09-20: Sibelius 1 2 5 7 Barbirolli - Link 80 Killing Katie 1997 - Ben Webster Ballads 1955 - Gilles Binchois / Discantus 2009 - Sarasate Zigeunerweisen Heifetz 1937

1460 – Gilles Binchois (Franco-Flemish composer)
1590 – Lodovico Agostini (Italian composer, singer, priest & scholar)
1630 – Claudio Saracini (Italian composer, lutenist & singer)
1648 – Ivan Lukačić (Croatian-born composer & church musician, active in Italy)
1896 – Johan Gottfried Conradi (Norwegian conductor & composer)
1897 – Karel Bendl (Czech composer & conductor)
1908 – Pablo de Sarasate (Spanish violinist & composer)
1957 – Jean Sibelius (Finnish composer)
1957 – Heino Kaski (Finnish composer & pianist)
1960 – Michel Brusselmans (Belgian soundtrack composer)
1967 – Henri Mulet (French organist & composer)
1968 – Frank Pelleg (Czech-born Israeli harpsichordist, pianist, conductor, composer & teacher)
1973 – Ben Webster (American jazz tenor saxophonist & pianist)
1973 – Jim Croce (American singer-songwriter & guitarist)
1974 – Robert Herberigs (Belgian composer)
1984 – Steve Goodman (American folk singer-songwriter, "City of New Orleans")
1994 – Jule Styne (English-born American Broadway composer & pianist)
1994 – Jimmy Hamilton (American jazz clarinetist, tenor saxophonist, arranger, composer & teacher)
1996 – Paul Weston (American pop pianist, arranger, composer & conductor)
1997 – Nick Traina (American punk/ska singer, Link 80, son of Danielle Steel)
2006 – Armin Jordan (Swiss conductor)
2006 – John W. Peterson (American composer of hymns & cantatas)
2010 – Leonard Skinner (American high school gym teacher, namesake of Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Some great favorites here. Both Gilles Binchois and Ben Webster were one of the Big Three in their day. "Wha??" you say? That's right... Binchois, considered by some the finest melodist of the 15th century, was one of the most prominent members of the Burgundian School, along with Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstable - composers who served the court of Burgundy and represented the first generation of composers we think of as "Renaissance." And Ben Webster was one of the three greatest tenor sax players to come out of the swing era, along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young.

They called Webster "The Brute" or "Frog" because of the rough, raspy tone he used on rhythm tunes - although his sound became sweetly coy and sentimental on ballads. In fact, it's safe to say that with Ben Webster, we get a greater timbral variety, from wispy, breathy warbles to petulant growls, than we do with just about any other sax player in jazz. And look, there's reedman Jimmy Hamilton on the list, too! Both Webster and Hamilton were alumni of Duke Ellington's great orchestra in the 30s & 40s... Hamilton stayed on with Ellington for decades longer, but Webster had a falling-out with the Duke (in which he apparently cut up one of Ellington's suits - ouch!) and went off on his own in 1943. Webster would go on to do his best work in the 50s, perhaps most notably on Soulville from 1957, considered to be the very first soul jazz album in the history of jazz... and, soul.

The real bigwig on the list, however, is the national composer of Finland, Jean Sibelius. It must suck to be any Finnish composer coming after Sibelius - always being compared to this musical giant who had such an idiosyncratic artistic voice. And boy, it must have really sucked to be poor Heino Kaski... a much lesser-known Finnish composer, pooping on the same day as Sibelius. Sibelius, who for many years was widely performed little elsewhere than in the Nordic countries and Britain, is known primarily for his seven symphonies, his violin concerto, and his many symphonic poems based on Finnish lore and legend. He's also known as one of the last of the great late Romantic composers, who somewhat like Richard Strauss lived into the mid-20th century as a symbol of a bygone era as several fads of modernism came and went. Unlike Strauss, Sibelius decided he'd said all he wanted to by the late 1920s, and committed hardly a note to music paper for the last 30 years of his life, preferring instead to focus his energies on fostering interest in performances and recordings of his existing body of works. See you on the other side of the early retirement...

08-27: Terrorizer : World Downfall 1989 - Josquin L'homme armé Masses : Tallis Scholars - Ella Fitzgerald Whisper Not 1967 - Beethoven Choral Fantasy : Serkin / Bernstein 1962

To represent Joan Cererols, I used the Basilica of Montserrat, his place of burial. Tagged image here.

1521 – Josquin des Prez (Franco-Flemish composer)
1680 – Joan Cererols (Spanish composer & Benedictine monk)
1746 – Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (German composer & keyboardist)
1841 – Ignaz von Seyfried (Austrian conductor & composer, pupil of Mozart, friend of Beethoven)
1846 – Frantiszek Ścigalski (Polish composer, violinist & conductor)
1846 – Gottfried Wilhelm Fink (German theologian, poet, composer, writer & lecturer on music & music editor)
1855 – Francisco Eduardo da Costa (Portuguese pianist & composer)
1865 – Józef Nowakowski (Polish composer, pianist & teacher, friend of Chopin)
1867 – Karol Kątski (Polish violinist & composer)
1868 – Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (Swiss composer, pianist, conductor & writer on music)
1883 – August Friedrich Pott (German violinist & composer)
1887 – Wilhelm Volkmar (German organist & composer)
1922 – Carl Fuchs (German cellist, composer, teacher & writer on music)
1948 – Oscar Lorenzo Fernández (Brazilian composer, violinist, pianist, cellist & academician)
1948 – Oley Speaks (American songwriter & baritone singer)
1953 – Nicolai Berezowsky (Russian-born American violinist, composer & conductor)
1958 – Nina Garelli (Italian operatic soprano)
1962 – Carlos Lavín (Chilean composer & musicologist)
1964 – Aleksey Zhivotov (Russian composer)
1965 – Otto Reinhold (German composer)
1967 – Brian Epstein (English music entrepreneur & manager of The Beatles)
1976 – Mukesh (Indian Bollywood playback singer)
1979 – Bolesław Szabelski (Polish composer)
1981 – Joan Edwards (American jazz singer & philanthropist)
1990 – Stevie Ray Vaughan (American blues guitarist & singer)
1991 – Vince Taylor (English rock singer & songwriter, The Playboys, "Brand New Cadillac")
1994 – El Polaco [Roberto Goyeneche] (Argentine tango singer)
1994 – Thomas Hayward (American operatic tenor & teacher)
1995 – Marty Paich (American jazz arranger, pianist, composer & conductor)
1997 – Sotiria Bellou (Greek rebetiko singer)
2005 – Giorgos Mouzakis (Greek songwriter, trumpeter & composer of light music)
2006 – Jesse Pintado (Mexican-born American metal guitarist, Napalm Death)

On August 27th we remember one of history's greatest composers, Josquin; the greatest Spanish composer of Josquin's century, Victoria (who may have died on the 20th, not the 27th - I opted for the earlier date to remember him, considering how full-up the 27th is - I mean, just LOOK at that list); Beatles manager Brian Epstein; Bollywood playback singer Mukesh; Texas blues great Stevie Ray Vaughan; jazz arranger Marty Paich; grindcore guitar pioneer Jesse Pintado of Napalm Death; and a whole lot of other tuneful stiffs...

Such as Gottfried Wilhelm Fink. Fink was, among many other things, both a poet and a composer. Thus, many of his compositions are Lieder for which he set his own poems to music. I have no idea if they're any good. But, it is kind of interesting, and something you don't see every day in a 19th-century composer. Of course, much earlier, you had your medieval poet-composers: your troubadours, your trouvères, your Minnesänger. But eventually a division of labor between writing of lyrics and music became pretty standard, at least for professional songwriters.

Now, for folk musicians - itinerant minstrels, jongleurs, country blues singers and the like - it's always been a little different. But even up until the mid-20th century, lyrics and music of published songs were usually written by separate persons. Songwriters who did both, like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and (sometimes) Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael were definitely exceptions to the rule. And that's for pop songwriting. In the classical world, such exceptions are still almost unheard-of, which is why Fink is quite remarkable. Rotten about his surname. With a name like Fink you don't get very far in the English-speaking world. Although in German, it merely means "finch," which is quite lovely. Seriously, take a look at these guys and tell me they aren't the most delightful creatures you've ever seen:

As you can see, some of them are more colorful than others.

Oscar Lorenzo Fernández was a Brazilian composer of Spanish descent. His nationalistic opera Malazarte (1931–33) is considered the first successful Brazilian opera of this type. Its Portuguese libretto by Graça Aranha was for some reason translated into Italian for its 1941 premiere at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro. In 1936, Fernández founded the Conservatório Brasiliero de Música in Rio, which he directed until you-know-what happened.

Nicolai Berezowsky recalled in his memoire Duet with Nicky that as a young chorister in the Imperial Capella in St. Petersburg, the choir sometimes sang for the family of Tsar Nicholas and Rasputin. He says the choirboys would tear pages from their hymnals to make spit-balls which they would aim at Rasputin. After settling in New York, Berezowsky attended Juilliard and played in the 1st Violin section of the New York Philharmonic. He was a protégé of Serge Koussevitzky, who premiered his symphonies to great acclaim. In his lifetime, he was apparently a better-known composer than Aaron Copland.

Do you know who wrote the music to "On the Road to Mandalay," with words by Rudyard Kipling, that Frank Sinatra recorded for his 1958 album Come Fly With Me? - Oley Speaks. - That's nice, but what was the name of the composer? - Oley Speaks. - Okay, fine. You don't want to tell me his name. But could you at least tell me what this guy Oley is saying? - He's not saying anything. He's been dead for 63 years....