Sir Simon Rattle dishes on Sibelius. Hearing the Fifth Symphony was like a thunderbolt for me, as well.
PHOTO: “Symposium” by Axel Gallén (left to right, Gallén, composer Oskar Merikanto blacked-out, conductor and composer Robert Kajanus, and Sibelius, obviously wasted). The scene is actually softer-edged than the original study, which I’ve posted in the comments section below.
Ach! The birthday anniversary of yet another musical genius? Musical geniuses are certainly thick on the ground this time of year.
Felix Mendelssohn has the unfortunate reputation, as one wag put it, of having been “born a genius and died a talent.” With masterworks such as the “Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture” (composed at the age of 17) and the Octet for Strings (composed at 16!), it is difficult to argue against the assessment, especially when, later in life, the odd flash of inspiration (eg. the Violin Concerto in E Minor, his last major orchestral work, conceived when he was about 29 and written over six years) rends the gloom of stodgy choral works and cloying songs without words.
But there is no doubt he was influential, especially in Victorian England (hard to imagine William Sterndale Bennett or Sir Arthur Sullivan without him), where his music was adored, Scandinavia (particularly marked in his disciple Niels Wilhelm Gade), and not surprisingly Germany (cue early Richard Strauss).
His tenure as music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was also significant, not only for the number of performances, especially premieres, of important contemporary works (Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, Schumann’s Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4), but also as a breeding ground for top musical talent of the day (including Ferdinand David, Mendelssohn’s concertmaster, who played in the debut of the Violin Concerto).
Of course, Mendelssohn was also the most important figure in the revival of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, engineering the first performance, at the age of 20, since Bach’s death of the “St. Matthew Passion.”
Hey, so many composers are lucky to be remembered for but a single work. At least a fair amount of Mendelssohn’s output is still performed regularly. And he accomplished it all by the age of 38!
Happy birthday, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
O Mystic Groundhog. Thank you for this gift of six more weeks of winter. Ice and slush may not be ideal for walking or driving, but I will take it any day over sizzling on the griddle for four months. No, heavy socks and cozy food are more my speed. I love climbing into bed with a good book and listening to the wind howl.
The Washington Post states the prognostications of Punxsutawney Phil have been correct 80 percent of the time. CNN’s reportage places the figure closer to 39. (Phil’s handlers claim it is 100.) That’s still better than the actual professionals who whip everyone into a frenzy at the first prospect of the humblest dusting. From now on, I get all my forecasts from the groundhog.
Story in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/02/groundhog-day-2015-punxsutawney-phil-sees-shadow-predicts-six-more-weeks-of-winter/
CNN (with video):
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/weather/02/02/groundhog.day/
The Punxsutawney Phil song, by David C. Perry:
Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from composers such as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”) and especially Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).
Less well known is the fact that he approached two Englishmen to write music for his famed and influential company.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll be listening to works by Constant Lambert and Lord Berners – both figures so diverse in their interests, and possessing such outsized personalities, that it isn’t really possible to do either justice in the time allotted.
Lambert was a brilliant polymath. In addition to his considerable talents as a composer, he was a conductor, arranger, and writer, as well as the lover of Margot Fonteyn. Alas, alcoholism and workaholism conspired with undiagnosed diabetes to hasten his demise at the age of 45.
His ballet, “Romeo and Juliet,” presented as a play-within-a-play, turns Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers on its head, with the leads falling hard in a backstage romance with happier results. Lambert would go on to greater things, but the ballet is undeniably an impressive piece of work for a 20 year-old.
Similarly, Lord Berners’ interests lay all over the place, but his was a much more relaxed character. Unfailingly productive as a composer, a painter and a writer, he never lost sight of the fact that his life would be his magnum opus. And Berners lived well.
Furthermore, his fortune ensured that he would never be taken to task for any of his whimsical behavior. This included having a 140-foot folly tower constructed on his estate (partly to annoy the neighbors) and inviting a horse to his indoor tea parties.
Berners wrote novels, painted portraits (always certain to include a moustache, whether the sitter had one or not), and composed a respectable amount of music, especially for the ballet.
For the Ballets Russes, he wrote “The Triumph of Neptune,” which became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham. Sacheverell Sitwell provided the scenario, which concerns a sailor who is shipwrecked en route to Fairyland, and George Balanchine supplied the choreography.
I hope you’ll join me for “England à la Russe,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6, or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache
Okay, it’s Schubert’s birthday. No question what I should be writing about. I confess it requires a great deal of focus not to pull another bait-and-switch and just make it all about Alfredo Casella.
Instead, here’s another composer, Benjamin Britten, with Mstislav Rostropovich, to perform Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata.”
Mov’t. I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AonBUbPkthc
Mov’t. II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBAVF93ve8
Mov’t. III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9qpHg3TBk
If you’re not familiar with the arpeggione (and who is these days?), it was an instrument invented around 1823. It had six strings, fretted and tuned like a guitar, but it was played with a bow, like a cello. By the time Schubert’s sonata saw publication in 1871, it was already long defunct.
Schubert’s masterful sonata is the only substantial work to have been written for the instrument, but the piece was recognized too late to rescue the arpeggione from extinction. These days, the work is almost always performed on the cello.
Happy birthday, Franz Schubert (1797-1828).
PHOTO: Berndt Bohman, principal cellist of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, playing a modern arpeggione, made by Osamu Okumura, president of the Arpeggione Society Japan. Note the absence of an end pin.
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