This Saturday morning on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s April in Paris.
We’ll hear April-and-Paris themed songs by Charles Trenet (“En avril, à Paris”), Georges Bizet (“Chanson d’avril”) and, of course, Vernon Duke (“April in Paris”), alongside a symphony for wind instruments by Charles Gounod (first performed in Paris in April 1885), a love song by Erik Satie, a suite (“Paris”) by British light music master Haydn Wood, and a work by Darius Milhaud as good as spring itself.
It will be an hour of cafés and croissants, blossoms and bisous, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
Tag: Paris
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April in Paris on “Sweetness and Light”
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Josephine Baker in Paris J’ai deux amours
One selection I regret not including in this morning’s “April in Paris” playlist on “Sweetness and Light” is Josephine Baker’s “J’ai deux amours” (“I have two loves, my country and Paris”). Baker died 50 years ago today. Learn more about her remarkable life at the link, which includes access to an hour-long documentary.
Ruth Leon recommends… Josephine Baker: the Story of an Awakening
“J’ai deux amours”
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Paris Spring Music KWAX Radio
This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” join me for an hour of cherry blossoms and sunshine, birdsong, and café au lait. It’s our annual celebration of spring in the City of Light!
We’ll hear April-and-Paris themed songs by Charles Trenet and Vernon Duke, a suite for four pianos by Darius Milhaud, a jaunty work for trumpet and winds by Jean Françaix (who sounded the “x” when pronouncing his name), a couple of pieces of British Light Music on Parisian themes, and the world premiere recording of George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” performed by musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra (masquerading as the Victor Symphony), with the composer himself on the celesta. It’s music as good as spring itself!
I hope you’ll join me for an hour of cafés and croissants, boulevards, blossoms, and bisous, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
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Liszt vs. Thalberg Piano Duel in Paris
Paris of the 1830s was swarming with superstar pianists, who drifted from recital to salon with the grace and mystique of cinematic gunslingers. On this date in 1837, the two most mythologized virtuosi of the day, Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg, were brought together at the home of Princess Cristina Belgiojoso-Trivulzio, an Italian patriot living in exile, to prove once and for all who was the King of the Keys.
The duel would prove to be a clash of styles and temperaments. In contrast to Liszt’s humble beginnings and acquired polish, Thalberg was an aristocrat by association, having been taking under the wing of a wealthy patroness very early on. A large part of his allure was in his unruffled appearance. He was handsome, educated, genteel. At the piano, he remained absolutely placid, sitting as still as possible while performing the most incredible, acrobatic feats.
One of his much remarked upon, crowd-pleasing effects was his ability to simulate the sound of three hands, which he was able to accomplish by picking out a melody with his thumbs and using the rest of his fluttering digitals to ornament with brilliant arpeggios and arabesques. Matters of showmanship aside, his legato was of such beauty that even Liszt commented, “Thalberg is the only artist who can play the violin on the piano.”
Liszt, by contrast, was a fire-eater, who would literally destroy pianos on the stage of the Paris Opera before an audience of 3000. His playing had ladies clawing at one another to retrieve a glove or a cigar calculatedly left behind after a concert.
Partisans and newspaper critics long speculated on who was the greater pianist. The flame of animosity was fanned by rival journalists, as Hector Berlioz (who embraced Liszt) and critic and musicologist Francois-Joseph Fétis (who championed Thalberg) played out their latest grudge match, polarizing music-lovers into two camps.
As the debate grew in intensity, it seemed that whenever one was in town, the other was on tour or vacationing. It all finally came to a head on the morning of March 31, 1837, at Belgiojoso-Trivulzio’s salon, in a war of the gargantuas engineered for charity. March definitely went out like a lion that year, as two titans of the keyboard faced off in the ultimate piano showdown.
The verdict was diplomatic: the princess declared Thalberg the finest pianist in the world; Liszt, she proclaimed, the ONLY pianist.
Popular tradition holds that Liszt mopped the floor with Thalberg, but apparently this wasn’t entirely the case. Nor was there any apparent animosity between the two men, who were cordial and even dined together several times after their legendary face-off. The two would collaborate, along with Chopin and three others, on one of Belgiojoso’s other schemes, the keyboard crazy quilt “Hexameron,” which Liszt titled, orchestrated, and toured with. Proceeds generated from both the duel and the “Hexameron” project went to the benefit of Italian refugees.
An ironic epilogue to this story: in 2017, Thalberg’s final resting place, in Naples, was desecrated, his mummified corpse tossed callously into the corner of a vault. You can wade through a dizzying array of fonts and italics to learn more here:
On a related note, as today is also the birthday of Franz Joseph Haydn, it is perhaps worth noting, as I have on this page several times in the past, that for 150 years Haydn had no head.
Thalberg transcribed a chorus from Haydn’s “The Seasons” as part of his collection “L’art du chant appliqué au piano” (“The Art of Singing Applied on Piano”), Op. 70. You can listen to the complete set of primarily operatic transcriptions if you want to, but I’ve cued the link to jump right to the relevant movement.
For Liszt’s part, the pianist Alfred Brendel drew a parallel with Haydn in his introduction to a certain Liszt biography:
“Arguably, Liszt and Haydn are the most frequently misunderstood among major composers; their biographers afford little food for pity.… In old age, Haydn reigned over the musical world as its undisputed leading light. For this, the nineteenth century punished him – as it punished Liszt for his undisputed supremacy as a performer.… Not until our century did a greater number of composers – from Richard Strauss, Ravel, and Busoni to Schoenberg, Bartók, and Boulez – appreciate Liszt by taking him seriously.”
“Hexameron,” six variations on a theme from Bellini’s “I puritani.” Five well-known composer-pianists – Frédéric Chopin, Carl Czerny, Henri Herz, Johann Peter Pixis and Sigismond Thalberg – each contributed a variation. Liszt composed the introduction, second variation, interludes, and finale, and integrated the piece into an artistic unity.
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Jacques Offenbach 200th Birthday Celebration
Here comes the “Can Can” man!
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Offenbach.
Like Victor Herbert, who was born 40 years later, Jacques Offenbach was a master of operetta who gained experience as a cellist in theater orchestras. (Herbert even made it as far as the Metropolitan Opera.)
In Offenbach’s case, he finally attained a permanent position at Paris’ Opéra-Comique. Of course, his temperament was such that he was always getting busted down in pay for playing pranks. Once, he rigged everyone’s music stands to collapse in mid-performance.
Nevertheless, he managed to make a favorable impression on composer and conductor Fromental Halévy, who gave him private lessons in composition and orchestration. (Offenbach had left the Paris Conservatory out of boredom a year into his formal studies.)
With the help of Friedrich von Flotow, another future luminary of the musical stage, Offenbach gained access to the salon circuit. In this way, he bolstered his reputation as a performer and a composer. He toured France and Germany, performing with musicians such as Liszt and Anton Rubinstein. In England, he met Mendelssohn and Joseph Joachim.
Upon his return to Paris, he subtly altered his image from a cellist who happened to compose to a composer who played the cello. When the salons began to dry up, Offenbach gained employment as the musical director of the Comédie Française. There, he gained valuable experience actually writing for the stage, though his success did not transfer to the Opéra-Comique. Debussy noted that the musical establishment of the time had difficulty coping with the composer’s sense of irony.
By the time Offenbach finally did crack the Opéra-Comique with “The Tales of Hoffmann,” he was already in the grave. Though he died before putting the finishing touches on his opera, the orchestration was completed by other hands, and the work has not been out of the repertoire since.
Somewhere in heaven, undoubtedly, Offenbach is sawing half-way through the columns of the harps and enjoying the last laugh.
Happy birthday, Jacques Offenbach!
The scherzo from Offenbach’s Cello Quartet:
His greatest hit:
The lovely “Barcarolle:”
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