08-31: The Move 1968 - John Ward / Rose Consort of Viols - Lionel Hampton Complete Jazztone Recordings 1956 - Verdi Otello arias / Francesco Tamagno 1903 - Bartók / Spivakovsky / Balsam 1947

1604 – Giovanni Giovenale Ancina (Italian priest, scholar & composer, beatified 1889)
1616 – Gemignano Capilupi (Italian composer)
1631 – Nicolaus Erich (German composer & church musician)
1638 – John Ward the younger (English composer, chorister & lawyer)
1667 – Johann von Rist (German poet, playwright & hymnist)
1730 – Gottfried Finger (Moravian composer)
1795 – François-André Danican Philidor (French composer & chess master)
1805 – Joseph dall'Abaco (Belgian cellist & composer, active in Germany, England & Italy)
1832 – Jean Nicolas Auguste Kreutzer (French violinist & composer, younger brother of Rodolphe)
1862 – Ignaz Aßmayer (Austrian composer, organist & church musician)
1905 – Francesco Tamagno (Italian operatic tenor)
1910 – Pierre Aubry (French musicologist, 13th-century specialist)
1910 – Emīls Dārziņš (Latvian composer, conductor & music critic)
1923 – Ernst Van Dyck (Belgian operatic tenor)
1946 – Paul von Klenau (Danish composer & conductor, active in Germany & Austria)
1949 – Paul Höffer (German composer, pianist & teacher)
1964 – Désiré Defrère (Belgian operatic tenor)
1965 – Antonin Trantoul (French operatic tenor)
1969 – Ottmar Gerster (German composer, violinist & pianist)
1975 – Jonny Born (German operatic baritone)
1994 – Artur [Arthur] Balsam (Polish-born American pianist & teacher)
2002 – Lionel Hampton (American jazz vibraphonist, drummer, pianist, bandleader & actor)
2002 – Farhad Mehrad (Iranian rock singer, songwriter, guitarist & pianist)
2003 – Jaap Geraedts (Dutch composer & flutist)
2004 – Carl Wayne (English rock singer, keyboardist & electric bassist, The Move)

Well, I'm not going to say "write-up pending" today, because I already have three posts I have to go back and amend, so today I'm just going to keep it short and sweet for a change.

On August 31st we remember John Ward, English composer of viol music (Read more below); F.-A. Danican Philidor, whose family formed a long lineage of French court musicians, and who also has two chess moves named after him; Auguste Kreutzer, brother of Rodolphe Kreutzer, to whom Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" (the sonata after which Tolstoy's novella (the novella by which Janáček's first string quartet was inspired) was named) was dedicated; and Ignaz Aßmayer, who gave organ lessons to Anton Bruckner, and whose name looks very funny if you don't have a German double-s handy.

We also remember Francesco Tamagno, the tenor who created the title role of Verdi's Otello in 1887 (that's to say, he was the very first to sing the role of Otello - well, unless you count the much less famous Otello by Rossini from 1816, for which Andrea Nozzari created the title role - Read more below); Ernst Van Dyck, the tenor who created the title role of Massenet's Werther in 1893; Pierre Aubry, an early scholarly specialist in medieval music; and Artur Balsam, a pianist who made many recordings in the late 78 and early LP era (Read more below).

Finally, we remember Lionel Hampton, who for all intents and purposes invented jazz vibraphone during the swing era (Read more below); Farhad Mehrad, who pioneered Persian rock music in the 70s, and had his music banned in Iran after the revolution, but has grown to be more accepted by the religious establishment as Iran's population has become younger and more liberal; and Carl Wayne, lead singer for The Move (Read more below), the British psychedelic rock group that later metamorphized into E.L.O. after Jeff Lynne joined it.

There! That was so short I needn't even bother with the usual "jump." But if you really feel like doing some more "reading," I think you know what to do...

Read more...