November Composers

Please page down. Composers are found in the order of their birth date.

Dittersdorf, Karl Ditters von dit erce dorrf
November 2, 1739

This eminent violinist and composer was born in Vienna and ennobled (von) in 1773. His father was a costume designer at the Austrian Imperial Court as well as being a first lieutenant in the Viennese citizens' militia and so could afford to give his children Jesuit school education and private lessons in music, French and religion.

While a young man he toured Italy with Gluck as a violinist. In 1765 after experience in the orchestra of Prince von Hildburghausen and the Austrian Imperial Opera he became Kapellmeister to the Bishop of Grosswardein (replacing Michael Haydn who had left in 1762) until 1769 when he served the Bishop of Breslau (1769 to 1795).

He was one of the most voluminous and, along with Mozart and Haydn, influential composers of his time with 44 operas (Including German singspiel, which is an adaptation of English ballad opera. Later it was influenced by French & Italian comic opera) including Doktor und Apotheker written in Vienna in 1786. And he wrote masses, oratorios, concertos, chamber music and piano sonatas. He wrote 12 symphonies on subjects from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

His autobiography, Lebensbeschreibung of 1801 is an entertaining look at life in the 18th century. There is an English edition published in 1896.

Michael Kelly in his book recalls a string quartet recital with Haydn, Dittersdorf, Wanhal and Mozart.

Recommended recordings:
Keyboard Concerto in Bb- Robert Veyron-Lacroix, hc; Munich Pro
Arte Chm Orch/Kurt Redel. West 17 060 (LP)
Flute Concerto in e- Munich Pro Arte Chm Orch/Kurt Redel, f. West
West 17 060 (LP)
Symphony in A, "Five Nations"- Oradea Phil Orch/R. Rimbu. Oly 426
Quartets 1,3,4 & 5- Franz Schubert Stg Quartet. Berlin 990 038
Double Bass Concerto in E- Bernard Cazauran, db; Orch?/ Gallo 753
(8/92)
Double Bass & Viola Concerto- Frantisek Posta, db; Luboir Maly, vi;

Bellini, Vincenzo (bell - lee - nee)
November 3, 1801

An opera composer and master of Bell Canto: "beautiful voice" or "beautiful song." Musicologist Donald Grout called Bellini the aristocrat of his era. He was born in Catania, Sicily into a musical family. His grandfather Vincenzo Tobia studied music in Naples and was organist, composer and teacher in Catania. His father was also a composer, maestro di cappella and music teacher in Catania. At 5 Bellini commanded the piano with perfect pitch and fast creative memory. It is thought that his early training in foreign languages and Latin (ignoring his native Italian) gave him a fine sense of poetic (license) beauty found in his arias. By his seventh year he was writing sacred music under the tutelage of his grandfather. The scores can be viewed today.

In addition, as a boy, he was writing ariettas and instrumental pieces for the salons of aristocrats and patricians. When he had gone as far as he could with his grandfather he left Catania for the Naples Conservatory. Financial support was provided by the city government of Catania. At Naples he entered a class of the director Giacomo Tritto where he studied the masters of Neapolitan school, the instrumental works of Haydn and works of Mozart.

He developed a great love for the music of Mozart and made editions of Mozart's music. His principal operas are La Straniera (1892), I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (1830), La Sonnambula (1831), Norma (1831), I Puritani (1835). You'll find pure elegance and great lyrical charm in his arias. He was a close friend of Chopin. You might find Chopin's lyric quality in Bellini's operas. He wrote flowing expressive melody which Chopin greatly admired.

Like Chopin, to quote Donald Grout again, "[His] style is one of utmost lyric refinement; the harmony is sensitive, and the intensely expressive melodies have a breath, a flexibility of form, a certain elegance of curve, and an elegiac tinge of feeling." He made full use of the technical possibilities and natural charm of the human voice.

His popularity spread from Paris to all of Europe. In the 20th century his music wasn't heard much until the 50s and 60s. Maria Callas in the 50s & 60s and Beverly Sills in 60s & 70s did much revive interest in Bell Canto and Bellini.

Recommended recordings:

Arias: Compagne, teneri amici... Come per se me sereno fr La
sonnambula- Maria Callas, s; La Scala Orch/Tullio Serafin.
Ang/EMI 47 966
fr Norma- Montserate Caballe, s. RCA 61458
Care compagne... Come perme sereno fr La Sonnambula-Beverly Sills, s; Vienna Academy Cho & Volksoper Orch/Jussi Jalas. Ang/EMI 34081 (LP)
Qui la voce fr Act II of I puritani w/ Louis Quilico, br; Paul Pliska, b; London Sym Orch/Julius Rudel. Ang/EMI 34016 (LP)

Bax, Sir Arnold
November 8, 1883

Born in London (Streatham) he studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder. He was Knighted in 1937 and honored with Master of the King's Music in 1937. He is considered a post-Romantic composer with a strong Irish influence, including the poetry of William Butler Yeats and Irish folklore. Fascinated with Celtic culture, he wasn't Irish. He even wrote short stories and poems published in Dublin under the pen name Dermot O' Byrne. The novelist, playwright and poet Clifford Bax was his brother. At the start of World War I he wondered where he'd go. He wrote to a friend: "I have been swaying backwards and forwards between two courses... that of entering the army (and becoming bold and British thereby, or pretending to be) and that of plunging into a narcotic ocean of creative work." So thanks to his wise decision not to support the capitalists' war we have the wonderful output of his writing during that period. Better than that we have a wonderful composer who survived the waste of World War I.

Works for orchestra include 7 symphonies, Garden of Fand, Tintagel, November Woods, Overture to a Picaresque Comedy, a cello and a violin concerto. His chamber works hold a nonet; an octet; string quintet; oboe quintet; trio for flute, viola and harp; three violin sonatas; sonatas for viola, cello, clarinet and piano and sonata for viola and harp. Mater ora filium, Of a rose I sing, This worlde's joy, St. Patrick's Breastplate and The Morning Watch are choral
works. There are four piano sonatas and numerous songs and folksong arrangements.

During WWI Bax was non-combatant, a heart condition, which troubled him all his life kept him from the trenches. He composed much Romantic influenced music up till the time of the Nazi bombing of England during WWII. His Violin Concerto reflects his fears and hopes during the rise of Fascism.

Generally it is thought by musicologists that his best work was written before 1930. He was prolific and just recently "fully" recorded. So it may be up to future generations to determine what, of his oeuvre, is to be celebrated. Thanks to Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Adrian Boult and Sir Malcolm Sargent for introducing us to Bax . It seemed that by 1955 we only had Tintagel on LP. By 1959 Barbirolli and Sargent had given us recordings of Garden of Fand and Coronation March. Today we can thank Chandos for making so much his music available on CD.

More to read:
Farewell, my Youth- an autobiography. (1943)

Recommended recordings:

Cello Concerto (1932)- Elizabeth Wallfisch, vc; London Phil Orch/
Bryden Thomson. Chandos 8494
Various Piano Works- Eric Parkin, pn. Chandos 9561
Flute, Oboe, Harp and String Quartet Concerto- St. Martin-in-the
-Fields Chm Orch. Chandos 9602
Elegiac Trio- Nash Ens. Hype 66 807

Tintangel- BBC Phil/Edward Downes. BBC 569 1592
Tintangel- London Sym Orch/Sir John Barbirolli. Ang 36415 (LP)

Spring Fire Symphony- Royal Phil Orch/Vernon Handley. Chandos
8628
Symphonic Variations- Margaret Fingerhut, pn; London Phil Orch/
Bryden Thomson. Chandos 8516

Violin Concerto (1937 - 38) Eda Kersey, v; BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult (Bedford Corn Exchange 2/23/44)
Symphony No. 3 in C (1928 - 29) Halle Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli (Houldsworth Hall, Manchester 12/31/43 - 44)

These historical recordings, made during WWII, are the first recordings of two of Bax's then most popular works, both reflecting the composer's own views of how this music should be performed.

During WWI Bax was non-combatant, a heart condition, which troubled him all his life kept him from the trenches. He composed much Romantic influenced music up till the time of the Nazi bombing of England during WWII. The Violin Concerto reflects his fears and hopes during the rise of Fascism. The cover for this CD is "The Proud City" by Walter Spradley.

Couperin, Francois le grand
(koup-ra (n) rhymes w/ pan) not koup air ran)
November 10, 1668

Composer, organist, harpsichordist, son and pupil of Charles, organist of St. Gervais from 1661 and nephew and pupil of Francois, organist of St. Gervais from 1685 he (in 1693 at the age of 25) became organist to to the king at Versailles where he taught several children of the royal family. He is known for his excellent studies for keyboard as well as compositions for instrumental ensembles, secular songs and church music.

He did much to perfect the rondo form later used on a larger scale by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven usually as the final movement of a sonata, chamber work or an orchestral piece. His chamber works consist of several sonatas. These were the earliest examples of sonatas in France and they were written for two violins or wind instruments and continuo. With these sonatas he was working to combine (as did other French composers) the French and Italian approaches.

The Italian sonata tended to more brilliant, forceful, rhythmic and with more contrapuntal invention. The French focused on dance rhythms and their ornamentation. Couperin wrote his sonatas, especially the late ones with French style dance movements but used the fugal development of the Italians. And he wrote them with a great sense of 17th Century French refinement.

To pay homage to their styles he wrote two interesting chamber music studies of his contempories: Le Parnasse ou l'Apotheose de Corelli (1724) and Apotheose de Lully (1725) imitating the style of the two composers: masters of the Italian and French schools and their reception into Parnassus or Heaven. The Corelli work was published in a volume entitled Les gouts-reunis ("The Styles Reunited)

His ordres or suites for harpsichord are also refined and graceful. They show his great skill and charm. They number 225 and they're grouped according to key and to extent mood He called them portraits. Each has a title: it might be a name of some particular person, or state of mind, or a familar institution, or a plant or animal etc. The titles show great wit such as Les Baricades Misterieuses (Mysterious Barricades) probably his most popular work. They are simple to play. The lesson to learn from them is baroque ornamentation.

His robust imagination was always tempered by the acceptable formal symmetry of his age. Another set of his important compositons is the Concerts royaux music written for Sunday afternoon concerts that he directed before Louis XIV.

His church music is gloriously noble and profoundly impressive. L'Art de toucher le clavecin (1716) an instruction book dedicated to the young Louis XV is a valuable record of performance practice of the period. Plus the music has grace and humor.

Borodin, Alexander Porphyrievich borr oh dyeen
November 12 1833

Composer, scientist Borodin held many official scientific posts and the position of Assistant Professor of (reader in) organic chemistry at The Academy of Medicine in 1862. In 1884 he was made full Professor. He also founded a School of Medicine for Women.

Always quite musical he began composing as a boy. In his late 20s he was stimulated, and his composing activity took on greater importance, after an 1869 meeting with Balakirev. His first symphony was written between 1862 and 67 under the influence and guidance of Balakirev and performed in 1869 by Balakirev. Borodin joined him and became a member of "the mighty handful" or The Five: Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, a group of Russian composers who argued that Russian music should show "national color," be a musical idiom which takes into account Russian folk music and deal in some part with Russian history. Their struggle was to build an all-Russian style of music. Their counterparts in literature might be Puskin or Gogol.

Like Borodin none of The Five were "professional" musicians. All were amateurs. Balakirev is a possible exception. All had other careers/professions. And like Borodin all left substantial works unfinished. Their revolution was against a musical establishment that used national idioms only incidentally, if at all, an establishment that was fundamentally bound up with Western Europe. For The Five a lack of being steeped in "conventional" harmony and counterpoint was seen as an asset. Their music appeared to be excessive by those advancing Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Wagner, Bizet, Verdi et al. The opposite of their music in Russia would be Tchaikovsky or Anton Rubinstein.

Borodin's works include three symphonies (the third unfinished), In the Steppes of Central Asia for orchestra, two string quartets, piano music, 2 operas- Bogatyri, a parody (Moscow, 1867) and Prince Igor (completed after his death by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazounov), and songs. He also published a number of scientific papers. In addition to Balakirev and others of The Five his work was encouraged by Franz Liszt.

He was one of the strongest Russian composers. His original melodies mirror authentic Russian folk songs and neighboring Oriental music. Frequent use of bold outlines and gorgeous melody is tempered with classical restraint. He did have an early interest in Mendelssohn. This influence allows his work to be less overtly dramatic than other Russians and more lyrical and descriptive. He like others in The Five worked to build an "absolute' music not dependent on being Slavic just as Beethoven does not depend on being Teutonic. And according to Musicologist Donald Grout, "... he succeeded by reason of the individuality of his development, he succeeded by reason of the individuality of his themes, his transparent orchestral texture [derived from Glinka: the inspiration for The Five], the delicate, modally tinged harmonies and his original method of spinning out an entire movement from a single pregnant thematic idea announced at the beginning (for example, the first movement of [his] Second Symphony.)"


Recommended Recordings:
In the Steppes of Central Asia- Nat'l Phil Orch/Loris Tjeknavorian.
RCA 60 535
Nocturne for String Orchestra- St. Louis Sym Orch/Leonard
Slatkin.Telarc 80 080
Polovtsian Dances fr Prince Igor- Royal Phil Orch/Leopold
Stokowski. Lond (Phase 4 Stereo) 443 896
Prelude to Act II fr Prince Igor- Chicago Sym Orch/Fritz Reiner.
RCA 5602
Prince Igor- Soloists, Kirov Opera Orch & Cho/Valery Geriev. Phil
442 537
Quartet No. 1 in A- Lark String Quartet. Arab 6658
Quartet No. 2 in D- Emerson String Quartet. DG 427 618
Symphony No. 1 in Eb- Royal Stockholm Phil Orch/Gennady
Rozhdestvensky. Chandos 9199
Symphony No. 2 in b- Nat'l Phil Orch/Loris Tjeknavorian. RCA
60 535
Symphony No. 3 in a- Toronto Sym Orch/Andrew Davis. Sony
28 803

Copland, Aaron
November 14, 1900

Although he disliked the title because it sounded professorial he was called "the Dean of American composers." Copland was a composer, an author, lecturer and pupil of Nadia Boulanger. His family name is Kaplan, mistakenly changed by officials when Copland's father immigrated to Great Britain before coming to the U.S. Copland was born in Brooklyn in1900 and spent his first twenty years there on, "... a street that (he said) can only be described as drab." He had some early piano lessons and at about the age of 15 he gradually began to think about becoming a composer.

At 17 he took harmony lessons with Rubin Goldmark, nephew of composer Karl Goldmark. At 21 he was able, through summer earnings, to go to Paris to study at first with Paul Vidal and then with Nadia Boulanger. With Boulanger he learned lucidity and perfect mastery of the tools available to a 20th century composer, an essential part of his thorough technical training. He really didn't take lessons in composing.

Copland was the first of many Boulanger pupils from the U.S. that included Virgil Thomson, Walter Piston and Phillip Glass. In 1924 he returned home and worked as a hotel pianist. Imagine, a hotel pianist, after being inspired at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with New York Symphony concerts conducted by Walter Damrosch, stirring performances by Paderewski, Cyril Scott and ballet by Isadora Duncan and Diagilev! He had learned counterpoint and the sonatas of Beethoven, Wagner and Fuchs. He had an independent love for Mussorgsky, Debussy, Ravel and Scott. He had heard the première of Ravel's orchestration of Mussorsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Following Boulanger's advice he visited Berlin, Vienna and Salzburg and responded to Webern, Bartok, Haba, Hindemith and Weill. And now after taking from Mahler a model for counterpoint and orchestration he was a hotel pianist!

But soon, at Boulanger's request, he composed an organ concerto that she played on her American tour. This concerto, called Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, and the two pieces for piano, were accepted by the League of Composers. The Cat & the Mouse and Passacaglia were written for piano in 1921-22. They, along with his Symphony for Organ, won him a large and influential public. He soon established his position in American musical life. And shortly after this he was awarded the first scholarship of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. It was renewed for a second year. A great variety of compositions quickly followed: Motets for unaccompanied chorus (1921), Movement for String Quartet (ca 1921), Dance Symphony (1922-25), Grohg (1922-25), Music for the Theater (1925), Nocturne for Violin & Piano (1926), Blues for Piano (1926), Vitebsk: Study on a Jewish Theme (1928), and Symphonic Ode (1927-29 & revised in 1955).

He then entered a more austere period with Piano Variations (1930), Short Symphony (1933) and Statements for orchestra (1935). For a period, while still continuing to build from the music of Ives and Stravinsky, he wrote more simply to make a wider appeal. This is the Copland most of us know and love, the Copland who along with Barber, Ellington, Harris, Thomsom, Still, Gerhswin, Thompson et al. These composers (and others) seem to defined our musical language.

This new direction satisfied his socialist and humanitarian beliefs: Copland was a man of the people. He and his literary friend Harold Clurman shared a determination, "... to make clear to our countrymen the value attached in all lands to the idea of creative personality." And they declared that there is a, "... possibility of the coexistence of industrialism and creative activity." His works during this period included El Salon Mexico (1936) using Mexican folk music, Billy the Kid (1938), with its cowboy folk tunes that dealt with a folk hero/rebel, and Rodeo: 4 dance episodes for orchestra (1942) that deals with one the hardest working of all our working people, the cowboy.

With the threat of Fascism both here and abroad, Pearl Harbor and the entry of the US into World Ward II Copland girded us with his Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man (both in 1942). His scores for The City (dealing with urban blight) Of Mice and Men, Our Town (1940) and The Red Pony (filmed in1948 & released in 1949 w/ Myrna Loy & Robert Mitchum) were all, films, about the lives of common people. They established new, higher standards for film music.

In 1944 he completed a ballet venerating workers of the soil. Written for just 13 players Appalachian Spring was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. He had intended to call it Ballet for Martha (Graham). It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1945. Later he made the score available for full orchestra. One of the first digital recordings in the US is of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with Dennis Russell Davies in the original chamber version of Appalachian Spring. With the exception of Woody Guthrie working people were never treated with such grand celebration by a composer.

Copland's Third Symphony (1944-46) was premiered in Boston under Serge Koussevitzky. In fact the Boston Symphony and Copland had a long standing relationship. He conducted the Boston in his first recording of Appalachian Spring and was its co-conductor on a European tour.

Later such works as the Piano Quartet (1950), Piano Fantasy (1960) and Connotations for Orchestra (1962) brought him closer to the non-tonal or serial style composers. But when asked (by Studs Turkel on WFMT/Chicago in 1960) about new directions by electronic composers he replied, "Give 'em enough rope."

In addition to composing he wrote: What to Listen for In Music, Our New Music, Music and Imagination, Copland On Music and more. He was an activist, an adviser and a "committee man." He along with Roger Sessions, Edgar Varese, Virgil Thomson, Elliot Carter and others played an important part in furthering the interests of United States composers. He and Roger Sessions sponsored a series of concerts of new music between 1928 and 1931.

Copland's various musical periods are not easily defined. He is Aaron Copland in all periods and never beholden to his folk material as is Bartok, Vaughan Williams, Janacek and others. In all periods he continued to allow the listener to, "... relive in [her/his] own mind the completed revelation of the composer's thought." Copland's friend, composer/critic Virgil Thomson described the Copland style as, "... plain, clean-colored, deeply imaginative... theatrically functional... it has style."

Recommended recordings:
Appalachian Spring (chamber version-complete for 13 players)- St.
Paul Chm Orch/Dennis Russell Davies. Pro Arte 3429
Appalachian Spring Suite- Boston Sym Orch/Aaron Copland. RCA
6802 or RCA 61 505 (both are the 1959 recording with Copland )

Billy the Kid (complete ballet)- London Sym Orch/Antal Dorati. Merc
434 301
Billy the Kid Suite- Seattle Sym Orch/Gerard Schwarz. Delos 3104

Blues for Piano- James Tocco, pn. Pro Arte 183
Clarinet Concerto- Janet Hilton, cl; Royal Scottish Nat'l Orch/Matthias
Bamert. Chandos 8618

Danzon Cubano (Gold & Fizdale, arr.)- Joshua Pierce & Dorothy Jonas,
pns. Koch 7002
Danzon Cubano- New York Phil/Leonard Bernstein. CBS 37 257

Down a Country Lane- U. of Mass/Amherst Wind Ens/Malcolm W.
Rowell. Albany 206
Duo for Flute & Piano- Paula Robeson, f; Timothy Hester, pn.
MusicMasters 7019
Fanfare for the Common Man- St. Louis Sym Orch/Leonard Slatkin.
RCA 60983
John Henry for Chamber Orchestra- London Sym Orch/Aaron
Copland. Col 33586
Letter from Home- London Sym Orch/Aaron Copland. Col 33586
Latin-American Sketches- St. Paul Chm Orch/Hugh Wolff. Teldec 46
314
Lincoln Portrait- Adlai Stevenson, narr. Philadelphia Orch/Eugene
Ormandy. Sony 62 401

Music for the Movies- St. Louis Sym Orch/Leonard Slatkin. RCA 61
699
Music for Radio (Prairie Journal)- St. Louis Sym Orch/Leonard
Slatkin. RCA 61 699
Old American Songs- William Warfield, br; New York Phil/Aaron
Copland. CBS 42 430
Our Town- St. Louis Sym Orch/Leonard Slatkin. RCA 61 699
Outdoor Overture- Cleveland Orch/Louis Lane. Sony 62 401
Quiet City- Phillip Collins, tpt; Cincinnati Sym Orch/Erich Kunzel.
Telarc 80 339
The Red Pony Suite- St. Louis Sym Orch/Andre Previn. Sony 63 401
Rodeo- Atlanta Sym Orch/Louis Lane. Telarc 80 339
El Solon Mexico- Utah Sym Orch/Maurice Abravanel. MCA 9800

Symphony for Organ and Orchestra- Wayne Marshall, o; Dallas Sym Orch/Andrew Litton.
Delos 3221
Short Symphony (No. 2)- San Francisco Sym Orch/Michael Tilson
Thomas. RCA 68 292
Symphony No. 3- Atlanta Sym Orch/Yoel Levi. Telarc 80 201
The Tender Land Suite- Boston Sym Orch/Aaron Copland. RCA 61505
Vitebsk: Study on a Jewish Theme- Aaron Copland, pn (other artists unknown). Pearl 9279

Weber, Carl Maria von (veh - behr, krl mar ee ah phone)
November 18, 1786

He was born Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst Von Weber in Eutin, Germany to an extended family of many musicians and composers. His cousin was Mozart's Constanze in The Abduction from the Seraglio. Mozart in was in love with her for a time and wrote several concert arias for her as well.

Weber was a composer, conductor and pianist. He studied with his father and Michael Haydn (nephew to Franz Joseph) under whom he became a chorister at Salzburg. Further study continued in Munich in 1798.

He appeared as solo pianist in several towns and wrote his first opera Das Waldmaedchen which premiered in Freiberg in 1800. Settling in Vienna in 1803 he studied with Vogler. Weber became conductor of the theater in Breslau between 1804 & 6 and Secretary to Duke Ludwig of Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart between 1807 & 10. Banished by the King of Wuettemberg in 1810 he moved to Mannheim and then to Darmstadt. After several concert tours he was appointed conductor at Prague in 1813 and then to the Dresden opera in 1816.

He, like Virgil Thomson, was also active as a music critic.

Weber's piano music shows a fertile imagination and brilliant technical command of the instrument.

His most successful work, the opera Der Freischuetz was produced in Berlin in 1821. In 1826 he visited London to produce Oberon. It was staged at Convent Garden. Weber died in London 8 weeks after the opening.

He is credited with the virtual creation of Romantic German opera. Der Freischuetz derives its uniqueness from German folklore and the incorporation of the German countryside in two aspects: one homely, the other mysterious. Euryanthe, produced in Vienna in 1823 is an innovative opera with continuous music which recreates the atmosphere of medieval chivalry anticipating Wagner's Lohengrin. .

His operas include Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn (1803), Silvana (1810), Abu Hassan (1811), Der Freischuetz (1821), Euryanthe (1823) and Oberon (1826). His choral works include: Der erste Ton; Kamf und Sieg; L'accoglienza; Jubelkantate (He wrote 26 cantatas.) and 3 Masses. There are at least 95 songs with piano accompaniment and at least 5 with orchestra. For orchestra there are two symphonies, 2 piano concertos, a Konzerstueck (concert piece) for piano and orchestra, 2 clarinet concertos, a clarinet concertino, Divertimento for Clarinet and Orchestra (spurious), a bassoon concerto, Andante & Rondo ungarese (Hungarian Rondo) in c for Bassoon & Orchestra and a Horn concertino.

He wrote wonderful chamber music for clarinet: Adagio & Rondo for (wind sextet) 2 Clarinets, 2 French Horns and 2 Bassoons (1808), Grand Duo Concertant in Eb for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 49, J. 204 (1815-16), Introduction, Theme & Variations in Bb for Clarinet & String Quartet [attrib], Melody in F for Clarinet & Piano (1811) as well as the above etc.

Mozzafiato has a recording of Adagio and Rondo "Harmoniemusik" for Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns and Doublebass, (not listed in Grove), Quintet in Bb for Clarinet & Strings and Seven Variations on a Theme from Silvana, Op. 33, J. 128.

For piano, there are 4 sonatas, Invitation to the Dance (orchestrated by Berlioz) etc.



Recommended Recordings:

Adagio & Rondo for Winds (1908)- German Wind Soloists. Marco
Polo 8.223 356
Andante & Rondo unagarese in c, J. 158- Klaus Thuneman, bn; St.
Martin-in-the-Fields/Neville Marriner. Phil 432 081
Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in f, Op. 73; J. 114- Janet Hilton, cl; City of
Birmingham Sym Orch/Neeme Jaervi. Chandos 8305
Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in Eb, Op. 74; J. Emma Johnson, cl; English Chm
Orch/Gerard Schwarz. ASV 747
Der Freischuetz, J. 277-Irmgard Seefried, s; Rita Streich, s; Richard
Holm, t; Eberhard Waechter, br; Kurt Boehm, b; Bavarian Radio Sym
Orch & Cho/Eugen Jochum. DG 439 717
Grand Duo Concertant in Eb, Op. 48; J. 204- Melvin Warner, cl; Allan
Dameron, pn. Crystal 332 (LP)
Grand Duo Concertant in Eb, Op. 48; J. 204- David Shifrin, cl; David
Golub, pn. Delos 3194
Introduction, Theme & Variations in Bb- David Shifrin, cl; Cho Liang-
Lin & Toby Hoffman, vs; Paul Neubauer, vi; Gary Hoffman, vc. Delos
3194
Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65- Garrick Ohlsson, pn. Arab 6584
Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65- (Berlioz, orch)- Chicago Sym
Orch/Fritz Reiner RCA 61 250
Melody in F (1811)- Victoria Soames. cl; Julius Drake, pn. Clarinet
0003
Overtures- Phila Orch/Neeme Jaervi. Chandos 9066
Clarinet Quintet in Bb, Op. 34; J. 182- Nash Ens. CRD 3398
Symphony No. 1 in C, J. 50- St. Martin-in-the-Fields/Neville
Marriner ASV 515
Symphony No. 2 in C, J. 51- Bavarian Radio Sym Orch/Wolfgang
Sawallisch. Orfeo 091 841
Seven Variations on a Theme of Silvana, Op. 33; J. 128- Gervase de
Peyer, cl; Gwenneth Pryor, pn. Chandos 8506
Nine Variations on a Norwegian Air. Op. 22; J. 61- William Steck, v,
Lambert Orkis, pn. Gaparo 263


 

Index

Purcell, Henry pur - sell
Born ca. 1659 - Died November 21, 1695

Since no records exist establishing his birth, Henry Purcell's recognition day usually falls on the day he died at age 36. He was an organist and one of the great composers of the early baroque. In 20th century college music courses Dido's (lament) aria from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" has been used for decades, in college music classes, as an example of ground bass as found in music of the baroque.

In a letter his father tells a friend that his "sonne" is composing sometime before age 18.

His three part song, Sweet tyranness was published in Playford's Catch that catch Can or the Musical Companion in 1667 He was the son of a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. It's thought that as a preteen he may have been a pupil of John Blow. He became a chorister of the Chapel Royal around 1668 and left in 1673.

In 1677 he was made composer for the King's violins and organist at Westminster Abbey in 1679 and Chapel Royal in 1682. The next year he became Keeper of the King's Instruments starting as an assistant at age 14. He was a maker, mender, repairer, and tuner of the regals, organs, virginals, flutes, recorders and other wind instruments.

In 1685 he wrote the anthem My heart is inditing for James II's coronation.

Like his contemporary Vivaldi he wrote music for amateurs and the young (teenagers). He was active in every type of music: theatre, church, court odes, secular and sacred songs and instrumental music.

In Purcell's time there was a certain attachment to the late Renaissance yet there too was an awareness of the developing harmonic resources. In his offical duties he wrote a large amount of church music, some of it grave and polyphonic, in the old English style. However he was encouraged to (according to a contemporary, Pelham Humfrey) by Charles II to write in a gay and rhythmically simple way, in the lighter and more modern French style. Later he completely accepted the conventions of the baroque but he never sacrificed his own strong lyric quality steeped in the English concert and folk tradition. He passed some of this on to the German and later British subject Handel who even lifted whole arias from Purcell and merely changed the words.

Purcell's theatre music includes 6 operas. Dido and Aeneas is set to continuous music the others contain a great deal of dialogue. His church music includes both anthems in the traditional style and contemporary anthems with counter-tenor, tenor and bass solos. There's rich contrast between solo voices, chorus and orchestra in his Odes. In song writing he had great skill in catching the accents of English words much like Monteverdi for Italian. And like Monteverdi his early music was conservative i.e. the fantasias and early anthems are a direct following of an earlier generation including Matthew Locke. Chromaticism prevailed. There is unsurpassable skill, technical adroitness and imagination here. In instrumental writing his remarkable individualism shows up in fantasias written for viols. He followed Corelli's example composing his trio sonatas and expressed great love for Italian music, " ...I'm sure 'tis the constant Practice of the Italians in all their Musick, either Vocal or Instrumental, which I presume ought to be a Guide to us... " He had a strong interest in music's technical procedures as seen in his contributions to the 12th edition of Playford's Introduction to the Skill of Music (1694).

Dido and Aeneas is considered his greatest achievement. Unlike his other operas it is made of music from beginning to end: no speaking parts. It was written for a performance by the teenage women of Josias Priest's boarding-school at Chelsea in 1689 although there are parts for tenors and basses in the choruses. It's not demanding but does require a professional cast. It's range of human emotion is expansive from Dido's lament to the invigorating sailor's dance to the passion of Aeneas. Josias Priest was a dancing master at so the balletic component must have been somewhat easier to realize. The Fairy Queen and King Arthur are also recommended among his dramatic works. Come Ye Sons of Art and Hail, bright Cecilia stand out in his output of Odes and Welcome Songs. His writing for countertenor is unsurpassed. The Funeral Music for Queen Mary received an unusual boost in public recognition in the 1960's used in the film A Clockwork Orange.

"Purcell's range was wide. He composed everything from bawdy catches to impassioned prayers, intimate chamber music to ceremonial court odes, fresh melodies and dances to elegiac laments. It is perhaps in the expression the darker moods, grief, pathos and despair, that he proved himself even in so brief a life the greatest English composer of the Baroque and perhaps of any era." -Stanley Sadie in Music Guide.

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Gunther Schuller is a composer, conductor, French horn player and publisher. He was born November 22, 1925 He's heard on the historically important Miles Davis recording "Birth of the Cool." He has composed over 145 original compositions. In 1943 he dropped out high school to join Antal Dorati and the Ballet Theatre Orchestra on tour. His first full-time professional job came that year, as first horn with Cincinnati Symphony under Sir Eugene Goossens. In 1945 he joined the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra horn section and stayed until 1959. Milton Babbit describes Schuller as "a musician whose singular influence in multiple musical domains has shaped our musical epoch." He is author of "Early Jazz" and "The Swing Era" and will soon have a third volume on jazz history from 1945 to the present.

Gunther Schuller (November 22, 1925)
Talks With Cecilia This Week (March 1992)

Gunther Schuller was in Columbus, Ohio to perform new works by Russian composers in 1992. Cecilia This Week's Director, Bill Munger interviewed him for WCBE.

MUNGER: The first time I met you was at the John Lewis School for Jazz in 1959. A lot has changed, in music, since then. Some for the worse and so much, I think, has changed for the better.

SCHULLER: Ya! Do you want me to make a philosophical statement here? Of course a lot has happened, particularly since you mentioned jazz. There is the whole idea of rapprochement between jazz and contemporary classical music. It was a concept that I fought for even before 1959: "Third Stream Music," a way of bringing different musics together. Even the record companies have caught on. They call it fusion or world music or "Third World Music" or all these other... crossover that's another favorite buzz word. They've caught on to the commercial possibility in bringing musics together rather than keeping them segregated. And what's so interesting in composition is that so many composers, so called classical composers, have had quite a bit of experience as jazz musicians. And many jazz musicians are very broadly trained and sophisticated in their knowledge of contemporary classical music.

MUNGER: You're in Columbus to conduct the Petrov's "The Bells, A Russian Fantasy for Orchestra" (on a theme by Mussorgsky) and

SCHULLER: Yes, it's a piece based on a certain passage from Mussorgy's "Boris Godunov." It's the cathedral music, the bell music that is one of the most ingenious passages in the whole opera. However that was the one piece I did not choose. It was given to me to play. It's OK and one of the accessible pieces on the program. There's another piece I fought very hard for: a Dimitri Smirnov symphony: I regard him as one of the very best Russian composers today. He must be one of the 10 greatest composers of our time. I wanted to do my little bit here in Columbus in the context of this Festival of Music & Art to promote the name of Smirnov. The orchestra is so impressed with this music. They love playing it. They don't always love playing what I jokingly call "contemptible" music.

MUNGER: You used the word "accessible." As a contemporary composer yourself that must be something you are acutely aware of.

SCHULLER: I'm aware of it as a com-poser but I don't participate in that notion at all. I think what has been happening in music the last 15 years let us say has been, if not disastrous, a sort of a dead end or a detour. I'm referring to the minimalist and neo-Romantic movements: both of which are retrogressive movements. "Neo" can- not go forward. It always looks backward. So I see these movements as a temporary problem. Things will begin to straighten out again. All the Schoenberg bashing, bashing of atonal music is at a high point. I can understand this to a point. I myself, although considered an avant guard composer, warned the avant guard almost 25 years ago of the accesses of intellectualism and "mathematation." Not those qualities per sa but the accesses. And it was inevitable that eventually composers and audiences would rebel against those accesses. Today the situation has become so polarized and there is no common ground.

Unfortunately many of the very great works that were written in the 50s & 60s, atonal, "schmatonal," 12 tone I don't really care, are included in the garbage that people are dumping with the earlier music. Its probably human nature, I guess. Its al- ways the same thing. There are, in every era, always a very small percentage of very talented perhaps even genius composers, some very good ones and then you have a lot of bad composers! And this is true of any era, any system, any technique, any school any concept If people would only realize how much bad tonal music was written in the 19th Century. We only remember the great music now, you know?

MUNGER: We are discovering, at least on CDs, Romantic composers who were never recorded, or rarely recorded twenty or thirty years ago. A whole generation of English composers comes to mind: Arnold Bax for instance.

SCHULLER: Its interesting that you mention Bax. I became a Bax fan when I was 14 years old! I've know all his symphonies all my life and have loved them and conducted them. That's what's so crazy about this. He is a wonderful composer and so are many of the other Romantic English composers. I've been aware of that music for quite some time. Most people weren't. And as you point out the record companies had no use for any of that stuff, you know? So it's always this polar- ized exaggeration: either/or. Why does it always have to be either/or? Why can't we have the best of both worlds?

MUNGER: "Either/or" reminds me of something I heard from Phillip Glass; to the effect that nobody would take his music seriously because it seemed retroactive compared to 20th Century Viennese. He felt he and his colleagues made it safe for younger composers to use traditional building blocks to create their music.

SCHULLER: I wonder what he would say of two of his great colleagues John Adams and Steve Reich. Both denied, like St. Peter denied knowledge of Jesus Christ, their relationship to minimalism. [This was in the early nineties.] In any case their music is becoming more and more maximal. It's OK, what Phillip said and it's true. What he doesn't remember is that when I was a young 12-tone composer, listen to this Phillip, in the 30s and 40s the musical scene in America was dominated completely by the neo-classical music of Stravinsky and Copland! But completely! And I as young 12 tone composer, boy! I didn't have a chance. I didn't get my music played. I was ostracized. And I had to fight the good fight to be heard along with colleagues of my persuasion. But at that time we championed both Stravinsky and Schoenberg. There was no schism for us.

What we are talking about here is the history of humanity: these gigantic pendulum swings. It goes from one extreme to another. And as I said I had to fight the good fight for my music and my kind of music: Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Messiaen and Bartok to be heard, to be performed and so on. That then lead to a kind of access of intellectural- is and mathematics in music by some composers. I would say by bad composers not by the good composers. And then the pendulum swung back again and that enabled Philip Glass to come in in his situation.

MUNGER: I understand that Charles Ives held permanent box seats at concerts of the New York Philharmonic when Mailer was Music Director. What do you suppose he thought of Mahler's music?

SCULLER: Boy, that's a speculation. I don't know. I think because he was not too fond of the whole German school including Brahms at the time

MUNGER: I thought Wagner was an influence in Ives' first symphony?

SCULLER: It also sounds like Brahms or bad Brahms maybe. He admired Brahms intellectually. But I think from an emotional point of view he found German music too thick, too square in a way: rhythmically. But that could also have been because of the way it might have been performed in those days. Those Mahler symphonies, my goodness, they were difficult to play when I was a kid! And we're talking about the 40s. So you can imagine what a struggle that was in New York with Gustav Mahler conducting in 1910, 1911. What I think is that Ives did hear a lot of music but what is so fascinating about Ives is that he wasn't specifically influenced by any composer whether it was Stravinsky or Mailer or Schoenberg or whatever once he matured as a composer. He really strode out in his own direction and that's why he is one of the great original geniuses and innovators of that time. And his music is still in many ways beyond and especially in terms of complexity and contrapuntal layering and all those sort of things, more advanced than a lot of music that has been written today especially by the minimalists! Ha, ha, ha.

MUNGER: So that's what excites you about music: continuous innovation. Does Mahler excite you?

SCULLER: Oh! Of course! He always did. Here again I was a Mailer fan before any of this, all of this now there's a Masher Era! I mean you can't turn on the radio without hearing a Mahler symphony. I remember the days when Bruno Walter and Dimitri Metropolis would come along once every three years and they dared to do the Mahler and, you know. You never heard the TH, the TH, or the TH of course Stokowski did it once. No, no I mean you have to understand, I'm crazy, my vision of music is so broad and so all-inclusive including all the great ethnic and folk and vernacular music of the world. That's what I've always stood for as you know. So does Mailer turn me on? Well, he turns me on, I must confess, a little bit less now because now his music is being performed so much and often so trivialized and bowdlerized or exaggerated in various ways. Whereas the great Mailer conductors such as Metropolis and Brunt Walter, in their time, gave us something special when they performed. Now everybody gets up and does a Mahler symphony. And I'm not so impressed by all of those performances.

MUNGER: Can you pick performances you've favored over the past few decades?

SCULLER: I have to think. I'm never good at this sort of thing.

MUNGER: James Levine, Leonard Bernstein?

SCULLER: Neither of those I'm sorry to say. Who else is doing?

MUNGER: Horenstein? [I too was unable, on the spur of the moment, to think of more recent recordings!]

SCULLER: Horenstein! But of course he died a few years ago. He was a good Mahler conductor. So was Klemperer when he did Mailer. I'm never good at ... What happens when I get a question like that 20 minutes after the interview I think I should have thought of so & so. Let's not pursue this! Ha, ha, ha.

MUNGER: You and Ran Blake set up a World Music Department at The New England Conservatory of Music.

SCULLER: Yes, it's called the Third Stream Department. And what's exciting about that whole movement, including the Department there, is that it represents now a huge "broadening" of the third stream from the original postulation, which I made: that of bringing together jazz and classical music. Well jazz being, if you will, is a kind of a folk, a popular, a vernacular type of music. Although much of it today is pretty advanced and sophisticated. What happened was the Third Stream concept became broader to include not just jazz but all kinds of vernacular and popular, folk and ethnic music.

Now creative people, whether they're performers who are improvising or composers who are writing music or both, have these incredible profiles. They combine not just one or two but perhaps three or four musical back-grounds that they, by fate or chance, happen to grow up in. I always make an example of an American kid of Greek parentage. Say he grows up in the Greek section of Boston. At age two he gets familiar with bouzouki music and that's in his blood stream and he can dance in 5/4 and all the irregular rhythms. Then say he finds jazz and becomes a very proficient jazz player and improviser. He also goes to Yale or Juilliard and studies Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Now he has these three regions of music. He is familiar with all three and an expert in each. Being a creative person he naturally is going to express himself automatically in all three. No one can say to him, "hey, you're not allowed to mix that bouzouki music with the Schoenberg you know." Who says you can't. How can you even stop someone. If it's in your heart, your brain and your soul it's going to come out. The remaining question is: how talented is that person? The idea of Third Stream by itself, combining musical styles or idioms, does not guarantee the creation of anything of great quality. Nor does it prevent it! It's like any other style or concept. It depends [on] who does it. And if that person, this American born Greek musician, is very talented then surely some fantastic new musical amalgam will immerse from those three genres that could never have happened before.

MUNGER: Has the Conservatory spawned any ethnic groups such as Muzsikas, Libana, Ad Vielle Qua Puree, Labia or Tarika?

SCULLER: I'm sorry, except for the Klezmer Band which started during my last year: I'm sorry to report that many of the ethnic music groups and the various kinds of jazz groups: I had a Paul Whitman Orchestra, a Duke Wellington Orchestra, all kinds of things... A lot of that has [contrite] disappeared. I've been away from the Conservatory for [over 20] years now and I'm sorry to say that under the new regime(s) some of these projects have been dropped by the wayside. I guess they consider them to be extra or peripheral. Including the early music! I had a big medieval and Renaissance Department. The many sides of Gunther Sculler have become more one sided! Ha, ha, ha.

MUNGER: Did you have a gamelan?

SCULLER: Yak! Yes we had... The present Dean of the School was in fact trained in India and also in Indonesia in his younger years so [we offered training in both Indian and Indonesian music].

MUNGER: A Chinese Light Orchestra?

SCULLER: No (laughter) we didn't get around to that!

MANGER: I've heard that symphony orchestras today play a whole step higher than they did centuries ago.

SCULLER: It's actually a minor 3rd higher.

MANGER: How does that affect the so-called authentic or original or period performances that are recorded by Christopher Hogwood, Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardner and others.

SCULLER: Well they haven't gone that far in transposing the music down to its former level. The people who have done that however are those who work strictly in medieval music or early Renaissance but when you're talking about Norrington, Hogwood and Gardner then your talking, of course, about the Classical or Baroque Era. The pitch had already risen to some extent centuries earlier and I don't know. I have no strong feelings whether or not one should do that or not do it. It would mean rebuilding a lot of instruments. I don't know. You know the reason the pitch has risen in the last three or four centuries, very gradually, is that the music scene has changed. Concerts were essentially very private affairs where somebody played for royalty or for the duke of so and so or a king or something and always in small venues, in churches and so on. As music became a part of democratic societies and audiences grew, concert halls were built to house two or three thousand people. Instrumentalists felt they needed more edge in order to project to those larger audiences.

There was a sense that if one played higher the music would project more brilliantly. By the way that process is still going on: there are orchestras in the world who play quite high compared to where you're supposed to be, something called 440A. Well I've been with some orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, playing at 445. The pitch is creeping up even as we speak. I don't know where it will end. However a certain amount of stabilization is present because of recordings, radio and television so that most orchestras are settled at a certain pitch.

MUNGER: I've felt that 20th Century composers, most notably, Mailer and Strauss, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, seem to have strings that are more

SCULLER: That depends on who's playing I would say. I don't think that's inherent in their composition. Orchestras around the world all used to have their own individual sounds and sonority: really strikingly different. Some orchestras had a much brighter, lighter sound, some of the French orchestras particularly; some of the German or Viennese orchestras had more of a deep dark sound; English orchestras had a very outgoing, projecting kind of bright sound. All of that is beginning to disappear because of recordings, radio and television that I just mentioned. Everything is beginning to be leveled off to the same common denominator. However there is still some difference. When I conduct in Paris some of the music they play such as Prokofiev or Ravel they do play with a lighter brighter sound to this day. But it's interesting that even in Paris where earlier they didn't want to know anything about German musicians there's been an infiltration of German style playing. I kind of deplore the trend leading to the disappearance of the old distinctions. We'll soon have, what would we call it, a "megaorchestra" one huge orchestra that sounds all the same? Ha, ha, ha.

MUNGER: That seems to be true in jazz as well. I am enthusiastic about the increased interest in Be bop on the part of younger musicians. However I am looking forward to some, as you mentioned with orchestras, individual voices. Do you think they're coming?

SCULLER: Seems not. That's a very interesting situation. We are in an also-lately unique and unprecedented juncture in the history of jazz. I would describe it as a trade off. Earlier the whole motivation of any talented jazz musician was to develop her/his own absolutely distinctive individual style in all respects of playing: technically, conically and so on. And that, particularly for black musicians, was how they rose in society and became famous such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins or whoever. There was no school education. Those musicians were either self-taught or learned right in the big bands: the big bands were the traveling conservatories.So they developed their own personality.

Now, since World War II, and certainly more recently in the last 10 or 15 years almost every jazz musician that's below the age of 30 or 40 has gone to years of school! At jazz schools, conservatories, university music departments they've learned, not just jazz by the way, but classical and/or other forms of music. That in a way is wonderful because now those musicians have extremely diverse abilities. They can play any kind of music, any kind of jazz. They can play Dixieland, they can play Swing, they can play Be boa, Avant Guard, Free Jazz... whatever.

Today someone in the orchestra reminded me that I once performed in concert with Coleman Hawkins and others of his generation in 1962. He was such a great musician: one of the great artists of our time. But you couldn't get him to do anything other than what he did or what he wanted to do. You couldn't give him any other music. There was no other sound or style, nothing. That's how strong he was as an individual creator. Today younger players can play like Wanton Merciless or anyone. They can play any kind of music beautifully. perfectly but that strong individualism has now disappeared because they have spread themselves so thin, so wide. That worries me because there again, it seems to me, we have an either/or situation. We had another kind of either/or situation in the 30s. And I can't quite figure out why we can't have a little of both. You know?

MUNGER: I guess people want to cut records and play within a concept that sells them or that appeals to CD producers that want to sell them. It seems to me that there are a lot of different footsteps to follow. For instance I have yet to hear a trumpet player pick up where Rex Stewart left off with his sticky valves or a pianist start where Thelonius Monk stopped. And just as Dizzy developed from Roy Eldridge, Chet from Bix, Zoo & Getz from Prez, Ellington from Pops, Jelly Roll, Sidney Bechet et al there are a lot of avenues!

SCULLER: I think it's more than that though. I don't think that it's always the CD producers who dominate the situation. There are musicians who simply haven't got the creative talent to be that individual. I mean let's face it when we talk about Coleman Hawkins and Louis Armstrong and Ben Webster and Duke Wellington, and we'll name another 6 or 7 more, we're talking about some very rare geniuses and there weren't so many of those beyond those 12 we might name, right? So that kind of high level innovation and creativity is always in relatively short supply. And that's what we were talking about before with classical music: that 1%. So today
that isn't any different. And therefore we mustn't expect too many people to be even inherently that creative or that talented that they could develop their own style.

But then what's been added to the problem is that they have been obliged by their profession and the need to make a living to be more broadly oriented than Coleman Hawkins could afford to be. So there are two forces that have been working against these younger players. Now Wynton [Marsalis] of course may well be the one exception. I happen to be very close to him. I brought him to Tangled when he was 17 years old and we have been very good friends and colleagues for all these years. He is now beginning to strike out on his own in composition. After all his studying and absorbing all these earlier traditions he may have that individuality. He certainly has the talent. That is rare. Let's hope there will be others.

MUNGER: You've done so much for our increased appreciation of Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus and I know you love and respect the music of Thelonius Monk. Do you have any plans to bring his music to a wider audience?

SCULLER: Yes I plan to do a lot of that not just with Monk but with George Russell and all kinds of major composers in association with the orchestra I helped found: the Smithsonian Jazz Master works Orchestra in Washington. In the summer of our first year in a short season we covered a fantastic amount of repertoire in seven weekends playing everything from Duke Wellington and Benny Goodman to Woody Herman and Dizzy Gillespie. In the second year we went beyond the 30s & 40s and the big band era to the music of Monk. This was a tremendous challenge. You talk about an individualist, my lord. The challenge here is to perform his music authentically. I am not interested in just a potpourri or a pastiche of Monk pieces but a recreation of the music the way it sounded and the way I heard it.

Thomson, Virgil
November 25, 1896

He was born in Kansas City and known equally as a composer and music critic. At five he was playing the piano. At 12 he began to study with Kansas City teachers. The next year he was appointed organist to his family's church, Calvary Baptist. After high school he went on to junior college.

When the US entered World War I he volunteered for service and was assigned to a field artillery unit. The Army sent him to radio school at Columbia University and then to Texas for Army Air Corps training. He was scheduled for combat in France when the war ended.

Thomson studied at Harvard and later was an instructor there. At Harvard in 1919 he was introduced to the poetry of Gertrude Stein and the music of Eric Sate by S. Foster Damon a Blake scholar. He studied orchestration and contemporary French music with Edward Burlingame Hill. Archibald T. Davison (trained in France) was another early influence at Harvard (in an otherwise German (music) dominated music school). Thomson was Davison's assistant and accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club. The Club toured Europe with Thomson conducting occasionally. He stayed on in Paris from 1925 to 1932 where he studied with Nadir Boulanger and was strongly influenced by the fiercely honest and just as fiercely iconoclastic Eric Sate as well as Lea Six, Choctaw and Rigor Stravinsky.

For a while he was organist for King's Chapel, Boston. He's identified with the New York Herald Tribune, starting there in 1940, although he was critic for various US publications.

His writings include: The State of Music (1939), The Musical Scene (1945), and The Art of Judging Music (1948).

Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) and The Mother of Us All (1947) his two operas were written with Gertrude Stein. There are two symphonies, a ballet, choral works, chamber music, music for plays and films, pieces for piano and organ and songs (many in French).

Three outstanding pieces include The River, The Lough that Broke the Plains and Louisiana Story. They tell about the lives and struggles of working people in North America with their (folk) music. Music of this style along with composers Copland, Barber, Wellington, Thompson, Still, Gershwin et al helped forge the musical language that so aptly characterizes the U.S.

Koechlin, Charles kern lab
November 27, 1867

This composer, teacher and musicologist was born in Alsace-Lorraine and studied at the Paris Conservatory first with Massenet then under Faure. His compositions are numerous. Many, until recently, were only know to small circle of friends because he hated publicity. They include 3 string quartets, a piano quintet, sonatas for violin, viola, cello. flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn. He has many piano pieces, songs, ballets and a small group orchestral works.

"After years of neglect, [he] is at last becoming recognized as one of the great originals of 20th century music and as major international composer in his own right rather than as a celebrated teacher of pedagogue. His reverence for the music of the past, his insistence on complete freedom of artistic expression, and his prolific imagination and insatiable curiosity resulted in an eclectic output of vast dimensions which embraced all genres." -Robert Or ledge.

Koechlin seems to have inherited the the Alsatian temperament: "an energy, naivete and an absolute and simple sincerity that lie at the heart of his musical character." It is said the Alsatian people have a great children's culture and a wonderful part of it is its naivete. There is at least two examples of this in the piano music of Charles Koechlin, his Nouvelles Sonatines Franchises, Of. 87 and his " . . .five Daises pour Ginger [Rogers] which were completed on a teaching visit to San Diego in September 1937. They are mostly triple time waltzes and a Dance Lent that could be called a fourth (Eric Sate) Gymnopedie. Both Dance Lent and Sonatines Franchises can be found on the Boa Sharon Nonesuch LAP "Dance for Ginger Rogers and other piano music of Charles Koechlin."

His music has been defined as having reticent simplicity, great lyricism, rhythmic freedom and congeniality. The influence of his refined, austere and disciplined style on his pupils, who include Poulenc, Tailleferre, Desormiere and Sauguet is well marked. Darius Milled whose music falls under the influence of Koechlin said it was the crime of the century that Koechlin was not recognized in his time. Koechlin showed his devotion to his master, Faure by orchestrating Faure's Pellets et Melisande. You might also know Koechlin's orchestration of Debussy's Chamois. In 1927 he devoted a critical study to Faure. His other publications include Trait de l'harmonie in three volumes published between 1929 and 1933 and Trait
d'orchestration in four volumes published in 1949 

Lully, Jean Baptist (lee - lee, gzohn baa - teems)
November 28, 1632

Lully was born into poverty in Florence. He somehow managed to get lessons in guitar and in 1646 he was said to have been taken to Paris as a kitchen boy. By the age of 20 his violin playing and dancing abilities were so celebrated he entered the service of Louis XIV.

Playing in the Lea Vingt-quatre Violins do Robs (royal string orchestra) was made leader in 1652. He formed and directed Les Petite Violins known for its ensemble perfection. In 1653 he was made court composer and music master to the royal family. The importance of dance in a man's courtly training and socialization was set out in Orchesography of Thoinot Arabeau as far back as 1589. Court ballets in France stretched back 100 years. Lully was there to build on that tradition. Composition of court ballets (many danced by Louis XIV) were largely left to Lully for which he was handsomely rewarded. No other composer not even Wagner (with his largess from Ludwig of Bavaria) benefited from the kind of munificence given Lully by Louis XIV. With it he was to build an orchestra, a ballet, an opera and a theater without equal in Europe. France was the first country to have 24 permanent violins in the orchestra. Other orchestras would have to put together their resources for each performance. Lully could write for and depend on his forces for every performance. He brought a new Italian vigor to French music along with precision and new ideas.

From 1664 *Louis XIV commanded that Lully composed music (and Moliere write) for the comedy-ballets of Moliere including Les Marriage force (1664), L'Anour medicine (1665). Les Cession (1667) Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669), Les Amounts magnifiques (1670), and Les Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) in which *he appeared as an actor and dancer.

By 1673, with poet Quinault, he founded French opera called tragedies lyric. He bought from the poet Porn the monopoly for performance of opera in French. (With this license and his position as Louis XIV's favorite he continued to build great wealth. Quite unheard of during this time of musicians as servants. The properties he acquired can be visited today.) The main characteristics of Lully's opera included an overture (used throughout the baroque period, most notably in Handel's Messiah, and called a "French" overture after Lully) with a slow section in dotted rhythm followed by a frugal quick section. Extensive use of ballet, choruses important to the overall structure and a rhetorical style of recitative were closely related to the rhythms of the French language. Monteverdi did the same for Italian as did Purcell for English.

Known for his improvements in French opera: he substituted recitative that displayed both fine craft and artistic accompaniment for the older recitative Seiko. His operas include Alceste (1674), Amide (1686), Autos (1676), Psyche (1678), Proserpine (1680), Pursue (1682) and Fatten (1680). Lully also composed divertissements, some church music and instrumental suites. Like Couperin, Romeo, Eclair and Gluck after him he worked to unite both Italian and French styles. Starting with his native Italy his music was based on Cavalli, Rossi et al. He gradually assimilated French vocal and instrumental styles and created a new and original music that was imitated throughout Europe as seen in Germany with Telemann and in England with Purcell's instrumental pieces.

The factor influencing Lully's development was the continued growth in the gallant style first noted in the music of Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 - 1643). (Gallant referred to music that had a "pleasing quality" a lyric quality.) In the following century J.J. Quanta identified it with the Italian be canto as exemplified by the castrate Farinelli and Carestini. And although the dichotomy of the gallant and the old learned baroque began in Italy the gallant took root in Germany with Heinichen and Telemann. Telemann passed it on to his Godson C.P.E. Bach and who in turn taught his brother J.C. Bach who in London absorbed the English lyric tradition of Purcell ala Handel (as well as Italian lyricism gained from his travels to Italy) and in turn taught Mozart. In France after decades of gallant courtly tradition the Sun King Louis XIV reached for an even greater glory. He set standards which measured a man's worth by his accomplishments. His thirst for glory, rarely seen in other monarchs, was quenched by excellence in music and dance. Lully was himself a perfectionist. Their years 1670 to 1673 made a terrific impact on French music giving it even more grandeur, stateliness and brilliance adding to the growth of western music.

There is a French Christmas carol Lea Roi Maces (The Three Kings) that Lully set for Louis XIV's army: March of the Regiment of Terrain. (The Collegium Musicum de Paris recorded it for Vogue. It's in the major key.) 200 years later the French composer Bizet set the same carol in minor as part of his L'Arlésienne.

Vice of every kind pervaded the Court of Louis XIV and Lully enjoyed most of it leading to a foot abscess of which he died. The abscess came from an injury caused by beating out time with a staff while conducting. You could say this disciplinarian gave his life for resolute orchestral cohesiveness.

Robert Craft in his Current Convictions (Knopf 1974) recounts a 20th century incident that somewhat parallels Lullys performance. Seems during opening night, of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in the mid-70s as conductor Sir George Solti and the Paris Opera were about to execute Pedro Monterey in so spiro (the Count's Act III aria), Sir George accidentally jabbed his right temple with his baton while trying evade the glare from the light on the stand. In a full page report Robert Craft guides us through Solti's temporary blinding, profuse bleeding and the splattering of the score all handled with brilliant timing. The opera never missed a beat and Sir George returned to the stage with appreciative applause.

Donizetti, Gaetano (do need cite tee, guy tan oh)
November 29, 1797

This opera composer was born in Bergamo.He studied there and in Bologna. His first opera Enrico, cone did Borgogna was performed in Venice in 1818. In 1830 Anna Bolena was the opera that won him international recognition. His succeeding operas didn't all have the success of Anne Boleyn. However many of his operas have never been dropped from active repertory.

He was prolific composer writing at least 75 operas (10 or more are staged today), 200 songs for voice and piano, 66 sacred works not including 35 cantatas and occasional works, 46 duets, 20 string quartets, 49 pieces for piano, 28 miscellaneous works and much more. Staggering even for the early 19th century!

His operas are charmingly superficial with demanding virtuosi parts for vocal soloists. And they are wonderful works of art.

Some of his best known operas are Lucia di Lammermoor (Naples 1836), La Favorite (Paris 1840), The Elixir of Love (Milan 1832), The Daughter of the Regiment (Paris 1840) and Don Pasquale (Paris 1843).

To give you an idea of how well Donizetti is received today his Anna Bolena has 8 complete recordings listed in Schwann 1998-99, Don Pasquale has 9 and Lucia di Lammermoor 30! 

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