Mozart Divas

Mozart Contemporaries / Sopranos

 

Sopranos who sang for Mozart in his time

Prominent divas of Mozart's day include Catarina Cavalieri, Adriana Ferraresi, and Nancy Storace. They sang in his operas from 1781 when he moved from Salzburg to Vienna where he eventually died in December 1791.

Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music by Stephen Fry

Amongst other classical music books I enjoy reading is Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music as told to Tim Lihoreau.


Stephen Fry is hilarious. His humour is what I expect him to be, exactly as he is portrayed in the book's cover. That cheeky look! Being a lifelong Mozart admirer, I particularly wanted to know how he approaches, attacks, and perhaps throws dirt at Wolfie. Not that bad! Fry simply provides his readers a light treat through history, a glimpse of the maestros, favourite composers - what was then, what is now, in the lives of these composers, these geniuses of a lifetime. I love the way Mr. Fry treats his subjects, with obvious endearing wit.


(c) July 2008. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Musical Keys of Beethoven Symphonies

Someone asked me for the keys of Ludwig van Beethoven symphonies.  Here:

Symphony No.1 - C Major

Symphony No.2 - D Major

Symphony No.3 - E Flat Major

Symphony No.4 - B Flat Major

Symphony No.5 - C Minor

Symphony No.6 - F Major

Symphony No.7 - A Major

Symphony No.8 - F Major

Symphony No.9 - D Minor

Ottorino Respighi

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: July 9

Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer and teacher. His brief biography – life and major works. He is best known for orchestral and instrumental music, famous for symphonic poem trilogy of Rome. 

 

Ottorino Respighi was born on July 9, 1879, in Bologna into the musical family in Bologna, Italy, and started his first music lessons from his father, a teacher at Liceo Musicale, a local school. Respighi also studied in the same school, and had lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov during visits to Russia in the early 1900s. He also studied under Max Bruch in Berlin. 

In his mid-30s, he settled in Rome, teaching and composing, and he wrote his best works. Later in his career, he went on several successful concert tours of the USA.

As a teacher, he was appointed professor of composition at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.

As a composer, he is best known for his orchestral pieces, capitalizing on the most brilliant aspects of Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel and Richard Strauss.

Respighi's most famous work and masterpiece is the trilogy made up of Fontane di roma (The Fountains of Rome), I Pini di Roma (The Pines of Rome) and Feste romane (Roman Festivals), all symphonic poems. In The Fountains of Rome, he presents a beautiful sound of the four famous fountains of Rome at different times of the day:

Sunrise – Vale Giulia

Morning - Tritone

Midday - Trevi

Sunset – Villa Medici   

 

Below, enjoy Respighi's "Pines of Rome" with standing ovation. Performed by  Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra in Gallus Hall, Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Conductor: maestro Nejc Bečan; Concert master: Nina Pirc; Sound engineer: Matjaž Culiberg; Head of Production: Grega Jeraša; Director: Primož Zevnik. Youtube, uploaded by Zevnikov. Accessed July 9, 2023.

 

His other works include orchestral music Vetrate di chiesa, Trittico botticelliano (Three Botticelli Pictures)  and Gli uccelli (The Birds), ballets including La Boutique fantasque (The Fantastic Toyshop, La bella dormente nel bosco, Ancient Airs and Dances, and vocal works.

He was greatly helped by his wife, Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo, herself a composer and singer. She also completed his last opera Lucrezia, premiered a year after his death.

Ottorino Respighi is one of the Italian composers who broke the Italian tradition of writing principally for the opera, instead, he focused more to instrumental and orchestral music. His legacy lies  in his impressive displays of orchestral writing, particularly evoking the beauties of Rome and its surroundings. He was also a master of modern Italian orchestration. 

Ottorino Respighi died in Rome, 18th April, 1936.

 

Ottorino Respighi's Major Works

Sinfonia drammatica  1914

Symphonic poem, The Fountains of Rome  1916

Ancient Airs and Dances, first series  1917

Ballet, La Boutique fantasque (The Fantastic Toyshop), based on music by Rossini  1919

Ballet, La bella dormente nel bosco  1921

Opera, Belfagor  1922

Ancient Airs and Dances, Second series  1923

Symphonic Poem, The Pines of Rome  1924

Orchestral music Vetrate di chiesa  1925

Gli Uccelli (The Birds), suite for small orchestra (based on 17^th- and 18^th-century pieces about birds)  1927

Trittico botticelliano (Three Botticelli Pictures)  1927

Symphonic poem, Roman Festivals  1928

Opera, La Fiamma  1933

Vocal Works

 

Image Credit:

Ottorino Respighi.  Karadar / Public Domain.

 

Resources:

Ottorino Respighi. Wikipedia. 

The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, The Macmillan Press Ltd (1994)

 

(c) July 2008. Updated July 9, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Percy Grainger

Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: July 8 

Brief biography of Australian-born American Percy Aldridge Grainger, prolific composer, music educator, virtuoso pianist, innovator, and facilitator for languages.

 

(George) Percy Aldridge Grainger (b. Brighton, Melbourne, July 8, 1882- d. White Plains, New York, February 20, 1961), American composer of Australian descent, he was a virtuoso pianist, music educator, and a designer and facilitator of languages.  of Australian origin. He was a prolific composer and a virtuoso pianist with an international reputation. He is remembered as Australia's greatest composer. In England he is considered an important figure in the preservation and arrangement of English folk song, and in the United States, where he lived most of his life, he is highly regarded as a music educator, composer and arranger of band music. 

Grainger's genius encompassed an extraordinary facility for languages, a strong talent for design and an innovative approach to museology.  The evidence of his creative life - his thoughts, compositions, recordings, archive and eclectic collection of artifacts - forms the Grainger Collection at the University of Melbourne. 

 

As a Composer and Music Educator

 

Grainger pioneered work in electronic music around 1937 and noted for his “free music” works, but he was more known as an outstanding pianist and interpreter of Edvard Grieg's music, the Norwegian composer. His major works include: The Warriors, "Irish Tune from County Derry" and "Molly on the Shore." Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) was born in Melbourne, Australia. He received his first piano lessons from his mother. In later years he left for Europe to study at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt where he became close friends with Busoni, and then Grieg and Delius.  

 

The American Music Teacher and Conductor

 

He settled in London in 1901 and started his career as a concert pianist, and then left for the USA, becoming an American citizen in 1918, aged 36, although he's probably considered the greatest Australian composer. He taught in Chicago and New York. In his mid-40s, he married Swedish painter and poet Ella Strom during a Hollywood Bowl concert and on that occasion, he conducted his To a Nordic Princess, which he dedicated to his wife.

Grainger Museum of Australian Music in Melbourne

Despite busy schedules in the U.S., he still visited Australia several times, helping the establishment of the Grainger Museum of Australian Music in Melbourne which he founded in 1935. Some of his manuscripts and other memorabilia are preserved there.

The Concert Pianist and Experimental Composer

Grainger was known to be eccentric in private life and as a performer. During the next decade he appeared widely as a concert pianist. 

 

He was an experimental composer and pianist remembered for piano transcriptions, for his piano arrangements of folk songs such as Irish Tune from County Derry inspired by Londonderry Air (which dates back to 1855), Molly on the Shore (1921), and instrumental pieces drawing on folk idioms, including Country Gardens, Green Bushes, and Shepherds' Hey. 

 

Suggested listening pleasure: 

Country Gardens, performed by Hastings College Wind Ensemble. Uploaded by Nimbus Records TV. Accessed July 8, 2015. 

 
Grainger Irish Tune from County Dairy (arranged). Performed by "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band - Tour 2018. YouTube, Uploaded by U.S. Marine Band. Accessed July 8, 2020.
 

 

Folk Song Movement

 

Grainger also took part in the folk song movement, collecting and arranging numerous songs, by using the gramophone to record harmonic variations. He shared his friend Busoni’s vision of this “free music”, devising a synthesizer and composing machine far ahead of its time.

 

Resources:  

 

Grainger, George Percy (1882-1961).  Australian Dictionary of Biography.  

 

Grainger Museum. About the Grainger Museum (To get access, you may need to register to Univ of Melbourne's website): http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/grainger/museum/

 

Percy Grainger.  en.wikipedia.org 
 

Percy Grainger Biography.  www.britannica.com. 

Note: This abridged article was originally published in full for Suite101.com (now close), February 24, 2008. 


(c) July 2008.  Updated July 8, 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.