April 16, 2018. .  Nikolai Myaskovsky, a Russian composer, was born this week, on April 20^th of 1881.  Prolific (he wrote 27 symphonies), he was widely performed during his lifetime in the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, in Europe and the US.  He was often criticized by the Soviet music establishment and almost as often awarded state prizes; these days he’s mostly forgotten.  Myaskovsky deserves to be written about, but today we’ll focus on Tomás Luis de Victoria, one of the great composers of the Renaissance, for whom we never have a fixed date as we don’t know when hewas born. 

A younger contemporary of Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso, Victoria was born in 1548 in a small town of Sanchidrián near Ávila‎.  His mother was from a converso, that is from a family of Spanish Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism.  Victoria went to school in Ávila, sang as a choirboy in the local cathedral and probably learned there to play the organ.  The cathedral of Ávila was one of Spain’s musical centers, and Victoria’s teachers were prominent composers and musicians. Some speculate that while in Ávila, he met Antonio de Cabezón, the famous blind composer, second in fame only to Cristóbal de Morales.  Somewhere around 1563, once his voice had broken, Victoria was sent to Rome, to the Collegio Germanico, a preeminent Catholic school known for its excellent music education.  While at the Collegio, Victoria probably met Palestrina, who at the time was maestro di cappella at the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, and likely became his pupil.  In 1569 Victoria became a singer and the organist at Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli, the Spanish national church in Rome.  Such was his reputation that a couple years later he was invited to teach music at the Collegio Germanico and eventually was appointed maestro di cappella.  In 1574, he was ordained a priest.  A year later he was appointed maestro di capella at Sant'Apollinare alle Terme, the church of the Collegium.  By then Victoria was already a widely known and well-published composer. 

April 9, 2018.  Two singers.  Franco Corelli’s birthday was yesterday: he was born on April 8^th of 1921.  One of the greatest tenors of the mid-20^th century, he, together with Giuseppe Di Stefano and Mario Del Monaco, brought the level of tenor singing to heights which seem unreachable today.  Add to it two supreme sopranos, Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, the great baritone Tito Gobbi, the mezzo Giulietta Simionato, the base Cesare Siepi – all of them at the top of their form in the mid-1950s.  What a glorious era!  Corelli may not have had the most beautiful voice, but the power, clarity, phenomenal breath control and sheer excitement he generated were incomparable.  Listen, for example, to this 1955 recording of Cavaradossi’s aria E lucevan le stele from Puccini’s Tosca.  One may quibble with the interpretations, with the notes he holds a bit too long – just because he can! – but it’s singing at the very highest level.  Or a small sample from the legendary performance of the same opera in the Teatro Regio di Parma on January 21, 1967.  Tosca is Virginia Gordoni, Scarpia – Attilio d'Orazi, but it’s Corelli’s 12 seconds of A-sharp in Vittoria, Vittoria at the very end of this two-minute excerpt that brought the theater down.  We cut out the ensuing pandemonium (the word “ovation” isn’t strong enough) because it just wouldn’t stop; one couldn’t hear anything anyway, even though the orchestra continued to play (here).  Corelli was born in a provincial city of Ancona, his family wasn’t musical, and Franco entered the Pesaro conservatory almost by chance.  Even there, he mostly taught himself, following the technique of Mario del Monaco and listening to the old recordings of Caruso, Gigli and Lauri-Volpi.  Corelli started singing professionally in 1951; in 1953, in the Rome Opera, he sung Pollione in Bellini's Norma with Maria Callas in the title role.  Callas was taken by Corelli’s voice, and in the following years the two sung together on many occasions, especially at La Scala. 

April 3, 2018.  Haydn, Pogorelich.  We’d like to come back to Joseph Haydn, whom we mentioned, rather perfunctorily, last week.  As we were looking for a sample of Richter’s recording of a Haydn sonata (Richter made several and played Haydn often) we came across one made by Ivo Pogorelich in 1991.   It was a recording of a wonderful Piano Sonata no. 30 in D major, Hoboken XVI:19, composed in 1767.  Pogorelich, born in Belgrade, is one of the most unusual pianists of his generation.  His career began with a scandal: in 1980 the jury of the Chopin International Competition eliminated him after the second round.  Martha Argerich resigned in protest (she was not the only one to object, so did Nikita Magaloff and Paul Badura-Skoda, although they didn’t quit).  The publicity generated by the Warsaw scandal helped Pogorelich’s career.  While some of his interpretations were eccentric, they were not outlandish, on top of which he had a flawless technique.  In 1981 Pogorelich was invited to the Carnegie Hall (he played there many times; his 1992 performance of Balakirev’s Islamey became legendary).  That same year, 1981, he debuted in London, and a year later he was signed by Deutsche Grammophon.  Pogorelich had studied  in the Soviet Union since 1976; the year of the Chopin Competition he married his teacher, Alisa Kezheradze, 21 years his senior.  Little is known about Kezheradze.  When she met Pogorelich, she was married to a Soviet functionary, living in a large apartment in the center of Moscow.  She taught piano at the Music department of the Pedagogic Institute (Vladimir Genis, a Russian-German composer and pianist who studied there, remembers Kezheradze as “the only bright spot in that theater of the absurd, … striking, slim, of indeterminate age, with a face of a Georgian princess.” 

March 26, 2018.  Richter and Haydn.  Last week we started writing about the pianist Sviatoslav Richter, and made it all the way to 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.  Richter, 26 years old, joined many other musicians who continued to perform during the war, often on the front line.  In January 1943 he premiered Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata no. 7, one of the three so-called “War Sonatas” (sonatas sixth through eighth).  Richter already new Prokofiev: they met over Prokofiev’s Sonata no. 6.  Premiered by the composer, the sonata became part of Richter’s repertoire; he played it on his first “official” Moscow concert in 1940.  And even though he didn’t premier Prokofiev’s Eighth (Emil Gilels did), he played it at the Third All-Union competition in 1945, which Richter won (Victor Merzhanov shared the first prize with him).  Here’s a live recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata no. 7 from 1958.

In 1943 Richter met Nina Dorliak, a fine opera and chamber singer.  Nina was born into a prominent family: her father was a deputy to the Czar’s finance minister; her mother in her youth was a lady-in-waiting to dowager Empress Maria, later she became a well-known singer herself.  Considering such legacy, it’s a miracle that Nina was not arrested during the Great Purge.  Dorliak and Richter became good friends and played many concerts together.  In 1945 Richter, most likely a closeted homosexual (he never talked about it), proposed to Nina.  They married in 1945 and stayed together to the end of his life.

March 19, 2018.  Bach and Richter.  In two days we’ll celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach’s 333^rd birthday.  We’ve written about Bach’s early years in Leipzig (here and here), the years that were dedicated to his work as the Kantor at Tomasschule, the school of the St. Thomas church, wherehe also served as the choir director.  All along Bach was the music director of two other important churches in the city, St. Nicholas church (Nikolaikirche) and Paulinerkirche, the University church.  His duties included writing music for Sunday services, and in the early Leipzig years he produced an astonishing number of cantatas, more than 300 altogether, of which 200 plus are extant.  He also wrote several Passions, of which the St. John’s and St. Matthew survive.  By the year 1729 the accumulated volume of compositions was such that he could allow himself to either perform the old music, or reuse pre-existing material, creating what is called “parody” cantatas.  (The old and rather unusual musical term “parody,” or imitation, has nothing to do with humor.  “Parody mass,” for example, was one of the major types of Renaissance mass where the composer used – and acknowledged – the borrowed material.  The intellectual property rules were very vague in those days).  By the year 1729, Bach’s creative forces shifted away from church music to secular music.   One impetus was Collegium Musicum, of which Bach was appointed the director in 1729.  Collegium Musicum was created by Telemann in 1702 as an association of professional musicians and students for the purpose of producing regular public concerts.  During the winter the concerts were given at Café Zimmermann, one of the largest coffee houses in Leipzig (the building was constructed in 1715; it was destroyed during the Allied air raid in 1943).  Bach’s Coffee Cantata, BWV 211, was probably premiered at Zimmermann’s.  Several of Bach’s keyboard and violin concertos were written for Collegium Musicum.  It’s quite likely that Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, two of Bach’s sons, performed with the Collegium. 

March 12, 2018.  Malipiero and more.  Hugo Wolf, a tremendously talented Austrian composer who died tragically young in a syphilis-induced delirium, was born on March 13^th of 1860.  Last your we dedicated an entry to him, so here are two of his songs.  First, Schlafendes Jesuskind (Sleeping Baby Jesus) from the cycle Mörike-Lieder is sung by the French baritone Gérard Souzay with Dalton Baldwin at the piano.  Then, Nachtzaube (Night magic), from Eichendorff Lieder.  It’s performed by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Gerald Moore.