwig van Beethoven was very dependent upon the good will of his publishers, but he was blunt by nature, and in a letter to Breitkopf and Hertel in June 1810, Beethoven minced no words...

Favors

Friday, June 8, 2018, 11:30am

Pianist and composer Stephen Heller had gotten to know violinist Joseph Joachim during a concert tour in England. When a friend needed a favor, Heller wrote to the influential Joachim from Paris on June 8th, 1862:

“Besides the quiet sincerity and simple manners of the good men of the country I miss all that lush green which you get in the parks and squares and gardens of London. The heat is intense and I dread July and August. My new rooms are pretty and cool and comfortable. The only problem is a piano teacher who lives on the fourth floor...

A Friend and a Liability

Thursday, June 7, 2018, 11:30am

Composer Charles Gounod was handsome, talented, and charming. He needed to make some connections in opera circles. When he met Pauline Viardot he made connections quickly, but he paid for them.

In 1850 Madame Viardot was the talk of Paris music circles. Some thought she was ugly, some found her strangely attractive. All agreed that she was a fine singer, though not in the usual way. According to composer Camille Saint-Saens Madame Viardot's voice was neither velvet nor crystal, but harsh and powerful, with the "pungent flavor of a bitter orange."

She lived in an unusual household. It consisted of...

The Shaky Accompanist

Wednesday, June 6, 2018, 11:30am

Modeste Mussorgsky's physician had good reason to fear that the composer was in no state to participate in a concert he had arranged for the benefit of medical students.

Mussorgsky was to accompany the distinguished Italian tenor Ravelli, and when on the day of the performance, the singer asked to meet Mussorgsky, the physician found the composer reeling under the influence of alcohol. Mussorgsky told his friend that he wasn't up to meeting Ravelli at that particular moment, but assured the doctor that he would be just fine for the evening performance.

With that, Mussorgsky saw the doctor to the...

That Useless Company

Tuesday, June 5, 2018, 11:30am

Sometimes even the greatest composers have to distinguish between just and unjust criticisms of their work. After a bad performance of his opera Un Ballo in Maschera, Giuseppe Verdi wrote to the producer on June 5, 1859:

You were wrong to defend Un Ballo in Maschera against the attacks in the newspapers. You should do what I always do-don't read them, or let them sing whatever tune they want. Fact-an opera is either bad or good. If it's bad, the journalists are right to pan it. If it's good and they refuse to acknowledge it because of some prejudice,...

Pay Up!

Monday, April 8, 2019, 11:30am

Ludwig van Beethoven's music has many stormy moments, and it's likely that some of them were inspired by his dealings with his publishers. In the spring of 1805 he wrote to Breitkopf and Hertel in Leipzig a letter that shows his Olympian anger...

Footloose in Paris

Friday, April 5, 2019, 11:30am

In April 1778 twenty-two-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was in Paris hoping to build an international reputation.

Nettles Instead of Roses

Thursday, April 4, 2019, 11:30am

"This profession, my dear boy, is not what people imagine." So wrote violinist Eugene Ysayë to his son Gabriel about 1901.

The Swedish Nightingale Meets Barnum

Wednesday, April 3, 2019, 11:30am

The famed soprano Jenny Lind had plenty of talent and determination. And when she came to America in 1850 she had more than enough publicity. Her promoter was the biggest showman of them all—PT Barnum. Eager to rise above his reputation as a promoter of sideshows and freaks, Barnum had risked his...

Fed Up in Rome

Tuesday, April 2, 2019, 11:30am

Love, politics, and music. In April 1831 Hector Berlioz was in Florence, Italy, and he was disgusted with all three. He wrote to a friend: “You speak to me of music and of love! What do you have in mind? I don't get it. Is there something on earth called music and love? I thought I'd heard those...

The Tricksters

Monday, April 1, 2019, 11:30am

Niccoló Paganini was the most famous violinist in Europe. He was also more versatile than anyone would have guessed--at work and play. And he loved a practical joke.

Eccentric to the End

Friday, March 29, 2019, 11:30am

He was a strange man, a macabre man, the composer of the "Funeral March for a Papagallo." Everything about Charles-Valentin Alkan seemed eccentric—even his death on March 29th, 1888.

What Went Wrong?

Thursday, March 28, 2019, 11:30am

In 1601, at the age of 25, Thomas Weelkes was one of England's most promising musicians... then his life took a turn for the worse.

The Modest Virtuoso

Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 11:30am

On March 27 th , 1830 a twenty-year-old Polish pianist, Frederic Chopin, was concertizing in Warsaw and he wrote to a friend in a nearby town: “About the first concert: The hall was full, and all the boxes and stage seats were sold out three days in advance, but most of the audience didn't get the...

The Presidential Performer

Tuesday, March 26, 2019, 11:30am

It was a time when a president of the United States was in sore need of soothing music, and Woodrow Wilson brought some of the best performers into the White House. He had the added advantage of being a pretty fair musician himself. As a young man Wilson had played the violin. He sang tenor in the...

A Royal Pain

Monday, March 25, 2019, 11:30am

An invitation to perform for a king. Most musicians would see it as a grand opportunity. Louis Spohr found it a royal pain.

Lully's Last Maneuver

Friday, March 22, 2019, 11:30am

Jean-Baptiste Lully was extremely devoted to his music. In fact, he died for it.

The Hardest Thing in the World

Thursday, March 21, 2019, 11:30am

On March 21st, 1864--in the thick of the Civil War--New Orleans-born composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk was in the middle of a concert tour of the northern and western states.

The Dazzling Liszt

Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 11:30am

At the age of 30 Robert Schumann was one of many pianist composers who was dazzled by the virtuosity and personality of the 29-year-old Franz Liszt. He reported to his fiancée Clara Wieck, from Leipzig in March 1840: “I wish you could have been with me this morning to see Liszt. He is quite...

The Italian Marine Band

Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 11:30am

. The group of sixteen Italian musicians didn’t know what to think. Their leader, Gaetano Carusi, had brought them to America, the land of promise. But when they arrived in Washington their first thought must have been to go back home. The year was 1805 and Carusi himself described the capital city...

Brutally Frank Advice

Monday, March 18, 2019, 11:30am

How direct should an established composer be when appraising the work of an up-and-comer? Vincent d'Indy would've had two answers to the question -- one before and one after getting advice from Cesar Franck. D'Indy recalled: "Once I had played a movement of my string quartet for him -- which I...

The Ill-Fated Symphony

Friday, March 15, 2019, 11:30am

That first symphony can be intimidating for a composer. Sergei Rachmaninoff was a long time recovering from his. He was pleased with his symphony, confident to the point of arrogance. He played a piano version for composer Sergei Taneyev, who expressed his displeasure with it. Undaunted,...

Haydn Takes London

Thursday, March 14, 2019, 11:30am

Joseph Haydn had been in London for three months and was succeeding mightily with English audiences. On March 14th, 1791 he wrote to a friend in Vienna: “I have plenty to do because of all the concerts and opera, and I am hounded all the time by the subscription concerts. Our opera hasn't opened...

From the Earth to the Moon

Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 11:30am

It was an extremely popular subject--science fiction. The music was by France's leading operetta composer, Jacques Offenbach, and the story by the father of science fiction, Jules Verne. The French stage had never seen anything like From the Earth to the Moon. The Franco-Prussian War of the 1870's...

An Honest Opinion

Tuesday, March 12, 2019, 11:30am

Johannes Brahms disliked insincere flattery. But he sometimes went to great lengths to get an honest opinion of his composing and his playing. In his autobiography, composer Karl Goldmark mentions receiving an invitation to a house where two new Brahms compositions were to be performed for the...

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