August 20, 2016 ~ Today in Music History

today

• 1561 ~ Jacopo Peri, Italian composer
More information about Peri

• 1882 ~ Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” first performed in Moscow.

• 1885 ~ The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, opened at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City.

• 1905 ~ Weldon Leo ‘Jack’ Teagarden, Jazz musician, trombonist and singer whose relaxed, melodic instrumental style was highly influential
More information about Teagarden

• 1923 ~ Jim (James Travis) Reeves

• 1926 ~ Frank Rosolino, Musician: trombone, played with Stan Kenton, Harold Land, Bob Cooper, Clarke-Boland Big Band

• 1927 ~ Joya Sherrill, Singer

• 1931 ~ Frank Capp, Musician, drummer with the big jazz band, Capp-Pierce Juggernaut

• 1935 ~ Justin Tubb, Singer, Ernest Tubb’s son

• 1939 ~ Orrin Tucker’s orchestra recorded Oh, Johnny, Oh, Johnny, Oh!, on Columbia Records.

• 1942 ~ Issac Hayes, Grammy and Academy Award-winning American rhythm-and-blues singer, songwriter and arranger

• 1947 ~ Jim Pankow, Trombonist, song writer with Chicago

• 1948 ~ Robert Plant, British rock singer with Honeydrippers and composer

• 1951 ~ Phyl Lynott, Musician: bass, singer with Thin Lizzy

• 1952 ~ Doug Fieger, Musician, guitar, singer with The Knack

• 1952 ~ Rudy Gatlin, Singer with The Gatlin Brothers

• 1969 ~ Andy Williams received a gold record for the album Happy Heart on Columbia   Records.

• 1977 ~ Best of My Love, by the Emotions, topped the pop charts. It had a number one run of four weeks.

• 2001 ~ Frank C. “Papa” Mangione, father of jazz musicians Chuck and Gap Mangione, died  at age 91.
Mangione worked at Eastman Kodak Co., ran a grocery store for about two decades and returned to the photography company until his retirement in 1975. For the next 15 years, he sold music and merchandise on worldwide tours with his more famous son, Chuck, a flugelhorn ace.
A son of Italian immigrants, Mangione’s childhood was chronicled by his brother, Jerry, in a best-selling 1942 memoir called “Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian American Life.”
Three of Chuck Mangione’s songs, 60 Miles Young, 70 Miles Young and Papa Mangione, were dedicated to his father.

Beethoven Piano Trios Opus 70 No. 2, Opus 97 “Archduke”

beethoven

Beethoven’s first published works—his Opus No.1—were three trios for piano, violin and cello and already they show a marked advance on Haydn’s trios in the comparative interdependence of the three parts. Their freedom from Haydn’s oppressive formality looks forward to the first mature trios, the pair that comprises Opus 70, displaying all sorts of harmonic twists, thematic innovations and structural idiosyncrasies, these trios make much of the piano part and contain plenty of dramatic outbursts that are typical of Beethoven’s middle period.

Even more arresting is the first of the Opus 70 trios (1808) nicknamed ”The Ghost” because of its mysterious and haunting Largo. Its sibling boasts a cheerful bombastic finale that is the most entertaining music that Beethoven composed for this combination of instruments.

The “Archduke” Trio Opus 97 (1811) was Beethoven’s last full – scale work for piano trio and is typically conclusive. The third movement is its centre of gravity, a highly moving set of variations with the cello dominating the thematic content. It opens with a hymn-like theme and progresses to a coda which magnificently sums up the movements ideas. The finale might be less powerful than that of Opus 70 No. 2, but it nevertheless has a sweeping rhythmic power. Again, it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that Beethoven defined the piano trio form that it retained throughout the 19th century by allowing the string instruments the status of genuinely equal partners in this superlative performance.

Read more at Ludwig Van Beethoven Piano Trios Opus 70 No. 2, Opus 97 “Archduke” | World Music Report.