Debussy's Love Triangle
Thursday, July 14, 2016, 11:30am
A man leaving one woman for another. It happened every day in Paris in 1903, but this love triangle was different. It involved a wealthy society woman, a much younger lower-class woman--and one of France's great composers--Claude Debussy. The scandal may have begun in 1901 when a young man named...
Malcolm Arnold's Musical Jokes
Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 11:30am
Whimsy and humor run through much of the music of Malcolm Arnold--not surprisingly since the English composer always enjoyed a good joke. As a student at the Royal Academy of Music, Arnold got attention, if not approval, by stuffing fish down the organ pipes in the Great Hall. Although his parents...
Busoni in America
Tuesday, July 12, 2016, 11:30am
On July 12 th , 1911, composer Feruccio Busoni was in Berlin. A few months earlier he had been in America, and a meeting with New York publisher Rudoph Schirmer set him to thinking about the United States as he wrote to his friend pianist Egon Petri: “Last Friday we met up with Schirmer from New...
The Presidential Performer
Monday, July 11, 2016, 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...
The Meeting of Three Arts
Friday, July 8, 2016, 11:30am
Many fine works of art have resulted from the connection between music and painting. In his memoirs, British baritone George Henschel tells of an occasion when the two arts benefited from a third. In 1877 Henschel was attending a dinner part at the town house of Lord and Lady Airlie. The guests...
J.C. Bach & the Stage Coach Robbery
Thursday, July 7, 2016, 11:30am
At the age of 27, Johann Christian Bach—the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach--settled in London, where he became known as John Bach. His music suited the tastes of the times and the congenial Bach prospered, enjoying the patronage of the royal family. On one occasion, though, his attempts to...
Too Much of a Good Thing
Wednesday, July 6, 2016, 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...
The Summer Job
Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 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...
The Versatile Tune
Monday, July 4, 2016, 11:30am
It 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...
A Difficult Living
Friday, July 1, 2016, 11:30am
He may have been one of America’s first outstanding composers but William Billings had to struggle just to make a living—with or without music. Billings was born in Boston in 1746. When he was 14 the death of his father forced him to become apprenticed to a tanner. It’s likely that he attended...
The Unexpected Debut
Thursday, June 30, 2016, 11:30am
One of the greatest conducting careers in history began by accident. It came about when a 19-year-old cellist was called upon to lead a performance of Aida. The cellist was no ordinary musicisan though. He performed every opera by memory. His name-- Arturo Toscanini. In 1886 Toscanini was...
Villa-Lobos Plays the Guitar for Segovia
Wednesday, June 29, 2016, 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...
Always the Critic
Tuesday, June 28, 2016, 11:30am
"Who could not win the mistress wooed the maid." So said Alexander Pope, suggesting that critics are failed, envious artists.
The Gamble
Monday, June 27, 2016, 11:30am
In June 1907 Franz Lehár had a good reason to be nervous about the London debut of his operetta The Merry Widow . Too late, he had found out that the male lead couldn't sing. The casting for the performance had been a gamble by London producer George Edwards, who had chosen a popular comic actor...
Bull of the Frontier
Thursday, June 23, 2016, 11:30am
What he lacked in musical training the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull made up for in power and enthusiasm. In the mid-nineteenth century Bull spent a good deal of time in the United States. One day he was traveling down the Mississippi on a steamboat. As he sat reading a newspaper, a frontiersman...
Mahler's Appointment with Freud
Wednesday, June 22, 2016, 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...
Saved By a Button
Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 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...
Too Political
Monday, June 20, 2016, 11:30am
In June 1866 the Russian composer Mily Balakirev was in Prague, attempting to arrange a performance of Mikhail Glinka's opera A Life for the Czar. Things had gone badly. His efforts had been interrupted by a war between Austria and Prussia. Six months later the war was over and Balakirev was in...
Frederick the Great
Monday, June 20, 2016, 11:30am
Whether in battle or art, Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, loved all kinds of deception. In 1743 or so, during a lull between wars, Frederick got back to importing talent for his various musical ensembles. One of his potential recruits, something of a quack, was Jaques de Vaucanson, who had...
The Dynamic Hugo Wolf
Thursday, June 16, 2016, 11:30am
The Austrian composer Hugo Wolf was brilliant if erratic. A letter he wrote to a friend on June 16th, 1890 shows that he was dynamic, whether he was talking about music or the weather: “The publisher skips over the proposal to share profits as if it were unimportant. He enlarges his first...
