March 19, 2018.  Bach and Richter.  In two days we’ll celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach’s 333^rd birthday.  We’ve written about Bach’s early years in Leipzig (here and here), the years that were dedicated to his work as the Kantor at Tomasschule, the school of the St. Thomas church, wherehe also served as the choir director.  All along Bach was the music director of two other important churches in the city, St. Nicholas church (Nikolaikirche) and Paulinerkirche, the University church.  His duties included writing music for Sunday services, and in the early Leipzig years he produced an astonishing number of cantatas, more than 300 altogether, of which 200 plus are extant.  He also wrote several Passions, of which the St. John’s and St. Matthew survive.  By the year 1729 the accumulated volume of compositions was such that he could allow himself to either perform the old music, or reuse pre-existing material, creating what is called “parody” cantatas.  (The old and rather unusual musical term “parody,” or imitation, has nothing to do with humor.  “Parody mass,” for example, was one of the major types of Renaissance mass where the composer used – and acknowledged – the borrowed material.  The intellectual property rules were very vague in those days).  By the year 1729, Bach’s creative forces shifted away from church music to secular music.   One impetus was Collegium Musicum, of which Bach was appointed the director in 1729.  Collegium Musicum was created by Telemann in 1702 as an association of professional musicians and students for the purpose of producing regular public concerts.  During the winter the concerts were given at Café Zimmermann, one of the largest coffee houses in Leipzig (the building was constructed in 1715; it was destroyed during the Allied air raid in 1943).  Bach’s Coffee Cantata, BWV 211, was probably premiered at Zimmermann’s.  Several of Bach’s keyboard and violin concertos were written for Collegium Musicum.  It’s quite likely that Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, two of Bach’s sons, performed with the Collegium. 

March 12, 2018.  Malipiero and more.  Hugo Wolf, a tremendously talented Austrian composer who died tragically young in a syphilis-induced delirium, was born on March 13^th of 1860.  Last your we dedicated an entry to him, so here are two of his songs.  First, Schlafendes Jesuskind (Sleeping Baby Jesus) from the cycle Mörike-Lieder is sung by the French baritone Gérard Souzay with Dalton Baldwin at the piano.  Then, Nachtzaube (Night magic), from Eichendorff Lieder.  It’s performed by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Gerald Moore.

March 5, 2018.  From Gesualdo to Barber.  This is another abundant week: Carlo Gesualdo, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Josef Mysliveček, Pablo de Sarasate, Maurice RavelHeitor Villa-Lobos, Arthur Honegger and Samuel Barber all were born between March 5^th and March 10^th.  Plus, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, the wonderful soprano from New Zealand, was also born this week, on March 6^th of 1944.  Of this group, Ravel remains the most popular: by some counts, he is one of the most popular (not to be confused with the greatest) classical composers of all time.  While it’s impossible not to love Ravel, our personal favorite is Gesualdo, Prince of Genosa, and not because of the incredible life story of this melancholic murderer and composer of genius, which was portrayed by dozens of poets and writers, from Torquato Tasso to Anatole France.  Gesualdo appeals on a purely musical level; he’s one of the most interesting composers of the late Renaissance.  The astonishing chromaticism of his madrigals sounds fresh even today.  Listen, for example, to Moro, lasso, al mio duolo as performed by the Diller Consort. 

We’ve written about Mysliveček, who was born on March 9^th of 1737, just once and so far, our library had only one of his compositions, the Violin Concerto in A Major.  Mysliveček, who for a while was a good friend of a much younger Mozart, deserves more attention.  A miller’s son and a miller himself till the age of 24, Mysliveček abandoned the family business, leaving it to his twin brother, and devoted himself to music.  After taking some music lessons in Prague, he went to Venice where his studied opera.  The Italians couldn’t pronounce his name, so they called him “Il Boemo” – the Bohemian.  His studies were fruitful: the first opera was premiered in Bergamo in 1765, and two years later his Il Bellerofonte achieved great success at its premier in Teatro San Carlo in Naples.  That was a turning point in Mysliveček’s career: for the rest of his life he stayed in Italy, traveling from one city to another to fulfill commissions from major opera theaters.  Here’s Argene’s aria Palesar vorrei col pianto from Il Bellerofonte.  The role was premiered by one of the most famous sopranos of the time, Caterina Gabrielli.  In this recording it is performed by the Argentinian soprano Gladys Mayo; the Prague Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Zoltán Peskó.  Here’s another example, the aria Saro qual é il torrente from Mysliveček’s opera Antigona.  Antigona was written 36 years after Il Bellerofonte, at the end of 1773.  The aria, sung by Creonte, the ruler of Thebes, was written for a tenor.  In this recording it’s sung by the wonderful Czech mezzo, Magdalena Kožená, otherwise known as Ms. Simon Rattle.  

A brief note on Mysliveček’s relations with the Mozarts.  He met Leopold and Wolfgang in Bologna in 1770 (Wolfgang was 14, and was on one of the trips Leopold organized to demonstrate his brilliant virtuosity as a harpsichordist).   Mysliveček became good friends with both, and Wolfgang was especially taken with the Czech’s “fire, spirit and life,” as he put it in one of his letters.  The friendship lasted for eight years and fell apart when Mysliveček couldn’t deliver on a promise to arrange a commission for Mozart from the Teatro San Carlo.  Mysliveček influenced some of Mozart’s early compositions, for example his opera Mitridate, re di Ponto.

February 16, 2018.  Another rich week.  Chopin, Rossini, Smetana, Vivaldi – way too much for one week.   Fortunately, last year we wrote about the first three, so we’ll just play a bit of Chopin’s music.  Just two days ago we came across a live video of a Chopin recital given by the Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze.  Ms. Virsaladze, who is 75 years old, started with the Polonaise-fantaisie op. 61, then played the massive Piano sonata no. 3.  In the second half it was several nocturnes, valses and one Etude, no. 3, op. 10.  She even played an encore, a Mazurka, Op. 30, no. 4.  It was a long program even for a young pianist and the performance, if maybe not technical perfect (she clearly got tired by the end), was very satisfying.  Eliso’s first teacher was her grandmother, Anastasia Virsaladze, a pupil of the famous Anna Yesipova (Yesipova, a very influential teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, also taught Sergei Prokofiev and Maria Yudina; she was the second wife of Theodor Leschetizky, who helped Anton Rubinstein in founding the St. Petersburg Conservatory).  In 1966 Eliso moved to Moscow to study with Heinrich Neuhaus and Yakov Zak.  Eliso took the third prize in the Second Tchaikovsky competition (1962) and won the Schumann competition in Zwickau four years later.  Schumann was one of her favorite composers; at the time, Sviatoslav Richter said that she was the best contemporary interpreter of Schumann’s music.  She also played a lot of Chopin.  Here are 12 Etudes op. 10 in a studio recording made in 1974.  We first wanted to select one etude but decided that playing all of them together is so much better – and it’s just 29 minutes of great music.

February 19, 2018.  From Blow to Kurtág.  We have a wonderful group of musicians to celebrate this week.   Luigi Boccherini was born on this day in 1743 in Lucca.  He studied in Rome, at the age of 14 he moved to Vienna where he played the cello at the Burgtheater, and four years later, in 1770 he moved to Madrid.  There he was employed by the younger brother of the King of Spain, Infante Luis Antonio.  His official title was compositore e virtuoso di camera.  He lived in Spain for the rest of his life, even while holding an appointment with the Crown Prince of Prussia.  Boccherini died in Madrid on May 28^th of 1805.  He wrote more than 100 quartets – Minuet from String Quintet in E Major, Op.11 No. 5 is probably his most famous piece of music.  Here’s another of his string quartets, “La Tiranna,” in G major, Op. 44, no. 4.  It’s performed by the Ensemble 415.

 Also born today but almost two centuries later, in 1926, was one of the most influential composers of the second part of the 20^th century, György Kurtág.  A Hungarian, he was born in the town of Lugoj, part of the Austria-Hungary that reverted to Romania after the Great War.  He studied music in Timișoara (also formerly a Hungarian city) and in 1946 moved to Budapest.  He became friends with another young composer, György Ligeti.  In 1957 Kurtág went to Paris where he studied with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud.  After the limitations of the socialist Hungary, Paris offered Kurtág access to all the modern music he wanted to hear.  He listened to the Viennese, especially Webern; other influences were Stravinsky and Bartók.  Had he stayed in Paris, his life would’ve been very different, but he chose to return to Hungary.  There he earned money as an accompanist and voice coach. 

February 12, 2018.  Four solid talents.  Three early-music composers were born this week: Francesco Cavalli, one of the pioneers of opera, on February 14^th of 1602; Michael Praetorius, an immensely prolific German composer of the Protestant church music, most likely on February 15^th of 1571; and Arcangelo Corelli,  on February 17^th of 1653.  It so happens that we wrote about all three of them last year.  Four lesser composer were also born this week -- Fernando Sor, Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Georges Auric and Henri  Vieuxtemps.  Fernando Sor, a Catalan guitarist and composer, was born on February 13^th of 1778 in Barcelona.  He moved around Europe quite a bit, first living in Paris, then in London, and then moving to Moscow, where he stayed for four years.  He returned to Paris and lived there for the rest of his life (he died in 1839).  Sor was considered the foremost guitar virtuoso of his time; even though he wrote music in many genres, he is known today for his guitar compositions.  Here’s one of his most popular pieces, Variations on a Theme by Mozart.  It’s performed by the Spanish guitarist Rafael Serrallet.

Alexander Dargomyzhsky, born on February 14^th of 1813, was an interesting Russian composer who lived in the period between Mikhail Glinka and the generation of the Mighty Five.  Dargomyzhsky met Glinka at the age of 22; they became friends, played piano four hands and studied scores together.  Encouraged by Glinka, he wrote an opera, Esmeralda, which had to wait its premier for eight years and then disappeared from the stage.  Disappointed, Dargomyzhsky went to Europe – Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Vienna – where he met many major composers and musicians.  After two years of travels he returned to Russia to start working on the opera Rusalka.  That one also had to wait – it was premiered only in 1856.  His best-known opera, The Stone Guest, was left unfinished; it was completed by César Cui and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.  Dargomyzhsky wrote a number of lovely songs; here’s one of them, Molitva (The prayer) and here’s another, V tverdi nebesnoy (In heavenly firmament).  Both are sung by the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, accompanied on the piano by her famous husband, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.  The recording was made in 1991 when Vishnevskaya was 65 and beyond her prime.  Even if her voice isn’t as solid as it was at her prime, the phrasing is beautiful.