By Bphil on 2/1/2012 3:08 PM

 

Friday January 27th was Mozart's birthday. He was born 256 years ago in Salzburg, Austria.

 

He had a pet starling, this is part of their story.

 

On May 27th, 1784 Mozart heard a starling, caged in a pet shop. The bird sang a song very much like the theme of the third movement from his Piano concerto No. 17 in G, K 453., which he completed on April 12th of that year.  He immediately paid thirty four copper Kreutzer and they became inseparable.

 

Mozart loved his pet.  He was named "Herr Stahr".  Three years later, the bird died and Mozart was unconsolable.  He staged a full funeral and composed a poem for the occasion.

 

How did the bird learn the music to start with?  A coincidence? Highly doubtful!  It has been speculated that Mozart, an avid hummer and whistler, had visited the pet shop earlier while uttering a forthcoming piece. Starlings are known to pick up music quite easily.

 

The collective noun for starlings is a "Murmuration" although one would never think so by listening to a single bird. They are, quite frankly, very obnoxious. The starling, a species indigenous to Eurasia was introduced to the United States by, in a very indirect fashion, the success of William Shakespeare. The American Acclimatization Society for European Settlers, headed by Eugene Scheiffelin wanted to introduce to the United States all birds mentioned by the Bard.  Henry IV, in this case.

 

"Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but 'Mortimer'....."  Fewer than 100 were released in New York in 1890 and again the following year. They reached upper Alaska by 1970. They succeeded, all too well. The present starling population in the US is estimated at about 200 millions.

 

Mozart wrote two piano concertos for Barbara Ployer, a student of his: No 14, K 449 and No 17. Both were officially premiered by her at her residence in 1784. For the premiere of No 17, Mozart invited Giovanni Paisiello. He will be the focus of a blog in the near future.

 

-Andre Moncheur

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By Bphil on 1/25/2012 3:15 PM

On January 25, the Boise Philharmonic and Boise State University Department of Music announced a Graduate Fellowship program which would grant tuition and fees to four new graduate students plus a $10,000 stipend.  Additionally, the students will perform with the Boise Philharmonic.

 

Read full press release here.

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By Bphil on 1/17/2012 2:40 PM

Beethoven's Egmont Overture is based on a tragic act of heroism.

 

Count Lamoral of Egmont was beheaded in Brussels in 1568 alongside Count of Horn. He led one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the Low Countries.  Although a devout catholic, as was his King, Philip II of Spain, he was moderate in his views and did not blindly support the introduction of the Inquisition in Flanders.

 

The Duke of Alba, sent by Philip, imprisoned Egmont and Horn and had them executed for treason. To this day, they are revered as heroes.

 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) wrote a play, Egmont. He completed it in 1788. It premiered in Weimar.

 

In 1809, the Burgtheatre in Vienna asked Ludwig von Beethoven, a great admirer of Goethe, to compose incidental music for a revival of the play. He accepted with enthusiasm as the topic was close to his heart.  It premiered in Vienna on June 15th 1810 with Beethoven conducting. The Overture was played at the memorial service commemorating the kidnapping and murders of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics and was the unofficial anthem for the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

 

Goethe and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) developed a complicated friendship. Their relationship is commemorated by a statue of the two literary giants in Weimar. A copy of it can be seen in San Francisco (1901), Cleveland (1907), Milwaukee (1908), Syracuse (1911) and Anting, China (2006).

 

Why write about Schiller? Beethoven greatly admired his poetry. He wrote the "Ode to Joy" that the Great Man put to music in the Ninth Symphony.

-Andre Moncheur
Rieudotte11@aol.com

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By Bphil on 1/10/2012 3:17 PM

The Peach Melba is named after Helen Porter, a soprano, the first Australian to gain international fame in the classical music world.

 

She was born in Richmond in 1861, about two miles from Melbourne's central business district.

In 1887, after much travel and tribulation, she made her Operatic debut as Gilda, in Rigoletto, at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium.

 

It was an "instant success of the most emphatic kind" and her teacher advised her to adopt the stage name Melba for obvious reasons. She did.

 

Leo Delibes (Composer of Lakme, of "The Flower Duet" fame) said: "I do not care if she sings in French, Italian, German, English or Chinese, as long as she sings."

 

Camille St-Saens composed the Opera "Helene" just for her.

 

In 1892, she sang in Wagner's Lohengrin at Covent Garden and was staying at the Savoy, where Auguste Escoffier ruled the kitchens.

 

The French press called him "The king of chefs and chef of kings".

 

Actually, the original quote applies to Marie Antoine Careme (pretty ironic, as Careme means Lent in French). He was an early practitioner of Haute Cuisine and actually cooked for Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, French representative to the Congress of Vienna.

 

Prince Clemens von Metternich, Austrian representative and host of the Congress enjoyed his fare often.

 

He also freelanced for Napoleon.

 

Monsieur Escoffier wanted to hear Ms. Melba sing but could not get tickets to Lohengrin, he approached her and she obliged.

 

He showed his gratitude by creating the Peach Melba.

 

A boat pulling swan is featured in Lohengrin.

 

He had an ice sculpture of the bird hollowed out and artfully covered vanilla ice cream with peaches within the cavity.

 

In 1900, Escoffier omitted the ice cream and covered the peaches with pureed raspberries.

 

Other versions have been created since.

 

On a less musical note, the Theatre de la Monnaie is the very site of the Belgian Revolution.

 

On August 25th, 1830, Daniel Auber's Opera "La muette de Portici" (The Mute girl of Portici) generated a riot that became the signal of the Belgian Revolution that drove the Dutch out.

 

The duet "Amour sacre de la Patrie" (Sacred love of the Homeland) ignited the powder keg.

 

Andre Moncheur

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By Bphil on 1/5/2012 2:18 PM

In a musical context, what are the letters D, RV, BWV, H and K (or KV) used for?

They are used to catalog the works of Franz Schubert, Antonio Vivaldi, Johan Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

-Otto Erich Deutsch (1883-1967) was an Austrian musicologist who catalogued Franz Schubert's music. D 667 is the Trout Quintet, D 839 is his Ave Maria.

-Peter Ryom (born in 1937) is a Danish musicologist who catalogued Antonio Vivaldi's music. RV stands for Ryom Verzeichnis (Ryom catalog), the V does not stand for Vivaldi. In the four violin concerti known as The Four Seasons", Spring is RV 269, Summer is RV 315, Autumn is RV 293 and Winter is RV 297.

-Wolfgang Schmieder (1901-1990) was a German musicologist. In 1950, he published the BWV, or Bach Werke Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue). It has since become nearly universal. It is arranged by genre/theme, in other words, a low BWV does not necessarily indicate an early work. JS Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor is BWV 565, the Brandenburg Concerti are BWV 1046 through 1051.

-Anthony van Hoboken (1887-1983) was a Dutch musicologist. In 1957, an almost complete thematic catalogue of Haydn's works was published. Haydn's works are commonly designated "Hob" or "H" with Roman numeral denoting group classification followed by Arabic numeral for work within the group. His Symphony number 94, the Surprise Symphony is H I/94, his Cello concerto number 1 is H VII/1.

-Ludwig von Kochel (1800-1877) was a multi talented Austrian, best remembered as a musicologist. After tutoring the four sons of Archduke Charles of Austria, he was rewarded with a knighthood and a generous financial settlement allowing him to spend the rest of his life as a "Private Scholar". (Dream on, Andre!!). We owe the cataloguing of Mozart's works, K1 through K626, his unfinished Requiem, to him. The Requiem was finished for Mozart by Franz Sussmayr, one of his pupils according to Mozart's wishes, dictated on his deathbed. Mozart's Piano concerto number 21 is K467, Don Giovanni is K527, his Symphony number 25 is K183.

-Andre Moncheur

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By Bphil on 1/3/2012 3:38 PM

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) was Bohemian.

He, Haydn and Bach are considered the only three "Stable" classical music composers in history. He was fascinated by trains and railroads.

His beginnings were humble but his music impressed Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and they became friends.

He played the viola for the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra, at times under the baton of Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884), traveled to London nine times, and conducted in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

His Slavonic Dances were influenced by Brahms's own Hungarian Dances. The sets were published in 1878 and 1886 respectively. They were well received then and are still popular.

He lived in the United States from 1892 to 1895, when he was the Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. While there, he met and worked with Harry Burleigh (1866-1949), an African American baritone and classical music composer.

The school was founded by Jeannette Thurber, a socialite and one of the first major patrons of Classical Music in the United States. She sponsored, among many events, New York's first Wagner festival, in 1884. She was personally responsible for bringing Dvořák to the United States.

 

Her father was a Danish violinist immigrant. She was educated at the Paris Conservatory.

 

The source of her wealth was her husband, a millionaire grocery wholesaler.

In the winter and spring of 1893, he wrote his Symphony number Nine, "To the New World". It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered at Carnegie Hall in December 1893, conducted by Anton Seidl. It is Dvořák's most famous work and belongs to the standard repertoire.

He spent the summer of 1893 in Spillville, IA (NE corner) where some of his cousins had emigrated. He wrote his American Quartet there. The manuscript was completed in only three days. It premiered in Boston in January, 1894 and was performed by the Kneisel Quartet, the leading String Quartet in the US.

Spillville is home to the Inwood Ballroom, destination of such 20th century icons as Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo and The Byrds.

He also composed Rusalka, an Opera. A Rusalka is a water Sprite from Slavic Mythology, sprite being derived from the Latin Spiritus (Spirit). In other words, a legendary creature. It premiered in Prague in March, 1901.

 

"To the moon", sung by Rusalka is extraordinarily beautiful.

 

-Andre Moncheur

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By Bphil on 12/19/2011 11:34 AM

 

When Viscount Castlereagh, the British representative to the Congress of Vienna, reached the Austrian capital in September 1814, he and his staff settled in their designated housing, a set of rooms which, some years before, had been rented to a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. While there, he had worked on his first full German Opera, The abduction from the Seraglio.

 

Such modest accommodations hardly suited the delegation representing Great Britain.

They relocated to a twenty two room suite shortly thereafter.

There, he and Lady Emily could entertain to the music of the Glass Armonica, an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin.

Lord Castlereagh did not follow London's orders to the letter and was replaced. The most popular man in Europe at the time, the Duke of Wellington, took his place.

Why was he so popular?

In June of 1813, he had won a decisive victory over Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, at Vitoria, Spain, putting an end to the Corsican Ogre's dream of conquering the Iberian peninsula.

Ludwig van Beethoven composed Wellington's Victory to commemorate this feat of arms.

It was performed for the first time in Vienna in December of that year, with the composer conducting, and became an immediate crowd pleaser. Also on the program was his symphony number Seven, which created a furor. The public loved it.

In February 1814, a couple of months later, Beethoven conducted at the premiere of his symphony number Eight. It was not received anywhere near as well.

When asked why, he answered: "Because the Eight is so much better".

The Congress's Final Act was signed in early June, nine days before Napoleon's final defeat in Wateloo on June 18.

 

Andre Moncheur
Rieudotte11@aol.com

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By Bphil on 3/17/2011 2:13 PM

 

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By Bphil on 1/27/2011 4:14 PM

 

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By Bphil on 11/29/2010 9:53 AM

 

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