08-23: Skinny Puppy Bochum Germany 1986 - Verdi Requiem Giulini 1964 - Maynard Ferguson Birdland Dream Band 1956 - David Rose The Stripper

Ordered chronologically. Tagged image here.
1723 – Antoine Moucqué (Belgian composer & church musician)
1777 – Giuseppe Sellitto (Italian composer)
1802 – Corona Schröter (German singer, composer, actress, pianist, guitarist & artist)
1825 – Amos Bull (American church choirmaster & hymntune composer)
1839 – Charles Philippe Lafont (French violinist & composer)
1878 – Adolf Fredrik Lindblad (Swedish composer)
1898 – Joseph Robinson (Irish composer, conductor & singer)
1902 – Teresa Stolz (Bohemian dramatic soprano, active in Italy & possible mistress of Verdi)
1924 – Heinrich Berté (Austro-Hungarian operetta composer)
1937 – Albert Roussel (French composer)
1943 – Paul Zilcher (German composer)
1944 – Nikolai Roslavets (Russian composer)
1960 – Oscar Hammerstein II (American Broadway librettist)
1962 – Irving Fine (American composer, pianist & conductor)
1963 – Glen Gray (American jazz saxophonist & bandleader, Casa Loma Orchestra)
1971 – Gisela Hernández (Cuban composer & teacher)
1972 – Balys Dvarionas (Lithuanian composer, pianist, conductor & teacher)
1986 – Marcos Cubas (Cuban-born tenor, active in Argentina & the Canary Islands)
1987 – Siegfried Borris (German composer, musicologist & teacher)
1990 – David Rose (English-born American songwriter, composer, arranger, pianist & conductor, "The Stripper")
1994 – Fisher Tull (American composer, teacher & trumpeter)
1995 – Dwayne Goettel (Canadian industrial & electronic musician, keyboards & samplers for Skinny Puppy)
1996 – Jurriaan Andriessen (Dutch composer)
2006 – Maynard Ferguson (Canadian jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist & bandleader)


Still catching up, and still need to do write-ups for some previous posts, but I'll go ahead and finalize this one, just because... I dunno, I feel like I'm in the groove! I'll post links back to the unfinished posts as I finish them, m'kay?

Orthography. Don't really think about it much, do we? Well, unless you're a nut like me. See, we take how words are written and spelled for granted, but prior to the 18th century, when things like dictionaries started to be widely published, spellings for words weren't so standardized as they are now... there were just one or more common ways of spelling them. Shakespeare will spell the same word more than one way, even in the same play! And peoples' names are no exception. Take the first cat on our list, Antoine Moucqué. I had a hard time locating anything about the guy at first, because the name I was searching on was "Mouque." Turns out, there are at least four different ways of spelling that name. This is a problem I'm having all the time with early musicians, especially the lesser-known ones.

Now, take another guy who comes near the end of our list: Siegfried Borris. Siegfried Borris was a German composer and musicologist who died on August 23rd, 1987. But there was another German musician (a violinist, who was concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic in the 30s) named Siegfried Borries, who died on August 12th, 1980. So, there was a little confusion at first. But here's the problem: Siegfried Borries didn't make it onto my list for August 12th (the day I started this blog), because I didn't know about him! My... "sources"... didn't mention him. And on that same day, I got something else wrong: I should have had Les Paul a day later, on August 13th! So, you see, I'm getting things wrong around here now and again because of inaccuracies or discrepancies in my information, so I hope you can appreciate that, and , you know, cut me some slack...

Charles Philippe Lafont was apparently an amazing violinist. He received his first lessons from his mother, and later studied with both Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Rode (who wrote all those Etudes every violinist has to play while training). Kreutzer and Rode taught him the classical French technique of the Viotti school, which he made even more brilliant. In 1816, he had a little cutting contest with Niccolò Paganini, by reputation the greatest violinist who ever lived. It's said that neither violinist really won, but since the contest was held at La Scala in Milan, the audience was naturally more sympathetic to Paganini.

Adolf Fredrik Lindblad was a Swedish composer of more than 200 songs, an opera, and some instrumental music. At one point Lindblad was mentoring soprano Jenny Lind, who would later become world-famous as the "Swedish Nightingale." His great affection for Lind was so obvious that his wife, Sophie, offered to divorce him so that he could marry the singer. He did not. I tell you, that Sophie Lindblad... helluva woman, there! You made a wise decision, Adolf Fredrik Lindblad.

Nikolai Roslavets. He was a committed Modernist in the Soviet Union, who was greatly influenced by the Russian Futurist artists and the late works of Alexander Scriabin, and developed a compositional technique similiar to Schoenberg's 12-tone system, which he called a "new system of sound organisation" that was based on "synthetic chords." Well naturally, Roslavets was officially censured by the Soviet government from the 1930s onward. Past a certain point, he could obtain no official job. Then he had a stroke and lived the last few years of his life in poverty as an invalid. But his forward-looking and original works have started to enjoy a revival of interest in recent years. See you on the other side of the Iron Curtain...

08-22: Ashford & Simpson Very Best of / Is It Still Good To Ya 1978 - The Knack Live in New York 1981 - Luc Ferrari Cycle Des Souvenirs - Ravel / Boulez Daphnis et Chloé ; La Valse

Pretty much chronological. Tagged image here.

1599 – Luca Marenzio (Italian madrigal composer)
1831 – John Joseph White (English composer)
1879 – Friedrich August Kummer (German cellist, oboist, teacher & composer)
1893 – Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German sovereign & composer)
1901 – Gunnar Wennerberg Swedish poet, composer & politician)
1922 – Sofia Scalchi (Italian operatic alto/mezzo-soprano)
1942 – Henry Eichheim (American composer, conductor, violinist, organologist & ethnomusicologist)
1942 – Michel Fokine (Russian choreographer & dancer, Ballets Russes)
1951 – Georg Maikl (Austrian operatic tenor)
1966 – Apolinary Szeluto (Polish composer, pianist & lawyer)
1967 – Paola Novikova (Russian-born American soprano, taught Helen Donath & Nicolai Gedda)
1970 – Richard Frank Donovan (American organist & composer)
1976 – Gina Bachauer (Greek pianist)
1984 – Charles Whittenberg (American composer & teacher)
2000 – Rina Gigli (Italian operatic soprano)
2002 – Ernst-Theo Richter (German actor, director & baritone)
2003 – Imperio Argentina (Argentinian-born Spanish singer and actress)
2004 – Al Dvorin (American bandleader & talent agent, "Elvis has left the building.")
2005 – Luc Ferrari (French electroacoustic composer & pianist)
2006 – Bruce Gary (American rock drummer, The Knack)
2011 – Jerry Leiber (American lyricist, Leiber & Stoller, "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Kansas City")
2011 – Nick Ashford (American R&B singer, songwriter & producer, Ashford & Simpson)


Still in ketchup mode. Check back next week for the full write-up. Since Nick Ashford just passed away, we'll be paying particular attention to Ashford & Simpson. Jerry Leiber also just passed - as you see above, that makes two noted Elvis associates now who've passed away within less than a week of the King's death anniversary.

08-21: Wesley Willis Greatest Hits Vol 2 - O Estranho Mundo de Raul Seixas 1973-89 - Bismillah Khan Shenai Nawaz - Mozart Nozze di Figaro Levine 1990

In sort-of-but-not-really chronological order. Tagged image here.

1627 – Jacques Mauduit (French composer)
1772 – Alessandro Felici (Italian composer)
1772 – Johann Andreas Giulini (German composer & church musician)
1812 – Silverius Müller (Austrian composer & Latin instructor)
1824 – Santiago Ferrer (Spanish composer)
1856 – Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner (German opera composer & conductor)
1898 – Niccolò van Westerhout (Italian composer)
1932 – Frederick Corder (English composer, teacher & pianist)
1935 – Josef Cyril Sychra (Czech composer, conductor & teacher)
1940 – Paul Juon (Russian-German violinist & composer)
1949 – Gerhard von Keussler (German conductor, composer, philosopher & poet)
1951 – Constant Lambert (English composer & conductor)
1958 – Stevan Hristić (Serbian composer)
1958 – Walter Schumann (American film, television & stage composer & conductor)
1970 – Timothy Mather Spelman (American composer, active in Italy)
1981 – Hermann Schey (German-Dutch concert & oratorio bass-baritone)
1988 – Teddy Diaz (Filipino rock guitarist & songwriter, The Dawn)
1989 – Raul Seixas (Brazilian rock singer, songwriter, guitarist & producer)
1993 – Tatiana Troyanos (American operatic mezzo-soprano)
1999 – Juan Carlos Zorzi (Argentine composer & conductor)
2000 – Tomata du Plenty (American painter & synthpunk singer, The Screamers)
2003 – Wesley Willis (American visual artist & street musician, singer & keyboardist)
2005 – Martin Dillon (American operatic tenor)
2006 – Ustad Bismillah Khan (Indian shehnai master)
2008 – Jerry Finn (American punk & alternative rock record producer)
2009 – Dean Turner (Australian rock bassist, singer & producer, Magic Dirt)


Well, as all two of you may have noticed, I'm three days behind now! So for the time being I'm going to be posting just the essentials of the content here: the image-collage, the list, and that extra-special text you find at the end. I'll probably be in this mode for a few days, until I can get caught up. So, check back later to see if I might by chance have said something mildly interesting. Thanks for reading, and looking, and above all listening! – Papa Pic

P.S. Actually, there is one comment I'd like to add off the top of my head Re: Constant Lambert. For God sakes, man, can't you wait until the orchestra goes on break before lighting up?

08-20: Tomás Luis de Victoria Missa Trahe me post te - Ton Steine Scherben : Wenn die Nacht am tiefsten - Sun Ra feat. John Gilmore New Steps - Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Consummation

Ordered chronologically. Tagged image here.

1611 – Tomás Luis de Victoria (Spanish composer & organist)
1707 – Nicolas Gigault (French organist & composer)
1799 – Johann Christian Gottlob Eidenbenz (German composer & violinist)
1813 – Jan Křtitel Vaňhal (Czech composer, cellist, organist & choirmaster)
1825 – Richard Wainwright (English organist & composer)
1856 – Philipp Jakob Riotte (German composer, violinist, cellist, pianist & organist)
1908 – Louis Varney (French operetta composer)
1910 – Arthur Coquard (French composer & music critic)
1920 – Etelka Gerster (Hungarian operatic soprano & singing teacher)
1927 – Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler (Austrian-born American pianist)
1930 – George John Bennett (English organist, Lincoln Cathedral, Canterbury)
1931 – Waldemar von Baußnern (German composer, choirmaster & teacher)
1932 – Émile-Louis-Victor Mathieu (French teacher, conductor & composer, active in Belgium)
1932 – Tadeusz Joteyko (Polish composer, conductor & teacher)
1935 – Otakar Ostrčil (Czech composer & conductor)
1944 – Arthur Preuss (German tenor)
1948 – David John de Lloyd (Welsh teacher, folk music collector, composer & Eisteddfod participant)
1954 – Arthur Cranmer (American baritone, active in Britain)
1960 – Rudolf Moser (Swiss composer & teacher)
1963 – Mabel Garrison (American operatic soprano)
1978 – Ivan Jirko (Czech composer)
1980 – Joe Dassin (American pop singer, guitarist & animal-lover, sang mainly in French)
1986 – Thad Jones (American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger & bandleader)
1995 – Paul Foster (American gospel singer, Soul Stirrers)
1995 – John Gilmore (American jazz tenor saxophonist, bass clarinetist & percussionist, Sun Ra's Arkestra)
1996 – Rio Reiser (German rock singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist & political activist, Ton Steine Scherben)
2000 – Nancy Evans (English mezzo-soprano, associate of Benjamin Britten)
2005 – Krzysztof Raczkowski (Polish heavy metal drummer, Vader & Dies Irae)
2006 – Claude Blanchard (Canadian pop singer, comedian & actor)
2009 – Larry Knechtel (American session keyboardist & bassist)


Write-up pending...


08-19: Blind Willie McTell 1927-1935 - Tim Buckley Lorca - Pierre Schaeffer - Stravinsky / Dorati : Petrushka ; Sacre du Printemps - Dave Matthews Darien Lake 2005

Ordered roughly chronologically. Tagged image here.

1744 – Carlo Arrigoni (Italian lutenist, theorbist, singer & composer)
1780 – Bernhard Haltenberger (German church composer)
1795 – Friedrich Hartmann Graf (German composer & flutist)
1812 – Vincenzo Righini (Italian composer, singer & music director)
1813 – Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab (German composer, writer, music publisher & critic)
1822 – Melchor Lopez (Spanish composer & church musician)
1851 – Gioseffo Catrufo (Italian singer & composer, active in France & England)
1872 – Eugène-Prosper Prévost (French composer & teacher, active in New Orleans)
1892 – František Zdeněk Skuherský (Czech composer, teacher & music theorist)
1900 – Jean-Baptiste Accolaÿ (Belgian violinist, teacher, conductor & composer)
1914 – Clara Angela Macirone (English pianist, composer & teacher)
1922 – Felipe Pedrell (Spanish composer, musicologist & editor of complete works of Victoria)
1929 – Sergei Diaghilev (Russian arts patron & ballet impresario)
1929 – Meta Seinemeyer (German operatic spinto soprano)
1936 – Harry Plunket Greene (Irish concert bass-baritone & author on fly-fishing)
1936 – Federico García Lorca (Spanish poet, dramatist, theater director & pianist)
1944 – Sir Henry Wood (English conductor, Proms concerts)
1958 – Toon Verhey (Dutch conductor, violin & cellist)
1959 – Blind Willie McTell (American blues singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1963 – Kathleen Parlow (Canadian violinist)
1976 – Jenő Kenessey (Hungarian composer)
1979 – Dorsey Burnette (American rockabilly singer, songwriter & guitarist, brother of Johnny)
1995 – Pierre Schaeffer (French composer, electroacoustic music pioneer, engineer, inventor & writer)
1997 – Frédéric Anspach (Belgian tenor, teacher & conductor)
2001 – Betty Everett (American soul singer & pianist)
2008 – LeRoi Moore (American rock reed player (sax, flute, tin whistle, oboe) & songwriter, Dave Matthews Band)


On August 19th the most recent musical passing we remember is that of LeRoi Moore, woodwind player and founding member of the Dave Matthews Band, who died suddenly, apparently because of an internal blood clot, several weeks after having sustained serious injuries in an accident he had in an all-terrain vehicle. At the time, he apparently seemed to be healing up well, and had just started his rehabilitation. Sometimes it happens that way - one survives an initial trauma, but unexpected complications further down the road become the stumbling block. Kudos to Matthews and company for still going strong after the loss of their dear colleague.

Also on the list is Spanish musicologist Felipe Pedrell, who was responsible for editing the first complete edition of the works of Tomás Luis de Victoria. It so happens that 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of Victoria's death, as well as the centenary of Gustav Mahler's death, so I'll be taking every possible opportunity to call attention to both of these great composers this year. There's just one little problem with Victoria that there isn't with Mahler. Sources seem to be in disagreement about which day he pooped - some say August 20th, some say August 27th. Perhaps all we know is that it was on a Saturday in late August of 1611, which would narrow it down to either one of those days. But it does leave me with having to make a choice about which day it will be for the purposes of this blog.

The choice is easy, actually. On August 27th, Victoria would be facing some serious competition from two important figures whom we're certain died on that day - one of them being one of the very greatest composers of the Renaissance, Josquin des Prez, and the other one being Stevie Ray Vaughan. On August 20th, on the other hand, Thad Jones is the only other musician of significance Victoria would have to contend with. Also, the August 20th date gives us another opportunity to note a coincidence, this time that the first editor of a famous composer's opera omnia passed just one day before the anniversary of that composer's passing. So, August 20th it is, Tom Lou de Vicky! We'd hate to remember you a week late! (Although, the way things seem to be shaping up, I may be a week late before long anyway...)

Let's see... Harry Plunket Greene, Irish bass-baritone who did little work on the opera stage, instead focusing mainly on the art song and oratorio repertoire. It wasn't because he didn't care for the physical activity required to perform opera, though. In fact, he was a noted outdoorsman in his day, and in 1924 wrote this classic on the subject of fly-fishing. Maybe all Greene needed was for an opera composer to write a role that allowed him to spend an entire act in a good pair of waders. See you on the other side of the river Styx... shhh, now... don't worry, rest easy... John Curulewski and John Panozzo aren't coming up until next February and July...

08-18: New Orleans Rhythm Kings 1922-1923 - Elmer Bernstein The Magnificent Seven 1960 - Monteverdi Fifth Book of Madrigals La Venexiana

Ordered chronologically. Tagged image here.
1613 – Giovanni Artusi (Italian music theorist, writer, polemicist & composer)
1811 – Johann Heinrich Zang (German cantor, organist, mosaic painter, composer & writer)
1853 – Peter Lichtenthal (Austrian musician, lexicographer & biographer of Niccolò Paganini)
1894 – William Charles Levey (Irish conductor, composer & pianist)
1896 – Frederick Crouch (English composer & cellist)
1942 – Erwin Schulhoff (Czech composer & pianist, perished at Wülzburg concentration camp)
1949 – Paul Mares (American jazz cornetist, trumpeter & bandleader, New Orleans Rhythm Kings)
1957 – Wawrzyniec Żuławski (Polish mountaineer, teacher, composer, music critic & musicologist)
1968 – Cy Walter (American jazz & café society pianist)
1969 – Laci Boldemann (Swedish composer, conductor & pianist)
1980 – Norman Cazden (American pianist, composer, teacher & folk musicologist)
1990 – Grethe Ingmann (Danish pop singer)
1992 – Gerard Sonder (Dutch radio host, Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep)
1994 – Gottlob Frick (German operatic bass)
2004 – Elmer Bernstein (American film score composer & conductor)
2006 – Fernand Gignac (Canadian singer, actor & comedian)


Our most prominent deathdays for August 18th include Giovanni Artusi, who's known for his arguments with the Monteverdis; Paul Mares, who led the New Orleans Rhythm Kings; pianist Cy Walter, Mabel Mercer's accompanist on many occasions, and Elmer Bernstein, one of the all-time great movie soundtrack composers.

First, a little about some of the others who caught my eye. Like Johann Heinrich Zang did with his artwork. Zang's profession was that of a church musician, but he was more famous as a creator of Musivbilder. Musivbildung, or mosaic painting, is a genre of German folk art dating back to the Middle Ages, that consists of employing everyday natural materials such as paper, sand, minerals, and even dried weeds and wildflowers to create a collage of a landscape, or a figurative or topographical scene. Zang's Musivbild pictured above (go here for a better look) is The Month of May, one of a cycle of 12 Musivbilder Zang made for each month of the year; the only two other paintings from the cycle known to survive are those for October and December. One account claims that Zang’s production of Musivbilder in the 1790s had earned him such a reputation that he even came to the attention of Czar Paul I of Russia (reigned 1796–1801), who asked Zang to send him several examples of his work. Zang produced six pieces for the Czar, including a representation of the Russian imperial coat of arms made out of seeds, grains, and butterfly wings. The Czar was so pleased with Zang’s gift that he sent not only a letter of praise but also a gold watch inlaid with 454 diamonds and 24 pearls. Unfortunately, no trace of this object exists. Probably at a pawn shop in Baltimore.

Irish conductor and composer William Charles Levey first won recognition in Paris and was subsequently conductor at the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theaters in London. He was the son of violinist and composer R. M. Levey, whose original family name was O'Shaughnessy. He adopted his mother's Hebraic maiden name on the advice of an enrollment official at one of his early London engagements, on the grounds that it was easier to pronounce, and thus would expedite his career. Well, isn't that typical? You know how it is in the Biz... if your name sounds too Irish, your agent will tell you to change it to something more Jewish-sounding. R. M. Levey is best known for co-founding the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and for his many arrangements of Irish folk tunes for violin with piano accompaniment. His son R. M. Levey II, the elder brother of William Charles Levey, was a renowned violinist who won distinction at concerts in Paris, and later in London, where he was known as "Paganini Redivus" ("Paganini Revived"). Quite a coincidence, considering that in this edition we're also remembering the man who wrote the very first biography of Niccolò Paganini, Peter Lichtenthal.

Erwin Schulhoff, a Czech composer of German ancestry, is among those quirky figures in music history who make for interesting discoveries. His early works were heavily influenced by Impressionism, and his later ones by neoclassicism and jazz, and finally by the social realism favored by Soviet composers in the 1930s and 40s. But Schulhoff also went through a Dadaist phase in the late 10s and early 20s, during which he composed a number of pieces with absurdist elements, including "In futurum" from his Fünf Pittoresken for piano, which is a completely silent piece, anticipating John Cage's 4′33″ by more than three decades. The piece, despite being composed entirely with rests, is notated in great detail durationally, employing bizarre time signatures and rhythmic patterns of considerable intricacy. Actually, Cage's 4′33″ was planned out very carefully durationally as well. It's just that he didn't write any of that down for the piece... invisible notation, to go with silent music...