12-28a: Ravel : Daphnis et Chloe Complete / Maazel 1978 - Fletcher Henderson 1927-1931 - Hindemith : Mathis der Mahler Symphony | Symphonic Metamorphoses | Nobilissima Visione / Abbado 1995

Not shown: Hermann Finck, Adrien-Joseph van Helmont & Humphrey John Stewart

1558 – Hermann Finck (German composer, music theorist & organist)
1736 – Antonio Caldara (Italian composer)
1779 – Gennaro Manna (Italian composer)
1830 – Adrien-Joseph van Helmont (Belgian composer, son of Charles-Joseph)
1862 – Joaquim Casimiro Júnior (Portuguese composer & organist)
1870 – Alexei Lvov [Алексей Львов] ( Russian army officer, violinist, composer & conductor, Russian Imperial national anthem)
1878 – José Bernardo Alcedo (Peruvian composer, Peruvian national anthem)
1891 – Alfred Cellier (English composer & conductor of French ancestry, associated with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company)
1916 – Eduard Strauss (Austrian composer & conductor, brother of Johann II & Josef)
1932 – Humphrey John Stewart (English-born American organist & composer)
1937 – Maurice Ravel (French composer & pianist)
1946 – Carrie Jacobs-Bond (American singer, pianist, popular songwriter & poet)
1952 – Fletcher Henderson (American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger & composer)
1963 – Paul Hindemith (German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist & conductor)

Not a very long list today, but one that's full of notables. Hence, another two-parter. Hm... Ravel, Hindemith, and Fletcher Henderson, all on Dec. 28... I did not know that. Also didn't know that Ravel had a famous beard. We're all learning something new around here every day!

12-02a: Dinu Lipatti Chopin Waltzes 1950 - Copland Symphony 3 | Billy the Kid : Copland 1958 - Copland Clarinet Concerto : Goodman / Copland 1950 - Ravel Concerto in G | D'Indy Symphony : Henriot-Schweitzer / Munch 1959

David Stockman is not pictured above, because I was not able to find a photo of him. Imagine that, an opera singer without photos!

1774 – Johann Friedrich Agricola (German composer, organist, singer, teacher, and music theorist, pupil of J.S. Bach)
1831 – Max Eberwein (German composer & conductor)
1845 – Simon Mayr (German composer & choirmaster, teacher of Donizetti)
1880 – Josephine Lang (German composer, pianist & teacher)
1888 – Franz Xaver Witt (German priest, church musician & composer)
1904 – Victor Roger (French theatrical composer & music critic)
1915 – Jan Malát (Czech composer & teacher)
1916 – Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti (Italian-born British song composer & teacher)
1923 – Tomás Bretón y Hernandez (Spanish composer & conductor)
1924 – Emmy Achté (Finnish mezzo-soprano)
1925 – Juli Garreta i Arboix (Spanish composer, known especially for his sardanes)
1931 – Vincent d'Indy (French composer, teacher & co-founder of the Schola Cantorum de Paris)
1941 – Ester Osborne (Swedish-born American soprano)
1942 – Wilhelm Grüning (German tenor)
1950 – Dinu Lipatti (Romanian pianist & composer)
1951 – David Stockman (Swedish tenor)
1959 – Antonio Savasta (Italian composer & teacher)
1974 – Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté [Софи Кармен Экхардт-Граматте] (Russian-born Canadian composer, pianist & violinist)
1979 – Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi [Василий Соловьёв-Седой] (Russian composer)
1980 – Roza Eskenazi [Ρόζα Εσκενάζυ] (Turkish-born Greek folk & rebetiko singer of Sephardic ancestry)
1981 – Hershy Kay (American composer & arranger, New York City Ballet, Leonard Bernstein)
1985 – Philip Larkin (English poet, novelist, librarian & jazz critic)
1986 – Desi Arnaz (Cuban-born America actor, singer, bandleader & television producer)
1988 – Tata Giacobetti (Italian popular singer, lyricist & actor, Quartetto Cetra)
1990 – Aaron Copland (American composer, conductor & pianist)

None of you guys went for these Chopin waltzes the last time (when were were remembering Chopin), so here they are again. It's Dinu Lipatti! You know, the brilliant Romanian pianist who died of Hodgkin's Disease at only 33. His Chopin, Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Liszt, Enescu... really, anything he recorded... is to be treasured. The vinyl rip isn't the best in the world, but it's definitely above-par for whence it came, the European Archive, which is renowned for its sloppy work. I took the trouble to fully tag the files for you, and included the artwork in the folder, so that makes it an improvement.

Actually, it's mostly vinyl transfers today... and it's a lot of Copland, conducted by Copland! Both in his well-known "Americana" idiom (Billy the Kid, the jazzy clarinet concerto with Benny Goodman as soloist, and "Fanfare for the Common Man," which figures into his Third Symphony), and in his more modernist vein (the piano quartet - although, of course, he isn't conducting that).

And here you'll also find the most popular work composed by Vincent d'Indy - his Symphony on a French Mountain Air, also sometimes called the Symphonie cévenole, since it was in the Cévennes mountains that the composer heard the folk song on which the symphony is based. You know, I've often thought that the music of Vincent d'Indy and Irving Fine would make a wonderful pairing for a concert programme. If I could only come up with some clever name for the programme...

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!

10-27a: Ginette Neveu : Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Chausson, Suk et al 1938-1948 - Johann Gottlieb Graun Concertos / Haselböck 2005

1771 – Johann Gottlieb Graun (German composer & violinist)
1781 – Herman-François Delange (Belgian violinist & composer)
1796 – Anton Stamitz [Antonín Stamic] (German-Czech composer & violinist, brother of Carl [Karel])
1822 – Christian Frederich Gottlieb Schwencke (German composer, pianist, organist, music editor & church musician)
1833 – Ferdinand Fränzl (German violinist, composer, conductor & opera director)
1848 – Alexander Egorovich Varlamov [Александр Егорович Варламов] (Russian composer)
1864 – Andreas Randel (Swedish composer & violinist)
1925 – Wilhelm Gericke (Austrian conductor & composer, active in Vienna & Boston, Mass.)
1933 – Julius Klengel (German cellist & composer)
1940 – Fini Valdemar Henriques (Danish composer & violinist)
1943 – Béla Reinitz (Hungarian composer & music critic)
1949 – Ginette Neveu (French violinist)
1949 – Jean-Paul Neveu (French pianist)

Well, it looks like it's Le Jour du Violon here at Yestermonth. I can't recall having seen so many prominent fiddlers on the list (this is only half of it, of course - yes, it's another two-fer today), and there's a cellist to boot. And so that violinist we think of the most on October 27th–28th is in very good company, if that expression can be used for something as heartbreaking as the loss of a great and promising young artist.

Ginette Neveu might well be remembered as one of the supreme players of the violin in the past century, had her life not been cut so cruelly short, at the age of 30, when her plane went down in the Azores in 1949, as she embarked on a tour of the Americas. And as if that were not terrible enough, the tragedy went double for the Neveu family, since Ginette's accompanist Jean-Paul, who was also her brother, was on board the aircraft as well.

And perhaps we can find some symbolic significance in the location of the air disaster, in that very part of the ocean where the legendary continent of Atlantis has traditionally been said to have lain (if one takes Plato's account of it literally). For with the stuff of legends, we naturally touch on questions of what was, and what might have been, and what still could be today, had so-and-so occurred or not occurred. A little food for thought, especially for any of you Americans out there who didn't get quite enough to eat during yesterday's Thanksgiving pig-out feast...

08-28: CBGB : Suicide 1978 | Bad Brains 1982 | Damage 1986 | Vibrators 2000 - Mussorgsky / Golovanov : Pictures at an Exhibition 1952 | Night On Bald Mountain 1948 - Martinů Symphonies / Neumann

Thoroughly chronological. Go here for tagged image.

430 – St. Augustine of Hippo (North African bishop, theologian, writer & philosopher)
1572 – Claude Goudimel (French composer, music editor, music publisher & music theorist)
1647 – Johann Dilliger (German church musician & composer)
1767 – Johann Schobert (German composer & harpsichordist)
1864 – Anton Schindler (German violinist & early Beethoven biographer)
1885 – Julius Hopp (Austrian composer)
1903 – August Labitzky (Czech composer & conductor)
1905 – Ioannis Apostolou (Greek operatic tenor)
1914 – Anatoly Lyadov (Russian composer, teacher, conductor & pianist)
1958 – Nikolai Golovanov (Russian conductor, composer & pianist)
1959 – Bohuslav Martinů (Czech composer, violinist & teacher)
1960 – Anton Lajovic (Slovenian composer)
1964 – Aristide Baracchi (Italian operatic baritone)
1972 – René Leibowitz (Polish-born French composer, conductor, music theorist & teacher)
1982 – Nini de Boël [Leonie Van Nuland] (Belgian actress & soprano in operettas & musical revues)
1984 – Ahti Sonninen (Finnish composer & teacher)
1994 – Pieter de Cort (Belgian rock guitarist, Betty Goes Green)
2007 – Hilly Kristal (American club owner & musician, CBGB)
2010 – William P. Foster (American marching band pioneer, Florida A&M University 'Marching 100')

St. Augustine, a musician? Well, he's the patron saint of brewers, among other things. That alone earns him some serious cred in the music racket. But indeed he was well acquainted with the mathematical science of music (harmonics in the Pythagorean tradition - the study of the ratios and proportions of musical intervals, as it would later form part of the medieval quadrivium), and is said to have composed music for the early Church, although who knows if any traces of it survive, given that it would have been passed down through oral tradition. It would be centuries later before even the most rudimentary forms of musical notation would come into common usage. (The great leap forward was in the invention of staff notation about 1000 years ago, but in its earliest forms even it is virtually unrecognizable as the notational system we use today.) Nevertheless, just marvel at that magnificent image of Saint Augie. Regardless of your opinions on this religion or that religion, or religion in general, you can't deny that it's inspired some amazing iconography... and of course, some amazing music. Sure is making my blog look like a million bucks today!

Truth be told, Augustine did make a significant contribution to the subject of liturgical music in his writings, one that has been well preserved. De musica, among his earlier and lesser-known treatises, describes what would come to be called the responsorial style of chanting and singing - in which the congregation keeps answering the celebrant repeatedly. Augustine also had some important theoretical ideas about rhythm and meter, and expanded on the variety of poetical feet that had been established in Classical antiquity. This became an extremely important model for later composers when the practice of polyphonic composition began to grow in the 2nd millennium, causing the temporal organization of multiple parts to become more crucial. Augustine also warned against music that would arouse the passions too much and distract its hearers from the contemplation of the divine. Well, that makes sense, coming from the patron saint of brewers. Arousing the passions is beer's job.

We're not precisely sure which day Claude Goudimel died. It was sometime between the 28th and the 31st of August, 1572. Goudimel was murdered in the St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre, a purging of Huguenots (French Calvinists) which lasted longer than a day, several weeks actually, beginning with targeted assassinations by Catherine de' Medici and the monarchy in Paris on August 23rd, and continuing with Catholic mob violence that eventually spread to other urban centers and the French countryside through September. Goudimel, being a fairly prominent figure in the Huguenot cause, perished quite early in the bloodbath. Esimates of the death toll range between 5000 and 30,000. A contemporary depiction of the events of August 24th:

Although Dubois did not witness the massacre, his depiction is consistent with contemporary accounts. Admiral Coligny's body is hanging out of a window at the rear to the right. To the left rear, Catherine de' Medici is shown emerging from the Louvre to inspect a heap of bodies.

The death of Johann Schobert was a rather more prosaic, and frankly embarrassing one. Like Goudimel, he died in Paris, and like Goudimel, he was not the only one to perish in the event. Schobert died along with his wife, one of their children, their maidservant, and four of their best friends who they were having over for dinner, after insisting to those gathered that certain highly poisonous mushrooms were quite edible and harmless. Still, Schobert redeems himself in that he influenced the very young Mozart, who "borrowed" some movements from Schobert's piano sonatas to use in some of his earliest piano concertos.

I'm not 100% certain which member of Belgian band Betty Goes Green is Pieter de Cort, but I'm pretty sure it's the guy the second from the right, in the beige jacket. I've seen other pics of the band in which only four members are shown, and he's the only one not in them. Poor guy died of cancer at the age of 25.

My list originally contained the name of Christian Anders, Austrian Schlager singer, one-time teen idol, composer, and actor. It said he died in 1991. I'm not sure why. He's still very much alive, and just came out with a new album this year. Check out his blog to reassure yourself. Here he was in his teen idol days:

Christian Anders: Love Dreamer (1976)

Und so, entschuldige mich ich bei allen Sie Mädchen heraus dort, deren Schlüpfer in der Erwartung naß ist. Kein Christian Anders für Sie heute! Hahahahahaha....

08-22: Ashford & Simpson Very Best of / Is It Still Good To Ya 1978 - The Knack Live in New York 1981 - Luc Ferrari Cycle Des Souvenirs - Ravel / Boulez Daphnis et Chloé ; La Valse

Pretty much chronological. Tagged image here.

1599 – Luca Marenzio (Italian madrigal composer)
1831 – John Joseph White (English composer)
1879 – Friedrich August Kummer (German cellist, oboist, teacher & composer)
1893 – Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German sovereign & composer)
1901 – Gunnar Wennerberg Swedish poet, composer & politician)
1922 – Sofia Scalchi (Italian operatic alto/mezzo-soprano)
1942 – Henry Eichheim (American composer, conductor, violinist, organologist & ethnomusicologist)
1942 – Michel Fokine (Russian choreographer & dancer, Ballets Russes)
1951 – Georg Maikl (Austrian operatic tenor)
1966 – Apolinary Szeluto (Polish composer, pianist & lawyer)
1967 – Paola Novikova (Russian-born American soprano, taught Helen Donath & Nicolai Gedda)
1970 – Richard Frank Donovan (American organist & composer)
1976 – Gina Bachauer (Greek pianist)
1984 – Charles Whittenberg (American composer & teacher)
2000 – Rina Gigli (Italian operatic soprano)
2002 – Ernst-Theo Richter (German actor, director & baritone)
2003 – Imperio Argentina (Argentinian-born Spanish singer and actress)
2004 – Al Dvorin (American bandleader & talent agent, "Elvis has left the building.")
2005 – Luc Ferrari (French electroacoustic composer & pianist)
2006 – Bruce Gary (American rock drummer, The Knack)
2011 – Jerry Leiber (American lyricist, Leiber & Stoller, "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Kansas City")
2011 – Nick Ashford (American R&B singer, songwriter & producer, Ashford & Simpson)

Still in ketchup mode. Check back next week for the full write-up. Since Nick Ashford just passed away, we'll be paying particular attention to Ashford & Simpson. Jerry Leiber also just passed - as you see above, that makes two noted Elvis associates now who've passed away within less than a week of the King's death anniversary.