12-25b: Wagner : Siegfried / Windgassen | Nilsson | Hotter | Sutherland | Solti 1962

2005 – Birgit Nilsson (Swedish dramatic soprano)


As promised.

12-25a: James Brown : Zaire 1974 - Zappa & Mothers : Appleton WI 1969 - Vic Chesnutt : Berlin 2007 - Derek Bailey : Mirakle 2000

Not shown: Antonio Tonelli, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, Johann Erik Nordblom & Alphonse Goovaerts

1765 – Antonio Tonelli (Italian cellist & composer)
1842 – Bedřich Diviš Weber [Friedrich Dionys Weber] (Czech composer & musicologist, first director of the Prague Conservatory)
1845 – Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (German composer, grandson of Johann Sebastian)
1848 – Johann Erik Nordblom (Swedish composer & conductor)
1883 – Marek Konrad Sokołowski (Polish guitarist & composer)
1904 – Per Jonas Fredrik Vilhelm Svedbom (Swedish composer & teacher)
1921 – Hans Huber (Swiss composer)
1922 – Alphonse Goovaerts (Belgian composer & author)
1930 – Harvey Worthington Loomis (American composer associated with Indianist movement)
1936 – Pierre Maurice (Swiss composer & stage actor)
1942 – Vojislav Vučković (Yugoslavian composer, musicologist & conductor)
1943 – Ilona Durigo (Hungarian contralto)
1943 – R. Huntington Woodman (American composer)
1954 – Rosario Scalero (Italian violinist, teacher & composer)
1954 – Johnny Ace (American R&B singer)
1957 – Charles Pathé (French pioneer of film & record industries)
1971 – Byron Arnold (American musicologist & folklorist)
1977 – Charlie Chaplin (English actor, film director & composer)
1980 – Louis Neefs (Belgian pop singer & television & radio presenter)
1985 – George Rhodes (American television music director, arranger, conductor & composer, NBC, Sammy Davis, Jr.)
1995 – Dean Martin (American pop singer, actor, comedian & television personality)
1995 – Nicolas Slonimsky (Russian-born American composer, conductor, pianist, music critic, lexicographer & author)
1998 – Bryan MacLean (American rock guitarist, singer & songwriter, the Grass Roots, Love)
2005 – Derek Bailey (English free-jazz guitarist)
2005 – Birgit Nilsson (Swedish dramatic soprano)
2006 – James Brown (American soul singer, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist, "Godfather of Soul", "Mr. Dynamite", etc.)
2007 – Mighty King Kong [Paul Otieno Imbaya] (Kenyan reggae musician)
2008 – Eartha Kitt (American actress & pop singer)
2009 – Vic Chesnutt (American folk, country & rock singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2011 – Jim Sherwood ["Motorhead"] (American rock saxophonist, singer & percussionist, Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention)

Merry Christmas!

Not quite done yet, though! We still have to hear the fat lady sing...

Oh, and I forgot I was going to mention... I do believe, looking at this list, that there were more big-name celebrities that died on Christmas Day than on any other day we've looked at so far. Also, that Dean Martin died 10 years to the day after George Rhodes, the music director of Martin's old pal and fellow Rat Pack-er Sammy Davis, Jr. Just another one of those little coincidences we see around here all the time, babe.

12-24: John Dunstaple ( Dunstable ) / Orlando Consort 1995 - Bernard Hermann Film Music / Salonen 1996 - Alban Berg Chamber Concerto Boulez / Barenboim 1967 | Violin Concerto Boulez / Zukerman 1984 - Alec Wilder : Hansel & Gretel / Barbara Cook | Rudy Vallee 1958

Not shown: Friedrich Klose, Francisco Pujol & Alan Fluck

1453 – John Dunstaple [Dunstable] (English composer, astronomer, astrologer & mathematician)
1823 – Philipp Christoph Kayser (German pianist, composer & poet, friend of Goethe)
1862 – Joseph Funk (American music publisher, composer & teacher)
1898 – Eugeniusz Pankiewicz (Polish composer & pianist, brother of Józef)
1908 – François-Auguste Gevaert (Belgian composer & organist)
1930 – Oskar Nedbal (Czech violist, composer & conductor)
1932 – Eyvind Alnæs (Norwegian composer, pianist, organist & choirmaster)
1935 – Alban Berg (Austrian composer)
1941 – Siegfried Alkan (German composer)
1942 – Friedrich Klose (German composer)
1944 – Joseph Gustav Mraczek (Czech-born German composer & conductor)
1945 – Francisco Pujol (Spanish choirmaster, musicologist & composer)
1961 – Guy de Lioncourt (French composer)
1966 – Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu (Spanish cellist & composer)
1972 – César Geoffray (French composer, violinist & conductor)
1975 – Bernard Herrmann (American film & concert composer & conductor, associated in particular with the films of Alfred Hitchcock)
1980 – Alec Wilder (American multi-genre composer)
1980 – Siggie Nordstrom (American model, actress, socialite & lead singer of The Nordstrom Sisters)
1987 – Betty Noyes (American actress & singer, dubbed singing voice of Debbie Reynolds in Singin' in the Rain)
1992 – Bobby LaKind (American conga player, backup drummer, singer & songwriter, The Doobie Brothers)
1994 – Rossano Brazzi (Italian actor & singer, Three Coins in the Fountain, South Pacific)
1997 – Alan Fluck (English music teacher, Farnham Grammar School, pupils included Jeffrey Tate)
1997 – Anthea Joseph (English manager of London folk music venue The Troubadour & co-producer at Witchseason Productions)
2000 – Nick Massi (American bass singer & bass guitarist, The Four Seasons)
2002 – Luciano Chailly (Italian composer & music administrator in radio & television, father of Riccardo & Cecilia)
2002 – Jake Thackray (English folk singer, songwriter, guitarist, poet & journalist)
2006 – Braguinha aka João de Barro [Carlos Alberto Ferreira Braga] (Brazilian composer & singer of sambas & marchinhas)
2006 – Kenneth Sivertsen (Norwegian multi-genre composer, singer, guitarist, poet & comedian)
2010 – Eino Tamberg (Estonian composer)
2011 – Johannes Heesters (Dutch actor & singer)

Here we have some notable composers who worked in multiple genres... one of the all-time great film composers... and two important figures in the British folk-music renaissance of the 60s & 70s. But most prominently, we have the earliest truly great English composer; and the composer who more than any other represents the point of continuation between the Austro-German Romantic tradition that ended with Mahler and Strauss and the atonal modernism of the 20th century.

Both Dunstaple and Berg can be thought of as transitional composers. With Berg, it's easy to hear why. Berg's highly expressive 12-tone music recalls the overripe Romanticism of the late music of Mahler to a greater extent than does that of Schoenberg, and to a far greater extent than does that of Webern - those other two main representatives of the Second Viennese School.

With Dunstaple, one has to put on 14th- and 15-century ears to appreciate how his late-Medieval music anticipates an important feature of Renaissance music. In medieval Britain, musical practice had developed in a more independent fashion than it had on the continent, one salient result of this being that the interval of a 3rd is far more prevalent in it, lending it a greater sweetness than is found in French and Italian music of the period.

Starting in the late 14th century, that sweet sound of 3rds starts to catch on outside of England. As the decades wear on - and thanks in no small measure to the popularity of Dunstaple and other English composers of his day - we find more and more that those 3rds start being treated as stable sonorities. It's when the 3rd starts finally being admitted all over Europe as a true consonance alongside the perfect 5th and octave that we can say the transition from Medieval harmony to Renaissance harmony is complete. Or something like that.

12-23: Funkadelic : Maggot Brain 1971 - Oscar Peterson Trio + One 1964 - Pasha Hristova : A Bulgarian Rose 1972 - Jan Dismas Zelenka : Orchesterwerke / Camerata Bern 1978

Not shown: Jean-Louis Lully, Michel Delalande, Arrigo Pedrollo, Norman Dinnerstein & Charles Shirley

1688 – Jean-Louis Lully (French composer, son of Jean-Baptiste)
1745 – Jan Dismas Zelenka (greatest Czech composer of the Baroque period)
1812 – Michel Delalande (French composer)
1869 – Julian Fontana (Polish pianist, composer, lawyer, author, translator & entrepreneur, friend of Chopin)
1891 – Holger Simon Paulli (Danish conductor, composer & violinist)
1908 – Eduard Wachmann (German-born Romanian composer, conductor & pianist)
1911 – Karl Hoschna (Czech-born American popular songwriter, musical theater composer & oboist)
1950 – Vincenzo Tommasini (Italian composer)
1951 – Alfrēds Kalniņš (Latvian composer, organist, music critic & conductor)
1964 – Arrigo Pedrollo (Italian composer)
1967 – Richard Flury (Swiss composer & conductor)
1971 – Pasha Hristova [Паша Христова] (Bulgarian pop singer)
1971 – Carlo Jachino (Italian composer & author)
1982 – Norman Dinnerstein (American composer)
1992 – Eddie Hazel (American funk guitarist, Parliament-Funkadelic)
1994 – Charles Shirley (American jazz arranger & alcoholism counselor)
1996 – Rina Ketty (French chanteuse)
1996 – Ronnie Scott (English jazz tenor saxophonist & nightclub owner)
2000 – Noor Jehan [نور جہاں] (Pakistani Qawwali & playback singer, actress, film director & composer)
2000 – Victor Borge (Danish-born American comedian & pianist)
2006 – Timothy J. Tobias (American film composer, jazz pianist, arranger & producer)
2007 – Oscar Peterson (Canadian jazz pianist & composer)

I was wrong yesterday, wasn't I? Since Joe Strummer died, it has been not ten years, but only a little more than nine. I keep forgetting that while it's now 2012, I still haven't finished with 2011. But it will only be a few more days before that pathetic state of affairs comes to an end! Until then, have a merry Festivus... and remember, you have just one day left to get in that last-minute shopping!