July 23, 2018.Cilea, Granados, Dohnanyi, Fleisher.This week is full of anniversaries: composers, conductors, pianists and a singer.We’d like to mention (for the first time) Francesco Cilea, the Italian opera composer who was born on this day in 1866.He’s remembered for his opera Adriana Lecouvreur, written in 1902.Even back then it probably sounded rather dated, and clearly sounds so these days, but the young Enrico Caruso sung at the premier to great acclaim, and some of the arias are very beautiful.All great sopranos of the last half century have sung Adriana: Montserrat Caballé, Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas.Here’s the incomparable Renata Tebaldi in the aria Io son l'umile ancella with the Orchestra of the Accademia de Santa Cecilia under the direction of Alberto Erede (Mario del Monaco and Giulietta Simionato are also in this fabulous 1962 recording).
We celebrate the Spanish composer Enrique Granados, who was born on July 27th of 1876, practically every year (here, for example is the entry from a year ago).So today we’ll just play his Los Requiebros, the first piece from Granados’s piano suite Goyescas. It’s performed byJie Chen, a young Chinese-American pianist.
Ernst von Dohnányi was not as popular these pages as Granados.One reason is that as a composer he was not as interesting as some of his contemporaries.Dohnányi was, though, and under very difficult historical circumstances, a highly moral and principled person.Dohnányi, famous first as a pianist and conductor, was born on July 27th of 1877 in Bratislava, then called Pressburg in German and Pozsony in Hungarian.(His last name probably sounds familiar to many readers: he was the grandfather of the distinguished German conductor Christoph von Dohnányi). In the late 1890s he played piano concerts across Europe and the US.In the 1920s, he was appointed the head of the Budapest Academy of Music, and in that position he promoted Hungarian composers, Béla Bartók or Zoltán Kodály among them.
A staunch liberal, he opposed the fascist tendencies of the Horthy aurocratic government.During WWII, he did much to save Jewish musicians, for which he was later called a “forgotten hero of the Holocaust resistance.”Dohnányi was also a noted teacher; among his pupils were the conductor Georg Solti and the pianists Annie Fischer and Georges Cziffra.Here’s a live recording of Dohnányi’s Rhapsody in C Op.11 No.3.Annie Fischer is at the piano.
Several great performers were born this week, and all we can do today is just mention them by name.The pianist Leon Fleisher was born 90 years ago today in San Francisco.His mother wanted him to become a pianist and Leon started studying the instrument at the ago of four.At the ago of 16 he played with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Monteux, who called him “a find of the century.” Fleisher later studied with Artur Schnabel.In 1952 Fleisher won the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition; by the late1950s he was widely recording (his recording of all five Piano Concertos by Beethoven, with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell, was highly praised)and he was generally considered the brightest start among the new generation of American pianists.Then, in 1964, disaster struck: Fleisher lost the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia.He switched to left-hand repertory, playing, for example, left-hand concertos by Ravel and Prokofiev.After a surgery and other treatments, around 1997 Fleisher returned to two-hand repertory even thought his technique, spectacular prior to the disease, did not completely recover.Here’s Leon Fleisher playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C major, K.330 (1960 recording).
Riccardo Muti and Giuseppe Di Stefano were also born this week.We’ll write about them soon.
Cilea, Granados, Dohnanyi, Fleisher 2018
July 23, 2018. Cilea, Granados, Dohnanyi, Fleisher. This week is full of anniversaries: composers, conductors, pianists and a singer. We’d like to mention (for the first time) Francesco
Cilea, the Italian opera composer who was born on this day in 1866. He’s remembered for his opera Adriana Lecouvreur, written in 1902. Even back then it probably sounded rather dated, and clearly sounds so these days, but the young Enrico Caruso sung at the premier to great acclaim, and some of the arias are very beautiful. All great sopranos of the last half century have sung Adriana: Montserrat Caballé, Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas. Here’s the incomparable Renata Tebaldi in the aria Io son l'umile ancella with the Orchestra of the Accademia de Santa Cecilia under the direction of Alberto Erede (Mario del Monaco and Giulietta Simionato are also in this fabulous 1962 recording).
We celebrate the Spanish composer Enrique Granados, who was born on July 27th of 1876, practically every year (here, for example is the entry from a year ago). So today we’ll just play his Los Requiebros, the first piece from Granados’s piano suite Goyescas. It’s performed by Jie Chen, a young Chinese-American pianist.
Ernst von Dohnányi was not as popular these pages as Granados. One reason is that as a composer he was not as interesting as some of his contemporaries. Dohnányi was, though, and under very difficult historical circumstances, a highly moral and principled person. Dohnányi, famous first as a pianist and conductor, was born on July 27th of 1877 in Bratislava, then called Pressburg in German and Pozsony in Hungarian. (His last name probably sounds familiar to many readers: he was the grandfather of the distinguished German conductor Christoph von Dohnányi). In the late 1890s he played piano concerts across Europe and the US. In the 1920s, he was appointed the head of the Budapest Academy of Music, and in that position he promoted Hungarian composers, Béla Bartók or Zoltán Kodály among them.
A staunch liberal, he opposed the fascist tendencies of the Horthy aurocratic government. During WWII, he did much to save Jewish musicians, for which he was later called a “forgotten hero of the Holocaust resistance.” Dohnányi was also a noted teacher; among his pupils were the conductor Georg Solti and the pianists Annie Fischer and Georges Cziffra. Here’s a live recording of Dohnányi’s Rhapsody in C Op.11 No.3. Annie Fischer is at the piano.
Several great performers were born this week, and all we can do today is just mention them by name. The pianist Leon Fleisher was born 90 years ago today in San Francisco. His mother wanted him to become a pianist and Leon started studying the instrument at the ago of four. At the ago of 16 he played with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Monteux, who called him “a find of the century.” Fleisher later studied with Artur Schnabel. In 1952 Fleisher won the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition; by the late1950s he was widely recording (his recording of all five Piano Concertos by Beethoven, with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell, was highly praised) and he was generally considered the brightest start among the new generation of American pianists. Then, in 1964, disaster struck: Fleisher lost the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia. He switched to left-hand repertory, playing, for example, left-hand concertos by Ravel and Prokofiev. After a surgery and other treatments, around 1997 Fleisher returned to two-hand repertory even thought his technique, spectacular prior to the disease, did not completely recover. Here’s Leon Fleisher playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C major, K.330 (1960 recording).
Riccardo Muti and Giuseppe Di Stefano were also born this week. We’ll write about them soon.