11-06a: Tchaikovsky 6 Furtwängler 1938 - Busnois Missa O Crux Lignum / Orlando Consort 2005 - Schütz Geistliche Chormusik / Herreweghe 1987 - Чайко́вский Nutcracker Suite Stokowski 1934

1492 – Antoine Busnois (French composer)
1672 – Heinrich Schütz  (German composer)
1795 – Jiří Antonín Benda [Georg Anton Benda] (Czech violinist & composer)
1865 – Thérèse Wartel (French pianist, teacher, composer & music critic)
1893 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky [Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский] (Russian composer)
1897 – Edouard Deldevez (French violinist, conductor, composer & teacher)
1912 – Mykola Lysenko [Микола Лисенко] (Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor & ethnomusicologist)
1946 – Zygmunt Stojowski (Polish pianist & composer)

10-05: Revueltas Centennial Anthology - Evile Enter the Grave 2007 - Bert Jansch 1965 - Offenbach Romantique 2007

1564 – Pierre de Manchicourt (Franco-Flemish composer, active in Spain at the court of Philip II)
1707 – Daniel Speer (German composer & author)
1813 – Etienne Ozi (French bassoonist & composer)
1867 – Thomas Täglichsbeck (German violinist & composer)
1880 – Jacques Offenbach (German-born French composer, cellist & impresario)
1911 – Charles Théodore Malherbe (French musicologist & composer)
1915 – José María Usandizaga (Spanish composer & pianist, pupil of d'Indy in Paris)
1915 – Otto Malling (Danish composer, organist & teacher, pupil of Gade, director of Royal Danish Academy of Music)
1924 – Joseph Vézina (Canadian conductor, composer, organist & teacher)
1940 – Silvestre Revueltas (Mexican composer, violinist & conductor)
1943 – Leon Roppolo (American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist & guitarist, New Orleans Rhythm Kings)
1954 – Flor Alpaerts (Belgian conductor, teacher & composer, co-director of Royal Flemish Opera)
1965 – Gustaf Bengtsson (Swedish composer)
1981 – Jud Strunk (American country & pop singer, songwriter, banjoist & comedian, Laugh-In)
1992 – Eddie Kendricks (American R&B singer & songwriter, The Temptations)
1992 – Paul Acket (Dutch entrepreneur, founder of Musiek Express magazine & organizer of North Sea Jazz Festival)
1995 – Dick Jurgens (American jazz bandleader & trumpeter)
2009 – Mike Alexander (English thrash metal bass guitarist & songwriter, Evile)
2010 – Steve Lee (Swiss rock singer, songwriter, drummer & harmonica player, Gotthard)
2011 – Bert Jansch (Scottish folk singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2011 – Steve Jobs (American computer entrepreneur & innovator, co-founder & CEO of Apple Inc.)

Well, as you should know by now, this blog does occasionally feature folks who weren't necessarily musicians, but who played an important role in the world of music in one way or another. That's true of businessman Paul Acket, and boy, is it certainly true of the fellow who occupies the bottom row of the collage. Chances are, he's had more of an effect on the way you consume and listen to music than just about any other individual human being who's been alive in the past 10 years. And yes, I'm including Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Kevin Bacon in that.

See, now, that's all I have to say today. Nothing about how unique and influential Jacques Offenbach or Bert Jansch were. No inane remarks about how low-pitched instruments such as the cello, trombone, bassoon, and electric bass seem to be dominant within the October 5th cavalcade of poopery. I opined, and yet I was pithy, as my idol Bill O'Reilly might say. Yes, that was a joke. I hope you don't find my silence on these and the others to be too terribly revuelting...

BACH / STOKOWSKI BONUS ! Orchestral Transcriptions (plus more space for The Dead and Dying)

The fine transfer work of F. Reeder at the Internet Archive. Half of these 10 tracks are Stokowski transcriptions, performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The remainder are the work of Frederick Stock & Fritz Reiner with Chicago, Dimitri Mitropoulos with Minneapolis, and Pierre Monteux with San Francisco:

J. S. Bach: Transcriptions for Orchestra

If you've reached this post looking for Felix Mendelssohn, Camille Saint-Saëns, Alexander Glazunov, Antonín Dvořák, or Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, I have some bad news for you: they're dead! But you can find some of their music here:

Stokowski Sampler

STOKOWSKI SPECIAL !! | 36 tracks, 222 minutes! | Acoustic, Electric & Stereo recordings 1917-1975



"Leo-pold !!"

 I'm really only posting this because I'm hoping it will keep me from running out of label space for the next post! But I hope you enjoy this sampler of the remarkable and sometimes controversial but never boring and very creative Leopold Stokowski. It is the work of... many hands, shall we say? It's going up now...! In it, you'll hear him conducting:

The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
The Hollywood Bowl* Symphony Orchestra
The NBC Symphony Orchestra
The New Philharmonia Orchestra
The Symphony of the Air
and The All-American Symphony Orchestra

* the venue in which he's depicted above, in Warner Bros.' Long-Haired Hare (1948):

playing works by... those among The Dead and Dying... including Emmanuel Chabrier (who is also on the list with Leopold), and

~~~~~~~  ROMÂN  ~~~~~~~

compozitor George Enescu! And others I still didn't have room for in just this post's labels... such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Camille Saint-Saëns, and Alexander Glazunov, and Antonín Dvořák, and and Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov.  Crap, that last guy's practically your whole label limit right there.

09-04: Mahler 8 Stokowski live 1950 - Stellakis & Rita Rebetiko - Bach / Albert Schweitzer 1935 - Grieg Holberg Suite / Oslo Camerata 2006

1759 – Girolamo Chiti (Italian composer & biographer of Giuseppe Pitoni)
1827 – Michael Pamer (Austrian composer & conductor)
1844 – Oliver Holden (American minister & hymn composer)
1853 – Jonathan Blewitt (English organist & composer, active in Ireland)
1903 – Herman Zumpe (German conductor & composer)
1907 – Edvard Grieg (Norwegian composer & pianist)
1937 – Giovanni Salviucci (Italian composer & organist)
1937 – Stanisław Dobrzański (Polish tenor)
1937 – Vasily Petrov (Ukrainian operatic lyric bass)
1965 – Albert Schweitzer (Alsatian theologian, physician, missionary, philosopher, organist & Bach scholar)
1977 – Stellakis [Stelios Perpiniadis] (Greek rebetiko singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1991 – Carlos Alexander (American baritone)
1991 – Charlie Barnet (American jazz saxophonist, composer & bandleader, "Cherokee")
1991 – Dottie West (American country singer, songwriter & guitarist)
1995 – Chuck Greenberg (American new age musician & producer, Shadowfax)
1997 – Belle Stewart (Scottish folksinger)
2002 – Vlado Perlemuter (Lithuanian-born French pianist)
2003 – Tibor Varga (Hungarian violinist & conductor)
2003 – Lola Bobesco (Romanian-born Belgian violinist)
2006 – Astrid Varnay (Swedish-born American dramatic soprano of Hungarian ancestry)

Write-up pending. Won't really be all that much to say, though. I mean, you got your Grieg, you got your Dottie West, you got your Charlie Barnet, you got your Albert Schweitzer (he didn't just give medical attention to African children, he played the organ and wrote about Bach, too), and you got some pretty famous violinists & singers. You also got your first chance to pay a little attention to Gustav Mahler, like we're trying to do during this, his death centenary year. Haven't been any Mahler conductors of note on our lists in the past month, but baritone Carlos Alexander fits the bill, thanks to a certain landmark Carnegie Hall performance he participated in. Of course, he was just one performer among, oh, about 1000 others, I guess (*wink*wink*), but he does get a big solo in one part.

You know what, forget about the "write-up pending" nonsense. I'm going to go ahead and call this one finished, even though it might have been nice to say some things about Stellakis Perpiniadis, and Lola Bobesco, and Belle Stewart, and Astrid Varnay, and even Edvard Grieg, famous as he is. Go, now, and do what you know you must...