Tuesday, March 1, 2016, 11:30am
Christoph Willibald van Gluck was so intent on the music that he was unaware of anything else. His friend, painter Johann Christian Mannlich described a rehearsal in Paris in the 1770s: “Every day from nine until noon Gluck attended the rehearsals of his opera. When he returned from them,...
Monday, February 29, 2016, 11:30am
One of the most successful opera composers of all time retired from writing operas at the age of 37. By then he already had a long career behind him. In fact, Gioachino Rossini began composing enduring works just after his second birthday. In the summer of 1804 Rossini and two cousins named Morini...
Friday, February 26, 2016, 11:30am
Music making is a congenial form of art, but Sir Thomas Beecham discovered that sometimes the congeniality needs a little lubrication. During a tour of Australia the English conductor was relaxing in his hotel room, playing the piano and applying his less-than-sonorous voice to some of Wagner's...
Thursday, February 25, 2016, 11:30am
Handel had never written more brilliantly, but when his oratorio Deborah opened in London in 1733, once-loyal audiences boycotted it, in part because of exorbitant ticket prices and in part because of a notorious misadventure with a case of Burgundy. Handel had invited a scene-painter named Goupy...
Wednesday, February 24, 2016, 11:30am
When George Frederick Handel's oratorio Deborah premiered in London in March, 1733, it could have made the composer a lot of money if he hadn't made several blunders having little to do with music. King George and the Royal Family were present, and all of them liked it except for Frederick...
Tuesday, February 23, 2016, 11:30am
"What’s that music you’re playing? I emphatically dislike it." So said Cesar Franck's wife when he played a piano version of his Quintet. She may have been reacting to the unusual passion in the piece--passion aroused by an extraordinary student of Franck's. The...
Monday, February 22, 2016, 11:30am
During the quiet years between his wartime experiences, George Washington enjoyed relaxing at home with music. When he married the widow Martha Custis in 1759 Washington encouraged her to take keyboard lessons, though she seems not to have pursued them for long. In 1761 Washington bought a London-...
Friday, February 19, 2016, 11:30am
Haven been taken to task by his father, Mozart fired off a defensive letter: I always thought that you would disapprove of my trip with the Webers, but I never had any such intention. When people lose confidence in me I'm likely to lose confidence in myself. The days when I stood on a stool and...
Thursday, February 18, 2016, 11:30am
In February 1778, Mozart was long past his days as a child prodigy and trying to make a name for himself as a mature composer and performer. His long-suffering manager was his father Leopold, and letters between the two show that they often failed to see eye-to-eye. Leopold was eager for his son to...
Wednesday, February 17, 2016, 11:30am
Edvard Grieg, writing from Rome, February 17th, 1870: Dear Parents! Yesterday as I was sitting in the Scandinavian Club playing whist, when I received a message that Liszt would like to see me at his house. This wasn't my first meeting with him. Recently he was in town and expecting me, so I...
Tuesday, February 16, 2016, 11:30am
Eager to forget the embarrassments, Bach asked the church officials for a four-week leave of absence so that he could travel to Lubeck to visit the famous organist Dietrich Buxtehude. With permission granted Bach set out for Lubeck, 230 miles away, probably traveling mostly by coach. He was most...
Friday, February 12, 2016, 11:30am
In the summer of 1703, an 18-year-old organist began his duties at the New Church in Arnstadt. His contract included an excellent salary, and things might have gone very well if church officials had stuck to the contract. But they added one more duty, and the result was a confrontation that could...
Friday, February 12, 2016, 11:30am
In the summer of 1703, an 18-year-old organist began his duties at the New Church in Arnstadt. His contract included an excellent salary, and things might have gone very well if church officials had stuck to the contract. But they added one more duty, and the result was a confrontation that could...
Friday, February 12, 2016, 11:30am
On February 12th, 1888 Peter Tchaikovsky was traveling from Leipzig to Prague. He wrote to his brother Modeste: “On Sunday the 12th we left for Prague. At the frontier I already felt the coming celebrations. The chief of guards asked if I was Tchaikovsky, and when I said that I was he became...
Thursday, February 11, 2016, 11:30am
He was playing the piano at age one. At four, he improvised at public concerts. At six, he auditioned for admission to the Paris Conservatory and would have been admitted if it hadn’t been for one impulsive mistake. Young Isaac Albeniz was a parent’s dream and a nightmare rolled into one. He was...
Thursday, February 11, 2016, 11:30am
He was playing the piano at age one. At four, he improvised at public concerts. At six, he auditioned for admission to the Paris Conservatory and would have been admitted if it hadn’t been for one impulsive mistake. Young Isaac Albeniz was a parent’s dream and a nightmare rolled into...
Wednesday, February 10, 2016, 11:30am
One of the most memorable scenes in Russian opera is in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin—the scene in which two friends engage in a fatal duel. The opera was based on a narrative poem written in 1831 by Alexander Pushkin, who in many ways was predicting his own death. Pushkin was a...
Tuesday, February 9, 2016, 11:30am
On February 9 th , 1790, Joseph Haydn had just returned to the Hungarian country estate of his long term employers, the Esterhazy family, and to his friend Frau von Genzinger he wrote longingly of the comforts and congeniality of Vienna. “Now—here I sit in my wilderness—deserted...
Monday, February 8, 2016, 11:30am
Giuseppe Verdi is remembered as a composer who fought for political causes. But his official role in politics came against his will. On February 8 th , 1865 he wrote to librettist Francesco Maria Piave: "I received a letter from Count Cavour urging me to accept the nomination to parliament...
Friday, February 5, 2016, 11:30am
Victor Herbert was America's foremost composer of operettas. He was also involved in one of the most notorious lawsuits in the history of music. Herbert was born in Dublin in 1859. He came to New York as a cellist in 1886 and soon began a career as a conductor and composer. In 1898 he became...
