Tag Archives: Birthdays

by | March 11, 2016 · 6:00 am

Carl Ruggles’s consistent inconstancy

Carl Ruggles (Thomas Hart Benton 1934)

Carl Ruggles’s œuvre, although small, is powerful, finely crafted, and intensely individual; his compositions are not easily mistaken for those of any other composer. An individuality so audibly recognizable points to distinctive musical characteristics and procedures.

A pervasive theme in Ruggles’s music is the tension between consistent compositional procedures and the composer’s determination not to use them systematically. This consistent inconstancy is integral both to Ruggles’s compositional method and to his aesthetic.

This according to A vast simplicity: The music of Carl Ruggles by Stephen P. Slottow (Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 2009).

Today is Ruggles’s 140th birthday! Above, a 1934 portrait by his friend Thomas Hart Benton; below, Christoph von Dohnányi conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in his celebrated Sun-treader.

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by | March 6, 2016 · 6:00 am

David Gilmour and Polly Samson

 

In an interview, the Pink Floyd guitarist and singer David Gilmour was asked why, when he could get any lyricist to write for him, he chooses to work with his wife, Polly Samson.

“When you’ve got such a good lyricist so close by, I could not feel the point in going elsewhere” he replied.

“Polly and I are on a working partnership as well as a life partnership and she’s as good as I can get. Other lyricists would be writing more for themselves than for me and they would not know me that well. If I asked Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan to write for me, I love their work but I don’t know these people. So it seems to me more artistically sound to work with someone who I live and breathe with every day.”

Quoted in “Q&A: David Gilmour” by Emmanuel Legrand (Billboard CXVIII/8 [25 February 2006] p. 31).

Today is Gilmour’s 70th birthday! Below, On an island, one of many songs that Gilmour has co-written with Samson.

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by | March 1, 2016 · 12:00 am

Mitropoulos and the ethos of performance

Valuable conclusions can be reached on the aesthetic and moral perceptions of Dimitri Mitropoulos from the study of his commercial and private recordings and his concert programs.

Mitropoulos was a unique interpreter who combined respect for significant works of historical Western music with the fight to project characteristic examples of the musical language of the 20th century. Far from the dictates of popular and easy recognitions, he gave us his own, often idiosyncratic, point of view of a morally honest and aesthetically valuable interpretation.

This according to “Ο Δ. Μητρόπουλος και το ήθος της ερμηνείας” [Dimitri Mitropoulos and the ethos of performance] by Stathīs A. Arfanīs and Giōrgos Maniatīs, an essay included in Δημήτρης Μητρόπουλος (1896-1960): πενήντα χρόνια μετά [Dimitris Mitropoulos (1896–1960): Fifty years later] (Athīna: Orpheus Edition, 2012).

Today is Mitropoulos’s 120th birthday! Below, rehearsing and performing with the New York Philharmonic.

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by | February 28, 2016 · 6:00 am

Svend Asmussen and Benny Goodman

 

In 1948 Benny Goodman invited the Danish jazz violinist Svend Asmussen to consider coming to the U.S. to play in his band. Asmussen agreed, but he soon discovered that the U.S. Musicians Union had other ideas.

To play in Goodman’s band musicians had to be union members; but the union required foreigners to live in the U.S. for one year and have a sponsor to pay them before they could join. As Asmussen recalled, “That means you had to spend a year in America without playing or making any money.”

The two finally had a chance to perform together in Copenhagen in 1981; it was Goodman’s last recorded live performance.

This according to “Svend Asmussen: Phenomenal jazz fiddler” by Richard J. Brooks (Fiddler magazine XII/1 (Spring 2005) pp. 4–12).

Today is Asmussen’s 100th birthday! Below, history in the making.

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by | February 13, 2016 · 6:00 am

John Reed and Gilbert and Sullivan

john reed

The great Gilbert and Sullivan singer John Reed was renowned for urbanity, verbal inanity, touching humanity, antic insanity, and a singular lack of theatrical vanity.

Among the attributes that equipped Mr. Reed spectacularly well for the job were an elfin physique, fleetness of foot (he had been a prize-winning ballroom dancer as a young man) and, perhaps most important, the elocution lessons he had taken in his youth, which let him sail through the patter songs that are the hallmarks of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic baritone roles.

This according to “John Reed, master of Gilbert and Sullivan’s patter songs, dies at 94” by Margalit Fox (The New York times CLIX/54,965 [20 February 2010] p. A26).

Today would have been Reed’s 100th birthday! Above and below, one of his signature roles: Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, in The Mikado.

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by | January 31, 2016 · 6:00 am

Roosevelt Sykes’s upbeat blues

 

The music of Roosevelt Sykes demolishes the notion that blues is too depressing to enjoy.

His romping boogies and risqué lyrics such as Dirty mother, Ice cream freezer, and Peeping Tom characterize his monumental contributions to the blues idiom; he was also responsible for the influential pieces 44 blues, Driving wheel, and Night time is the right time, and his rollicking version of Sweet home Chicago presaged all the covers that would surface later on.

This according to “Roosevelt Sykes could play those 88s” (The African American Registry, 2006).

Today would have been Sykes’s 110 birthday! Below, his signature song The honeydripper.

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by | January 27, 2016 · 6:00 am

The first Mozart monument

Rovereto claims the distinction of being both the first stop in the series of trips that Mozart undertook in Italy—he arrived with his father on Christmas Eve in 1769—and the first city to erect a monument in Mozart’s honor.

The monument was designed by Giuseppe Antonio Bridi (1763–1836), a banker who had befriended Mozart and was passionate about music. Bridi’s relationship with Mozart and his family continued until his death, including a regular correspondence with Constanze that was carried out until 1833. The monument was erected in 1825 at Bridi’s villa in the suburbs of Rovereto.

This according to “Sulla via del ritorno: Il primo monumento alla gloria di Mozart” by Renato Lunelli, an essay included in Mozart in Italia: I viaggi, le lettere (Milano: Ricordi, 1956); the volume was issued to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Today is Mozart’s 260th birthday! Below, the symphony K.112, composed during his first Italian sojurn.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | January 24, 2016 · 6:00 am

Doug Kershaw’s big break

 

In an interview, Doug Kershaw recalled a turning point in his career, when he received an offer to perform on The Johnny Cash show in 1969.

“They gave me a choice: I could play seven shows, and become one of the studio musicians, or I could be on the premier show and have one big solo spot. I decided that I would go for the solo spot. I knew if I was going to be a solo performer I would have to compete with people like Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, who was also on that show. I gambled and I won.”

“That show introduced me to a whole new audience…I thought I knew what it was like to be a star, but I just had no idea. I went from playing the Opry with Bill Monroe to playing at the Fillmore East with Eric Clapton. And it proved what I always felt, that I could play my music for any audience, not just a country one.”

Quoted in “Doug Kershaw: The real deal in Cajun fiddle” by Michael Simmons (Fiddler magazine X/1 [Spring 2003]).

Today is Kershaw’s 8oth birthday! Below, the turning point itself.

BONUS: That was way too short, right? Here’s Louisiana man.

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by | January 22, 2016 · 6:00 am

Henri Dutilleux’s evolving aesthetics

 

Henri Dutilleux was a unique musical figure of the 20th and 21st centuries; his music is defined by his great sense of lyricism and meticulous control, which underwent much thought and a gradual sense of change over the course of his career.

Dutilleux inevitably acquired a wide mix of contemporary influences, which added to his poetic vision. His music appears to be a sophisticated understatement, yet at the same time there is an expressive depth and mystery that sets his works apart from any particular musical movement of his time.

This according to “Remembering a musical era: Henri Dutilleux in conversation” by Janet Obi-Keller (Tempo LXIX/273 [July 2015] pp. 12–19).

Today would have been Dutilleux’s 100th birthday! Below, Renaud Capuçon performs his violin concerto L’arbre des songes (1985).

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by | January 20, 2016 · 6:00 am

Carlos III and Boccherini

carlos iii - boccherini

King Carlos III’s patronage had a major impact in 18th-century Spanish musical life; it also helped to engender what is now one of Luigi Boccherini’s best-loved works.

Boccherini composed the minuetto from his string quintet in E, op. 11, in 1771, while he was employed at Carlos III’s court. In this post he was paid a handsome stipend of 30,000 reales as a cellist and composer.

This according to Luigi Boccherini en la Ilustración Española by Ricardo García Cárcel, a dissertation accepted by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1999.

Today is Carlos III’s 300th birthday! Below, the work in question.

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