This Week in Classical Music: May 4, 2020.  Tchaikovsky and more.  This is one of these weeks when we don’t even know where to start: half a dozen composes, two pianists and three conductors all born within the next 7 days.  We’ll have to start with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: May 7^th marks the 180^th anniversary of his birthday.   If you sense some reluctance on our part, you may be right.  Don’t get us wrong: we consider Tchaikovsky a major talent, the most important Russian composer of the second half of the 19^th century who influenced many, among them Igor Stravinsky.  His Piano concerto in B-flat minor (no. 1), the Violin concerto; his last three symphonies, from no. 4 to no. 6; operas like “Eugene Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades” and some other pieces are of the highest quality.  And he cuts a sympathetic figure: a homosexual in a conservative Russian society who attempted to marry to please his family – with disastrous results; a wanderer, who spend many years in Europe; a social recluse, who had an unusual relationship with his major benefactor, Nadezhda von Meck, whom he never met; his many personal traumas; his death of cholera at the age of only 53 which many think was a suicide – all this endears us to Tchaikovsky.  So what of our hesitancy?  It has nothing to do with a lot of mediocre music Tchaikovsky had written (like his 2^nd and 3^rd Piano concertos, or many operas, or much of the ballet music) – not a single composer, Mozart including, had written music on the highest level all the time - we value composers for their best piece, not judge them on their worst.  No, the problem – and if there is one, it’s probably with our perception, not with Tchaikovsky – is with his unusual position vis-à-vis the development of European music.  As much as his music is integral to it, he stands apart.  Tchaikovsky died in 1893 and was writing till the very end; by then the whole symphonic tradition, originating with Wagner and then brought up by Bruckner and Mahler had been developed (Bruckner’s Symphony no. 4 was premiered in 1881; Mahler’s Symphony no. 1 – in 1889).  A very different but highly innovative composer, Claude Debussy was already active for some years (his Suite Bergamasque was composed in 1890).  Tchaikovsky seems to be out of step; despite his influence on Rachmaninov and many Russian and Soviet symphonists, it feels like the path he broke doesn’t lead anywhere.  Whether it’s true or not, in the end it probably doesn’t matter.  Here, to celebrate Tchaikovsky’s 180^th, is a brilliant 2nd movement from Tchaikovsky’s last, Sixth Symphony.  It was written in a 5/4 tempo: try to “conduct” it yourself while following a recording – it’s really difficult.  In this particular case, the real conductor is Sir Georg Solti, leading the very nimble Chicago Symphony orchestra.

Where there is Tchaikovsky, there is Johannes Brahms.  They were born on the same day, Brahms in 1833, sever years before Tchaikovsky.  And other composers that were also born this week are, in a historical order: Giovanni Paisiello, an Italian and the most popular opera composer of the late 18^th century (May 9, 1740); Carl Stamitz (May 8, 1745), the German composer of the Mannheim School fame; Stanislaw Moniuszko, the creator of the Polish national opera (May 5, 1819); Louis Moreau Gottschalk, an American of half-Jewish, half French-Creole descent (May 8, 1829), very popular in his days; and, finally, Milton Babbitt, one of the most interesting American modernist composers of the last century.  As for the pianists and conductors, those will have to wait till next year.

This Week in Classical Music: April 27, 2020.  Scarlatti père.  Alessandro Scarlatti, one of the most interesting opera composers of the Italian Baroque, was born on May 2^nd of 1660 in Palermo.  He’s considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera, the school that gave the world such composers as Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Niccolò Piccinni, Giovanni Paisiello and Domenico Cimarosa.  Scarlatti’s family moved to Rome when he was 10.  He married a Roman girl at 18 and then managed to establish connections at the very top of the Roman society: he stayed at the palace of the famous sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini; Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, a patron of arts and a member of Accademia dell'Arcadia, provided a libretto to several of Scarlatti’s operas and introduced him to the circle of Queen Christina of Sweden (Scarlatti himself would eventually join the prestigious Academy, founded under the patronage of Queen Christina). 

The cultural and musical life of Rome at the end of the 17^th century was flourishing.  This was somewhat of a miracle, as not that long prior, in 1527, Rome was devastated during the catastrophe of the Sack of Rome, when the mutinous troops of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, entered and pillaged the city, killing and raping its inhabitants and plundering everything of value.  The troops stayed in the city and continued the plunder for almost eight months, till the food ran out.  When they left, the population of Rome was 10,000 – a year earlier it had been 55,000.  The Sack of Rome marked the end of the Italian Renaissance, as most artists left Rome and never returned (though the event gave birth to the period called Mannerism).  But despite everything, the devastated Rome was rebuilt, Michelangelo completed the design of the great cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica and Carlo Maderna finished its monumental façade in 1612.  Baroque changed the face of the city, and Bernini, the sculptor of genius, embellished it as never before.  By the end of the 16^th century the population of Rome grew to 100,000 and by the time of Scarlatti it was even larger.  The popes and the cardinals, despite all the corruption and nepotism, proved to be great patrons of arts; Cardinal Pamphili was one of the most important.  His birthday was just two days ago – he was born on April 25^th of 1653.  We’ve written about Queen Christina and Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, two great patrons of art – we should write about Benedetto Pamphili as well, he very much deserves it.

Scarlatti’s opera Gli equivoci nel sembiante (“Equivocal Appearances”) was so successful that Queen Christina appointed him her maestro di cappella; at the time Scarlatti was just eighteen.  In the following six years, six of his operas were staged in Rome, quite a success for a young composer.  But opera came under pressure from the church and the pope: religious authorities considered this art profane, and most operas were staged in private theaters.  In 1684 Scarlatti received an offer from the Viceroy of Naples to become his maestro di cappella and left Rome.  Here’s the aria Onde, ferro, fiamme e morte (Waves, iron, flames and death) from Gli equivoci nel sembiante.  Renata Fusco is the soprano.

This Week in Classical Music: April 20, 2020.  Maderna and more.  Tomorrow, on April 21^st we’ll celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the birth of the Italian composer Bruno Maderna.  Maderna, one of the most important avant-garde composers of the 20^th century, was born in Venice.  A child prodigy, he played the violin and, at the age of 12 conducted the orchestra of La Scala.  He was noticed and celebrated by Mussolini’s cultural authorities.  In 1941-42 Maderna studied with the eminent composer Gian Francesco Malipiero.  Later he studied conducting with Hermann Scherchen, an influential interpreter of the music of Mahler (later in his life Maderna also became a very successful interpreter of Mahler’s music.  At the end of the 1940s Maderna got involved with a group of musicians at Darmstadt, among whom were the young Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Luigi Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen.  Another young Italian composer associated with Maderna was Luciano Berio, with whom he established Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, which facilitated their research into electonic music.  In the 1960s and ‘70s Maderna spent a lot of time in the US, performing with contemporary ensembles but also conducting at established venues like Tanglewood, where he was appointed director of new music and working with major orchestras in New York, Boston and Chicago.  Maderna died in Darmstadt on November 13^th of 1973 of cancer.  Maderna’s music was highly influential, though, like the music of his Darmstadt colleagues, not easy on the first hearing.  His output was broad: he composed many symphonic pieces, chamber music and several concertos for different instruments, from the piano to the oboe.  Here’s his rather short (less than 12 minutes) concerto for two pianos from the early period: it was written in 1948.  It’s performed by the Italian pianists Aldo Orvieto and Fausto Bongelli, with the ensemble “Orchestra Della Fondazione Arena Di Verona,” Carlo Miotto conducting.

One of the greatest composers of the first half of the 20^th century, Sergei Prokofiev was born on April 23 of 1891, though not all sources agree on the date: the English-language Wikipedia says it’s April 27^th.  Prokofiev himself celebrated his birthday on the 23^rd and that’s the date we use.  Next year is his 130^th anniversary, and we will dedicate a full entry to him.

Yehudi Menuhin, one of the greatest violinists of the 20^th century, was born in New York on April 22^nd of 1916.  Here’s what we wrote about him last year.

And finally, the British conductor John Eliot Gardiner, a brilliant interpreter of the music of Bach, was born on this day in 1943.  We have several samples of his work in our library, mostly Bach’s oratorios.  In 2000 Gardiner, together with his ensembles, English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, set out on what Gardiner called his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage.  For a full year they traveled around Europe and the US performing all Bach’s oratorios: a triumphm, both musically and logistically.

This Week in Classical Music: April 13, 2020.  Easter and three pianists.  Yesterday was Easter Sunday, the beginning of the Easter Season, and we wish everybody a happy Easter.  Around this time we usually play Bach’s music: he wrote some of his greatest pieces for this occasion, such as two complete Passions, the St. John and St. Matthew (his St. Mark’s Passion is lost; it’s assumed by musicologists that it was mostly a “parody,” meaning that Bach recycled some of his previously written music.  The St. Luke Passion, previously attributed to Bach, is almost certainly not his own).  Bach’s friend Georg Philipp Telemann also wrote a number of Passion Oratorios.  They are not well known and aren’t performed as often as Bach’s.  While we realize that they are not on the same plane, we find their music much worthy of your attention.  Here’s the first section of Telemann’s oratorio Das selige Erwägen des bittern Leidens und Sterbens Jesu Christi (Blessed Contemplation of the Bitter Suffering and Dying of Jesus Christ) – about 20 minutes of music.  Ensemble L'arpa festante is conducted by Wolfgang Schäfer.

Artur Schnabel, the great Austrian pianist, was born on April 17^th of 1882 in a small town of Lipnik (then Kunzendorf) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Today the town is in Poland.  His family was Jewish: Schnabel’s birth name was Aaron.  When he was two, the family moved to Vienna.  At the age of nine Schnabel became a pupil of the famous pianist and pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky who later told Schnabel: “You will never be a pianist; you are a musician.”  In 1898 Schnabel moved to Berlin.  In his youth, his repertoire was very broad: in addition to his beloved Beethoven, he played other German greats - Mozart, Schubert, Schuman and Brahms.  But he also played a lot of Chopin, Liszt and other Romantics.  He formed a quartet with the violinist Bronisław Huberman, Paul Hindemith, who was not only a composer but also an excellent violist, and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.  Later in his career Schnabel narrowed his repertoire, concentrating on Schubert and especially Beethoven.  In Beethoven he excelled; no pianist before him, and very few after, played Beethoven with such depth.  In 1933 Schnabel emigrated from Germany first to England and then, in 1939, to the US.  He mother stayed in Vienna and in 1942, at the age of 83, she was deported to Theresienstadt, where she died two months later.  Schnabel, who after the war played in many European countries, never returned to either Austria or Germany.  Schnabel was the first pianist to record all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.  Even though one can hear some technical flaws, these recording stand out, even all these years later.  As Harold Schonberg, the music critic, said of Schnabel, he was "the man who invented Beethoven.”

Two Soviet pianist, both winners of the Tchaikovsky Competition, were also born this week: Grigory Sokolov in Leningrad on April 18^th of 1950 and Mikhail Pletnev in Arkhangelsk on April 14^th of 1957.  Sokolov won the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition at the age of 16.  Pletnev won his in 1978, at 21.  Sokolov emigrated to Europe and developed a cult following there; Pletnev stayed in the Soviet Union and made a brilliant career, both as a pianist and conductor.

The Flagellation, above, was painted in 1516 by the great Italian, Sebastiano del Piombo; it’s based on a drawing by Michelangelo.

This Week in Classical Music: April 6, 2020.  Merulo and the painters.  Claudio Merulo, the famous Italian composer, keyboardist and music publisher of the Renaissance, was born on April 8^th of 1533 in Correggio, a town in the Emilia-Romagna (Correggio is also the birthplace of the famous High Renaissance painter who took his name after the town).  In Correggio, Merulo studied with Tuttovale Menon, a composer who had previously worked at the court of Ferrara, one of the musical centers of Italy.  Merulo probably also studied with Adrian Willaert in Venice.  At the age of 23, he was appointed organist at Brescia Cathedral.  Just one year later, he was elected the second organist at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice (the basilica had two organs), even though a luminary like Andrea Gabrieli was also in contention.  When in 1566 Merulo took over the position of the first organist, Gabrieli was made the second organist.  Merulo stayed at San Marco for 27 years; this was a very productive period, as he composed music for services at the basilica and secular music, for the festivities thrown by the city and its nobility.  In 1584 Merulo left Venice and moved to Parma to serve at the court of Duke Ottavio Farnese.  He was made organist of the Cathedral of Parma, married (for the third time) a local noblewoman and lived, quite prosperously, in a large house near the Cathedral.  He died in Parma on May 4^th of 1604.  The dome of the Parma Cathedral is famous for a large fresco, Assumption of the Virgin, that covers its dome.  The creator of this fresco is none other than Antonio da Correggio.

During his life Merulo was known for his keyboard compositions.  We’ll hear three pieces by Merulo: one for the organ, Toccata quinta del secondo tono, from Merulo’s First Book of Organ Toccatas (here).  It’s performed by the organist Massimiliano Raschietti.  Here’s a piece for the harpsichord, Ricercare primo.  It’s performed by Marco Mencoboni.  And finally, some music that is not for a keyboard instrument.  Merulo wrote many motets and madrigals.  Here’s a motet, Innocentes pro Christo, from his Libro Primus Sacrarum Cantionum.  It’s performed by the Modus Ensemble, Mauro Marchetti conducting.

The portrait, above, is by Annibale Caracci, renowned for his frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome.  Caracci was born in Bologna, a city in Emilia-Romagna not far from Merulo’s Correggio.

This Week in Classical Music: March 30, 2020.  Haydn and Busoni.  Franz Joseph Haydn was born on March 31^st of 1732.  We love him and think he’s been somewhat under-appreciated lately.  In the time of the coronavirus, what can be better than some of the most optimistic, humorous and at the same time sophisticated music ever written?  Here, for example, is Haydn’s Symphony no. 70.  It was premiered on December 18th, 1779.  Haydn was then employed by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy and worked most of the time at his immense Esterháza palace in what is now Hungary, not far from the Austrian border.  The prince decided to build an opera house on his estate and Haydn composed a symphony to commemorate the event.  In this recording Christopher Hogwood is leading The Academy of Ancient Music.

Last week we wrote about the pianist Egon Petri, who was a close friend of the pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni.  April 1^st is Busoni’s birthday; he was born in 1866.  An Italian by birth (he was from Empoli, Tuscany), Busoni spent most of his life outside of Italy.  He lived twenty formative years, from 1893 to 1913, in Berlin and returned to the city after the Great War years that he spent in Switzerland.  Busoni was probably the most famous and influential pianist of the late-19^th to early-20^th century, though he thought of himself as a composer first.  The pianist John Ogdon was a big proponent of Busoni’s music, though we tend to agree with Alfred Brendel who called his piano concerto “overwritten” – and we think much of Busoni’s music is.  On the other hand, his transcriptions of Bach’s works are standard in the piano repertory, and for good reason.

Another pianist/composer, probably as famous a pianist and a much better composer -- Sergei Rachmaninov – was also born this week, and, like Busoni, on April 1^st, but seven years later, in 1973.  Like Busoni, Rachmaninov spent much of his life away from his motherland, except that Busoni left Italy on his own volition whereas Rachmaninov was practically forced to emigrate from Russia after the October Revolution of 1917.  Here’s an early Edison recording from April 23, 1919.  Rachmaninov plays his own Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2. 

April 1^st is rich on birthdays: a wonderful pianist, Dinu Lipatti, was born on that day in 1917.  We wrote about him here.

Let’s not forget the conductors: Christian Thielemann, the Chief Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival (who is also known for a number of controversial remarks) was born on that same day, April 1^st, in 1959.   Herbert von Karajan, born on April 5^th of 1908, was one of Thielemann mentors.  Also, the great conductor and music figure, Pierre Monteux, was born on April 4^th of 1875.

We have to end on sad news: we’ve learned that the great Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki died yesterday, April 29^th of 2020 in his home in Kraków, Poland after a long illness.  He was 86.