This Week in Classical Music: June 19, 2023.Mid-18th Century Music, Watts, and two Conductors.Johann Stamitz, a Bohemian composer and the founder of the so-called Mannheim school, which, with its sudden crescendos and diminuendos, became very popular in the middle of the 18th century, was born on June 18th of 1717.The mid-18th century was a bit short on major talent unless you count Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach who was about three years older than Stamitz (we’re not big fans of CPE Bach but we understand that many people are).Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, George Frideric Handel – in 1759, but their music had went out of vogue many years earlier.Domenico Scarlatti, born like the previous two in 1685, was living in Madrid and by then mostly engaged in copying and editing his numerous sonatas; in any event, his output wasn’t well known outside of Spain.In 1750 Joseph Haydn was only 18, so of the living composers there were Telemann, who was getting old and not as productive as in his prodigious youth, and minor stars like Johann Friedrich Fasch and Johann Joachim Quantz.The opera was faring better: Rameau still reigned on the music scene in Paris, and Christoph Willibald Gluck, born the same years as CPE Bach, while not yet on the level of Orfeo ed Euridice, was dispatching operas at the rate of a couple a year.The world had yet to wait for Haydn to develop and for Mozart to appear.
Let’s hear one of Johann Stamitz’s symphonies, this one in A major, the so-called “Mannheim no. 2”.Taras Demchyshyn conducts what seems to be mostly the Ukrainian Hibiki Strings ensemble of Japan.
The American composer André Watts was born on June 20th of 1946 in Nuremberg.Watts’s mother was Hungarian and his father – an African-American NCO serving in Germany.Watts spent his childhood in different American military posts in Europe.He started his musical lessons studying the violin and later switched to the piano.At around nine, Watts went to the US and enrolled at the Philadelphia Musical Academy.His breakthrough came in 1963 when he played Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Bernstein.He later studied with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory.From an early age, Watts had a prodigious technique, and his musicianship grew with experience (and studies with Fleisher).His repertoire, while mostly Romantic, was broad.For many years he taught at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University.Here’s the 1963 recording of Liszt’s Piano Concerto no. 1 with the NYPO and Leonard Bernstein.
Two conductors were born this week, Hermann Scherchen on June 21st of 1891 in Berlin, and James Levine, on June 23rd of 1943 in Cincinnati.Scherchen was one of the more adventuresome German conductors: he promoted the music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Hindemith after WWI, and conducted Mahler’s symphonies when very few did so.After WWII he was active at Darmstadt and championed the music of Dallapiccola, Henze, and other young composers.He was the first to conduct parts of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron.
James Levine was probably the most talented conductor to ever lead the Metropolitan Opera.His place in the musical history of the US would’ve been very different were it not for a sex scandal that broke out in 2017.We’ll dedicate an entry to him shortly.
Mid-18th Century Music, Watts 2023
This Week in Classical Music: June 19, 2023. Mid-18th Century Music, Watts, and two Conductors. Johann Stamitz, a Bohemian composer and the founder of the so-called Mannheim
school, which, with its sudden crescendos and diminuendos, became very popular in the middle of the 18th century, was born on June 18th of 1717. The mid-18th century was a bit short on major talent unless you count Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach who was about three years older than Stamitz (we’re not big fans of CPE Bach but we understand that many people are). Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, George Frideric Handel – in 1759, but their music had went out of vogue many years earlier. Domenico Scarlatti, born like the previous two in 1685, was living in Madrid and by then mostly engaged in copying and editing his numerous sonatas; in any event, his output wasn’t well known outside of Spain. In 1750 Joseph Haydn was only 18, so of the living composers there were Telemann, who was getting old and not as productive as in his prodigious youth, and minor stars like Johann Friedrich Fasch and Johann Joachim Quantz. The opera was faring better: Rameau still reigned on the music scene in Paris, and Christoph Willibald Gluck, born the same years as CPE Bach, while not yet on the level of Orfeo ed Euridice, was dispatching operas at the rate of a couple a year. The world had yet to wait for Haydn to develop and for Mozart to appear.
Let’s hear one of Johann Stamitz’s symphonies, this one in A major, the so-called “Mannheim no. 2”. Taras Demchyshyn conducts what seems to be mostly the Ukrainian Hibiki Strings ensemble of Japan.
The American composer André Watts was born on June 20th of 1946 in Nuremberg. Watts’s mother was Hungarian and his father – an African-American NCO serving in Germany. Watts spent his childhood in different American military posts in Europe. He started his musical lessons studying the violin and later switched to the piano. At around nine, Watts went to the US and enrolled at the Philadelphia Musical Academy. His breakthrough came in 1963 when he played Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. He later studied with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory. From an early age, Watts had a prodigious technique, and his musicianship grew with experience (and studies with Fleisher). His repertoire, while mostly Romantic, was broad. For many years he taught at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University. Here’s the 1963 recording of Liszt’s Piano Concerto no. 1 with the NYPO and Leonard Bernstein.
Two conductors were born this week, Hermann Scherchen on June 21st of 1891 in Berlin, and James Levine, on June 23rd of 1943 in Cincinnati. Scherchen was one of the more adventuresome German conductors: he promoted the music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Hindemith after WWI, and conducted Mahler’s symphonies when very few did so. After WWII he was active at Darmstadt and championed the music of Dallapiccola, Henze, and other young composers. He was the first to conduct parts of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron.
James Levine was probably the most talented conductor to ever lead the Metropolitan Opera. His place in the musical history of the US would’ve been very different were it not for a sex scandal that broke out in 2017. We’ll dedicate an entry to him shortly.