January 7, 2019.  Poulenc and two string masters.  One of the most interesting French composers of the 20^th century, Francis Poulenc was born on this day in 1899.  Poulenc’s also one of the more popular composers on our site (there are about 90 of his recording in our library) and we’ve written about him a number of times (here is an entry from a couple of years ago).  To celebrate Poulenc’s 120^th birthday, here is his longest (about 23 minutes) piano piece, a suite called Les soirées de Nazelles.  Nazelles is a small town on the Loire river not far from Tours where Poulenc vacationed in the 1930s.  The suite consists of a Préambule, eight variations, Cadence and Final.  It’s performed by the French pianist Pascal Rogé.

Two masters of string instruments, both Jewish and both born in what used to be the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, were born this week: Nathan Milstein and Daniil Shafran.  Milstein, one of the greatest violinists of the 20^th century, was born in Odessa on January 13^th of 1904.  He studied with the best teachers: first, with Pyotr Stolyarsky in Odessa, then with Leopold Auer at the St.-Petersburg conservatory and later – with Eugène Ysaÿe in Belgium.  In 1921 he met Vladimir Horovitz, three months his elder and already famous, and they became good friends.  In 1925 they went on a concert tour of Western Europe and decided to stay abroad.  Milstein performed in the US for the first time in 1929 and settled in the country thereafter. 

December 31, 2018.  Christmas Oratorio, three pianists, three Russian composers.  We wish a very happy New Year to all our friends, listeners and readers!   We often celebrate the New Year by playing a section of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio: it was written (or rather compiled – please see a wonderful article “Bach the recycler” in the New York Review of Books) for the Christmas season, which starts on December 25^th and lasts for 12 days.  Part IV of the Oratorio (there are six parts altogether) was written for the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ.  According to Genesis 17:12, Jewish baby boys should be circumcised on the eighth day, therefore the Feast falls on the eighth day after December 25^th, or January 1^st.   On its premier in the winter of 1734-35, Part IV was performed, on January 1st of 1735, first at Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church in the morning, and then at St. Nicholas Church in the afternoon.  As we mentioned above, Bach recycled much of his own previously) written music into the Oratorio.  Part IV was taken mostly from the secular Cantata BWV 213 Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen (Let us tend him, let us watch him) which is usually called Hercules at the Crossroads, as it describes the contest of Vice and Virtue over Hercules’s destiny. 

December 24, 2018.  Christmas music of the Renaissance.  Christmas is around the corner, and at this time of the year we usually try to kill two birds with one stone: celebrate this feast and commemorate some of the musicians whom we failed to mention during the previous 12 months.  Very often those are the composers of the Renaissance, whose birthdays we don’t know.  So here is to Christmas and to three great composers, Orlando di Lasso, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria.   

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose name derives from the name of a small town near Rome, was born in Palestrina sometime between February 3^rd of 1525 and Feb 2^nd of 1526.  Palestrina moved to Rome in 1551 when Pope Julius III appointed him maestro di cappella at the Cappella Giulia, the second (after Cappella Sistina) most important choir of the Vatican.  We should remember that prior to Palestrina, the music world of Rome was dominated by the Flemish-French and Spanish composers: Guillaume Dufay, Josquin des Prez, Cristóbal de Morales and their followers.  Palestrina was the first important composer to be born in Italy and the first one to gain European fame.  After working for several years for the Pope, he became the maestro di cappella of San Giovanni in Laterano, the cathedral church of Rome (the Lateran Basilica is the seat of the Pope, not St. Peter’s Basilica, as is often assumed).   From 1561 to 1566 he served mostly at Santa Maria Maggiore, another major Roman church; in 1571 he returned to the Vatican, again in charge of the Cappella Giulia, and stayed there for the rest of his life (he died in Rome on Feb 2^nd of 1594).  It was during that period, around 1575, that he wrote a motet Hodie Christus natus est (Today Christ is born); he also wrote a mass by the same name, with the Kyrie section based on the motet.  Here it is, performed by Harry Christophers’ ensemble The Sixteen.

Orlando di Lasso (or Orlande de Lassus) was born in 1530 or 1532 in the town of Mons in the County of Hainaut in what is now Belgium.  He moved to Italy with Ferrante Gonzaga, a condottiero who was then serving the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.  After serving at several courts, Orlando moved to Rome, where, in 1553, he became maestro di cappella at San Giovanni in Laterano, a position eventually assumed by Palestrina. 

December 17, 2018.  Les trois francophones.  Last week we celebrated Beethoven’s birthday and promised to write later about three composers, who were also born that week.  The three we’re referring to are Hector Berlioz, César Franck, and Olivier Messiaen.  Two of them, Berlioz and Messaien, were French by birth; Franck was born in Liege, which is now in Belgium, but spent most of his adult life in Paris and eventually took French citizenship.  Hector Berlioz was born on December 11^th of 1803 in La Côte-Saint-André, a small town half way between Lyon and Grenoble.  Berlioz is a unique figure in the history of European music.  A Romantic composer, he didn’t have any musical predecessors, either in France or anywhere else, and didn’t leave any followers.  During his lifetime, he wasn’t acknowledged as a musical talent in France and ended up mostly conducting (he was much better received in Germany and England).  He wrote three operas: the first one, Benvenuto Cellini, had a terrible reception; his second, Les Troyens, was so long that it was never performed in France during his life; the third, Béatrice et Bénédict, was premiered in Germany and continued playing there for years, the first staging in Paris dates from 1890 – by then Berlioz had been dead for 21 years.  These days Berlioz is recognized as one of the greatest composers of the 19^th century.  His symphonic masterpieces were acknowledged a long time ago, but even his operas, especially the astounding Les Troyens, are staged more often, despite all technical difficulties.   Here’s the Overture to Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, composed in 1858.  Colin Davis conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

December 10, 2018.  Beethoven.  This second week of December almost always presents us with problems, and this is no exception.  Early in the week we have three French (or, rather, French-speaking) composers, and then, closer to the end, is Beethoven.   We’ll write about César Franck, Hector Berlioz and Olivier Messiaen next week, as we cannot really skip over Beеthoven’s anniversary.  Ludwig van Beethoven was born, we assume, on December 16^th of 1770.  Considering the time and place (the second half of the 18^th century and Bonn, a small but important city, the seat of the Archdiocese of Cologne), it is strange that we don’t have a record of his birth; we only know that he was baptized on the 17^th, which was usually done the next day after the birth of a child  We’ve followed Beethoven’s life by his piano sonatas, an arbitrary choice but one that helps us concentrate on different periods of his life.  Last year we stopped at his Sonata no. 10, Op. 14, written in 1798-1799.  Sonata no. 11 was composed in 1800 and carries the opus number 22.  Between these sonatas, Beethoven wrote six (!) string quartets, Piano concerto no. 1, published the Piano concerto no. 2, which was composed some five years earlier, and the First symphony.  This incredibly productive period was not easy.  On the one hand, by 1800 Beethoven became well established in Vienna, roundly acknowledged as the most talented composer since Mozart and Haydn; he had wealthy patrons, among them Prince Karl Alois Lichnowsky, a Chamberlain at the Imperial court and the former patron of Mozart, and Prince Lobkowitz, a major patron of Haydn.  On the other hand, he was already developing severe hearing problems.  It appears that the first episode happened as early as 1798, when Beethoven temporarily lost his hearing.  Even after he recovered, he couldn’t get rid of the ringing in his ears, and his hearing was slowing declining.

December 3, 2018.  Mieczysław Weinberg.  The Polish-Jewish-Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg is known by many names: his first name is sometimes spelled Moisey, his last name Vainberg, Vajnberg or Vaynberg.  The problem is that, no matter how his name is spelled, the public doesn’t know his music.  It’s a pity, as he deserves better.  He was born Mojsze Wajnberg on December 9^th of 1919 into a Jewish family in Warsaw.  His father wrote music for Yiddish theaters.  His mother was an actress in the same theaters.  Mojsze (or Mieczysław in Polish) studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory, graduating in 1939.  On September of that year the Nazis entered Poland starting WWII and Weinberg fled to the Soviet Union.  It was often the case at the time that Jewish families sent their older sons away first, hoping to join them later.  Unfortunately, his parents and younger sister never made it out of Poland and eventually perished in a concentration camp.  Weinberg settled in Minsk and went to the local Conservatory, where he studied composition.  In 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union; the Minsk Conservatory was evacuated to Central Asia and Weinberg found himself in Tashkent.  There, he met and eventually married Natalia Vovsi, daughter of the famous Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels (Mikhoels was his stage name, he was born Shloyme Vovsi).  In 1943 Weinberg sent the score of his First Symphony to  Dmitry Shostakovich.  Shostakovich was impressed and arranged for Weinberg to be invited to Moscow; they soon became good friends.