Continue reading »]]> 27th April – Alexander Scriabin

	Scriabin (6th January 1872 – 27th April 1915) is our composer for 27th April, to mark the day of his death.
	Nationality: Russian
	Lifespan: 43 years
	Genre: 20th Century
	Education: Moscow Conservatory
	Fame Ranking: 3

Scriabin was an innovative composer who developed his own idiosyncratic harmonic style. His mother had been a concert pianist, but sadly she died when Scriabin was only one year old. His father was absent due to his professional responsibilities as a diplomat in Turkey, so the young Scriabin was raised by a gaggle of female relatives, of which his aunt was an amateur pianist. Scriabin was fascinated with the piano from an early age, and even set about constructing homemade pianos as a youthful hobby.

Scriabin took piano lessons with Nicolai Zverev, who was also teaching the young Rachmaninov at the same time. He then entered the Moscow Conservatory. While practising a particularly fiendish Liszt piece, Scriabin damaged his hand, and was told that he might not ever fully recover, so he threw himself into composing instead. His hand recovered, and he began his career as a pianist by performing his own works.

Scriabin’s early works use the tonal language familiar to our ears from the Classical and Romantic eras, but he quickly began to experiment with enhancing the traditional harmonies to produce something unique. He based many compositions on chord sequences that contain several dissonant notes, while still being mostly within the major/minor system. He was also fascinated by mysticism, and synesthesia in music, which is associating certain colours with specific keys. For example, D (major or minor) to him was a golden colour. He was planning a monumental work which was to last a week and be performed in the Himalayas, which would bring together all art forms, music, colour and which he hoped would “herald the birth of a new world”. Sadly, he contracted septicemia aged just 43 and died before this enormous work was finished. There is an asteroid named after him.

Here is Scriabin’s Piano Etude Opus 42 no.5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudZ3J4EeoQ

Listen to more works by Scriabin – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 26th April – Adam Falckenhagen

	Falckenhagen (26th April 1697 – 6th October 1754) is our composer for 26th April, to mark the day of his birth.
	Nationality: German
	Lifespan: 57 years
	Genre: Baroque
	Education: Leipzig University
	Fame Ranking: 5

Falckenhagen was a composer of music for the lute. He was a musically gifted child and was fortunate enough to receive tuition from Johann Christian Weyrauch, who in turn  had been a pupil of J.S. Bach. He was a court composer, and spent his career serving in courts around Germany as lutenist and composer. In 1734 he took up a position at the court of Margravine of Beyreuth, the elder and favourite sister of Frederick the Great, who was also a composer herself. Falckenhagen stayed in Beyreuth, a town which today is known for its famous yearly Opera festivals, until his death.

Falckenhagen’s music is interesting because it is some of the last to be written for the lute before it fell out of fashion. By the 16th century, the lute had become the most popular solo instrument around, and was also used to accompany vocal music. The instrument evolved to suit the developments in musical style; players began to use their fingers to pluck the strings whereas previously they had used a quill. The increasing virtuosity of compositions meant that more and more strings were added to the instrument. In medieval times, most lutes had five or six pairs of strings, but by Baroque times lutes often had more than 20 or 30 strings! Because the players hand cannot stretch across so many strings, the bass strings were left “open”, not touching the fingerboard. You can see this in the video below. During Baroque times, the lute began to fall out of fashion as a solo instrument, and as an accompaniment provider it began to be superseded by keyboard instruments. Falckenhagen’s music is the the traditional lute’s “swan song”. He also wrote music for flute.

Here is the “Largo” from Falckenhagen’s Sonata no.IV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaZKxKaLE3g

Listen to more works by Falckenhagen – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 25th April – Giovanni Paisiello

	Paisiello (9th May 1740 – 5th June 1816) is our composer for 25th April, to mark Liberation Day in Italy.
	Nationality: Italian
	Lifespan: 76 years
	Genre: Classical
	Education: Conservatorio da S. Onofrio, Naples
	Fame Ranking: 5

Paisiello was an Italian composer of opera, picked for today’s post as it is Liberation Day in Italy. Paisiello had a somewhat predictable career at first; he sang well as a child, studied at his local Conservatoire, composed for fellow students while at the conservatory and gained some recognition which gradually increased, until he was asked to compose operas for the theatres in Bologna and in Rome. Step by step he managed to carve himself an unremarkably successful career as a composer, and his private life was equally modestly successful, with a happy marriage to Cecilia Pallini in 1772.

In the late 1770s Paisiello’s life story becomes a little more interesting. He was invited to Russia by Catherine II, and stayed in St. Petersburg for eight years. During this time, he wrote an opera entitled “The Barber of Seville”. Sadly for him, a few decades later Rossini created his masterpiece with the same name, and thus Paisiello’s version has been comparatively forgotten. Paisiello was invited to Paris by Napoleon, and some years later returned to Naples under the patronage of Joseph Bonaparte. When the Bonaparte family started losing its power, so Paisiello’s reputation also suffered. In 1815 his wife died, and his own death followed shortly afterwards in the following year.

Paisiello was a prolific writer of opera, with almost one hundred operas to his name. He also wrote a considerable amount of sacred music, including cantatas, passions and oratorios.

Here is Paisiello’s “Saper Bramante” from his opera “The Barber of Seville”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsSK8PTMiGY

Listen to more works by Paisiello – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 24th April – Richard Strauss

	Strauss (11th June 1864 – 8th September 1949) is our composer for 24th April, to mark the anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
	Nationality: German
	Lifespan: 85 years
	Genre: Romantic
	Education: From father, and privately and Munich University (Philosophy and Art History)
	Fame Ranking: 1

Richard Strauss, (not to be confused with Johann Strauss, famous for writing waltzes), is our pick for today, as his iconic piece “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was used as a main theme in the movie “2001 a Space Odyssey” and for the Apollo Space Program, and today is the anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990.

Strauss was initially taught music by his father, a professional French horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. He also received private music tuition and took a back seat at rehearsals at the Munich Court Orchestra, and by the time he had left school he had already written around 140 pieces of music. Gradually, Strauss began to receive more and more recognition for his works, until he had risen to become one of the most respected and revered composers of his time.

Strauss’s son, Franz, married into a Jewish family. As Nazi Germany began to take its toll on the country, Strauss used much of his clout to try to protect his daughter-in-law’s family. At one stage he even drove to a concentration camp to plead for the release of his son’s mother-in-law, although his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Although he was not a political man himself, Strauss was drawn into pre-war politics in Germany regardless. He was appointed to one of the highest positions at that time, president of the Reichsmusikkammer (The State Music Bureau) and subsequently was suspected of being a Nazi sympathiser by outsiders. However, it seems that he took on the position in order to gain power to protect Franz’s family, and Strauss’ correspondence from that time makes it clear that he was disdainful of the Nazi regime.

Strauss composed for his whole life. Early in his career his focus was more on smaller chamber works, but from about 1890 onwards he favoured large-scale orchestral works and opera. “Also Sprach Zarathustra” is a tone poem, a musical form which Strauss particularly cherished.

Here is the first part of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Strauss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyJwbwWg8uc

Listen to more works by Strauss – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 23rd April – Orlando Gibbons

	Gibbons (c. 25th December 1583 – 5th June 1625) is our composer for 23rd April, to mark St. George’s day, the Patron Saint of England
	Nationality: English
	Lifespan: 41 years
	Genre: Renaissance
	Education: Cambridge University
	Fame Ranking: 3

We’ve chosen Orlando Gibbons to represent St. George’s Day in England. Oxford born Gibbons was one of England’s finest composers and was a master of his genre. As a boy he sang as a chorister for the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, where his eldest brother, Edward, was master of choristers. He received his Bachelors degree in Music in 1606 from Cambridge University, but had already been appointed as organist at the Chapel Royal a year earlier. In 1623 he became senior organist at the Chapel  Royal, a position he held until his untimely death aged 41.

Gibbons composed music of several types. There is a lot of keyboard music, written for such instruments as the harpsichord, virginal and spinet, (since the piano had yet to be invented). There are around thirty pieces for viol (a flat-backed six-stringed instrument the size of a violin – violins had yet to be developed too),  and a wealth of vocal music. Gibbons wrote a considerable amount of top quality religious music, much of which is still popular within church services today, including verse anthems and settings for services. He also wrote secular songs such as madrigals, of which his most famous is “The Silver Swan”.

Gibbons died suddenly of “apoplexy”, which was a catch-all term in the 17th century. In order to rule out plague, an autopsy was performed on his body, which was eloquently described by the women who declared they had “never seen a fairer corpse”.

Here is a Fantasia for three viols by Gibbons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfhPGIjNIIk

Listen to more works by Gibbons – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 22nd April – Giuseppe Torelli

	Torelli (22nd April 1658 – 8th February 1709) is our composer for 22nd April, to mark the day of his birth.
	Nationality: Italian
	Lifespan: 50 years
	Genre: Baroque
	Education: with Giacomo Antonio Perti
	Fame Ranking: 5

Torelli was born in Verona, Italy, and was a violinist at the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna by the age of 26. By the age of 40, he was employed as the concert master at the Court of Georg Friedrich II, and later worked in Vienna, before returning to Bologna shortly before he died.

Torelli is important in the history of music because the evolution of the concerto can be traced through his compositions. The earlier concerto form was known as the “concerto grosso”; it employed a small group of soloists pitted against a string orchestra, and was predominantly a chamber ensemble designed for a more intimate setting. This form evolved into “concerti musicali”, which is closer to what we term simply “concerto” today; a single soloist against a full orchestra and a much larger, expansive and showy type of work altogether. Torelli published seven collections of works. He also had a love for the trumpet, despite being a string player himself, and composed an unprecedented number of trumpet works from 1690 onwards.

Torelli’s manuscripts are kept in the archives at the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna.

Here is a concerto for four violins by Torelli:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcYCPwmen4w

Listen to more works by Torelli – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 21st April – Trevor Jones

	Jones (born 23rd March 1949) is our composer for 21st April, to mark the day anniversary of the publication of the first photograph of the Loch Ness Monster, in 1934.
	Nationality: South African
	Lifespan: Still alive
	Genre: 20th century
	Education: Royal Academy of Music, London
	Fame Ranking: 5

South African born Trevor Jones is a film and TV composer extraordinaire. He had decided at the tender age of five years that he was going to be a film music composer, and remarkably achieved his aim with considerable success. He studied as an undergraduate at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and then undertook a Masters’ degree in Film and Media Music at the University of York. He then went on to the National Film and Television School in Buckinghamshire to further his knowledge of film making.

Jones’ first lucky break came when the director of low-budget movie “Excalibur” hired him to compose some original music for the film. Jones was unknown, and therefore cheap. Jim Henson (famed for his Muppets creations) hired him on the basis of his Excalibur score, to write an experimental soundtrack to his latest film, The Dark Crystal, in 1982. Jones used several non-standard instruments, such as a crumhorn and a double flageolet, in this score.

Jones has teamed up with many well-known names in his career – from David Bowie in “Labyrinth” to guitarist John Williams in “Dominick and Eugene”. In 1996 he wrote the soundtrack to the film “Loch Ness”, and today is the anniversary of the day the first “photograph” of the monster was published. To date, Jones has scored soundtracks for well over thirty movies, including “Last of the Mohicans”, “Notting Hill”, “Brassed Off”  and “Arachnophobia”.

Here is part of Jones’ “Loch Ness” soundtrack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2ymspPU9ak

Listen to more works by Jones – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 20th April – Christoph Demantius

	Demantius (15 December 1567 – 20 April 1643) is our composer for 20th April, to mark the day of his death.
	Nationality: German
	Lifespan: 75 years
	Genre: Renaissance
	Education: University of Wittenburg
	Fame Ranking: 5

Demantius was born in Reichenberg, which is now located in the Czech Republic. Not a great deal is known about his youth, since records were rarely kept in the 16th century. We know that Demantius received his degree from the University of Wittenberg in 1593, and by 1597 he was working at Zittau, most likely as a music tutor.

After this, Demantius became Kantor at Freiberg Cathedral. The position of Kantor was a high level musical post, with the holder undertaking duties as chief singer, instructor, musical director and administrator. In 1618 the Thirty Years’ War broke out and life was very hard. Although Demantius remained in work, his children suffered and many of them died. Most of his compositions were written before the start of the war.

Demantius wrote a huge amount of music, with religious works making up a great deal of his output. He was a contemporary with Monteverdi. Stylistically, he embraced the end of the Renaissance era and the beginning of the baroque. He is also credited with compiling the first ever dictionary of musical terms in the German language. 

Here are five dances for recorders by Demantius, recorded in 1965:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AM0lT6uEwk

Listen to more works by Demantius – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 19th April – Samuel Sebastian Wesley

	Wesley (14th August 1810 – 19th April 1876) is our composer for 19th April, to mark the day of his death.
	Nationality: English
	Lifespan: 65 years
	Genre: Anglican Church (Romantic)
	Education: With Father
	Fame Ranking: 2

Samuel Sebastian Wesley was the grandson of Charles Wesley, the leader of the Methodist Church movement in 18th century England. Samuel’s father was a big fan of the music of J.S. Bach, and gave Samuel his middle name, Sebastian, after the great composer. Wesley was first taught music by his father, and then at the age of ten, he joined the Chapel Royal as a chorister.

Wesley started his life as a professional musician early – by the age of sixteen he was working as an organist at no fewer than three different London churches. By 1832, he had become organist at Hereford Cathedral. In 1839 he was awarded a Bachelor of Music and Doctorate from Oxford University. He took on further appointments as organist at several other notable English churches, such as Exeter Cathedral and Leeds Parish Church. Wesley was quite outspoken within the church about conditions for musicians and standards of music, however he never got himself into trouble and was never criticised for his views by the church authorities.

Wesley composed music for the Church of England, and within that establishment his music is still well-known and loved. Two of his best-known works are “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace” and “Wash me throughly”. He wrote hymns, verse anthems and several respected organ works.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Wesley was opposed to the tuning system of “equal temperament”, where the interval between each semitone is exactly the same. He preferred the older system of “just temperament”, which allows each individual key to have its own unique flavour. For more on temperaments, see here.

Here is Wesley’s “Wash me Throughly”, with score:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r3BkuxjD6k

Listen to more works by Wesley – click the box!

Continue reading »]]> 18th April – Ottorino Respighi

	Respighi (9th July 1879 – 18th April 1936) is our composer for 18th April, to mark the day of his death.
	Nationality: Italian
	Lifespan: 56 years
	Genre: Romantic/Neoclassical
	Education: Liceo Musicale, Bologna
	Fame Ranking: 3

Ottorino Respighi was born in Bologna, Italy and began his musical training there at the Liceo Musicale (Music School). His father had taught him piano and violin from an early age, and at the music school Respighi complemented his skills with studies in viola, composition and historical studies. He continued to be immensely interested in the historical aspect of music throughout his life, and composed several “neo-classical” pieces which were based on much older musical forms and harmonies. (Despite the term “neo-classical” being applied to Respighi, there is nothing strictly “classical” about his style. He tended to blend historical forms with Romantic.)

As a young man, Respighi travelled to St. Petersburg in Russia and took up the position of principal viola player at the Russian Imperial Theatre Orchestra. He did not focus on composition at this period in his life. Russia was followed by a short stint in Germany, and it was only when he returned to Italy in 1909 that he turned his attentions to becoming a full-time composer.

Respighi’s compositions fall into two main camps – there are pieces which translate a visual stimulus into music – a geographical or culture canvas is portrayed musically, and there are his musicologically inspired neo-classical works, which transform pieces from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries using modern orchestration techniques. His culturally-inspired pieces are among his most famous, with a suite a works depiciting aspects of Rome being particularly well-known. He also wrote a trilogy of pieces inspired by Brazilian life. Historical works include “Ancient Airs and Dances”, and he also published his own editions of works by Monteverdi and Vivaldi.

Here is Respighi’s first suite of “Ancient Airs and Dances”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwBAmivGs-A

Listen to more works by Respighi – click the box!