Joined Mar 2008
17,260 Posts | 97+
On a mountain top in Costa Rica. yeah...I win!!
1 MARCH
page 1 of 2
in 1607 - Giovanni Francesco Milanta, Italian composer, is born.
in 1619 - Thomas Campion, English composer, poet and physician, dies at 53.
in 1643 - Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian organist and composer, dies at 59.
in 1690 - Johann Conrad Beissel, German-American composer of religious music; founder of the sect of Solitary Brethren of the Community of Sabbatarians, is born at Eberbach-on the Neckar, Palatinate. He migrated to America in 1720 for religious reasons. His first attempt to build up a "solitary" residence failed, but in 1732 he started the community at Ephrata, which became a flourishing religious and artistic center.
Beissel, who styled himself Bruder Friedsam (Brother Peaceful), was a prolific writer of hymns in fanciful German, published in various collections, some printed by Benjamin Franklin, some by the community at Ephrata. He composed tunes for his hymns and harmonized them according to his own rules.
His compositions were collected in beautifully illuminated MSS, many of which are preserved at the Library of Congress and the Library of the Historical Society of Pa. Beissel was not a trained musician, but had original ideas; his religious fanaticism inspired him to write some startling music; in several of his hymns he made use of an antiphonal type of vocal composition with excellent effect.
He left a tract explaining his harmonic theory and his method of singing. Beissel's hymns are collected chiefly in Zionistischer Weyrauchs Htigel (1739), Das Gesang der einsamen und verlassenen Turtel Taube, das ist der christlichen Kirche (1747), and Paradisisches Wunder Spiel (two independent publs., 1754 and 1766). Only texts were printed in these volumes, but the 1754 issue was arranged so that the music could be inserted by hand. Beissel's life was first described in the Chronicon Ephratense, compiled by the brethren Lamech and Agrippa, published at Ephrata in a German edition in 1786, and in an Eng. translation by J.M. Hark at Lancaster in 1889. - Died at Ephrata, Pa., July 6, 1768.
in 1693 - Benedict Schultheiss, German organist and composer, dies at 39.
in 1703 - Dieudonne Raick, Belgian organist and composer, is baptized.
in 1709 - Josef Antonin Gurecky, Czech composer and music director, is born.
in 1711 - Peregrinus Pogl, German composer, is born.
in 1771 - Armand-Emmanuel Trial, French composer and accompanist, is born.
in 1771 - Isfrid Kayser, German composer and music director, dies at 58.
in 1777 - Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Austrian organist, harpsichordist, composer and teacher, dies at 62.
in 1779 - Jacob Gottfried Weber, German music theorist/musicologist and composer, is born.
in 1788 - Orazio Mei, Italian organist, composer and maestro di cappella, dies at 56.
in 1797 - Juan Manuel Olivares, Venezuelan organist, composer and teacher, dies at 36.
in 1799 - Alexey Nikolayevich Verstovsky, Russian composer and 'inspector of music' for Moskow, is born. Verstovsky had many friends and correspondents among the literati of his time, but for some reason was not popular among his fellow composers. Mussorgsky went so far as to nickname him Gemoroy (Hemorrhoid).
Video Notes: Two Torop's songs with chorus from "Askold's Grave"—an opera of a Russian composer Alexey Verstovsky (1799-1862)—performed by The Moscow Engineering Physics Institute Male Choir and its soloist Vitaly Filippov (tenor) at the Grand Hall of the State Historical Museum (Moscow, Red Square).
in 1804 - Wolfgang Nicolaus Haueisen, German organist, composer, conductor and publisher, dies at 63.
in 1810 - Polish composer Frederick Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw, Poland.
in 1817 - Luigi Gatti, Italian composer and Hofkapellmeister, dies at 77.
in 1820 - Richard Redhead, English organist and composer, is born.
in 1826 - Welsh composer and harpist John Thomas, who served Queen Victoria, was born in Bridgend, South Wales.
in 1832 - Friedrich Grutzmacher, German cellist, teacher and arranger, is born.
in 1841 - Romualdo Marenco, Italian violinist, composer and conductor, is born.
in 1859 - Josef Theodor Krov, Czech composer, dies at 61.
in 1878 - Gabriel Edouard Xavier Dupont, French composer, is born.
in 1896 - Dimitri Mitropoulos, Greek pianist, composer and conductor, is born.
in 1900 - Donald Keith Falkner, English bass-baritone and teacher, is born.
in 1903 - Leon Bismarck "Bix" Beiderbecke, highly influential American jazz cornettist, pianist and composer, is born. Beiderbecke is in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, the International Jazz Hall of Fame, and the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame.
in 1904 Glenn Miller, American jazz/swing trombonist, arranger, composer and bandleader, is born. One of my favorite artists.
Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most sought after cornetists in the 1920s, although he only became famous many years after his death in 1931. Today he is considered one of the early jazz musicians skilled enough to be compared to the great Louis Armstrong, and his innovative approach helped direct later jazz styles. His life on the other hand, was one riddled by self-destructive behavior, marked by fatal alcoholism.
Raised in Davenport, Iowa by a comfortable middle class family, Beiderbecke developed skill at the piano at an early age. His knack for learning pieces by ear allowed him to forego intensive training, which would have required him to learn to read music. He began to play the cornet at 16, inspired by Nick LaRocca of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
His poor grades in school resulted from lack of interest in everything but music, but in an effort to remedy this, his parents sent him to Lake Forest Academy, a boarding school in Illinois. There he continued to ignore his studies in favor of sneaking off to Chicago to hear jazz in speakeasies. He began to perform more and more in Chicago, and when he was expelled from the academy in 1922, he decided to pursue a career in music. He soaked up the early jazz sounds of Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and Freddie Keppard, as well as the music of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.
Beiderbecke joined a band known as the Wolverines in 1923, expanding his exposure to audiences outside of Chicago, and most importantly, in New York. Around this time began his association with C-melody saxophone player Frankie Trumbauer. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer were similar in terms of their virtuosity and there refined, dulcet approach, contrasting from the boisterous sounds of hot jazz. Their playing is thought to have contributed to the development of “cool” jazz, a style made popular by Miles Davis and others in later decades.
Beiderbecke played and recorded with a number of groups in the mid 1920s, and also developed a taste for Prohibition era alcohol, which was often filled with poisonous contaminants. But while his addiction thrived, so did his career. Apparently he was able to improve his poor reading ability, because in 1927, he and Trumbauer joined the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, and then the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Both were high-paid professional ensembles with large popular followings.
During the late 1920s, Beiderbecke made several recordings on cornet with small groups that often included Trumbauer. The two famously recorded the tune “Singin’ the Blues,” on which their mellifluous tones and melodic sophistication signaled a departure from traditional styles. Beiderbecke also composed works for solo piano, including “In A Mist,” an elaborate piece that injects early jazz with elements of French impressionism.
Despite his successes, his heavy drinking stood in the way of his career, and in 1929, after a nervous breakdown, Beiderbecke was asked to take a leave of absence from the Whiteman Orchestra to recuperate. He never got clean, and two years later, on August 6th, 1931, after a binge on toxic liquor, Beiderbecke died at the age of 28.
Although not fully recognized during his short life, Beiderbecke’s talent is hailed today. His restrained and reflective style has served as a model for countless followers, as has his melding of jazz and classical music influences. He died young, but his musical legacy endures.
Video Notes: Royal Garden Blues -- Bix Beiderbecke 1927
On October 5 1927 Bix Beiderbecke recorded one of the most important jazz recordings in its history. Royal Garden Blues with his New Orleans Lucky Seven sometimes known as his Gang. Bix had some superb musicians in his band: Bill Rank on trombone, Don Murray on clarinet, Adrian Rollini on bass sax, Frank Signorelli on piano and Chauncey Moorehouse on drums.
Through the decades this recording has been a sample of how jazz can be played and has influenced many of the great white jazz musicians like Bobby Hackett, Jimmy McPartland soon after and today more the likes of Tom Pletcher, Bent Persson and certainly Hans Carling and his New Coling Orchestra.
The most amazing rendition of this tune is being played in 1984 by Hans Carling together with his band and his young musical family.
in 1909 - Richard de Guide, Belgian composer, is born.
in 1810 - Frederic (-Francois) Chopin, (actually, Fryderyk Franciszek), greatly renowned Polish composer, incomparable genius of the piano who created a unique romantic style of keyboard music; is born at Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, in all probability on March 1,1810, the date given by Chopin himself in his letter of acceptance of membership in the Polish Literary Society in Paris in 1833 (but in his certificate of baptism the date of birth is given as Feb. 22, 1810).
His father, Nicolas Chopin, was a native of Marainville, France, who went to Warsaw as a teacher of French; his mother, Tekla Justyna Krzyzanowska, was Polish. Chopin's talent was manifested in early childhood; at the age of eight, he played in public a piano concerto by Gyrowetz, and he had already begun to compose polonaises, mazurkas, and waltzes. He received his primary musical instruction from the Bohemian pianist Adalbert ywny, who resided in Warsaw at the time. A much more important teacher was Joseph Eisner, director of the Warsaw School of Music, who gave him a thorough instruction in music theory and form.
Chopin was 15 years old when his Rondo for Piano was publ. in Warsaw as op.l. In the summer of 1829 he set out for Vienna, where he gave highly successful concerts on Aug. 11 and Aug. 18, 1829. While in Vienna, he made arrangements to have his variations on Mozart's aria La ci darem la mano, for Piano and Orchestra, published by Haslinger as op.2.
It was this work that attracted the attention of Schumann, who saluted Chopin in his famous article published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of Dec. 7, 1831, in which Schumann's alter ego, Eusebius, is represented as exclaiming, "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!" The common assumption in many biographies that Schumann "launched" Chopin on his career is deceptive; actually Schumann was some months younger than Chopin, and was referred to editorially merely as a student of Professor Wieck. Returning to Warsaw, Chopin gave the first public performance of his Piano Concerto in F minor, op.21, on March 17, 1830.
On Oct. 11, 1830, he was soloist in his Piano Concerto in E minor, op.ll. A confusion resulted in the usual listing of the E-minor Concerto as first, and the F-minor Concerto as his second; chronologically, the composition of the F-minor Concerto preceded the E-minor. He spent the winter of 1830-31 in Vienna. The Polish rebellion against Russian domination, which ended in defeat, determined Chopin's further course of action, and he proceeded to Paris, visiting Linz, Salzburg, Dresden, and Stuttgart on the way. He arrived in Paris in Sept. 1831, and was introduced to Rossini, Cherubini, and Pae'r. He also met Bellini, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Victor Hugo, and Heinrich Heine; he became particularly friendly with Liszt. Paris was then the center of Polish emigration, and Chopin maintained his contacts with the Polish circle there. He presented his first Paris concert on Feb. 26,1832.
He also taught the piano. The Paris critics found an apt Shakespearean epithet for him, calling him "the Ariel of the piano." In 1834 he went with Hiller to Germany, where he met Mendelssohn and Clara and Robert Schumann. In July 1837 he went with Pleyel to London. In 1836 he met the famous novelist Aurore Dupin (Mme. Dudevant), who publ. her works under the affected masculine English name George Sand. They became intimate, even though quite incompatible in character and interests. Sand was involved in social affairs and held radical views; Chopin was a poet confined within his inner world; it has been said that she was the masculine and he the feminine partner in their companionship. In the winter of 1838-39, Chopin accompanied Sand to the island of Majorca, where she attended to him with total devotion; yet she portrayed him in her novel Lucrezia Floriani as a weakling.
Indeed, she was quite overt in her reference to him as a lover; in a personal letter dated 1838 she said that she had difficulty in inducing him to submit to a sensual embrace, and implied that she lived as an immaculate virgin most of the time they were together. They parted in 1847; by that time he was quite ill with tuberculosis; a daguerreotype taken of him represents a prematurely aged man with facial features showing sickness and exhaustion, with locks of black hair partly covering his forehead. Yet he continued his concert career.
He undertook a tour as pianist in England and Scotland in 1848; he gave his last concert in Paris on Feb. 16, 1848. La Revue et Gazette Musicale of Feb. 20, 1848, gives a precious account of the occasion: 'The finest flower of feminine aristocracy in the most elegant attire filled the Salle Pleyel," the paper reported, "to catch this musical sylph on the wing." Chopin played his last concert in London, a benefit for Polish emigres, on Nov. 16, 1848. He died the following year; Mozart's Requiem was performed at Chopin's funeral at the Madeleine, with Habeneck conducting the orch. and chorus of the Paris Cons, and Pauline Viardot and Lablache singing the solo parts.
He was buried at Pere Lachaise between the graves of Cherubini and Bellini; however, at his own request, his heart was sent to Warsaw for entombment in his homeland. Chopin represents the full liberation of the piano from traditional orchestra and choral influences, the authoritative assumption of its role as a solo instrument. Not seeking "orchestral" sonorities, he may have paled as a virtuoso beside the titanic Liszt, but the poesy of his pianism, its fervor of expression, the pervading melancholy in his nocturnes and ballades, and the bounding exultation of his scherzos and etudes were never equaled. And, from a purely technical standpoint, Chopin's figurations and bold modulatory transitions seem to presage the elaborate transtonal developments of modern music. - Died at Paris, Oct. 17, 1849.
in 1914 - Tor Bernhard Vilhelm Aulin, Swedish violinist, composer and conductor, dies at 47.
in 1916 - Mahler's Symph. No. 8 (the “Symphony of a Thousand”) received its first American performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
in 1917 - Dinah Shore, American singer, actress and television personality, is born.
in 1918 - Johan Gustaf Emil Sjogren, Swedish organist and composer, diea at 64.
in 1920 - Alfred Grant Goodman, German composer, is born.
in 1925 - Lucine Amara (real name, Armaganian), American soprano, is born at Hartford, Conn. She studied with Stella Eisner-Eyn in San Francisco, and attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara (1947) and the University of Southern Calif, in Los Angeles (1949-50). She also studied with Bobbi Tillander. In 1945 she became a member of the San Francisco Opera chorus. She made her concert debut in San Francisco in 1946, and then sang the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and appeared as .... Billows in Albert Herring in 1949. On Nov. 6, 1950, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as the Celestial Voice in Don Carlos. She continued to sing there until 1991, appearing in 56 lyric or dramatic roles in 882 stage performances. Her other operatic engagements took her to the Edinburgh (1954) and Glyndebourne (1954-55; 1957-58) festivals, the Vienna State Opera (1960), Russia (1965), and China (1983). She also appeared as a soloist with many U.S. orchestras. In later years, she served as artistic director of the N.J. Assn. of Verismo Opera and gave master classes in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Among her finest roles were Gluck's Eurydice, Donna Elvira, Elsa, Verdi's Leonora and Aida, Nedda, Musetta, Mimi, and Ariadne.
in 1927 - Lucine Amara, American opera singer, is born.
in 1927 - Harry Belafonte, American calypso, folk, blues and pop singer and actor, the "King of Calypso," is born.
in 1928 - Albert Herbert Brewer, English organist and composer, dies at 62.
in 1928 - Jacob Adolf Hagg, Swedish pianist and composer, dies at 77.
in 1930 - Pierre Max Dubois, French composer, is born.
in 1932 - Jacques Leduc, Belgian composer and teacher, president of SABAM (the Belgian performing rights society) and member of the Académie Royale de Belgique, is born.
in 1932 - Frank Teschemacher dies at age 25. American jazz clarinetist and alto-saxophonist, along with Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman and others, he was associated with the "Austin High" gang. He was mainly self-taught on his instruments and doubled on violin and banjo early in his career. Strongly influenced by cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, he started playing the clarinet professionally in 1925. He began recording under his own name in 1928. His intense solo work laid the groundwork for a rich sound and creative approach, that is credited with influencing a young Benny Goodman and a style of which Pee Wee Russell is perhaps the best-known representative. (killed in a car accident as a passenger in a car driven by his performing associate cornetist "Wild" Bill Davison, just days before of what would have been his 26th birthday)
in 1933 - Istvan Lang, Hungarian composer and teacher, is born.
in 1937 - Clarence Holiday dies at age 38. US jazz guitarist; he worked locally until he became a member of the Fletcher "Smack" Henderson Orchestra in 1928 for 5 years, after which he worked and recorded with Benny Carter in 1934, Bob Howard and also with Charlie Turner in 1935, then Louis Metcalf from 1935, before joining the Don Redman Big Band in 1936 till his early death. Clarence was also the father to the great Billie Holiday.
in 1939 - Warren Davis, American doo ... singer (The Monotones), is born.
in 1939 - Leo Brouwer, noted Cuban guitarist, conductor, and composer, is born at Havana. He began music training in Havana, where he made his debut as a guitarist in 1955. In 1959 he went to the U.S. to study composition at the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y. and guitar at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Conn. Returning to Havana, he became a leading figure in avant-garde music circles.
He also pursued a distinguished career as a guitar virtuoso, traveling all over the world. He likewise appeared as a conductor in his homeland and abroad. In 1972 he was in Berlin under the auspices of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. In 1984 a guitar competition was founded in his honor in Japan. He served as music director of the Orquesta de Cordoba in Spain from 1992.
In 1998 he received the Manuel de Falla Prize. He was awarded the National Music Prize of Cuba in 1999. Brouwer started composing in 1955 in a style that adapted sounds of popular Cuban culture. A second compositional period evolved around 1962.
He became the first Cuban composer to embrace aleatory and open forms, and his Sonograma I was the first example of indeterminate music by a Cuban composer. Then, after 1973, he entered his third period, a self-described "New Simplicity" that fused his avant-garde techniques with previous styles of popular and classical music.
Unique in his output are his 8 guitar concertos, which fall mostly in his third period: No. 1 (1972), No. 2, Concierto de Liege (1980-81), No. 3, Concierto Elegiaco (1985), No. 4, Concierto de Toronto (1987), No. 5, Concierto de Helsinki (1992), No. 6, Concierto de Bolos (1996), No. 7, La Habana (1997-98), and No. 9, Cantata de Perugia (1999).
Among his other works are: 3 danzas concertants for Guitar and String Orchestra (1958); Sonata for Solo cello (1960); Vanantes for Percussionist (1962); Sonograma I for Prepared Piano (1963), II for Orchestra (1964), and III for 2 Pianos (1968); Homage to Mingus for Jazz Band and Orch. (1965); Dos conceptos del tiempo for 10 Players (1965); Conmutaciones for Prepared Piano and Percussion (1966); La tradicion se rompe...pero cuesta trabajo for Orch. (1967-69); El reino de esto mondo for Wind Quintet (1968); Cantigas del tiemp nuevo, cantata for Narrator, Children's Chorus, and Small Ensemble or Orch. (1969); Exaedros I for Ensemble or Orch. (1969) and II for Percussionist and 2 Orchestra Groups (1970); Sonata "pian e forte" for Piano (1970); Per sonore a tres for Guitar, Flute, and Viola (1970); Per sonore a due for Guitar and Tape (1971); Concerto for Flute and String Orch. (1972); Violin Concerto (1975-76); Camion de gesta for Chamber Orchestra (1979); Baladas del Decameron ..... for Guitar (1981); Manuscrito antiguo encontrado en una botella for Piano Trio (1982); Cuban Landscape with Rumba for Guitar Quartet (1985); Guitar Sonata (1990); Double Concerto for Guitar, Violin, and Orch. (1995); Hika: In Memoriam Takemitsu for Guitar (1996); Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orch. (1997).
1 MARCH
Page 1 of 2
page 1 of 2
in 1607 - Giovanni Francesco Milanta, Italian composer, is born.
in 1619 - Thomas Campion, English composer, poet and physician, dies at 53.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZsT4lWg5Go"]YouTube - What if a day - Thomas Campion (1567-1620) - Mario Iván Martínez[/ame]
in 1690 - Johann Conrad Beissel, German-American composer of religious music; founder of the sect of Solitary Brethren of the Community of Sabbatarians, is born at Eberbach-on the Neckar, Palatinate. He migrated to America in 1720 for religious reasons. His first attempt to build up a "solitary" residence failed, but in 1732 he started the community at Ephrata, which became a flourishing religious and artistic center.
Beissel, who styled himself Bruder Friedsam (Brother Peaceful), was a prolific writer of hymns in fanciful German, published in various collections, some printed by Benjamin Franklin, some by the community at Ephrata. He composed tunes for his hymns and harmonized them according to his own rules.
His compositions were collected in beautifully illuminated MSS, many of which are preserved at the Library of Congress and the Library of the Historical Society of Pa. Beissel was not a trained musician, but had original ideas; his religious fanaticism inspired him to write some startling music; in several of his hymns he made use of an antiphonal type of vocal composition with excellent effect.
He left a tract explaining his harmonic theory and his method of singing. Beissel's hymns are collected chiefly in Zionistischer Weyrauchs Htigel (1739), Das Gesang der einsamen und verlassenen Turtel Taube, das ist der christlichen Kirche (1747), and Paradisisches Wunder Spiel (two independent publs., 1754 and 1766). Only texts were printed in these volumes, but the 1754 issue was arranged so that the music could be inserted by hand. Beissel's life was first described in the Chronicon Ephratense, compiled by the brethren Lamech and Agrippa, published at Ephrata in a German edition in 1786, and in an Eng. translation by J.M. Hark at Lancaster in 1889. - Died at Ephrata, Pa., July 6, 1768.
in 1693 - Benedict Schultheiss, German organist and composer, dies at 39.
in 1703 - Dieudonne Raick, Belgian organist and composer, is baptized.
in 1709 - Josef Antonin Gurecky, Czech composer and music director, is born.
in 1711 - Peregrinus Pogl, German composer, is born.
in 1771 - Armand-Emmanuel Trial, French composer and accompanist, is born.
in 1771 - Isfrid Kayser, German composer and music director, dies at 58.
in 1777 - Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Austrian organist, harpsichordist, composer and teacher, dies at 62.
in 1779 - Jacob Gottfried Weber, German music theorist/musicologist and composer, is born.
in 1788 - Orazio Mei, Italian organist, composer and maestro di cappella, dies at 56.
in 1797 - Juan Manuel Olivares, Venezuelan organist, composer and teacher, dies at 36.
in 1799 - Alexey Nikolayevich Verstovsky, Russian composer and 'inspector of music' for Moskow, is born. Verstovsky had many friends and correspondents among the literati of his time, but for some reason was not popular among his fellow composers. Mussorgsky went so far as to nickname him Gemoroy (Hemorrhoid).
Video Notes: Two Torop's songs with chorus from "Askold's Grave"—an opera of a Russian composer Alexey Verstovsky (1799-1862)—performed by The Moscow Engineering Physics Institute Male Choir and its soloist Vitaly Filippov (tenor) at the Grand Hall of the State Historical Museum (Moscow, Red Square).
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u72ASy2ZDso"]Verstovsky. "Askold's Tomb"*[/ame]
in 1810 - Polish composer Frederick Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw, Poland.
in 1817 - Luigi Gatti, Italian composer and Hofkapellmeister, dies at 77.
in 1820 - Richard Redhead, English organist and composer, is born.
in 1826 - Welsh composer and harpist John Thomas, who served Queen Victoria, was born in Bridgend, South Wales.
in 1832 - Friedrich Grutzmacher, German cellist, teacher and arranger, is born.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC9LI_8KIdc"]YouTube - Consecration Hymn Opus 65 Friedrich Grutzmacher[/ame]
in 1859 - Josef Theodor Krov, Czech composer, dies at 61.
in 1878 - Gabriel Edouard Xavier Dupont, French composer, is born.
in 1896 - Dimitri Mitropoulos, Greek pianist, composer and conductor, is born.
in 1900 - Donald Keith Falkner, English bass-baritone and teacher, is born.
in 1903 - Leon Bismarck "Bix" Beiderbecke, highly influential American jazz cornettist, pianist and composer, is born. Beiderbecke is in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, the International Jazz Hall of Fame, and the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame.
in 1904 Glenn Miller, American jazz/swing trombonist, arranger, composer and bandleader, is born. One of my favorite artists.
Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most sought after cornetists in the 1920s, although he only became famous many years after his death in 1931. Today he is considered one of the early jazz musicians skilled enough to be compared to the great Louis Armstrong, and his innovative approach helped direct later jazz styles. His life on the other hand, was one riddled by self-destructive behavior, marked by fatal alcoholism.
Raised in Davenport, Iowa by a comfortable middle class family, Beiderbecke developed skill at the piano at an early age. His knack for learning pieces by ear allowed him to forego intensive training, which would have required him to learn to read music. He began to play the cornet at 16, inspired by Nick LaRocca of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
His poor grades in school resulted from lack of interest in everything but music, but in an effort to remedy this, his parents sent him to Lake Forest Academy, a boarding school in Illinois. There he continued to ignore his studies in favor of sneaking off to Chicago to hear jazz in speakeasies. He began to perform more and more in Chicago, and when he was expelled from the academy in 1922, he decided to pursue a career in music. He soaked up the early jazz sounds of Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and Freddie Keppard, as well as the music of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.
Beiderbecke joined a band known as the Wolverines in 1923, expanding his exposure to audiences outside of Chicago, and most importantly, in New York. Around this time began his association with C-melody saxophone player Frankie Trumbauer. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer were similar in terms of their virtuosity and there refined, dulcet approach, contrasting from the boisterous sounds of hot jazz. Their playing is thought to have contributed to the development of “cool” jazz, a style made popular by Miles Davis and others in later decades.
Beiderbecke played and recorded with a number of groups in the mid 1920s, and also developed a taste for Prohibition era alcohol, which was often filled with poisonous contaminants. But while his addiction thrived, so did his career. Apparently he was able to improve his poor reading ability, because in 1927, he and Trumbauer joined the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, and then the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Both were high-paid professional ensembles with large popular followings.
During the late 1920s, Beiderbecke made several recordings on cornet with small groups that often included Trumbauer. The two famously recorded the tune “Singin’ the Blues,” on which their mellifluous tones and melodic sophistication signaled a departure from traditional styles. Beiderbecke also composed works for solo piano, including “In A Mist,” an elaborate piece that injects early jazz with elements of French impressionism.
Despite his successes, his heavy drinking stood in the way of his career, and in 1929, after a nervous breakdown, Beiderbecke was asked to take a leave of absence from the Whiteman Orchestra to recuperate. He never got clean, and two years later, on August 6th, 1931, after a binge on toxic liquor, Beiderbecke died at the age of 28.
Although not fully recognized during his short life, Beiderbecke’s talent is hailed today. His restrained and reflective style has served as a model for countless followers, as has his melding of jazz and classical music influences. He died young, but his musical legacy endures.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW7YYt0F-K4"]Bix Beiderbecke - I'm Coming Virginia - 1927 - YouTube[/ame]
On October 5 1927 Bix Beiderbecke recorded one of the most important jazz recordings in its history. Royal Garden Blues with his New Orleans Lucky Seven sometimes known as his Gang. Bix had some superb musicians in his band: Bill Rank on trombone, Don Murray on clarinet, Adrian Rollini on bass sax, Frank Signorelli on piano and Chauncey Moorehouse on drums.
Through the decades this recording has been a sample of how jazz can be played and has influenced many of the great white jazz musicians like Bobby Hackett, Jimmy McPartland soon after and today more the likes of Tom Pletcher, Bent Persson and certainly Hans Carling and his New Coling Orchestra.
The most amazing rendition of this tune is being played in 1984 by Hans Carling together with his band and his young musical family.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyvH6wf4ghw"]Royal Garden Blues -- Bix Beiderbecke 1927 - YouTube[/ame]
in 1810 - Frederic (-Francois) Chopin, (actually, Fryderyk Franciszek), greatly renowned Polish composer, incomparable genius of the piano who created a unique romantic style of keyboard music; is born at Zelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, in all probability on March 1,1810, the date given by Chopin himself in his letter of acceptance of membership in the Polish Literary Society in Paris in 1833 (but in his certificate of baptism the date of birth is given as Feb. 22, 1810).
His father, Nicolas Chopin, was a native of Marainville, France, who went to Warsaw as a teacher of French; his mother, Tekla Justyna Krzyzanowska, was Polish. Chopin's talent was manifested in early childhood; at the age of eight, he played in public a piano concerto by Gyrowetz, and he had already begun to compose polonaises, mazurkas, and waltzes. He received his primary musical instruction from the Bohemian pianist Adalbert ywny, who resided in Warsaw at the time. A much more important teacher was Joseph Eisner, director of the Warsaw School of Music, who gave him a thorough instruction in music theory and form.
Chopin was 15 years old when his Rondo for Piano was publ. in Warsaw as op.l. In the summer of 1829 he set out for Vienna, where he gave highly successful concerts on Aug. 11 and Aug. 18, 1829. While in Vienna, he made arrangements to have his variations on Mozart's aria La ci darem la mano, for Piano and Orchestra, published by Haslinger as op.2.
It was this work that attracted the attention of Schumann, who saluted Chopin in his famous article published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of Dec. 7, 1831, in which Schumann's alter ego, Eusebius, is represented as exclaiming, "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!" The common assumption in many biographies that Schumann "launched" Chopin on his career is deceptive; actually Schumann was some months younger than Chopin, and was referred to editorially merely as a student of Professor Wieck. Returning to Warsaw, Chopin gave the first public performance of his Piano Concerto in F minor, op.21, on March 17, 1830.
On Oct. 11, 1830, he was soloist in his Piano Concerto in E minor, op.ll. A confusion resulted in the usual listing of the E-minor Concerto as first, and the F-minor Concerto as his second; chronologically, the composition of the F-minor Concerto preceded the E-minor. He spent the winter of 1830-31 in Vienna. The Polish rebellion against Russian domination, which ended in defeat, determined Chopin's further course of action, and he proceeded to Paris, visiting Linz, Salzburg, Dresden, and Stuttgart on the way. He arrived in Paris in Sept. 1831, and was introduced to Rossini, Cherubini, and Pae'r. He also met Bellini, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Victor Hugo, and Heinrich Heine; he became particularly friendly with Liszt. Paris was then the center of Polish emigration, and Chopin maintained his contacts with the Polish circle there. He presented his first Paris concert on Feb. 26,1832.
He also taught the piano. The Paris critics found an apt Shakespearean epithet for him, calling him "the Ariel of the piano." In 1834 he went with Hiller to Germany, where he met Mendelssohn and Clara and Robert Schumann. In July 1837 he went with Pleyel to London. In 1836 he met the famous novelist Aurore Dupin (Mme. Dudevant), who publ. her works under the affected masculine English name George Sand. They became intimate, even though quite incompatible in character and interests. Sand was involved in social affairs and held radical views; Chopin was a poet confined within his inner world; it has been said that she was the masculine and he the feminine partner in their companionship. In the winter of 1838-39, Chopin accompanied Sand to the island of Majorca, where she attended to him with total devotion; yet she portrayed him in her novel Lucrezia Floriani as a weakling.
Indeed, she was quite overt in her reference to him as a lover; in a personal letter dated 1838 she said that she had difficulty in inducing him to submit to a sensual embrace, and implied that she lived as an immaculate virgin most of the time they were together. They parted in 1847; by that time he was quite ill with tuberculosis; a daguerreotype taken of him represents a prematurely aged man with facial features showing sickness and exhaustion, with locks of black hair partly covering his forehead. Yet he continued his concert career.
He undertook a tour as pianist in England and Scotland in 1848; he gave his last concert in Paris on Feb. 16, 1848. La Revue et Gazette Musicale of Feb. 20, 1848, gives a precious account of the occasion: 'The finest flower of feminine aristocracy in the most elegant attire filled the Salle Pleyel," the paper reported, "to catch this musical sylph on the wing." Chopin played his last concert in London, a benefit for Polish emigres, on Nov. 16, 1848. He died the following year; Mozart's Requiem was performed at Chopin's funeral at the Madeleine, with Habeneck conducting the orch. and chorus of the Paris Cons, and Pauline Viardot and Lablache singing the solo parts.
He was buried at Pere Lachaise between the graves of Cherubini and Bellini; however, at his own request, his heart was sent to Warsaw for entombment in his homeland. Chopin represents the full liberation of the piano from traditional orchestra and choral influences, the authoritative assumption of its role as a solo instrument. Not seeking "orchestral" sonorities, he may have paled as a virtuoso beside the titanic Liszt, but the poesy of his pianism, its fervor of expression, the pervading melancholy in his nocturnes and ballades, and the bounding exultation of his scherzos and etudes were never equaled. And, from a purely technical standpoint, Chopin's figurations and bold modulatory transitions seem to presage the elaborate transtonal developments of modern music. - Died at Paris, Oct. 17, 1849.
in 1914 - Tor Bernhard Vilhelm Aulin, Swedish violinist, composer and conductor, dies at 47.
in 1916 - Mahler's Symph. No. 8 (the “Symphony of a Thousand”) received its first American performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
in 1917 - Dinah Shore, American singer, actress and television personality, is born.
in 1918 - Johan Gustaf Emil Sjogren, Swedish organist and composer, diea at 64.
in 1920 - Alfred Grant Goodman, German composer, is born.
in 1925 - Lucine Amara (real name, Armaganian), American soprano, is born at Hartford, Conn. She studied with Stella Eisner-Eyn in San Francisco, and attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara (1947) and the University of Southern Calif, in Los Angeles (1949-50). She also studied with Bobbi Tillander. In 1945 she became a member of the San Francisco Opera chorus. She made her concert debut in San Francisco in 1946, and then sang the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and appeared as .... Billows in Albert Herring in 1949. On Nov. 6, 1950, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as the Celestial Voice in Don Carlos. She continued to sing there until 1991, appearing in 56 lyric or dramatic roles in 882 stage performances. Her other operatic engagements took her to the Edinburgh (1954) and Glyndebourne (1954-55; 1957-58) festivals, the Vienna State Opera (1960), Russia (1965), and China (1983). She also appeared as a soloist with many U.S. orchestras. In later years, she served as artistic director of the N.J. Assn. of Verismo Opera and gave master classes in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Among her finest roles were Gluck's Eurydice, Donna Elvira, Elsa, Verdi's Leonora and Aida, Nedda, Musetta, Mimi, and Ariadne.
in 1927 - Lucine Amara, American opera singer, is born.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efnhLAj6YwM"]Lucine Amara "Morro, ma prima in grazia" Ballo - YouTube[/ame]
in 1928 - Albert Herbert Brewer, English organist and composer, dies at 62.
in 1928 - Jacob Adolf Hagg, Swedish pianist and composer, dies at 77.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOtP19u-Z20"]YouTube - Jakob Adolf Hägg - Nordic symphony in E flat-major, Op.2 (1/2)[/ame]
in 1932 - Jacques Leduc, Belgian composer and teacher, president of SABAM (the Belgian performing rights society) and member of the Académie Royale de Belgique, is born.
in 1932 - Frank Teschemacher dies at age 25. American jazz clarinetist and alto-saxophonist, along with Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman and others, he was associated with the "Austin High" gang. He was mainly self-taught on his instruments and doubled on violin and banjo early in his career. Strongly influenced by cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, he started playing the clarinet professionally in 1925. He began recording under his own name in 1928. His intense solo work laid the groundwork for a rich sound and creative approach, that is credited with influencing a young Benny Goodman and a style of which Pee Wee Russell is perhaps the best-known representative. (killed in a car accident as a passenger in a car driven by his performing associate cornetist "Wild" Bill Davison, just days before of what would have been his 26th birthday)
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17u4NNQ6fhE"]YouTube - Frank Teschemacher's Chicagoans - Jazz Me Blues - Brunswick (previously unissued test)[/ame]
in 1937 - Clarence Holiday dies at age 38. US jazz guitarist; he worked locally until he became a member of the Fletcher "Smack" Henderson Orchestra in 1928 for 5 years, after which he worked and recorded with Benny Carter in 1934, Bob Howard and also with Charlie Turner in 1935, then Louis Metcalf from 1935, before joining the Don Redman Big Band in 1936 till his early death. Clarence was also the father to the great Billie Holiday.
in 1939 - Warren Davis, American doo ... singer (The Monotones), is born.
in 1939 - Leo Brouwer, noted Cuban guitarist, conductor, and composer, is born at Havana. He began music training in Havana, where he made his debut as a guitarist in 1955. In 1959 he went to the U.S. to study composition at the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y. and guitar at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Conn. Returning to Havana, he became a leading figure in avant-garde music circles.
He also pursued a distinguished career as a guitar virtuoso, traveling all over the world. He likewise appeared as a conductor in his homeland and abroad. In 1972 he was in Berlin under the auspices of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. In 1984 a guitar competition was founded in his honor in Japan. He served as music director of the Orquesta de Cordoba in Spain from 1992.
In 1998 he received the Manuel de Falla Prize. He was awarded the National Music Prize of Cuba in 1999. Brouwer started composing in 1955 in a style that adapted sounds of popular Cuban culture. A second compositional period evolved around 1962.
He became the first Cuban composer to embrace aleatory and open forms, and his Sonograma I was the first example of indeterminate music by a Cuban composer. Then, after 1973, he entered his third period, a self-described "New Simplicity" that fused his avant-garde techniques with previous styles of popular and classical music.
Unique in his output are his 8 guitar concertos, which fall mostly in his third period: No. 1 (1972), No. 2, Concierto de Liege (1980-81), No. 3, Concierto Elegiaco (1985), No. 4, Concierto de Toronto (1987), No. 5, Concierto de Helsinki (1992), No. 6, Concierto de Bolos (1996), No. 7, La Habana (1997-98), and No. 9, Cantata de Perugia (1999).
Among his other works are: 3 danzas concertants for Guitar and String Orchestra (1958); Sonata for Solo cello (1960); Vanantes for Percussionist (1962); Sonograma I for Prepared Piano (1963), II for Orchestra (1964), and III for 2 Pianos (1968); Homage to Mingus for Jazz Band and Orch. (1965); Dos conceptos del tiempo for 10 Players (1965); Conmutaciones for Prepared Piano and Percussion (1966); La tradicion se rompe...pero cuesta trabajo for Orch. (1967-69); El reino de esto mondo for Wind Quintet (1968); Cantigas del tiemp nuevo, cantata for Narrator, Children's Chorus, and Small Ensemble or Orch. (1969); Exaedros I for Ensemble or Orch. (1969) and II for Percussionist and 2 Orchestra Groups (1970); Sonata "pian e forte" for Piano (1970); Per sonore a tres for Guitar, Flute, and Viola (1970); Per sonore a due for Guitar and Tape (1971); Concerto for Flute and String Orch. (1972); Violin Concerto (1975-76); Camion de gesta for Chamber Orchestra (1979); Baladas del Decameron ..... for Guitar (1981); Manuscrito antiguo encontrado en una botella for Piano Trio (1982); Cuban Landscape with Rumba for Guitar Quartet (1985); Guitar Sonata (1990); Double Concerto for Guitar, Violin, and Orch. (1995); Hika: In Memoriam Takemitsu for Guitar (1996); Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orch. (1997).
1 MARCH
Page 1 of 2
