On this date in 1917, Alexander Zemlinsky’s Eine florentinische Tragödie (A Florentine Tragedy) was premiered in Stuttgart. It is the first of two operas that Zemlinsky (1871-1942) based upon the works of Oscar Wilde. Der Zwerk (The Dwarf) followed in 1922.
This post was supposed to be a discussion of the John Williams Inauguration composition Air and Simple Gifts. But the piece itself just wasn’t that interesting! So how about some brief comments and links, and have some more Marian Anderson?
Whatever your political persuasion in the 2008 election, it’s beyond dispute that the inauguration of an American president of African descent is historic. Given that Obama has lived so long in, and represented, the Land of Lincoln, it was inevitable that he’d tap into the Lincoln mythology with gestures such as his train trip into DC and his taking of the oath of office using the same bible that Lincoln used in 1861. A piece of symbolism missed by the TV commentators, not to mention me at the time, was the backstory of Aretha Franklin’s performance of “My Country Tis of Thee.” As a lover of true contralto voices and a history buff, I’m a little sheepish that it took a belated visit to The Rest is Noise to remind me that Marian Anderson sang the same song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. Anderson, an internationally successful opera singer, had been denied permission to perform to an integrated audience in venues owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution and a local white public school.
On December 22, 1808, Beethoven himself rented a hall in Vienna and promoted the concert to end all concerts: the debut, over four hours, of three of the greatest works in the history of music: his Fifth Symphony, the Sixth (“Pastoral”) Symphony, and the astounding Piano Concerto No. 4, plus the wonderful Choral Fantasia (forerunner to his Ninth Symphony). And yes, it was a fiasco. But imagine: It was as if Orson Welles premiered Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Touch of Evil on the same night — with The Lady from Shanghai thrown in for good measure. (Greg Mitchell)
That’s the subtitle, amusingly similar to a complaint I recently made to an innocent conference worker at the Chicago Hilton, of a fun, light read by Daniel J. Levitin in The Wall Street Journal.
You may have heard of something called the YouTube Symphony briefly discussed on TV news, but if you aren’t into online video, social media, etc. you may not know what exactly it is. Luckily, one of your crack Holde Kunst bloggers (hint: it’s not John) works in the website and search engine industry and keeps pretty good track of Google (YouTube’s parent company) and its plans for world domination and, now, online classical music hegemony.
Kevin Berger of Salon has an interesting interview with John Adams in conjunction with the release of the composer’s autobiography, “Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life.”
John Gibbons recently opined that the genius of the truly great composers can be found not in the individual musical elements they employ but in what they make of them. In other words, what matters is the composition of those elements. It’s not this playful snippet of melody or that inventive chord progression. It’s how they’re put together. It’s the narrative they create. This poignant, geeky talk by humorist John Hodgman (best known as “PC” in Apple Computer’s commercials) isn’t music, but it’s a wonderful example of composition in this sense.
I just had to share this little gem from The Guardian, in which Paul Lay reviews Bach’s Cantata No. 168 as a commentary on today’s financial crisis. This cantata chastises the unjust steward from Corinthians and the Gospel of Luke, with a nod to what Lay refers to as “the monied men of 1720s Weimar.”
;)
Close-up of title page to the first volume of Singende Müse an der Pleisse, a collection of strophic songs published in Leipzig in 1736, by “Sperontes”, Johann Sigismund Scholze. JS and Anna Magdalena Bach may be the couple pictured.Martin Jarvis decided, as a 19-year-old violist, that the famed cello suites didn’t sound like J.S. Bach.
“Certainly in the first suite, the movements are short and very simple, in comparison with the first movement of the violin works. And I couldn’t understand why,” he said.
After years of forensic study, the conductor and professor at Darwin University finally discovered this alleged slam-dunk: a manuscript with the notation “Ecrite par Madame Bachen Son Epouse” which says “written by the wife of Bach” rather than “copied.”
We already knew of Anna Magdalena’s role as a copyist. Obviously neither that word, nor the recognizable handwriting of Anna Magdalena would cut it as proof given her known role as a copyist — but in news reports Dr. Jarvis mentions “18 reasons why they weren’t written by Bach.” (Specifics would be great.)
Bonnie Gibbons