Stars That Entertain Unseen Audiences
Tuesday, October 18, 2016, 11:30am
“Some people grow; others just swell.” It was a popular saying in the 1920s when radio was becoming all the rage, making stars overnight. Some of them, already established on stage, brought their egos with them to the airwaves. In 1923 Thomas Cowan, an announcer at New York radio station WJZ,...
Starting Over
Monday, October 17, 2016, 11:30am
By 1770 Charles Burney had come a long way from his exploitive apprenticeship working for composer Thomas Arne. He had become a distinguished and discriminating music critic and historian. During his travels on the Continent, he collected stories from the lives of celebrated composers and...
I Feel Lost Already
Friday, October 14, 2016, 11:30am
The Guns of Navarone, The Thing from Another World, Friendly Persuasion, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, High Noon– those classics and more than a hundred other Hollywood movies bear the stamp of composer Dimitri Tiomkin, a Russian émigré who developed a flair for writing American music. He was...
Collision Course
Thursday, October 13, 2016, 11:30am
In the early days of radio someone decided that it would be a good idea to time orchestral performances. The results were surprising to most conductors, and put two of the greatest on a collision course. In 1949 Leonard Bernstein was a young up-and-coming conductor and an avid listener to records...
The New World
Tuesday, October 11, 2016, 11:30am
On October 12, 1892, newly arrived in the New World, Czech composer Antonín DvoÍák wrote from New York to a friend in Moravia about his first impressions of America: After being in quarantine for just a little while we arrived safely in the promised land. The view from Sandy Hook, the harbor town...
I Quit!
Tuesday, October 11, 2016, 11:30am
The job was good, the pay quite nice, and the employer friendly, so in 1717 Johann Sebastian Bach accepted the position of conductor of the music staff for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. The only catch: Bach already had a job and he needed to get out of it. For nine years Bach had put up with the...
A Force for Change
Monday, October 10, 2016, 11:30am
Allegro, Andante, Adagio, Presto. We take the venerable tempo indications for granted today. Beethoven did not, as becomes apparent in a letter he wrote to a fellow composer and conductor in 1817: I am ecstatic that you share my opinions about our tempo indications, which originated in the...
Farewell Again
Thursday, October 6, 2016, 11:30am
Adelina Patti was one of the most celebrated sopranos in the history of music, but that didn’t put her above the barbs thrown by New York Evening Post critic Henry T. Finck. Finck had several misgivings about Patti, most of them having little to do with her singing, which he described as “so...
I Am Sick of it All!
Wednesday, October 5, 2016, 11:30am
After receiving an invitation to write a choral work for the 1898 Leeds Festival, Edward Elgar began work on his cantata Caractacus . His inspiration would have to carry him past a series of obstacles, including his own pessimism. He decided on a story about an ancient British hero, but the man...
Last Laugh
Tuesday, October 4, 2016, 11:30am
In his autobiography, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf couldn’t resist passing along a story that suggests how seriously eighteenth-century Venetians took their music. The famous castrato Guadagni had given three fine performances in an opera that was a particular favorite of Venetians. But after an...
Second Thoughts
Monday, October 3, 2016, 11:30am
Although he had never conducted any of William Walton’s music, Thomas Beecham suggested that the young composer write a concerto for violist Lionel Tertis. Walton wrote the concerto and sent it to Tertis, who thought that Walton’s music was a little too farfetched, and turned it down. A friend at...
Breaking Through
Friday, September 30, 2016, 11:30am
Seventeen-year-old Johannes Brahms was determined to become a composer, and so in 1850 when Robert Schumann came to Hamburg for a visit, Brahms got up his courage and sent a parcel of his music to Schumann’s hotel. The result was discouraging. The parcel came back unopened. Two years later Brahms...
Second Expedition
Thursday, September 29, 2016, 11:30am
During his first sojourn in America, composer Karel Szymanowski had accomplished little more than strengthening his identity as a Polish composer. Nonetheless, in 1921 a friend convinced him that a second visit would be more productive since new contacts there might lead to important performances...
The Joker and the Queen
Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 11:30am
If a story from the 1690s is true, composer Henry Purcell was so self-assured that he dared to play a joke on Queen Mary. Purcell had been commissioned to compose music for the queen’s birthday, the assigned verses being praise of King William’s bravery and the queen’s virtues. Apparently thinking...
A Minor Detail
Tuesday, September 27, 2016, 11:30am
Franz Lehár was enthusiastic again. Having made his fortune at the age of thirty-five with his 1905 operetta The Merry Widow , the Hungarian composer had gone through a fallow stretch during World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, in 1925, he had found a tenor, Richard...
Not To Be
Monday, September 26, 2016, 11:30am
When celebrated Czech composer Antonín Dvořák stepped onto the pier in New York on September 26, 1892, he was welcomed as the future discoverer of American music. During his two-and-a-half-year tenure as the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, Americans got to hear a variety...
Turnabout
Friday, September 23, 2016, 11:30am
The celebrated conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was known for the practical jokes he played on performers. How well would he take it when a performer put one over on him? In the fall of 1935 Beecham was holding auditions for a season at London’s Covent Garden and a long tour through the country, which...
Money Sings
Thursday, September 22, 2016, 11:30am
In the fall of 1974 soprano Kiri Te Kanawa was cast in the role of Marguerite in a Covent Garden production of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust . An American philanthropist had offered £500,000 for the staging of his favorite work. The money came with a string attached. The part of Mephistopheles had...
First, the Money
Wednesday, September 21, 2016, 11:30am
In memoirs he wrote in 1896, conductor Luigi Arditi recalls a situation in which a stubborn baritone named Novara pursued his demand for money all the way into a performance. Novara had agreed to sing the part of Rocco for three performances of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio with the understanding that...
That's All I Ask
Tuesday, September 20, 2016, 11:30am
On September 20, 1850, Richard Wagner shared his aspirations with critic Theodor Uhlig, writing from Zurich about the key to achieving his latest artistic goal: What’s needed to accomplish the best, most decisive and important project that I can take on in the current circumstances, and to bring to...