January 15, 2018.  Nicolas Gombert.  We have never written about Nicolas Gombert, which is quite an omission, considering that Gombert is considered  to be one of the greatest Flemish composers of the generation following Josquin des Prez.  Gombert was born around 1495 in southern Flanders.  Some musicologists speculate that he studied with Josquin, who at that time was living in Condé-sur-l'Escaut, not far from Gombert’s presumed birthplace.  Even if he wasn’t Josquin’s student, Gombert was clearly an admirer, as he wrote music to commemorate Josquin’s death.  Sometime around 1526 Gombert found employment with the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.  Charles’s lands stretched from the Netherlands and Flanders to Spain, Austria, some German states and Italy, and he traveled extensively.  Gombert accompanied the emperor on his trips, being “Master of the boys” of the court chapel.  As he visited different countries, his fame grew, with his music being published in many countries.  Even though he was never formally appointed maître de chapelle (music director) of the court, he served as court composer.  Gombert’s life changed dramatically in 1540.  According to Gerolamo Cardano, a court physician, he committed a “gross indecency” against a boy in the emperor’s employ.  Gombert was sentenced to the galleys and spent several years in the high seas.  We don’t know how long his punishment lasted and what his conditions were like, but during that time he managed to compose several pieces.  Those found their way back to the court and eventually earned Gombert the emperor’s pardon. 

January 8, 2017.  Three pianists.  Three great pianists of the last century were born last week, and by remarkable coincidence all three were born on the same day, January 5^th: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in 1920, Alfred Brendel in 1931, and Maurizio Pollini – in 1942.  So very different as performers (even their repertoires have little in common), all three were cerebral musicians who did not wear their hearts on the sleeve.  Their playing is faithful to the score and emotions come from the composer, not the artifice. 

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was born in Brescia, northern Italy.  Though he started studying the violin (at the age of three), he switched to the piano soon after.  He was accepted at the Milan Conservatory at ten and graduated at the age of 14.  He was not very successful at the Ysaÿe International Festival in 1938, where he took 7^th place (Emil Gilels was the winner) but a year later he won the Geneva Piano competition.  There, the perfection of his playing already apparent, and he was called “the new Liszt.”  In 1940 he played a sensational debut concert in Rome.  During WWII he served in the Italian air force but resumed his career soon after the war’s end.  He debuted in London in 1946 and in the US – in 1948.  In the 1950s he stopped concertizing for a while, concentrating on teaching, and formed his own International Pianists’ Academy.  Maurizio Pollini and Martha Argerich were his students.  Michelangeli resumed playing concerts in 1960, even though he was known to cancel almost as many concerts as he played.  Michelangeli’s repertoire was very small for a pianist of his standing, especially compared to pianists like Sviatoslav Richter, but the crystalline perfection of his playing was incomparable.  Michelangeli died in Lugano on June 12th of 1995.  Here’s Chopin’s Ballade no. 1 in his 1972 recording.

January 1, 2018.  Happy New Year!  Best wishes to all our listeners in 2018 and lots of good music!  While we cannot think of any classical composition written specifically to celebrate theNew Year, its arrival is clearly associated with fireworks, and what could be better fireworks music than George Frideric Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks?  The occasion for which Handel composed his famous suite was quite different (the end of the War of the Austrian Succession) but we don’t mind.  Herer is it, gloriously performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Field under the direction of Neville Marriner.

The picture to the left is January, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, an illuminated manuscript created by the Limbourgh Brothers at the beginning of the 15^th century.  The members of the Duke’s household are exchanging New Years’ gifts.

December 25, 2017.  Merry Christmas!  As we’ve done in the past several years, we celebrate this wonderful holiday by playing sections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterpiece, the Christmas Oratorio.  Last year we played the complete Part II, so now we’ll turn to Part III.  The Oratorio was written in 1734; in it Bach reused some of the music from Cantatas BWV 213, 214 and 215, which he wrote during the previous year.  Thus, the Christmas Oratorio opens with the chorus Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen (Ruler of Heaven, hear the sound of laughter), which is taken directly from the chorus Blühet, ihr Linden in Sachsen, wie Zedern! (Bloom, you linden trees in Saxony, like cedars!) in the Cantata BWV 214.  Nonetheless, there’s so much new music that the Oratorio clearly could be considered an independent piece of music.  The theme of the third part of the Oratorio is Adoration of the Shepherds.  As usual, it’s the Evangelist who tells the story: the angels visit the shepherds to reveal to them that a heavenly event has taken place in Bethlehem; the shepherds then embark on a journey; in Bethlehem, they find Mary, Joseph and the Child lying in the manger; they recognize the Child as the one they were told about; they spread the word about the Child: people wonder, only Mary understands the real meaning of it all; the shepherds depart, glorifying and praising the Lord.  The Third part of the Oratorio was premiered on December 27^th of 1734 at the Leipzig’s St. Nicholas church.  We’ll hear it in the performance by the English Baroque Soloists under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.

December 18, 2017.  Christmas is coming soon, and this gives us a chance to celebrate several Renaissance composers.  We usually look for special events to mention them throughout the year, since there are no dates associated with their birthday.  What could be a better occasion than Christmas, as all of them wrote church music, and much of it music for Christmas services.  

The great Flemish composer Orlando di Lasso (or Orlande di Lassus, as his name is sometimes spelled) was born around 1532 in Mons, county of Hainaut in what is now Belgium.  At the age of twelve he followed Ferrante Gonzaga to Mantua, then spent some time in Milan and Naples before settling in Rome.  In 1556, already famous as a composer, he was invited to Munich by Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, who, eager to compete with Italian courts, was hiring musicians from different countries.  Orlando stayed in the employ of Dukes for the rest of his life.  Soon after his arrival in Bavaria, Orlando presented the Duke Albrecht with a set of 12 motets, which he titled Prophetiae Sibyllarum ("Sibylline Prophecies").  The author of the texts is unknown, but all of the “prophecies” foretell the coming of Christ.  Here are two of the motets, Sibylla Europæa and Sibylla Erythræa, both beautifully performed by the ensemble De Labyrintho, Walter Testolin conducting.

One of the key texts and corresponding chants of the Catholic Christmas liturgy is O Magnum Mysterium (O great mystery), which is sung on Christmas Matins.  Many Renaissance composers wrote motets on this text, one of them Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the quintessential polyphonist of the Hight Renaissance.  Palestrina was one of the few Italians working in Rome: most of the famous composers of that time were either Flemish or Spanish (that would change in just one generation and Italians would reign supreme for years to come).  Palestrina was born around 1525 in the town of the same name.  In 1551 Pope Julius III appointed him maestro di cappella at Cappella Giulia, one of the two key choirs at the Vatican, another being the Sistine Chapel choir).  From that point on Palestrina moved from one important position to another.  O Magnum Mysterium, Palestrina’s six-voice motet, was published in 1569.  It’s sung here by the King's College Choir, Cambridge, Sir Philip Ledge conducting.

December 11, 2017.  Beethoven.  Whatever deity was distributing musical birthdays throughout the year did a very poor job.  There are meager weeks, and then there are periods like this one, in the middle of December: we’ve already missed the anniversaries of Jean Sibelius, Cesar Franck and Olivier Messiaen, all born during the last several days (and these are the foremost composers, there are more), while this week three more big ones are coming: that of Hector Berlioz, who was born on December 11^th of 1803, Elliott Carter, the American modernist, born on the same day in 1908, and the talented Hungarian composer ZóltanKodaly, whose birthday is December 16^th of 1882.  We’ll skip all of them until a later date.  All of it because December 16^th is the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven and that we cannot miss.  Some years ago, we started a survey of Beethoven’s life through his music, pretty much arbitrarily picking his piano sonatas and symphonies, even though we may have as well followed the development of his genius though his quartets or piano trios – and we still might.  For the time being, though, we’ll return to his piano sonatas.  The last one we disucssed was the Sonata no. 7, op. 10, no. 3, written in 1798, when Beethoven was 27 years old.  The next sonata, the famous no. 8, op. 13, known as Pathétique, was written the same year (the title Pathétique was given by the publisher, not the composer himself, but Beethoven liked it and that’s what the sonata was called ever since).  Up to then, Beethoven was better known as a pianist rather than a composer (Václav Tomášek, a Czech composer and music teacher, who also heard Mozart, the supreme virtuoso of his time, play, considered Beethoven the greatest performer of all time).