Tag Archives: Birthdays

by | March 3, 2013 · 1:00 am

Doc Watson’s oral memoir

When David Holt asked Doc Watson to write an autobiography, he declined. Holt then said “What if you just tell your stories? I can ask you questions and we can record it and you can tell your stories yourself.”

Watson agreed, and in 2002 they released Legacy, a three-CD set that comprises an oral memoir by the country music legend; it won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album the next year.

This according to “Doc Watson and David Holt” by Carol Mallet Rifkin (Acoustic guitar XXII/6:228 [December 2011; online only]).

Today would have been Doc Watson’s 90th birthday! Below, Watson and Holt perform together in 2007.

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by | February 25, 2013 · 1:00 am

George Harrison’s diagnosis

 

Today we honor both George Harrison’s birthday and National Cancer Awareness Month.

In 1997 Harrison was diagnosed with throat cancer; it did not appear to be a large tumor, and it seemed harmless. Chemotherapy and radiation showed effective results.

But in 2000, while he was working on a reissue of All things must pass, he underwent treatment for another cancerous growth in the lung, which had migrated from his primary lesion of the throat. Later he was found to have an inoperable brain tumor as well.

Harrison underwent a new type of cancer treatment in a Swiss clinic, but he finally succumbed to his disease on November 29, 2001. If the original cancer had been screened and diagnosed in time, we might be celebrating his 70th birthday today.

This according to “George Harrison” by Anirudha Agnihotry, an article posted on the blog Oral cancer awareness drive (Oral Cancer Organization, 2013). Many thanks to Dr. Agnihotry for guest-writing this post!

Above, Harrison in 1974 (public domain); below, with a few friends.

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by | February 21, 2013 · 1:00 am

Segovia’s gusto

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Writing for the centennial of Andrés Segovia’s birth, the guitarist and writer Alison Bert mused on a telling recollection.

“At the closing reception in the grassy courtyard, Segovia’s genteel aide stood at the refreshment table with its rich spread of chocolate candied pastries. As he placed one after another on his plate, he said ‘Not for me, not for me…’ When the dish was full, he said “These are all for the maestro—he loves this sort of thing.’

“At a nearby table, Andrés Segovia was enjoying his wine and refreshments surrounded by admirers on this breezy summer afternoon. I thought to myself, the man didn’t live this long eating bean sprouts and tofu. He lived with passion and he wasn’t afraid to break the rules. In life, too, Andrés Segovia was an artist.” (Guitar review 93 [spring 1993] p. 7)

Today is Segovia’s 120th birthday! Below, his celebrated arrangement of the chaconne from Bach’s partita in D minor, BWV 1004.

Related article: Schoenberg’s birthday bash

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by | February 19, 2013 · 1:00 am

Boccherini and embodiment

boccherini

Boccherini’s posthumous reputation has suffered because his works do not emphasize the structural coherence and teleology emblematic of 18th-century Classicism; but regarded through the lens of performance—the sensations and images involved in its bodily presentation—his works evoke those aspects of the era characterized by urgent, even volatile, inquiries into the nature of the self.

Contemporaneous theories of embodiment illuminate the heart of Boccherini’s oeuvre, the chamber music for strings, which presents sensibilité through repetitiveness, a hyperattention to details of dynamics and articulation, the grotesque and bizarre timbres and registral excesses, and Newtonian mechanistic philosophy through gestural enactments of rapidity and rigidity.

These works often distance and ironize the performer, particularly in regard to virtuosity. They thereby make a sophisticated contribution to the central Enlightenment tension between subjectivity and appearance so memorably articulated in Diderot’s Paradoxe sur le comédien.

This according to “‘One says that one weeps, but one does not weep’: Sensibile, grotesque, and mechanical embodiments in Boccherini’s chamber music” by Elisabeth Le Guin (Journal of the American Musicological Society LV/2 [summer 2002] pp. 207–54).

Today is Boccherini’s 270th birthday! Below, a work cited by Le Guin as an example.

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by | February 17, 2013 · 1:00 am

Corelli in the wilderness

Arcangelo_Corelli

On 26 April 1706, in a solemn ceremony in Rome, Arcangelo Corelli was accepted as a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia; as customary, he assumed a shepherd’s name: Arcomelo.

Forty years later, the Swiss Jesuit Martin Schmid copied several of Corelli’s works into his draft-book of music for the Indian community in Bolivia that he was fostering and overseeing—a community that was sometimes known as New Arcadia.

In Bolivia, Corelli’s Arcadian music was subjected to a radical metamorphosis by those who understood Indian performers and audiences. His works were thereby consigned to a museum of cultural symbols as objects of a revered past.

This according to “Arcadia meets Utopia: Corelli in the South American wildnerness” by Leonardo J. Waisman, an essay included in Arcangelo Corelli: Fra mito e realtà storica–Nuove prospettive d’indagine musicologica e interdisciplinare nel 350° anniversario dalla nascita (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2007, pp. 651–85).

Today is Corelli’s 360th birthday! Below, the original version of one of the works that was subjected to a Bolivian metamorphosis.

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by | January 25, 2013 · 1:00 am

Lutosławski’s mature style

Witold Lutoslawski

Lutosławski’s Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux for choir and orchestra features many of the key elements of his mature compositional style: mirror-symmetrical sonorities, composite rhythms incorporating the element of chance, and the use of textural counterpoint.

Perhaps its most significant aspect is the intricately interwoven structural layers that form its foundation. Pitch, rhythm, and timbre unite to create texture, the main building block of the piece and the musical parameter that ultimately determines its formal subdivisions.

This according to Wheels within wheels: An examination of Witold Lutosławski’s “Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux” by Frederick Carl Gurney, a dissertation accepted by the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1999.

Today is Lutosławski’s 100th birthday! Below, the first movement of Trois poèmes (after about two minutes score excerpts are shown). Above, a portrait of the composer by Mariusz Kałdowski.

Related article: Lutosławski Centenary 2013: Philharmonia (onpolishmusic.com)

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by | December 16, 2012 · 1:00 am

Zoltán Kodály, ethnomusicologist

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The arc of Kodály’s career as an ethnomusicologist appears to have been a consciously, even artistically, designed path.

In the early 20th century he traveled the Hungarian countryside along with Béla Bartók to document and research Hungarian musical traditions; both composers were influenced tremendously by this pursuit.

After World War II, the focus of Kodály’s ethnomusicological activities was the publication of A magyar népzene tára/Corpus musicae popularis Hungaricae, the critical edition of all Hungarian traditional music. For this undertaking he established the first scientific research group for ethnomusicology in Hungary, the Népzenekutató Csoport, which served as a workshop for the modern Hungarian school of ethnomusicologists.

This according to Kodály, a népzenekutató és tudományos műhelye by Olga Szalay (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004).

Today is Kodály’s 130th birthday! Below, a flash mob performance of his setting of Esti dal, a traditional song that he collected in northern Hungary in 1922.

Related article: Kodály and somatic eruption

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by | December 10, 2012 · 1:00 am

Franck and Rodin

rodin-franck

Both César Franck and Auguste Rodin belonged to the Symbolist movement of the late 19th century, with its sacred ideal and interest in phenomena of metamorphosis.

They also shared the same mythical view of woman and the same sensuality, with its consequent risk of damnation. Both are highly representative figures of their period, although they seldom made use of an aesthetic that verged on the modern.

This according to “Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) et César Franck  (1822–1890): Essai d’une étude comparée” by François Sabatier, an essay included in César Franck et son temps (Revue belge de musicologie/Belgisch tijdschrift voor muziekwetenschap XLV [1991] pp. 77–84).

While there is only circumstantial evidence that Franck and Rodin met, upon the former’s death the latter was commissioned to produce the commemorative medallion shown above.

Today is Franck’s 190th birthday! Below, Renée Fleming sings the “Panis angelicus” from Franck’s Messe à trois voix, op. 12.

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by | November 28, 2012 · 1:00 am

Poisoning Lully

As one of the most powerful nonpolitical figures at Louis XIV’s court, Lully was far from immune to its culture of intrigue.

Henri Guichard, a perpetrator of various frauds and a rival at the court, hatched a plot to poison Lully in 1674, and approached a corrupt police officer, Sébastien Aubry, who had access to the Opéra and often saw Lully there. The unfolding of the plot, which involved a poisoned snuff box, had a strong element of farce as Aubry ineptly attempted to play both ends against the middle, jockeying for his own best interests while appearing to assist Guichard.

Eventually a mutual associate tipped off the composer, who formally accused Aubry of conspiracy to commit murder. Guichard exercised what influence he could, but Lully, as a close associate of the king himself, had the upper hand. In the end, the composer was able to delay the case until the only two dissenting judges finished their terms of duty.

This according to Jean-Baptiste Lully by Ralph Henry Forster Scott (London: Owen, 1973, pp. 76–83).

Today is Lully’s 380th birthday! Below, Boris Terral portrays the composer in Gérard Corbiau’s Le roi danse (2000).

Related article: Comedy versus opera

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by | October 21, 2012 · 1:00 am

Solti and world peace

 

After a surprise 80th birthday party hosted by Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, Georg Solti thanked the multinational ensemble that had just performed and wondered aloud why musicians from many different countries can play together in harmony, while international diplomats cannot even agree on the crucial issue of world peace.

Inspired by this notion, his wife, Valerie Solti, hatched a plan with Leia Maria Boutros-Ghali, the wife of the then United Nations Secretary-General, to amass an orchestra comprising players from all over the world, and to have this orchestra perform for the U.N.’s 50th anniversary in 1995.

Dubbed the World Orchestra for Peace, the ensemble—79 musicians from 24 countries—debuted in Geneva in July of that year, with Solti at the podium, to great critical acclaim. The maestro did not live to preside over another of their performances, but the orchestra lives on, materializing whenever conditions permit.

This according to “The conductor with an ear for peace” by Harvey Sachs (The New York times 14 October 2012, p. AR11).

Today is Solti’s 100th birthday! Below, he conducts the World Orchestra for Peace in Rossini’s overture to Guillaume Tell.

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