11-28: Steppenwolf Fillmore West 1968 - Lennie Tristano Toronto 1952 - Havergal Brian Symphony 1 Gothic / Lenard 1989 - Haydn Symphony 93 94 Surprise 95 / Bernstein 1971-1972


1585 – Hernando Franco (Spanish composer, active in Guatemala & Mexico)
1695 – Giovanni Paolo Colonna (Italian organist & composer)
1815 – Johann Peter Salomon (German violinist, impresario, composer & conductor, active in London, associate of Haydn)
1860 – Ludwig Rellstab (German poet & music critic)
1861 – Robert Führer (Czech composer)
1878 – Marco Aurelio Zani de Ferranti (Italian guitarist & composer)
1907 – Ricardo Castro Herrera (Mexican pianist & composer)
1918 – Alexis Contant (Canadian composer, organist, pianist & teacher)
1935 – Erich von Hornbostel (Austrian ethnomusicologist, musical psychologist & co-author of Sachs-Hornbostel system)
1966 – Vittorio Giannini (American composer & violinist)
1972 – Havergal Brian (English composer of 32 symphonies, including the largest-scale ever performed)
1972 – Gustave Frederic Soderlund (Swedish composer, music theorist, author & teacher)
1976 – Robert Fleming (Canadian composer, pianist, organist, choirmaster & teacher)
1987 – Paul Arma [Amrusz Pál] (Hungarian-born French pianist, composer & ethnomusicologist)
1989 – Jo Vincent (Dutch soprano)
1993 – Jerry Edmonton (Canadian rock drummer, Steppenwolf)
1994 – Al Levitt (American jazz drummer, active also in France & the Canary Islands)
1996 – Anna Pollak (Austrian-born British mezzo-soprano)
2002 – Dave "Snaker" Ray (American blues singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2007 – Gudrun Wagner (German co-director of Bayreuth Festival along with husband Wolfgang, grandson of Richard)


Today, we get two very different looks at that most elevated instrumental genre of them all - the symphony!

First, thanks to Johann Peter Salomon, the impresario who brought Franz Joseph Haydn to London between 1791 and 1795 to regale the English public with what would turn out to be his last twelve symphonic statements - we have works which represent, along with the last few of Mozart, the ones that are definitive of the genre during the Classical period (at least until Beethoven got to it and transformed what it meant for all time). These symphonies of Haydn (nos. 93 thru 104), usually called his "London Symphonies," are sometimes instead called the "Salomon Symphonies" in honor of the man without whom they likely would never have been written.

Then, we have a very different product - what the symphony had grown into by a century or more later. No longer is it merely the vehicle for the composer's loftiest philosophical ideas. After Berlioz, and Liszt, and Bruckner, it's become something of a monstrosity, a paean to the cult of the gigantic, at least among late-Romantic composers with "progressive" or "modernist" tendencies. And in Havergal Brian's Symphony No. 1, "The Gothic" (completed in 1927), we find the sine qua non of this development, a work that surpasses even Gustav Mahler's largest creations (his 2nd, 3rd, and 8th symphonies) in its length (close to 2 hours) and in the performing forces it requires (nearly 200 instrumentalists, plus several hundred singers).

Brian's "Gothic" has even won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "largest-scale symphony" ever written. However, some claim that the Symphony No. 3 by Kaikhosru Sorabji is even longer - a believable claim, if you know anything about Sorabji. However, that symphony (like many of Sorabji's more humungous creations) has yet to be performed by anyone, so it's difficult to say. 

Oh, symphony... how far you've come, since the early 18th century when you were just a multi-sectional overture to an opera or oratorio! Baby symphony done all growed up and ever'thang.

11-27c: Our Labels Runneth Over

If you clicked on one of The Dead and Dying, and now you're reading this post, don't worry. Just go to the previous post.

11-27b: Lee Morgan Delightfulee 1966 - Weill / Brecht Three Penny Opera (in English) : Lotte Lenya 1954 - Dufay Music For St Anthony Of Padua / Binchois Consort 1996 - Honegger : Jeanne d'Arc au Bucher / Zorina | Ormandy 1952



1474 – Guillaume Dufay (Flemish composer)
1749 – Balthasar Schmid (German composer & music publisher, friend of J.S. Bach)
1749 – Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (German composer)
1890 – Emanuele Muzio (Italian conductor & composer, friend & assistant to Verdi)
1899 – Felipe Gutiérrez y Espinosa (Puerto Rican composer)
1915 – Sigismund Zaremba [Сигизмунд Заремба] (Ukrainian composer & conductor of Polish ancestry)
1916 – James Cutler Dunn Parker (American composer, organist & pianist)
1932 – Evelyn Preer (American actress & blues singer)
1955 – Luís de Freitas Branco (Portuguese composer & teacher)
1955 – Arthur Honegger (French-born Swiss composer & violinist)
1958 – Artur Rodziński (Polish-born American conductor)
1965 – Carl Parrish (American musicologist & author)
1967 – Héctor [Ettore] Panizza (Argentine conductor & composer)
1968 – Hans Redlich (Austrian composer, conductor, musicologist & author)
1968 – Gino Roncaglia (Italian musicologist & author)
1973 – Frank Christian (American jazz trumpeter)
1981 – Lotte Lenya (Austrian singer, monologist & actress, spouse of Kurt Weill)
1982 – Filip Kutev [Филип Кутев] (Bulgarian composer & choirmaster, Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir)
1988 – Karel Horký (Czech composer & bassoonist)
1994 – Fernando Lopes-Graça (Portuguese composer & musicologist)
1998 – Barbara Acklin (American soul singer & songwriter)
2005 – Joe Jones (American R&B singer, songwriter & arranger)
2006 – Don Butterfield (American jazz & classical tuba player)
2006 – Alan Freeman (English disc jockey)


Sorry... been busy. I hope this will make it up to you. One of hard-bop trumpet great Lee Morgan's very best albums, one of the best recordings available of the beautiful sacred music of early Renaissance master Guillaume Dufay, a landmark recording of Arthur Honneger's scintillating masterpiece Joan of Arc at the Stake...

... and Lotte Lenya (who's remembered best by most people for her portrayal of the sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond film From Russia With Love) reprising the role of Jenny, which she'd created in 1928 for her husband Kurt Weill's Dreigroschenoper. This Broadway cast recording from 1954 is of Marc Blitzstein's adaptation in English, and the cast also includes a young Bea Arthur - surely that's got to sweeten the deal for you!

Another thing thing I should mention, just in case it causes confusion. The drummer in the big band on the Lee Morgan date is Philly Joe Jones - not the Joe Jones who's on our list, who was a singer! Those Joe Joneses have always got to be causing trouble this way, don't they? Anyway, it's all for the sake of tuba genius Don Butterfield, who also plays in that big band. Of course, all of them... Lee, both Joe Joneses, Don... have long since pooped. So I guess it's all the same...

11-27a: RODZINSKI / REEDER ROUNDUP! Mussorgsky | Tchaikovsky | Sibelius | Richard Strauss | Shostakovich AND MORE...





The main post for 11-27 will follow, but first here are a bunch of transfers of Columbia 78s featuring the work of Artur Rodziński (d. Nov. 27, 1958), all made by the trusty F. Reeder over at the Internet Archive. A few of these I believe we've seen already, but at least a couple dozen we haven't, and I found it too difficult to choose from them... so I'll leave that up to you!

Rodziński is most famous for his legendary decade with the Cleveland Orchestra, from 1933 to 1943. Much of the credit usually given to the tyrannical George Szell for transforming that orchestra into the world-class organization it is today should really be reserved for Rodziński; for without the prior groundwork he laid the Clevelanders would not have been up to Szell's exacting demands. Rodziński also had four great seasons in New York with the Philharmonic, and as guest conductor for Toscanini's NBC Symphony, which Rodziński had helped to organize in 1936–37.

Rodziński's later years, first in New York, and then in an abortive stint at the Chicago Symphony in 1947–48, were characterized by a lot of personal wrangling with orchestra management. His reputation as a conductor was such that his resignation from the New York Philharmonic was actually a cover story for Time magazine in February 1947:


After Chicago, Rodziński had no further long-term positions in his career; he did do quite a bit of freelance work, especially in the opera pit, both in the United States and in Europe. And it's perhaps because of this somewhat sour end to his professional life that he isn't remembered as well as some of his contemporaries, even though he was certainly at least their equal as a musician.

He was tall; he used a big baton; he preferred brisk tempi; he was renowned wherever he mounted the podium for his muscular yet refined interpretations. Enjoy these recordings by this too-little-lauded master of the orchestra!


11-26: Soulja Slim The Streets Made Me 2001 - Grieg Complete Lyric Pieces / Goldenweiser 1952-1954 - Pierre Vachon | Nicholas d'Alayrac / Loewenguth String Quartet 1959

Not shown above: Friedrich Heine, Edward Julius Biedermann


1717 – Daniel Purcell (English composer & organist, younger brother of Henry)
1778 – Jean-Noël Hamal (Belgian composer)
1809 – Nicolas-Marie d'Alayrac (French composer)
1810 – Nicolas Étienne Framéry (French writer, poet, dramaturge & composer)
1821 – Friedrich Heine (German composer)
1822 – Johann Baptist Henneberg (German composer)
1866 – Adrien-François Servais (Belgian cellist & composer)
1880 – Guilherme António Cossoul (Portuguese cellist & composer)
1925 – Johannes Haarklou (Norwegian composer)
1933 – Edward Julius Biedermann (American organist, teacher & composer)
1956 – Tommy Dorsey (American jazz trombonist & bandleader)
1959 – Albert Ketèlbey (English composer, conductor & pianist)
1961 – Alexander Goldenweiser [Александр Гольденвейзер] (Russian pianist, teacher & composer)
1963 – Amelita Galli-Curci (Italian coloratura soprano)
1966 – Harold Burrage (American blues, R&B & soul singer & pianist)
1982 – Juhan Aavik (Estonian composer, conductor, trumpeter & teacher)
1987 – Emmanuel Bondeville (French composer, organist & radio & opera company administrator)
1994 – Nimrod Workman (American folksinger, coal miner & trade unionist)
1996 – Dame Joan Hammond (Australian soprano & champion golfer)
1997 – Francis Paudras (French artist, author, amateur pianist & jazz patron)
2002 – Polo Montañez (Cuban folk & pop singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2003 – Soulja Slim (American rapper & songwriter)
2005 – Mark Craney (American rock & jazz drummer, Jethro Tull, Tommy Bolin, Jean-Luc Ponty)


Welcome to YiDM, the only place in the blogosphere where you can find 18th-century French string quartets and Southern gangsta rap in the same post.


11-25: Nick Drake Pink Moon 1971 - Throbbing Gristle 20 Jazz Funk Greats 1979 - Fenton Robinson Somebody Loan Me A Dime 1974 - US Festival 1983 Metal Day : Quiet Riot | Motley Crue | Ozzy | Judas Priest | Triumph | Scorpions | Van Halen



Not shown above: Francesco Feroci, Julien-Fernand Vaubourgoin
1640 – Giles Farnaby (English composer & virginalist)
1748 – Isaac Watts (English hymnwriter, theologian & philosopher)
1750 – Francesco Feroci (Italian priest, organist & composer)
1755 – Johann Georg Pisendel (German violinist, composer & conductor)
1830 – Pierre Rode (French violinist, composer & teacher)
1883 – Ludwig Erk (German music teacher & composer)
1881 – Theobald Boehm (German flutist, flute maker & inventor of Boehm system of keywork for woodwinds)
1895 – Edmond van der Straeten (Belgian musicologist, music critic, lawyer & composer)
1899 – Robert Lowry (American minister, hymn composer, hymnbook editor & teacher)
1901 – Josef Rheinberger (German organist, composer, teacher & music theorist)
1914 – Davorin Jenko (Slovenian composer, Serbian & former Slovenian national anthems)
1952 – Antonio Guarnieri (Italian conductor & cellist)
1952 – Julien-Fernand Vaubourgoin (French organist, composer & teacher)
1965 – Dame Myra Hess (English pianist)
1968 – Marcel Labey (French conductor & composer)
1974 – Nick Drake (English folk & rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist, clarinetist & saxophonist)
1997 – Fenton Robinson (American blues singer & guitarist, "Somebody Loan Me A Dime")
2006 – Valentín Elizalde (Mexican banda & norteño singer, "El Gallo de Oro")
2007 – Kevin DuBrow (American rock singer, Quiet Riot)
2010 – Peter Christopherson (English industrial & electronic musician & video director, Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Psychic TV)


Two luminaries from the fascinating world of musical instruments are on our list: Pierre Rode, whose caprices for the violin are considered to be preparatory for the virtuoso-level caprices by Paganini; and Theobald Boehm, whose keywork and fingering system for the flute have become standard for that instrument, and have been applied successfully to other members of the woodwind group as well.

However, your supplemental reading does not concern these two, but rather a British folk-rock genius taken from us much too young, a master of Chicago electric blues who penned a much-covered standard, one of the most important pioneers of the industrial music genre, and a pretty darned good hard rock singer... along with a bunch of others he shared the stage with one rockin' Sunday back in '83! 

I hope you all have had a Wonderful Winter Solstice, a Merry Christmas, or a Very Good Whatever Holiday You Happen To Be Celebrating At This Time Of Year! Enjoy!


11-24b: KISS Auckland 1980 - Albert Collins Ice Pickin' 1978 - Edison Denisov : Chant d'automne | Concertos / Mikhailov 1993 - Hawthorne Heights : Midwesterners The Hits 2010



1991 – Eric Carr [Paul Caravello] (American rock drummer, Kiss, "The Fox")
1993 – Albert Collins (American blues guitarist, singer & harmonica player, "The Ice Man", "Master of the Telecaster")
1996 – Edison Denisov [Эдисо́н Дени́сов] (Russian composer & teacher, one of
Khrennikov's Seven)
1997 – Barbara [Monique Andrée Serf] (French pop singer, songwriter, pianist & actress)
2001 – Melanie Thornton (American dance & pop singer, active in Germany)
2004 – Wong Jim [黄沾
] (Hong Kong Cantopop songwriter, writer, actor, director & talk show host)
2006 – Juice Leskinen (Finnish Manserock singer-songwriter)

2007 – Casey Calvert (American rock guitarist & singer, Hawthorne Heights)
2008 – Kenny MacLean (Scottish-born Canadian rock bass guitarist, guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter & singer, Platinum Blonde)