Grace Notes

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

Muzio Clementi was one of the most diverse musicians of his time. He was a celebrated pianist. He manufactured and sold pianos. He was a major composer. He was a publisher. And if one account is true, Clementi was also focused to a fault.

In his memoirs, oboist William Parke wrote of a hot summer day in 1796 and an outing during which Clementi and a cellist named John Crosdill went swimming while visiting the estate of the Earl of Pembroke. Hearing of Clementi’s absent-mindedness, Crosdill decided to test it. While Clementi continued to swim, Crosdill sneaked off with his...

Shifting Allegiance

Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 11:30am

Although he was born in Glasgow of an English mother, Eugène d’Albert never considered himself an Englishman. His father, who was a ballet master in London’s King’s Theatre and at Covent Garden, was German-born, but was of French and Italian descent, and had among his forebears two eighteenth-century composers, Giuseppe Matteo Alberti and Domenico Alberti.

If young d’Albert had a constant in his life, it was probably music. His first teacher was his father, who, apparently, was quite effective because at the age of twelve the boy won a scholarship to the new National Training School for Music, where his...

The Impoverished Romantic

Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 11:30am

Félicien David is remembered as one of France’s great romantic composers. At the age of twenty-one, he already had a strong sense of romanticism and the hardships that came with trying to make a living from it.

In 1831 David was writing a comic opera, but his financial situation was no laughing matter. He had just lost the financial support of his uncle and was penniless in Paris. David managed to find a few students in harmony and piano, and fell in love with one of them, which left him “dreaming, timid, wondering, and more than a little confused,” according...

Even One Note

Monday, June 23, 2014, 11:30am

It wasn’t that Pablo Casals was always kind. After all, the fiery-tempered Spaniard had once punished a double-dealing manager with some rough turns in a revolving door. But when it came to judging students, the celebrated cellist could be gentle almost to a fault.

In the late 1920s he was staying at the Berlin home of Francesco von Mendelssohn, a distant relative of composer Felix Mendelssohn, who invited up-and-coming cellist Gregor Piatigorsky to come over and meet Casals and another guest, the young pianist Rudolph Serkin.

Casals said that he always enjoyed meeting young, talented musicians. He wanted to hear...

The Missing Ingredient

Sunday, June 22, 2014, 11:30am

In 1889, one M. P. Byelyayev decided to promote Russian music at the Paris Universal Exposition. He arranged for two symphonic concerts of Russian music at the Tocadéro Hall to be conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Also participating would be a pianist named Lavrov and the impressive young composer Alexander Glazunov, who would be represented on the program by his second symphony and a symphonic poem.

The French orchestra was excellent and the music included some of the best new works Russia had to offer--including Rimsky-Korsakov’s own Antar Symphony and major compositions by Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Borodin, among others.

The audience...

No Conductor in the World

Saturday, June 21, 2014, 11:30am

During the summer of 1921 Igor Stravinsky was in London, where his Symphonies of Wind Instruments was to be performed for the first time as part of a program conducted by the distinguished Serge Koussevitsky. Stravinsky dedicated the work to the memory of Claude Debussy, but he didn’t expect any great popular success with the symphony because he had written it to appeal to the intellect rather than attempting to please his audience by playing on the emotions. He later described the work as “an austere ritual” that consisted of “short litanies” between groups of instruments that didn’t provide any...

Very Exaggerated

Friday, June 20, 2014, 11:30am

Erik Satie was well known for his eccentricity by June 1920 when his ballet La Belle Excentrique turned up on the stage of the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. He had a devoted following among composers and other artists in the know, but was all too familiar with the complaints of audiences and the barbs of critics, one of whom he had battled with his fists and walking stick.

Elizabeth Toulemon, known to friends as Elise and as Caryathis onstage, was to do the dancing. After several false starts in her search for a costume, she asked Jean Cocteau to...

The Trouble with the Movies

Thursday, June 19, 2014, 11:30am

At the age of twenty-two, composer Benjamin Britten learned some important lessons about composing–by going to the movies.

The year was 1935, and a producer working for the British government film unit asked Britten to write music for a series of documentaries. Already working for the unit were some of the great literary luminaries of Britten’s generation--W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, and Christopher Isherwood. An added benefit for Britten was the discipline that came with having to work quickly to specifications, even when inspiration was lacking.

Britten also learned how to write for small ensembles and how to create unusual musical...

Achilles Heel

Wednesday, June 18, 2014, 11:30am

Bringing his opera Savanarola to the stage was an uphill struggle for English composer Charles Villiers Stanford. The premiere was set for London’s Covent Garden as part of the German Opera season, on June 18, 1884, but when the lead soprano pulled out of the performance, it had to be postponed for nine days. A replacement soprano couldn’t master the part and also backed out, leaving Stanford to muster what optimism he could, even as he weighed the alternatives–hazard a bad performance or postpone again and risk losing credibility with the public.

The production was postponed again.

A third soprano...

Why I Took The Job

Tuesday, June 17, 2014, 11:30am

Did doubts about the job’s merit prompt Antonio Vasselli to take his brother-in-law to task for accepting a position in Vienna? Or was he more concerned about losing an Italian composer to the Austrian Emperor at a time when Italians were asserting their national identity? One way or the other, Gaetano Donizetti felt compelled to justify himself.

With enthusiasm he had written to a friend in June 1842, just before his appointment was confirmed:

You should know (and this is a secret for now and I implore you to keep it one) that I was called to Court to find...

The Human Flood

Monday, June 16, 2014, 11:30am

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1863. New Orleans pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk found himself in one of the most dangerous places in the world as a Confederate invasion of the North spread panic in the streets. He wrote in his journal:

One train leaves at five o’clock , another left at two o’clock. I doubt the one promised us can accommodate the constantly increasing crowd of four or five thousand persons which presses into and around the station. Litters are provided for the sick. Many are occupied by wounded soldiers who will not be left here. Immense trains of...

Advances

Sunday, June 15, 2014, 12:30pm

In June 1852, chronically destitute Richard Wagner wrote from Zurich to the influential Franz Liszt in Weimar:

Dearest of friends, a request! I am working hard and hoping to finish the poem of my Valkyrie within two weeks. Then I’ll be in urgent need for some kind of relaxation, such as a holiday, all the more so since I’d rather not finish my final poetic work, the great prelude, here in Zurich, where the sameness of these familiar surroundings oppresses me, and tedious visits tend to put me in a bad mood. I need to go up into the Alps...

The Necessary Detachment

Friday, June 13, 2014, 12:30pm

In his memoirs, violist William Primrose reported that during moments of crisis a certain detachment and a well-developed sense of humor saved him from disaster. At such times, he felt a curious sensation of viewing things from the outside. But if the situation became desperate enough, he was inclined to “giggle inwardly,” and had to struggle to keep the giggle from becoming audible.

A performance of Bartók’s complex Viola Concerto was particularly challenging. Primrose was soloing with a major American orchestra led by a celebrated conductor. The rehearsals had gone well, and the concerto went along smoothly–up to the forty-first...

Remembrance

Thursday, June 12, 2014, 12:30pm

After their 1989 concert tour of Japan, marimba player Keiko Abe and recorder virtuoso Walter van Hauwe went to the Columbia studio in Tokyo to produce a CD of the repertory they had played.

When van Hauwe arrived for the last day of recording, he was obviously depressed. When Abe asked him what was wrong, he explained that his wife was very sick. She had already been in the hospital when van Hauwe had flown to Japan for the tour, but her illness had since become much worse.

Abe suggested that he return to Holland at once. She could explain...

Budget Cuts

Wednesday, June 11, 2014, 12:30pm

Czarina Catherine the Great was a big spender. When she wanted music she brought in the best performers and composers. In 1787 she brought in composer Domenico Cimarosa for what would prove a rocky sojourn in Russia.

The Czarina was eager to audition her new music master, and shortly after his arrival in St. Petersburg, she asked him to sing while accompanying himself on the harpsichord. He passed with flying colors and was deemed worthy of teaching the two grand dukes who were the sons of the heir to the throne.

She was less impressed by one of Cimarosa’s first...

Driving Each Other Crazy

Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 12:30pm

Sir Thomas Beecham was known for his practical jokes, but when Arthur Rubinstein played one on him, the celebrated conductor was not amused.

One hot morning, as they rehearsed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in G in the Hollywood Bowl, both Beecham and Rubinstein were in a bad mood. The piano was at the edge of the shell, and after playing the opening phrase of the concerto, Rubinstein settled in for the duration of the long orchestral section to follow. Beecham became increasingly impatient with the orchestra, stopped them after every bar, and singled out one musician after another for criticism, making...

Fun While It Lasted

Monday, June 9, 2014, 12:30pm

As World War I spread through Europe, the famous Australian-born pianist and composer Percy Grainger described himself variously as a conscientious objector or a coward. He had arrived in New York from London as the United States was entering the war. Because of what friends considered his unpatriotic attitude, he couldn’t go back to England. So he took a perfectly logical next step.

He bought a saxophone.

On June 9, 1917, he walked to Fort Totten and enlisted as a bandsman in the U.S. Army. He was fitted for a uniform, his billowy hair was cut to military specifications, and...

The Bullet

Sunday, June 8, 2014, 12:30pm

Composer Georges Onslow was a master of the string quintet, and he applied that mastery to one of the most remarkable string quintets ever written–a description of an accident that nearly took his life.

Onslow was born in France in 1784 to a father banished from England because of a homosexual scandal. Onslow spent much of his youth in London receiving the education of a gentleman, and became a capable cellist. After two years of travel in Germany and Austria he began composing, specializing in string quintets for two violins, viola, and two cellos.

The quintet that most fascinated his...

Reconciliation

Saturday, June 7, 2014, 12:30pm

Arthur Friedheim was worried. His former teacher and longtime friend, Franz Liszt, had promised a pupil a concert appearance at the 1886 Carlsruhe Music Festival. Friedheim considered the pupil a disaster, but, perhaps because the young woman in question was a protégé of Empress Augusta of Prussia, Liszt saw fit to go ahead and put her on the program.

At a time of competing musical factions, Friedheim was concerned that a bad performance would be a setback for the festival and for the cause of innovative music. He pleaded with Liszt to reconsider, but to no avail.

He argued with...

Khachaturian

Friday, June 6, 2014, 12:30pm

Young Aram Khachaturian had aptitude and a strong desire to study music. At the age of nineteen he was gambling that they would be enough to get him into a first-rate music school. Khachaturian was born on June 6, 1903, in Tiflis, in the Republic of Georgia, where he grew up improvising Armenian folk songs on the piano. He was a biology student when he heard his first symphony orchestra in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth, a performance that he said “shook him to the depths.”

Khachaturian’s closest advisor at the time...

Water Power

Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 12:30pm

Debt-ridden and feeling battered by his critics, Jean Sibelius liked the offer from America. Composer Horatio Parker was offering him $1,200 to participate in Yale University’s Norfolk Festival, at which he would conduct his new symphonic poem The Oceanides and a few of his shorter works.

Five weeks later Sibelius was on a steamship bound for New York, revising the poem as he got more and more experience with the sea.

At the first Carnegie Hall rehearsal, festival organizer Carl Stoeckel had the impression that the orchestra found The Oceanides perplexing, but he was impressed at how rapidly each successive...

Good Intentions

Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 12:30pm

The road to disaster was paved with good intentions. In 1915 or ’16 famed pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff came to the St. Petersburg Conservatory to perform a benefit concert for the widow of composer Alexander Scriabin. Not everyone appreciated the gesture, and a notable musician who attempted a compliment caused a rift that lasted for years.

Rachmaninoff’s entire concert consisted of works by the late composer, but some difference of opinion arose as to just how his music should sound. In one of the front rows of the hall an assortment of people chatted and whispered throughout the performance. One of...

Discord

Monday, June 2, 2014, 12:30pm

He joined the Nazi Party in 1935 and closed his letters with Heil Hitler, but in 1939 conductor Herbert von Karajan began a dramatic break with Hitler’s government.

At thirty-one, Karajan was the musical idol of Germany, especially among the young. He was particularly successful in 1938 with a State Opera performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

On June 2, 1939, he conducted two performances of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger with the Berlin Opera. The first of them was a State Gala in honor of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. Karajan won praise from all for the clarity of the music, his...

The Special Effect

Saturday, May 31, 2014, 11:30am

The crossing from Europe to New York left Igor Stravinsky with hours to fill and so he prevailed upon cellist Gregor Piatigorsky to work with him on a cello and piano transcription of his ballet Suite Italienne. Violinist Nathan Milstein also had some time on his hands and so he came along and watched as Piatigorsky made daring suggestions and defended them as Stravinsky listened.

One of Piatigorsky’s most brilliant effects came about by accident.

Tea was served aboard the SS Rex at 4:45, and Milstein and Piatigorsky attended regularly, enjoying the company of various attractive young women who were...

The Million Dollar Trio

Friday, May 30, 2014, 11:30am

They were three of the world’s most formidable musicians, and in 1949 they were invited to perform together during a series of four concerts in Chicago’s Ravinia Park. Their togetherness would be short-lived.

Pianist Arthur Rubinstein, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, and violinist Jascha Heifetz drew huge admiring crowds at Ravinia, and the newly-formed threesome was so successful that one critic referred to them as “The Million Dollar Trio.” Rubinstein disliked the nickname so much that he couldn’t wait to drop out of the ensemble, but when RCA invited the trio to make a recording of their concert repertory, he agreed to...

The Shortcut

Thursday, May 29, 2014, 12:00pm

In the spring of 1592 John Bull left London for Bristol, leaving his work as organist at the prestigious Chapel Royal to a subordinate. In a curious way, his leave of absence would provide a great opportunity to an undistinguished musician named William Phelps.

For reasons unknown, Bull took his time getting back to London, riding north through Gloucestershire, perhaps stealing a bit of a vacation from his employer, Queen Elizabeth, who was known to keep a short leash on her favorite musicians. He seems to have been on his way to visit friends in Worcester when he took the...

The Magician, the Musician, & the President

Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 12:45pm

Would the composer and the president catch on to the trick? In 1914, at an evening’s entertainment for the German Sailors Home and the Magicians Club of London, after the Ritz Carlton orchestra’s performances of excerpts of Puccini operas, the agenda moved on to the great magician Houdini.

Houdini began with some simple close-up illusions–changing the colors of silk handkerchiefs and turning water into wine, and he noticed that sitting next to composer Victor Herbert was a very intent Theodore Roosevelt. He was sure that the former president had been able to see through every trick–so far.

The magician...

The Guardian

Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 12:00pm

By May of 1816 Ludwig van Beethoven was the guardian of two concerns–his music and his nephew, and he wrote about both in a letter from Vienna to Charles Neate in London:

Mr. Ries informed me of your plan to give a concert for my benefit. For such a triumph of my art in London I would be beholden to you alone. But an even healthier influence upon my practically destitute life would be to have the profits generated by the undertaking. You know that in a sense I am now a father to the handsome boy you saw with...

A Team Effort

Sunday, May 25, 2014, 11:00am

In the spring of 1782, Mozart was a busy twenty-six-year-old composer with music and matrimony on his mind. On May 25 he wrote from Vienna to his father Leopold in Salzburg, and the letter was a team effort between Mozart and his intended. Mozart wrote:

This time I really do need to steal a moment, so that you don’t have to wait too long for a letter. Tomorrow our first concert takes place in the Augarten, and at half past eight, Martin will be bringing me in a carriage and we still have to make six visits, which I need...

The Wayward Bach

Saturday, May 24, 2014, 11:30am

Johann Sebastian Bach fathered four sons who became prominent composers, but he had other musical children, including a black sheep named Johann Gottfried Bernhard.

In 1736, when a position opened for an organist at St. Mary’s in Mülhausen, Bach put in a good word for the twenty-year-old Bernhard, who was impressive enough at his audition to get the job.

Much like his father thirty years earlier, young Bernhard had a way of annoying church officials. One of them complained that his overlong preludes cut short the time available for the services, and another warned, “If Bach continues to play this...

Composer in the Trenches

Wednesday, November 11, 2015, 11:30am

George Butterworth had enjoyed significant success as a composer, but he found a cause that led him to abandon music. He enlisted as a soldier in World War I. Like many composers, Butterworth was originally headed for a career in law. But he inherited a love for music from his mother, who was a...

Love Letters from London

Tuesday, November 10, 2015, 11:30am

Hector Berlioz is considered a romantic composer. His letters reveal that he was also a romantic man. For example, here's one he wrote from London to a fellow musician on November 10th, 1847: "Would you believe that in St. Petersburg I fell in love, truly and absurdly, with a member of...

Vivaldi's Biggest Crime

Monday, November 9, 2015, 11:30am

He was a distinguished composer with an international reputation but Antonio Vivaldi's opera Siroe was a disaster of the 1738 season at Ferrara. Writing to his patron on November 9 th , Vivaldi rushed to defend himself: “Excellency--If the unhappy have no protection from the great patrons...

Down & Out in New York

Sunday, November 8, 2015, 11:30am

In 1942 avant-garde composer John Cage was not prospering. He and his wife arrived in New York on the bus from Chicago with twenty-five cents between them. Cage would find New York rich in culture and poor in paying jobs. The couple had come at the invitation of sculptor and painter Max Ernst, who...

Tchaikovsky in Germany

Saturday, November 7, 2015, 11:30am

On November 7th, 1884, Peter Tchaikovsky was in Germany. He wrote to the wife of his brother Anatol: “My time in Berlin passed pleasantly. I saw Weber’s opera Oberon. I’ve always heard that it’s boring but I liked it very much. In some places the music is charming even if...

The Further Adventures of Henry Lawes

Friday, November 6, 2015, 11:30am

Henry Lawes had an enviable position as court composer to England’s King Charles the First. Although the job came with status, rich food and fine clothing, it had definite drawbacks. A salary supposedly came with the position of gentleman of the Chapel Royal, but the king’s financial...

The Bankrupt King's Musician

Thursday, November 5, 2015, 11:30am

Henry Lawes had a position that was the envy of many a musician: He worked for the King of England. But the job had its disadvantages. In 1626 Lawes became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal in the court of Charles the First. Charles had been king for only a year. He laid down new rules for each...

Fauré's Tough Teacher

Wednesday, November 4, 2015, 11:30am

Gabriel Faure was nine years old when he arrived at Ecole Niedermeyer—a new school in Paris with an unusual approach to teaching music. The founder of the school—a Swiss named Louis Niedermeyer—had dedicated his life to the rediscovery of sixteenth and seventeenth-century music...

The Fate of La Scala

Tuesday, November 3, 2015, 11:30am

The opera house was the pride of Milan and its fate was about to be decided by war. La Scala had been the focus of Milanese culture since it first opened in 1778. Now, in the summer of 1943, its very existence was in doubt. During an air raid on Milan, bombs had ripped a large gash in the roof and...

Stumbling Blocks

Monday, November 2, 2015, 11:30am

At every promising turn in her musical life, Rebecca Clarke faced a stumbling block. In 1902, at the age of 14, she entered London's Royal Academy, where she studied the violin and began to compose songs. In her third year there, her harmony teacher proposed to her and her father forced her to...

The Brave Queen

Sunday, November 1, 2015, 11:30am

The seventeen-year-old playing her spinet on the storm-tossed ship was a remarkable person. Charlotte had refinements and courage fit for a queen. In fact she was on her way across the English Channel to marry King George the Third. At home she was known as Princess Sophie-Charlotte of Mecklenburg-...

The Murderous Madrigalist

Saturday, October 31, 2015, 11:30am

The madrigals of Prince Don Carlo Gesualdo reach up toward heaven, but the story of the composer's married life reads like a page from Dante's Inferno. In 1586 he married Donna Maria d'Avalas. She was an attractive woman whose previous two husbands had died. Don Carlo had shown no...

Shostakovich Confronts Stalin

Friday, October 30, 2015, 11:30am

He had been condemned during the Stalinist purge of 1948 and now composer Dmitri Shostakovich was being asked to undergo an equally unpleasant experience. He was being asked to perform in America. The Cold War was in full force but a peace movement had begun in the west. Shostakovich was told to...

McCormack's Ordeal

Thursday, October 29, 2015, 11:30am

October 1907: The young Irish tenor was more than nervous. He was about to perform his opera debut at London's prestigious Covent Garden. John McCormack had failed twice in auditioning for a role but now, at the age of 23, he had the lead in Cavalleria Rusticana . His career was on the line...

My Family Could Use the Work

Wednesday, October 28, 2015, 11:30am

Genius was not enough. Johann Sebastian Bach also needed respect and money and he wasn’t getting enough of either. As director of the St. Thomas school in Leipzig he answered to the town council and the town council had little appreciation for Bach’s music. The money wasn’t quite...

The Pianist Who Wasn't There

Tuesday, October 27, 2015, 11:30am

The 1921 American tour of English composer Cyril Scott was a financial and artistic success, but Scott declined an invitation to return. He explained that a second tour would interfere with his creative work. He didn't mention that he had been advised to stay away--by a spiritualist. In the...

The Spiritualist

Monday, October 26, 2015, 11:30am

Something Ventured

Sunday, October 25, 2015, 11:30am

In 1933 the young American composer Samuel Barber had ventured to the island estate of Arturo Toscanini in an effort to meet the famous conductor. The unannounced visit proved worth the risk because Toscanini had not only received Barber and his friend Gian Carlo Menotti, he had expressed an...

The Mighty Handful

Saturday, October 24, 2015, 11:30am

They were called the Mighty Handful—Russian composers who formed a national school. They included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Cesar Cui, Modeste Mussorgsky, Mili Balakirev, and Alexander Borodin. They were not so close a group as the name implies as Alexander Borodin wrote to his wife on October...

Satie's Prank

Friday, October 23, 2015, 11:30am

Erik Satie was a first-class eccentric, and when it came to publicizing his apocalyptic ballet Uspud he was more than true to form. The ballet was the talk of Paris in 1892. Some declared it a masterpiece, others called it a shameful hoax. Satie vowed that he would go to the Paris Opera and insist...

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