This Week in Classical Music: January 12, 2026. Feldman and Picander.Morton Feldman was born 100 years ago in Queens, NY, into a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia.Feldman was an unusual composer, very much influenced by the abstract art of his time.He studied with Stefan Wolpe, a German-American composer, himself a student of Franz Schreker, and close to Schoenberg’s circle.In his youth, Feldman was influenced by Edgard Varèse, a French-American composer we celebrated recently.Later, he became friends with John Cage, with whom he shared some aesthetic sensibilities, but it was the art of abstract painters like Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank O'Hara that fascinated him the most. One of the most important elements of Feldman's atonal music was his treatment of time: open, it was said, and disorienting.As a result, many of his compositions are exceedingly long, making them practically unplayable.Of the shorter pieces, here is Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, inspired by and dedicated to Mark Rothko, an abstract painter and Feldman’s friend, who committed suicide soon after completing 14 paintings in a chapel in Houston.And here’s his For Frank O’Hara.
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, an Italian composer, was born on January 12th of 1876, in Venice.A son of a German father and Italian mother, he spent his time in Munich and Venice and was torn during WWI when Germany and Italy fought each other (he went to neutral Switzerland).Wolf-Ferrari was mostly an opera composer, and his Il segreto di Susanna, from 1909, is sometimes staged these days.
Niccolò Piccinni and César Cui were also born this week; the former, an Italian symphonist and opera composer popular in his day, was born on January 16, 1728, in Bari. The latter, a Russian composer of French-Polish descent, was born on January 18, 1835, in Wilno, the Russian Empire, now Vilnius, Lithuania. Piccini was competing with Gluck for the public’s attention in Paris, and, it seems, was more popular, even if these days we remember Gluck as a great composer and Piccini not at all.César Cui was part of the Mighty Five, probably the least “mighty” of them.
We’d also like to mark the anniversary of a person who was not a musician but still occupies an important place in the history of music.Picander, born January 14th of 1700 as Christian Friedrich Henrici, was Bach’s favorite librettist.Born near Dresden, he moved to Leipzig in 1720.Picander started his poetic career writing erotic verse, without much success.Not giving up, he switched to religious texts and published a more successful selection of poems, noticed by Bach in 1725.After that time, he worked with Bach, soon becoming his friend, writing texts to many of his cantatas, including the Coffee Cantata and Easter Cantata, which Bach eventually turned into Easter Oratorio, and, most importantly, the St. Matthew Passion.Apparently, Picander also wrote texts to several of Bach’s cantatas, music to which had been lost.Picander died in Leipzig in 1764.
Feldman and Picander, 2026
This Week in Classical Music: January 12, 2026. Feldman and Picander. Morton Feldman was born 100 years ago in Queens, NY, into a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Feldman
was an unusual composer, very much influenced by the abstract art of his time. He studied with Stefan Wolpe, a German-American composer, himself a student of Franz Schreker, and close to Schoenberg’s circle. In his youth, Feldman was influenced by Edgard Varèse, a French-American composer we celebrated recently. Later, he became friends with John Cage, with whom he shared some aesthetic sensibilities, but it was the art of abstract painters like Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank O'Hara that fascinated him the most. One of the most important elements of Feldman's atonal music was his treatment of time: open, it was said, and disorienting. As a result, many of his compositions are exceedingly long, making them practically unplayable. Of the shorter pieces, here is Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, inspired by and dedicated to Mark Rothko, an abstract painter and Feldman’s friend, who committed suicide soon after completing 14 paintings in a chapel in Houston. And here’s his For Frank O’Hara.
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, an Italian composer, was born on January 12th of 1876, in Venice. A son of a German father and Italian mother, he spent his time in Munich and Venice and was torn during WWI when Germany and Italy fought each other (he went to neutral Switzerland). Wolf-Ferrari was mostly an opera composer, and his Il segreto di Susanna, from 1909, is sometimes staged these days.
Niccolò Piccinni and César Cui were also born this week; the former, an Italian symphonist and opera composer popular in his day, was born on January 16, 1728, in Bari. The latter, a Russian composer of French-Polish descent, was born on January 18, 1835, in Wilno, the Russian Empire, now Vilnius, Lithuania. Piccini was competing with Gluck for the public’s attention in Paris, and, it seems, was more popular, even if these days we remember Gluck as a great composer and Piccini not at all. César Cui was part of the Mighty Five, probably the least “mighty” of them.
We’d also like to mark the anniversary of a person who was not a musician but still occupies an important place in the history of music. Picander, born January 14th of 1700 as Christian Friedrich Henrici, was Bach’s favorite librettist. Born near Dresden, he moved to Leipzig in 1720. Picander started his poetic career writing erotic verse, without much success. Not giving up, he switched to religious texts and published a more successful selection of poems, noticed by Bach in 1725. After that time, he worked with Bach, soon becoming his friend, writing texts to many of his cantatas, including the Coffee Cantata and Easter Cantata, which Bach eventually turned into Easter Oratorio, and, most importantly, the St. Matthew Passion. Apparently, Picander also wrote texts to several of Bach’s cantatas, music to which had been lost. Picander died in Leipzig in 1764.