January 22: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on January 22, 2025

National Polka Dot Day celebrates polka dots, and since 2016 has also been used to celebrate Minnie Mouse, who is known for often wearing the dots. She usually is seen wearing a red dress with white polka dots, and often has a matching bow. Celebrants of the holiday don polka dots to celebrate the dot and Minnie Mouse.

In the nineteenth century, garments with dots began becoming popular. Dotted-Swiss was one such type of garment. In Germany, dots on garments were called Thalertupfen. Dotted clothing could be seen in some famous paintings of the time, such as Monet’s Luncheon on the Grass and Bazille’s Family Reunion.

In the middle of that century, polka dancing became popular in Europe. The name for the dot comes from the dance, although there doesn’t seem to be any real connection between the two. “Polka” is a Polish word for “Polish woman,” and the term polka dot was first printed in 1857, in an American women’s magazine called Godey’s Lady’s Book.

The popularity of polka dots increased in the 1920s and ’30s. Miss America wore a polka dot swimsuit in 1926 and Minnie appeared with polka dots in 1928. Polka dot dresses were common during the 1930s. Following World War II, Dior began putting out dresses with polka dots, and polka dot clothing was worn by stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. In the 1960s, Yayoi Kusama began using polka dots in her paintings. Some men have worn polka dots, such as Bob Dylan, and Marvel Comics even created Polka-Dot Man. Today, polka dots are often worn nostalgically and have gained in popularity with the revival of vintage wear from the 1950s and ’60s.

Because Minnie Mouse is often seen wearing polka dots, the day has been closely tied to her. Although she appeared with Mickey in Plane Crazy on May 15, 1928, this did not have a wide release, and it is Steamboat Willie, which was released on November 18, 1928, which is widely known as Minnie Mouse’s debut. Independent, feminine, and cheerful, she is known for bringing happiness to others and helping them with troubles they may be having. Walt Disney was the first voice of Minnie, just for a short while, and many people have voiced her since. Russi Taylor began voicing her in 1986 and did so for decades afterward.

After Minnie’s debut in 1928, she appeared in many more short films throughout the 1930s. Mickey and Minnie were redesigned in the late 1930s, but Minnie was used less starting in the 1940s. It was not until the 1980s when she once again began being used more prominently in cartoons. She was in Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983 and had her first starring role in a television special with Totally Minnie in 1988. She has since appeared in films such as Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, and in television shows such as Mickey Mouse Works, House of Mouse, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mickey Mouse, and Mickey and the Roadster Racers.

Minnie has been featured in comics, video games, and has been a staple at Disney parks such as Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World, where events have been held on the day. In 2016, an art and fashion show called “Rock the Dots” was held on Polka Dot Day in Los Angeles; it was followed by an exhibit that was open to the public. Disney began encouraging people to wear polka dots and use the hashtag #RocktheDots. Minnie received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on National Polka Dot Day in 2018, during her 90th anniversary year.

How to Observe National Polka Dot Day

Celebrate the day by wearing polka dots. D23: The Official Disney Fan Club and Shop Disney have polka dotted Minnie Mouse clothes and accessories available. Let people know you are wearing polka dots by using the hashtag #RocktheDots. The day could be spent watching films starring Minnie Mouse, such as Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie. Minnie was not wearing polka dots in those first films, but she was wearing a polka dot dress in their opening title sequences. You could also do some Minnie Mouse crafts, or plan a trip to Disneyland Resort or Walt Disney World.

. 1886 ~ John J. Becker, American composer

. 1889 ~ The Columbia Phonograph Company was formed in Washington, DC.

. 1901 ~ Hans Erich Apostel, German-born Austrian composer

. 1904 ~ George Balanchine (Georgi Balanchivadze), Choreographer of Apollo, Orpheus, Firebird, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker. He founded School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet. He was married to Tanaquil Le Clercq.

. 1907 ~ The Richard Strauss opera, “Salome”, was featured with the Dance of the Seven Veils. It was copied by vaudeville performers. Soon, performances of the opera were banned at the Metropolitan Opera House.

. 1916 ~ Henri Dutilleux, French composer

. 1920 ~ William Warfield, singer (Show Boat)

. 1924 ~ James Louis “J.J.” Johnson, Trombonist, composer and bandleader. He was one of first to use the trombone in modern jazz

. 1931 ~ Clyde McCoy and his orchestra recorded Sugar Blues. The tune became McCoy’s theme song, thanks to its popularity on Columbia Records, and later on Decca, selling over a million copies.

. 1935 ~ Sam Cooke, American rhythm-and-blues singer

. 1949 ~ Steve Perry, Drummer with Radio Stars

. 1953 ~ Myung-Whun Chung, Seoul South Korea, pianist/conductor (Chung Trio)

. 2002 ~ Pete Bardens, a keyboardist who played alongside such pop stars as Mick Fleetwood, Ray Davies, Rod Stewart and Van Morrison, died of lung cancer. He was 57. He was known for his progressive and New Age rock style on synthesizer, electric piano and organ. In the 1960s, the London-born Bardens played in the Blues Messengers with Davies, who later went on to form The Kinks; Shotgun Express with Stewart; Them with Morrison; and the group Cheynes with Fleetwood and Peter Green, who went on to form Fleetwood Mac. In 1972, Bardens formed the progressive rock band Camel and stayed with it through the late 1970s. In 1978, he began a successful solo career, releasing several well-received records, including “Speed of Light”, and also played on Morrison’s album “Wavelength” and accompanied him on a world tour. Barden continued to compose, produce and perform music through the 1990s, appearing in Europe with his group Mirage.

. 2004 ~ Milt Bernhart, a big band trombonist known for his solo on Frank Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin, died. He was 77. During his three-decade career, Bernhart played in bands led by Benny Goodman, Henry Mancini and others. He was performing in Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars when Marlon Brando arranged for the band to play in the 1954 film The Wild One. Bernhart then became an in-studio musician for Columbia and other film and television studios, and in 1956 added a memorable solo to Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin. Born in Valparaiso, Ind., Bernhart was drafted into the Army and was to be sent overseas during World War II before he was transferred to the service’s band. After his music career wound down in 1973, he bought Kelly Travel Service in Los Angeles. He created the Big Band Academy of America in 1986 and planned to retire as the organization’s founding president in March.

. 2004 ~ Ann Miller, a childhood dance prodigy who fast-tapped her way to movie stardom that peaked in 1940s musicals like “On the Town”, “Easter Parade” and“Kiss Me Kate”, died of lung cancer. She was 81. Miller’s film career peaked at MGM in the late 1940s and early ’50s, but she honed her chops into her 60s, earning millions for “Sugar Babies”, a razzmatazz tribute to the era of burlesque featuring Mickey Rooney. Miller’s legs, pretty face and fast tapping (she claimed the record of 500 taps a minute) earned her jobs in vaudeville and nightclubs when she first came to Hollywood. Her early film career included working as a child extra in films and as a chorus girl in a minor musical, “The Devil on Horseback”. An appearance at the popular Bal Tabarin in San Francisco won a contract at RKO studio, where her name was shortened to Ann. Her first film at RKO, “New Faces of 1937”, featured her dancing. She next played an acting hopeful in “Stage Door”, with Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball and Eve Arden.

When Cyd Charisse broke a leg before starting “Easter Parade” at MGM with Fred Astaire, Miller replaced her. That led to an MGM contract and her most enduring work. She was teamed with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in “On the Town”, Red Skelton in “Watch the Birdie”, and Bob Fosse in “Kiss Me Kate“. Other MGM films included: “Texas Carnival”, “Lovely to Look At”, “Small Town Girl”, “Deep in My Heart”, “Hit the Deck” and “The Opposite Sex.” The popularity of musicals declined in the 1950s, and her film career ended in 1956. Miller remained active in television and the theater, dancing and belting songs on Broadway in “Hello, Dolly” and “Mame”. In later years, she astounded audiences in New York, Las Vegas and on the road with her dynamic tapping in “Sugar Babies.” The show opened on Broadway in 1979 and toured for years. In 1990, she commented that “Sugar Babies” had made her financially independent. While her career in Hollywood prospered, Miller became a regular figure in the town’s nightlife, and she caught the eye of Louis B. Mayer, all-powerful head of MGM. After dating, she declined to marry him because her mother would not allow it. She later married and divorced steel heir Reese Milner and oilmen William Moss and Arthur Cameron.

. 2004 ~ Dick Rodgers, an insurance salesman known as the “Polka King” when he hosted a regional television show from the 1950s to the 1970s, died. He was 76. Rodgers’ television show was on the air from 1955-78, starting on WMBV in Marinette, which later moved to Green Bay and became WLUK-TV. The program was shown on 17 Midwestern stations at its height. Rodgers’ accomplishments included membership in the International Polka Music Hall of Fame (1976) and in the World Concertina Congress Hall of Fame (1996). He also was named Orchestra Leader of the Year by the Wisconsin Orchestra Leaders Association in 1967.

Composers – E

Posted by MaryO on January 22, 2025

Eisler

Hanns Eisler lived from 1898 until 1962. He was a composer, born in Leipzig, Germany. He studied under Schoenberg at the Vienna Conservatory (1919–23). A committed Marxist, he wrote political songs, choruses, and theatre music, often in collaboration with Brecht. From 1933 he worked in Paris, London, and Copenhagen, and moved to Hollywood in 1938, teaching and writing film music. Denounced in the McCarthy anti-Communist trials, he returned to Europe in 1948. He settled in East Germany in 1952, composing popular songs and organizing workers’ choirs. He wrote about 600 songs and choruses, and music for over 40 films and for nearly 40 plays.

Elgar

Edward Elgar lived from 1857 until 1934. He was a British composer whose works in the late 19th century orchestral style brought a Renaissance of English music.

His Pomp and Circumstance, usually heard at graduations, was featured in Fantasia 2000.

Ellington

Duke Ellington (1899 to 1974) was a composer, bandleader, and pianist. He was born Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C.

From an early age, the handsome, sharply dressed teenager (that’s where he got the nickname, Duke) was headed for success. At first it was art. He won a poster-design contest and an art scholarship, left school and started a sign-painting business. But it was his natural piano-playing ability that attracted the young women, so Duke Ellington headed in that direction. He developed his keyboard skills by listening to local black ragtime pianists; he composed his first piece, Soda Fountain Rag, around 1915. A successful professional musician by the early 1920s, he left Washington in the spring of 1923 for New York, which was his home base for the rest of his life. Between December 1927 and 1931 his orchestra held forth at Harlem’s Cotton Club, where regular radio broadcasts, together with an active recording schedule, helped him establish a nationwide reputation. Take the “A” Train was his “signature song”.

In such compositions as Black and Tan Fantasy (1927), Mood Indigo (1930), Solitude (1934), and Echoes of Harlem (1935), Ellington emerged as a distinctive composer for his ensemble, employing the rhythms, harmonies, and tone colors of jazz to create pieces that vividly captured aspects of the African-American experience. At the same time, he sought to broaden jazz’s expressive range and formal boundaries in such extended works as Reminiscing in Tempo (1935), Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), and Harlem (1951).

An essential feature of Ellington’s composing method was to write with specific instrumentalists in mind, often drawing them into the creative process by building entire pieces out of their musical ideas.

He wrote scores for big band pieces, film scores, operas, ballets, Broadway shows, gospel music, musicals, films, television, and ballet and in the 1960s produced a series of sacred concerts combining his orchestra, choirs, vocalists, and dancers. He would work with each section of his orchestra as an entity unto its own and then bring them together to create the unique sounds such as, Mood Indigo. Over 1,000 musical pieces are credited to the great Duke Ellington. James Lincoln Collier studied the Duke and his Orchestra, comparing Duke Ellington to a “master chef who plans the menus, trains the assistants, supervises them, tastes everything, adjusts the spices … and in the end we credit him with the result.”

Ellington was successful, as few others have been, in reconciling the practical function of a popular entertainer with the artistic aspirations of a serious composer. His rich legacy consists of hundreds of recordings, his many pieces that have entered the standard repertory, and his musical materials now preserved in the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. There is a statue of Duke Ellington in New York.

Entwistle

John Entwistle, the bass player for veteran British rock band The Who, died in Las Vegas on Thursday, June 27, 2002, at age 57, just one day before the group was set to begin a North American tour in the city, officials said.

Entwistle, a bearded, taciturn musician affectionately known as “Ox” or “Thunderfingers,” died in his room at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, officials said, of an apparent heart attack.

The Who, known for such raw percussive hits as “My Generation,” “Pinball Wizard” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” were scheduled to begin their three-month tour at the Joint, a small club at the hotel. An MCA official said the show had been canceled, as well as two weekend concerts in Los Angeles. She referred questions about the rest of the tour to promoter Clear Channel, where a spokesman was not available for comment.

With Entwistle’s death, The Who are down to just two original members — singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist-songwriter Pete Townshend. Original drummer Keith Moon died of an accidental pill overdose in 1978.

A source close to the band told Reuters that a devastated Daltrey and Townshend spent several hours together in Los Angeles after hearing of Entwistle’s death. Entwistle had arrived in Las Vegas ahead of his bandmates to open a traveling exhibition of his artwork, said a statement from MCA Records.

In addition to his lightning finger work on the bass, Entwistle helped out on backing vocals, supplying an alto-tenor on “A Quick One While He’s Away” and “Summertime Blues.” His unique playing style mixed bass melodies with a more rhythmic role, producing a trebly sound that essentially became the band’s lead instrument.

On stage he rarely moved from his spot, allowing his colorful bandmates to vie for the spotlight.

His songwriting contributions were mostly limited to a few album tracks and B-sides. The first song he wrote for The Who, 1966’s creepy-crawly gem “Boris the Spider,” was resurrected on their 1989 reunion tour. Other songs he wrote for The Who included “My Wife” and “Whiskey Man.”

Entwistle released a half-dozen eclectic solo albums that revealed his wry sense of humor, and he also dabbled in art. He had spent the last dozen years writing a novel, although he noted in a recent interview that “at the current rate of writing they’re gonna have to engrave the end on my tombstone.”

ROOTS OF THE WHO

Born John Alec Entwistle in the London suburb of Chiswick on Oct. 9, 1944, he studied piano, trumpet and French horn as a youngster before moving on to a homemade bass. The formal music education proved helpful later on as he performed and arranged all the brass parts on The Who’s records.

At the age of 14, he formed a traditional jazz band at his grammar school, the Confederates, and invited schoolmate Townshend to join the short-lived combo. He then joined the Detours, a band formed by an older boy at their school, Roger Daltrey. At Entwistle’s suggestion, Daltrey brought in Townshend, and the early The Who started to take shape.

After leaving school, Entwistle worked as a tax clerk by day and played with the band by night. The group changed its name to The Who in 1964, and Moon joined later that year, replacing drummer Doug Sandom, who did not play aggressively enough for the other members of the band.

Influenced by the likes of bluesman Jimmy Reed, rocker Eddie Cochran and soul giants James Brown and Jackie Wilson, The Who made an immediate impression on the London “Mod” scene with its seemingly undisciplined garage rock, which it dubbed “Maximum R&B.”

The band trashed its equipment at the end of each show, and it was years before it made enough money to pay off its bills for new instruments.

After briefly flirting with a new name, the High Numbers, The Who released its first single in early 1965, “I Can’t Explain.” It followed up with “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” and its signature anthem, “My Generation,” famed for Townshend’s nihilistic lyric “Hope I die before I get old.”

GOING SOLO

With Townshend and Daltrey often at loggerheads with each other, and Moon busy pioneering the lifestyle of a destructive rock star, Entwistle became the first member to release a solo album, 1971’s “Smash Your Head Against the Wall.”

“I never really wanted The Who to do more of my songs because I thought at the time they would mess them up,” Entwistle once said.

He released a succession of follow-up albums, and launched a money-losing tour of Britain and the United States with his own band, the Ox, in the mid-1970s.

The Who, meanwhile, became one of the biggest bands in the world, even earning a mention in the 1976 Guinness Book of Records for playing the loudest concert — 120 decibels, the same intensity as a jet engine.

Albums such as the 1969 rock opera “Tommy,” “Who’s Next” (1971) and “Quadrophenia” (1973) cemented its position as the third band in the great triumvirate of British rock, just below the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

After Moon’s death in 1978, shortly following the release of “Who Are You,” the band recruited former Faces drummer Kenney Jones. But the group had lost its momentum and released its last studio album in 1982, “It’s Hard,” accompanied by a farewell tour. It regrouped in 1989 and toured sporadically.

Entwistle was married twice and has one son from his first marriage, Christopher.

Composers – B

Posted by MaryO on January 22, 2025

Babbitt

Milton Babbitt was both a musical genius and a math whiz kid. He could identify classical music recordings and add up grocery bills when he was only 2 years old. When he was 5, he made his violin debut and composed his first concerto. Babbitt is now an electrical music pioneer and the founder of the Electronic Music Center.

Bach, Carl Phillip Emanuel

Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach was the second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach’s. He was born in Weimar, Germany. He lived from 1714 until 1788 and was the leading composer of the pre-Classical period.

He studied at the Thomasschule, Leipzig, where his father was cantor, and at Frankfurt University. In 1740 he became cembalist to the future Frederick II, and later became Kapellmeister at Hamburg in 1767. He was famous for his playing of the organ and clavier, for which his best pieces were composed. He published The True Art of Clavier Playing in 1753, the first methodical treatment of the subject, introduced the sonata form, and wrote numerous concertos, keyboard sonatas, church music, and chamber music. C.P.E. Bach wrote an influential “Essay on Keyboard Instruments”.

He is sometimes known as the “Berlin Bach” or the “Hamburg Bach”.

Bach, Johann Christian

Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son (the 11th!) of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach, lived from 1735 until 1782. He was born in Leipzig, Germany. He was taught music by his father and by one of his brothers Carl Phillip Emanuel.

After becoming a Catholic, he was appointed organist at Milan in 1760, and for a time composed only ecclesiastical music, including two Masses, a requiem, and a “Te Deum’, but later he began to compose opera.

In 1762 he went to London to spend the rest of his life and so became known as the “English Bach” or the “London Bach”. He was appointed composer to the London Italian opera in 1762, and became musician to Queen Charlotte. His influence can be seen in the early orchestral works of Mozart.

Bach, Johann Christoph Friedrich

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach lived from 1732 until 1795. He was the ninth son of J S Bach, also a composer and was born in Leipzig, Germany. He studied there at the Thomasschule and at Leipzig University, and became in 1750 Kapellmeister at Bückeburg. He was an industrious but undistinguished church composer. Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach is known as the “Bückeburg Bach”

Bach, Johann Sebastian

Since 1580 there have been close to 100 musical Bachs in seven generations of distinguished musicians and composers.

Johann Sebastian Bach, the most famous of these, lived between 1685 and 1750. He is considered to be a baroque composer.

Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685. He was orphaned by the age of 10, and brought up by his elder brother, Johann Christoph Bach (1671 to 1721), organist at Ohrdruf, who taught him the organ and clavier.

Bach sought and got important posts through the years. He attended school in L?neburg, before becoming organist at Arnstadt. He found his duties as choirmaster irksome, and angered the authorities by his innovative chorale accompaniments. In 1707 he married a cousin, Maria Barbara Bach (1684 to 1720), and left to become organist at M?hlhausen.

By 1708 he has secured himself a position as court organist and chamber musician to the reigning Duke at Weimar, with plenty of opportunity to compose music for the organ and in 1711 became Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, where he wrote mainly instrumental music, including the “Brandenburg’ Concertos (1721) and The Well-tempered Clavier (1722).

In 1721, about a year and a half after the death of his beloved wife, Bach married again. His new bride, the 20-year old Anna Magdalena Wilcken (1701 to 1760), sang but could not play keyboard instruments, so Bach wrote The Anna Magdalena Notebook with pieces whe could learn. These pieces were charming minuets, marches and polonaises. They had 13 children, of whom six survived.

In 1723 he was appointed cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where his works included perhaps about 300 church cantatas, the St Matthew Passion (1727), and the Mass in B Minor. He later became “Kapellmeister” for the court of Prince Leopold. At age 38 he became “Cantor” of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig and stayed there until his death, almost totally blind, in 1750.

One of his main achievements was his remarkable development of polyphony. Known to his contemporaries mainly as an organist, his genius as a composer was not fully recognized until the following century. Today he is considered one of the greatest Baroque masters along with Handel, but the people of Bach’s time considered his compositions too elaborate. It was not until 100 years later that the world recognized Bach as one of its greatest composers. The very thought of a majestic old church and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach leaps gloriously to mind. Bach was one of the finest organists and ablest contrapuntists of his time and the noblest writer of fugues who ever lived. Little of his music was published during his lifetime and it was not until 1829 when Mendelssohn performed the St. Matthew Passion that the general public realized his genius and the music of Bach was “reborn”.

His home was filled with music and children: he had 20 children and five early pianos called claviers and many stringed instruments. Bach gave lessons to everyone in the family and wrote many keyboard pieces for family members. All four of Bach’s sons became successful musicians.

The period in which he lived came to be known as the baroque period not just in music, but in art and architecture, as well.

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia and the new Fantasia 2000.

Bach’s most famous works are the Brandenburg Concerti,the Well-Tempered Clavier (a collection of 48 preludes and fugues. A fugue is a composition in which different instruments repeat the same melodies with slight variations), The Art of Fugue, Mass in b minor, St. John Passion,and the St. Matthew Passion.

J.S. Bach also composed organ music; chamber music; orchestral concertos; and nearly 300 religious choral works called cantatas.

His timeless religious orchestral compositions are of unique purity.

Perhaps the finest exemplar of the baroque era, Bach composed major, complex works in every genre of music except opera. Both his sacred and secular compositions are among the finest ever penned and brilliantly synthesize the various national styles practiced by Bach’s contemporaries. Here are his essential recordings: Goldberg Variations; The 6 Cello Suites; Mass in B minor; The Art of Fugue, Musical Offering; Brandenburg Concertos 1-6, all of which were chosen as Best 100 Classical Pieces of the Millenium.

Barber

Samuel Barber lived from 1910 until 1981. He is most famous for his Adagio for Strings, used in the movie “Platoon”

Bartók

Béla Bartók lived from 1881 until 1945 and was one of the leading Hungarian and European composers of his time. He was also proficient as a pianist.

He collected folk-music in Hungary as did his friend, Zoltán Kodály. His compositions include Mikrokosmos, Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, Solo Sonata for Violin, and Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra.

Basie

Count (William) Basie lived from 1904 until 1984. He was a jazz musician who was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, USA. He received his first piano lessons at age six from his mother and worked as an accompanist to silent films while still in high school. He studied organ informally with Fats Waller, whom he replaced in a New York vaudeville act called Katie Crippin and Her Kids. Between 1924 and 1927, he toured on the Keith Circuit with the Gonzelle White vaudeville show until it got stranded in Kansas City, then a bustling center of jazz and blues activity. He played piano at a silent movie theater there, then spent a year (1928 to 1929) with Walter Page’s Blue Devils. When this band broke up, he began a five~year association with Benny Moten’s orchestra, whose sidemen included blues singer Jimmy Rushing, trumpeter Hot Lips Page, and Lester Young, the highly innovative tenor saxophonist. Upon Moten’s death in 1935, these musicians formed the nucleus of Basie’s first band. Under his leadership they broadcast from the Reno Club in Kansas City, where a radio announcer dubbed him “Count”. Through these broadcasts, he attracted the attention of the well~connected talent scout John Hammond, who set up his first tour. The band played a residency at the Grand Terrace in Chicago, then opened at the Roseland in New York in December 1936. Basie began a prolific series of recordings the following year, and in 1938 he played a long residency at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, where his reputation as leader of one of the premier swing bands was firmly established. He led his band on a continual series of US tours throughout the 1940s, but in 1950 economic conditions compelled him to disband and front a sextet for two years. He formed a new 16~piece band in 1952 and began a long association with producer Norman Granz of Verve Records; this outfit established a new and enduring prototype for big bands and radio and television studio orchestras.

In 1954, the band undertook the first of its many European tours. During the 1960s, the Basie orchestra accompanied various singers, including Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, and Sammy Davis Jr, on recordings and concert tours. He made numerous appearances with all~star groups in the 1970s, but maintained a regular touring schedule with his band until his death. His autobiography, Good Morning Blues, written with Albert Murray, was published posthumously in 1985.

Bax

Arnold Bax, who lived from 1883 until 1853, was English by birth. He occupied an important place in English music in his own time and was knighted in 1937. At its best his music has a compelling charm and power.

Bax wrote scores for the films Oliver Twist, the war-time Malta GC and Journey into History. Orchestral Music In addition to his seven symphonies Bax wrote a series of evocative tone poems of Celtic implication, including The Garden of Fand, November Woods and Tintagel. There are concertos for cello, for viola and for violin and Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra in addition to a Concertante for piano left hand and orchestra, written for Harriet Cohen, with whom he had a long relationship.

Bax wrote string quartets and quintets, an interesting Viola Sonata, three Violin Sonatas and works for larger instrumental groups, including a Nonet for wind and string instruments and an Octet for horn, piano and string sextet.

Bax’s choral works include settings of traditional carols, while his solo songs allow him to explore more Celtic ground in a variety of settings, ranging from A Celtic Song Cycle to settings of poems by James Joyce, J.M. Synge, and by the English writers A.E. Housman and his brother, the writer Clifford Bax.

Bax wrote seven piano sonatas, some unpublished, and a number of pieces for piano solo or duo, many with evocative titles.

Beach

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (Mrs. H.H.A. Beach) was born on September 5, 1867 in Henniker, NH and died on December 27, 1944 in New York, NY. She was an American composer and pianist and the first significant female composer in America and one of the leading composers of the “New England School”.

By all measures, young Amy Marcy Cheney was a true prodigy. At one year she knew forty songs, always singing them at the same pitch. By age two she could improvise a countermelody to any melody her mother sang, and at age four, she could not only read four-part hymns at sight, but wrote her first pieces in her head and then sat down and played them on the piano. She began piano study at age six with her mother, and then studied with the finest pianists in Boston. She made her debut at sixteen, and in 1885 played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

From this point on, her career was influenced greatly by society’s views of women. It was suggested that her desire to study composition would best be served by independent study, in part in the belief that women composed based on feeling rather than intellect. When she married the physician and amateur musician Henry Harris Aubrey Beach in 1885, he asked that she limit her concertizing to a few performances a year. Because of this, she focused on composition. After his death in 1910, she resumed her concert career in Europe and in this country.

These all had an effect on her musical development, and the results can be seen as both positive and negative. Her natural abilities made self-study a viable avenue (she learned orchestration, for example, by translating the famous treatise by Hector Berlioz). At the same time, this probably accounts for the fact that much of her music borrows stylistic elements from contemporary composers. Her husband’s desire that she not make a career as a performer may have curtailed that aspect of her professional life, but it allowed her the rare luxury (rare for both men and women) of full-time compositional activity.

The body of work that Beach produced stands out for its size as well as its quality. She also stands out as the first woman to master larger forms. Her Symphony in E (the “Gaelic”) demonstrates this, and is one of the first works by an American to answer Antonin Dvor?k’s challenge to use national themes in their compositions. Beach believed that since a large percentage of Boston’s citizens were of Irish extraction, this would be the most representative source to draw upon. Many of her works have remained popular in this century, and her music is receiving a fairer re-evaluation as a result of the general interest in the music of women and the special circumstances of its creation.

Works:
Orchestral music, including Gaelic Symphony (1896) and Piano Concerto (1899)
1 opera, Cabildo (1932)

Chamber music, including a violin sonata (1896), piano quintet (1907), string quartet (1929), and piano trio (1938)

Choral music, including the Mass in E-flat (1890), Festival Jubilate (1891),
and many sacred works (anthems and hymns); secular choral works, including “The Song of Welcome” (1898) and “The Chambered Nautilus” (1907)

More than 120 songs for voice and piano, including Five Songs to Words by Robert Burns (1899) and Three Browning Songs (1900); concert aria “Eilende Wolken” (“Racing Clouds”) for voice and orchestra (1892)

Keyboard music, including character pieces (The Hermit Thrush at Morn and The Hermit Thrush at Eve, 1921); Suite for Two Pianos on Old Irish Melodies (1924); sets of variations

Numerous articles on composition and pedagogical topics

Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven lived between 1770 and 1824. He bridged the gap between the Classical period and the Romantic period Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, but lived most of his life in Vienna, Austria.

He studied in Vienna under Mozart and Haydn.

Beethoven was born and brought up in Bonn and first studied harpsichord and violin under the direction of his father, who had dreams of fame and fortune for his young prodigy. Alas, Beethoven was a talent “in waiting” – waiting for the right teacher and the right opportunity. This happened in 1783 with the appointment of Christian Gottlob Neefe to the music staff of the ruling prince, where both Beethoven’s father and grandfather were employed.

In nine years, Beethoven was ready to pursue his studies in Vienna, with Joseph Haydn. He never returned to Bonn. Beethoven had many influential patrons in Vienna and it was clear he was on the verge of becoming a major force in music. In Vienna he first made his reputation as a pianist and teacher, and he became famous quickly.

Four years later, about 1800, after arriving in Vienna, Beethoven started to become deaf. By 1820, when he was almost totally deaf, Beethoven composed his greatest works. These include the last five piano sonatas, the Missa solemnis, and the last five string quartets. He experienced the greatest of despair but accepted his fate with a sense of profound greatness: he would show the world! From this point on, he focused all his energy on his compositions. The first work was his Third Symphony, known as the “Eroica,” a work of infinite levels of expression. Some of Beethoven’s most popular works include the Violin Concerto in D Major, Mass in D Major (“Missa Solemnis”), The Nine Symphonies, including the “Eroica”, “Pastorale” and “Choral”), Egmont Overture, Fidelio, Piano Sonata in C-Sharp Minor (“Moonlight”), Sonata in F Minor “Appassionata”), Piano Concerto No. 5 in E Flat (“Emperor”). Major chamber works include 16 string quartets, 16 piano trios, 10 violin sonatas, and 35 piano sonatas. And what beginning piano student will ever forget “Fër Elise” or many sets of variations, including a set on a theme by Paisiello?

Beethoven waged a constant war with the world he lived in – with his landlords, his debtors, his students, his friends and, of course, his deafness. By the time he wrote his celebrated Fifth Symphony in 1805, he could hear virtually nothing. This symphony has become a musical symbol of victory all over the world.

Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia and his Symphony number 5 in the newly released Fantasia 2000.

Beethoven surpassed himself with his Ninth Symphony, finally finished in 1823. He based his main theme of the choral movement on Friedrich von Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”. This theme also became an hymn with the words “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. When this symphony was performed in 1824, Beethoven was already deaf and was unaware of the audience applause until he turned around from the conductor’s podium to see the audience.

Beethoven composed 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, 10 overtures, 10 sonatas for violin and piano, 9 symphonies, 5 piano concerti, 5 sonatas for cello and piano, 2 masses, 1 violin concerto, 1 opera and several miscellaneous works.

Beethoven developed a completely original style of music, reflecting his sufferings and joys. His work forms a peak in the development of tonal music and is one of the crucial evolutionary developments in the history of music. Before his time, composers wrote works for religious services, and to entertain people. But people listened to Beethoven’s music for its own sake. As a result, he made music more independent of social, or relgious purposes.

The story is often repeated that when Beethoven died, his last defiant act was to shake his fist at a raging thunderstorm outside. Many have seen this as symbolic of his triumph over deafness, which was a major turning point in his life.

Beiderbecke

“Bix” Beiderbecke. From the Smithsonian magazine article: Bix: The story of a young man and his horn:

Bix Beiderbecke taught himself to play the cornet when he was in his teens and died in 1931 at the age of 28. During his brief career, says author Fred Turner, he became one of the true sensations of the Jazz Age, unforgettable to anyone who ever heard him. So unforgettable, in fact, that the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival held each July draws some 15,000 jazz aficionados to Davenport, Iowa, where the jazz legend was born. And the well-known composer Lalo Schifrin recently premiered a symphonic jazz work, “Rhapsody for Bix,” based on songs written or popularized by the cornetist. Bix was also the inspiration for a popular novel of the late ’30s, Young Man With a Horn, and the 1950 movie by the same title starring Kirk Douglas. He has been the subject of a steady stream of critical assessments, a full-scale biography, a 1990 feature film and a 1994 film documentary.

But what made this young musician so memorable? The qualities that strike the modern listener, says Turner, are the ones that awed his contemporaries: the round, shimmering tone; the deliberateness of the attack that still manages to flow. “The best of his solos,” said critic Chip Deffaa, “seem absolutely perfect: one cannot conceive of them being improved upon.” Guitarist Eddie Condon said Bix’s horn sounded like a girl saying yes.

Another part of Bix’s appeal, says Turner, derives from the way he lived. Here was a handsome young man who never grew old, whose frenetic pace matched that of the new music he helped create. When fans took him partying, they found he liked the things they liked, especially Prohibition alcohol, which he could consume in enormous quantities. With the aid of booze, said Eddie Condon, “he drove away all other things like food, sleep, women, ambition, vanity, desire. He played the piano and the cornet, that was all.”

But in the end, says Turner, despite his brief fame, despite the ghastly death, there remains the beautiful sound he made and left behind.

Berg

Alban Berg Lived from 1885 until 1935. He was the Viennese pupil of Arnold Schoenberg who brought to maturity the atonal style of twentieth-century music.

Berio

Luciano Berio was born in Oneglia, Italy in 1925. He is a composer and teacher of music who studied at the Music Academy in Milan, and founded an electronic studio. He moved to the USA in 1962, taught composition at the Juilliard School, New York City, and returned to Italy in 1972. In 1950 he married the US soprano Cathy Berberian (1925 to 1983), for whom he wrote several works. He is particularly interested in the combining of live and pre-recorded sound, and the use of tapes and electronic music, as in his compositions Mutazioni (Mutations) in 1955, and Omaggio a James Joyce (Homage to James Joyce) in 1958. His Sequenza series for solo instruments (1958 onwards) are striking virtuoso pieces. Other works include Passaggio (1963), Laborintus II (1965), and Opera (1969 to 1970).

Berlin

Irving Berlin lived from 1888 until 1989. He was born Israel Baline in Tyumen, Russia. Little Israel came to the United States with his family at the age of four. His father passed away several years later, so Israel took to the streets of New York, singing on street corners and in saloons, and as a singing waiter, all to earn money to help support his family. It was the beginning of a wonderful career in song, stage and movies. A printer’s error on the music sheet for his composition, Marie from Sunny Italy, accidentally changed his name. The change became permanent.

Mr. American Music, better known to us as Irving Berlin, wrote more songs than we care to count including Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Always, Doin’ What Comes Naturally, Puttin’ on the Ritz, Blue Skies, Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning and Play a Simple Melody. This man, who could neither read nor write music, also composed a song titled, Smile and Show Your Dimple. You probably never heard of that one; but seventeen years later, when produced, it became a hit as Easter Parade.

Kate Smith was the voice he chose to sing God Bless America, which he wrote in 1917. It became her signature and a major contender to replace The Star-Spangled Banner as the U.S. national anthem.

Berlin wrote the scores for many Broadway shows (Annie Get Your Gun) and films (Top Hat). Winning an Oscar for his composition, White Christmas, Irving Berlin had the unique experience of opening the envelope that contained his name. He was the presenter at this segment of the Academy Awards for 1942 and upon opening the envelope, said, “This goes to a nice guy; I’ve known him all my life. The winner is … me.”

Berlioz

Hector Berlioz (1803 until 1869), along with Felix Mendelssohn was one of the first conductors of a large orchestra. Berlioz was generally regarded as the most important French Romantic composer. He was also known as a critic and conductor. People either really loved him, or really hated him. His music could be so powerful and original, or trite and vulgar. His music is emotional and full of the drama of the Romantic life, but it also contained the Classicism of Gluck.

Louis Hector Berlioz’s father, a property owner and a doctor, wanted him to study medicine, but it was clear that the boy was destined for music. He had an aptitude for music, composing little bits as a child. But, with his father set against a career as a musician, young Hector had to piece together a musical education. He never even learned how to play the piano, the building block for almost every composer. But Berlioz gave a positive spin to his deficiency, saying that it allowed him to create music anywhere, piano or not. This freedom gave Berlioz a voice unlike any other.

But Hector’s father still insisted that the boy study medicine, so at 16, Berlioz began his medical studies. In 1821, he went to the Medical School in Paris, but the city of Paris was the wrong place for a frustrated musician stuck in medical school. Berlioz attended the opera and heard Gluck’s work, Iphigenie en Tauride. He fell in love with the music, and soon became obsessed with it. He went to the library at the Paris Conservatoire, studying all of Gluck’s opera scores. A year later, he was writing his first opera, and in 1823, he wrote an oratorio. He still managed to receive his Bachelor of Science in 1824, but this would be as far as he would go in his medical career.

He enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire, and lived the life of the starving artist. To earn extra money, he worked at the theatre, where he met Harriet Smithson. She was an Irish lass, an actress, and the 26-year-old Berlioz fell in love with her, but she rejected him. For the next three months, he poured all of his heartbreak into his Symphonie Fantastique, subtitled An Episode in the Life of an Artist. The symphony became his first success. Eventually, though, true love would conquer all and Berlioz and his beloved Harriet would marry, and then separate.

But, Berlioz wasn’t satisfied with success as a composer of orchestral works. He wanted to conquer the stage. Paris at the time of Berlioz was a difficult place for anyone who did not compose operas. Regular concert orchestras were such a rarity that an audience didn’t exist, and composers wanting to give concerts usually ended up losing money. The old patronage system that supported the likes of Mozart and Haydn was drying up, and making a living as a composer was almost impossible, unless you composed operas. But another reason for Berlioz’s enthusiasm for the stage was his own dramatic personality. One listen to his Requiem, and you get the feeling that his aim was more theatrical than religious. His Symphonie Fantastique also contains operatic elements. After writing his first opera in 1823, Berlioz tried again in 1826, and again in 1838 with Benvenuto Cellini. It failed after only 4 performances. His next opera, The Damnation of Faust (1846), premiered in Paris, did not do any better. According to Berlioz, it had only two performances, and both were before a half-empty house.

Frustrated, Berlioz left Paris and went travelling to Russia, Berlin, and London. The British and the Germans loved his music, and Berlioz regularly visited them for the next 15 years. His once beloved Paris was changing, embracing the new music of Liszt and Wagner. Liszt tried to help Berlioz’s cause, reviving Berlioz’s opera Benvenuto Cellini in 1852 and later that year having a Berlioz Week featuring performances of Berlioz works. Berlioz reciprocated by dedicating the published version of his Damnation of Faust to Liszt in 1854.

Bernstein

January 11, 1981 Leonard Bernstein began conducting the BR – Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra in Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” in Munich’s Hercules Hall. Performed one act at a time, in January, April, and November of 1981, respectively, Bernstein’s “Tristan und Isolde” was telecast live and later released as an audio recording by Philips–to some controversy.

Karl Böhm remarked, with regards to Bernstein’s exaggeratedly slow tempi, “For the first time, someone dares to perform this music as Wagner wrote it.” Böhm’s own recording of the Prelude was four minutes faster.

Upon completion of the project, Bernstein declared, “My life is complete… I don’t care what happens after this. It is the finest thing I’ve ever done.”

Bizet

Georges Bizet, 1838 to 1875, was a French composer who wrote piano music, orchestral works and eight operas. Best known for his opera Carmen. He was asked to compose music for Daudet’s play L’Arlésienne when he was only 33. This play needed 27 musical pieces, which Bizet amazingly produced, even though he had little time and his health was poor. He died 3 years later.

Black

Arnold Black was a composer and violinist who started a beloved classical music program in the rural Berkshires. He died in 2000 at the age of 77, two days after the Mohawk Trails Concert series opened its 31st year.

Black moved to the Berkshires in 1970 to escape his hectic life in New York. Born in Philadelphia, he attended the Juilliard School of Music and wrote music for theater, film, television and concert halls.

Black engaged world-renowned artists for the concert series, which could satisfy the most discriminating classical music fan.

Black was composer-in-residence at The Circle in the Square in New York City in the 1950s. He wrote the score for the production of James Joyce’s “Ulysses in Nighttown,” starring Zero Mostel.

He also wrote music for the National Shakespeare Company and for films including “River Song,” “Black Harvest,” “Memorial Day,” “Empire of Reason,” and “Peace for Our Time,” which he co-composed with Eric Clapton.

In 1995, his opera “The Phantom Tollbooth,” based on the children’s classic, premiered with Opera Delaware.

Blake

Herbert “Eubie” Blake, 1883 to 1983, was an American jazz pianist, vaudevillian, songwriter and composer of 1,000 songs. Some of them are: Charleston, Chocolate Dandies, Blackbirds of 1930, Memories of You, Shuffle Along of 1932, Atrocities of 1932, Swing It, Tan Manhattan, Brownskin Models and Hit the Stride. He teamed up with Noble Sissle to write: It’s All Your Fault, Shufflin’ Along, Love Will Find a Way, I’m Just Wild About Harry.

Boccherini

Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli was born in 1958 in rural Tuscany. Music has been a lifelong passion and it was noted at an early age how enthralled Andrea was by opera. Through a growing collection of 78s, Bocelli spent his childhood attempting to emulate his heroes, great Italian tenors including Gigli and particularly Franco Corelli. As a child Andrea learned whole operas, dreaming of performing the great heroic and tragic roles on famous opera stages.

Bocelli’s musical talents were nurtured, with classical tuition for instruments including flute and piano. However, despite a clearly beautiful natural vocal talent, formal study of the voice was not to come until later in life. While harbouring deep operatic ambitions, Bocelli’s family were sceptical that music was a realistic or secure career for any young man. Respecting his parent’s wishes, Bocelli studied law at the University of Pisa. After graduation Andrea practiced law in Pisa, but having achieved future security, turned his attention to formal training for his mature voice and the ambitions of his youth.

Andrea first studied under the maestro Luciano Bettarini of Prato, known for working with some of Italy’s finest voices. Bocelli discovered that Franco Corelli was to give master classes. Performing for his childhood idol was a daunting prospect and acceptance as a pupil of Corelli vindicated Bocelli, strengthening the confidence to pursue his goals. Bocelli put his legal career on hold to devote his life to music.

“I don’t think that one really decides to be a singer. It’s decided for you, by the reaction of those around you. Perhaps one shouldn’t sway ‘listen to me, I want to sing for you’, but if people say ‘please sing for us’, well….”

Andrea Bocelli is a true phenomenon. The manner in which the voice of one man captured the hearts of music lovers across five continents, is truly unprecedented. In just five years since the Italian public were introduced to the voice of Andrea Bocelli, through his remarkable triumph at the Sanremo Festival, this amazing talent has become the biggest selling classical performer to emerge in several decades. His two classical discs, “Viaggio Italiano” and “Aria”, have achieved international success. Just one illustration of the huge scale of Bocelli’s international popularity occurred in the US in 1999, when four of his albums featured simultaneously on the official Billboard album chart. Such a feat had been achieved only twice in recent memory, in the early 1990s by Garth Brooks and before this in the mid 1980s by U2.

Following the success of his first three albums in Italy, the contemporary album “Romanza” became Andrea Bocelli’s international debut release. In just twelve months, “Romanza” transformed Bocelli into one of the globe’s most popular recording artists. Conquering Europe, “Romanza” was released throughout 1997 in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia & New Zealand. “Romanza” has sold over 15 million copies to date, introducing millions of the world’s music lovers to the passionate voice of Andrea Bocelli. Andrea Bocelli has since acquainted them with his passion for opera.

Boëllmann

Léon Boëllmann lived from 1862 until 1897. His name is known to all organists because of his brilliant Toccata for the instrument, the final movement of a Suite gothique. Born in Alsace in 1862, he served as organist at the church of St. Vincent-de-Paul in Paris from 1881 until his early death in 1897.

In addition to the Toccata from the Suite gothique, Op. 25, the Douze pièces (Twelve Pieces), Op. 16, and Heures mystiques, Opp. 29 & 30, are well enough known.

Borge

Victor Borge was born in 1909 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was an entertainer and pianist – a deliciously funny performer. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, and in Vienna and Berlin. He made his debut as a pianist in 1926, and as a revue actor in 1933. From 1940 until his death in 2000 he worked in the USA for radio, television, and theatre, and has performed with leading symphony orchestras on worldwide tours since 1956. He was best known for his comedy sketches combining music and narrative. He used his classical training to skew serious music and performers.

From his obituary:
Pianist Victor Borge, died in his sleep Dec 23, 2000 at his Greenwich, Connecticut home, was known as the unmelancholy Dane of international show business. He would have turned 92 on Jan. 3, 2001.

“The cause of death was heart failure,” his daughter, Sanna Feirstein, told Reuters.

“He had just returned from a wonderfully successful trip to Copenhagen … and it was really heartwarming to see the love he experienced in his home country,” she said.

Borge was one of five performers selected for the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999.

“He went to sleep, and they went to wake him up this morning, and he was gone,” said his agent, Bernard Gurtman.

“He had so much on the table, and to the day he died he was creative, and practicing piano several hours a day,” Gurtman told Reuters. “He was just a great inspiration.”

Funeral services will be private, his daughter said.

Borge made a career of falling off piano stools, missing the keys with his hands and getting tangled up in the sheet music.

One of his inspirations was a pianist who played the first notes of the Grieg A Minor Concerto and then fell on the keys dead.

He said that the only time he got nervous on stage was when he had to play seriously and adds that if it had not been for Adolf Hitler he probably would never have pursued a career as a concert-hall comedian.

Until he was forced to flee Denmark in 1940 he was a stage and screen idol in his native country.

Lampooned Hitler

But as a Jew who had lampooned Hitler, Borge — his real name was Boerge Rosenbaum — was in danger and fled first to Sweden and then to the United States, where he arrived penniless and unknown and by a fluke got booked on the Bing Crosby radio show. He was an instant success.

He became an American citizen in 1948, but thought of himself as Danish. It was obvious from the numerous affectionate tributes and standing ovations at his 80th birthday concert in Copenhagen in 1989 that Danes felt the same way.

In the concert at Copenhagen’s Tivoli gardens, Borge played variations on the theme of “Happy Birthday to You” in the styles of Mozart, Brahms, Wagner and Beethoven — all executed with such wit that the orchestra was convulsed with laughter that a woman performing a piccolo solo was unable to draw breath to play.

“Playing music and making jokes are as natural to me as breathing,” Borge told Reuters in an interview after that concert.

“That’s why I’ve never thought of retiring because I do it all the time whether on the stage or off. I found that in a precarious situation, a smile is the shortest distance between people. When one needs to reach out for sympathy or a link with people, what better way is there?

“If I have to play something straight, without deviation in any respect, I still get very nervous. It’s the fact that you want to do your best, but you are not at your best because you are nervous and knowing that makes you even more nervous.”

His varied career included acting, composing for films and plays and writing but he was best known for his comic sketches based on musical quirks and oddities.

Unpredictable Routine

His routines were unpredictable, often improvised on stage as his quick wit responded to an unplanned event — a noise, a latecomer in the audience — or fixed on an unlikely prop — a fly, a shaky piano stool.

Borge was born in Denmark on January 3, 1909, son of a violinist in the Danish Royal Orchestra.

His parents encouraged him to become a concert pianist, arranging his first public recital when he was 10. In 1927 he made his official debut at the Tivoli Gardens.

Borge’s mischievous sense of humor was manifest from an early age. Asked as a child to play for his parent’s friends he would announce “a piece by the 85-year-old Mozart” and improvise something himself.

When his mother was dying in Denmark during the occupation, Borge visited her, disguised as a sailor.

“Churchill and I were the only ones who saw what was happening,” he said in later years. “He saved Europe and I saved myself.”

From 1953 to 1956, he appeared in New York in his own production “Comedy in Music,” a prelude to world tours that often took him to his native Scandinavia.

On radio and television, Borge developed the comedy techniques of the bungling pianist that won him worldwide fame.

Many of his skits were based on real-life events. One of his classics evolved from seeing a pianist playing a Tchaikovsky concerto fall off his seat.

Borge’s dog joined the show after it wandered on stage while he was at the keyboard — an entrance nobody would believe had been unplanned.

One incident could not be repeated. A large fly flew on to Borge’s nose while he was playing. “How did you get that fly to come on at the right time?” people asked. “Well, we train them,” Borge explained.

Borge’s book, “My Favorite Intervals”, published in 1974, detailed little-known facts of the private lives of composers describing Wagner’s pink underwear and the time Borodin left home in full military regalia but forgot his trousers.

In 1975, Borge was honored in recognition of the 35th anniversary of his arrival in the United States and his work as unofficial goodwill ambassador from Denmark to the United States. He celebrated his 75th birthday in 1984 with a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall and in Copenhagen.

Borge received a host of honors from all four Scandinavian countries for his contributions to music, humor and worthy causes.

Borge, who had lived in Greenwich since 1964, is survived by five children, nine grandchildren, and one great grandchild. His wife of many years, Sanna, died.

Borodin

One of the most beautiful string quartets ever written was Borodin’s Second String Quartet in D Major, composted in the 1880’s. Two of the melodies in the 1953 production of Kismet were based on themes from this quartet.

Boulanger, Lili

Lili Boulanger lived from 1893 until 1918. Encouraged by her elder sister Nadia, the French composer Lili Boulanger was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome and was prolific, during her short life, writing music very much in the prevailing style of the period.

Lili Boulanger’s compositions for orchestra include Pie Jesu, Sicilienne and Marche gaie for small orchestra and a fuller Poeme symphonique.

Boulanger, Nadia

Nadia Boulanger (1887 – 1979) is better known as a teacher and conductor than as a composer. In the first capacity she was responsible for the musical training of a generation of distinguished composers from Europe and America. Her work as an interpreter influenced many, not least by the part she played in the revival of interest in Monteverdi.

Nadia Boulanger’s few compositions include Les heures claires, settings of poems by Verhaeren completed in 1912, after which she wrote little, although in 1908 she had won the second Prix de Rome.

Boulez

Pierre Boulez was born in 1925 in Montbrison, France. He is a conductor and composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1943 until 195), and became musical director of Barrault’s Théâtre Marigny (1948), where he established his reputation as an interpreter of contemporary music. During the 1970s he devoted himself mainly to his work as conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1971 to 1975) and of the New York Philharmonic (1971 to 1977), and in 1977 he became director of the Institut de Recherche et de Co-ordination Acoustique Musique at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. His early work as a composer rebelled against what he saw as the conservatism of such composers as Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

Boulez died January 5, 2016.

Brahms

Johannes Brahms lived between 1833 and 1897. He is considered to be the foremost romantic composer of instrumental music in the late 19th century. As well as being a fine composer, he was also a pianist. Brahms’ father discouraged his talent for music but Robert Schumann gave him help in reaching his goal of becoming a musician and the two remained close friends until Schumann’s death.

Brahms wrote four symphonies, two piano concerti, chamber music, piano works, and over 200 songs. Some of his most famous works are Requiem, Symphony #1 in C Minor and his Symphony #4 in E Minor.

Braxton

Anthony Braxton is an American composer and woodwind improviser, one of the most prolific artists in free jazz.

Composers – M

Posted by MaryO on January 22, 2025

Maazel

Lorin Maazel performed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair when he was only 9. He conducted two major symphonies before he was 13 and went on to a successful career as an adult conductor.

MacDowell

Edward MacDowell lived from 1860 until 1908. He was an American pianist and composer and was one of the first American composers to achieve any degree of international fame. He studied in Paris, eventually at the Conservatoire, before moving to study the piano with Carl Heymann at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he had composition lessons with Joachim Raff. There was encouragement from Liszt and further years spent in Europe until his return to the United States in 1888. There he succeeded in establishing himself as a teacher, pianist and composer, with appointment as the first Professor of Music at Columbia,a position he held until 1904. His last years were clouded by mental illness.

Piano music by MacDowell is effective if not innovative. It includes two piano concertos, four sonatas, the Tragica, Eroica, Norse and Keltic, studies and a quantity of genre pieces.

Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut was born sometime around 1300 in Rheims(?), France and died: April 13, 1377. Rheims, France He was a French poet and musician as well as a composer of monophonic and polyphonic music. He is also known as the leading representative of the Ars nova tradition.

Machaut lived his life in the higher ranks of service, first as secretary to John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, and then as a canon (a church official) at the Cathedral of Rheims. Like many in the fourteenth century, Machaut’s life and works reflect an equal measure of the sacred and secular. Most of his works were either secular (such as his many chansons) or a mix of sacred and ceremonial (including many of his motets and his hocket David, which was probably written for the coronation service of King Charles V in 1364). At the same time, he wrote what is probably the first full setting of the Mass Ordinary by a single composer (the Messe de Nostre Dame). He was a man of the cloth, having taken minor orders at an early age. Yet toward the end of his life he maintained a romantic/literary affair with a young woman named Perrone.

Much of Machaut’s polyphonic music reflects the interest that composers had in building complex structures based on the repetition and manipulation of borrowed melodies (a technique called isorhythm). In some of his works, these techniques are applied to all the voices. The harmonies found in Machaut’s pieces are built around the fifth and the octave, the primary consonances of the period. His secular music carries on the musical and textual traditions of the troubadours and trouv?res. Most are written in the fixed forms such as the virelei, rondeau and ballade.

Marchaut’s works include:
Sacred/ceremonial music, including Messe de Nostre Dame, 23 motets, hocket “David”
Secular music, including 42 ballades, 22 rondeaux, 33 virelais, 19 lais, 1 complainte, 1 chanson royale

Mahler

Gustav Mahler lived from 1860 until 1911. Like so many other musicians, Mahler started early, learning the piano at six and giving his first recital at the age of ten.

In 1909, he became conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Court Opera. Mahler, a Bohemian composer, used huge orchestras, the largest for his “Symphony for a Thousand”. He also completed nine symphonies and several song-cycles notably “Das Lied von der Erde.” Mahler’s music was used in the 1971 movie, Death in Venice.

Mancini

Henry Mancini (Enrico Nicola Mancini) lived from 1924 until 1994. He was an Academy Award-winning composer of movies such as Moon River in 1961, Days of Wine and Roses in 1962, Breakfast at Tiffany’s score in 1961, Victor/Victoria score in 1982. He also composed themes for The Pink Panther, Mr. Lucky, Peter Gunn, Charade, NBC Mystery Movie, NBC Nightly News, Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet and received 20 Grammy Awards.

Marriner

Sir Neville Marriner, born in 1924, is a British violinist and conductor. He was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, EC England, UK and he studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatory. He first played violin with the London Philharmonia and the London Symphony Orchestra, then turned to conducting. He has held posts with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1968 until 1977, the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 until 1986, and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra 1984 until 1989. Since 1956 he has been founder-director of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields chamber ensemble. He was knighted in 1985.

Marsalis

The Marsalis clan of New Orleans is a large one. Ellis, the head of the family, plays piano, Jason plays drums. Wynton plays trumpet and Branford plays saxophone. Together and individually, this family has done quite a lot to inspire young musicians.

Massanet

Jules Emile Frederick Massenet lived from 1842 until 1912. He was a composer who was born in Montaud, France. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was professor from 1878 until 1896. He made his name with the comic opera Don Caesar de Bazan. Other operas followed, including Manon (1884), considered by many to be his masterpiece, Le Cid (1885), and Werther (1892). Among his other works are oratorios, orchestral suites, music for piano, and songs.

McCartney

Sir (James) Paul McCartney was born in 1942. He is a musician, songwriter, and composer who was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK. He was the Beatles’ bass guitarist, vocalist, and member of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, he made his debut as a soloist with the album McCartney (1970), heralding the break-up of the group. In 1971 he formed the band Wings (disbanded in 1981) with his wife Linda (1942–98). “Mull of Kintyre’ (1977) became the biggest-selling UK single (2.5 million). In 1979 he was declared the most successful composer of all time: by 1978 he had written or co-written 43 songs that sold over a million copies each.

His Liverpool Oratorio (written in association with Carl Davis) was performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Liverpool Cathedral in 1991, and he has since continued to develop his interests as a classical composer, notably in Standing Stone (1997). He collaborated with Harrison and Starr in the retrospective Beatles’ anthology in 1995.

He wrote the books All You Need Is Love (1968) and Paul McCartney In His Own Words (1976), and wrote, produced, and composed the music for a successful animated film, Rupert and the Frog Song in 1984.

He won a Grammy Award in 1990 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 1999. He was knighted in 1997.

McPartland

Marian Turner McPartland was born in Windsor, England in 1920. She is a versatile pianist and jazz musician. She moved to America in 1945 and led a trio from 1951 and founded Halcyon Records. In 1973 she began an adjunct career as the host of jazz radio programs and National Public Radio show – Marian McPartand?s Piano Jazz.

Melba

Nellie Melba, whose birth name was Helen Porter Mitchell, was an Australian singer born in Melbourne, Australia in 1861. She was taught to sing by mother, educated at Presbyterian Ladies’ College, married 1881 and decided to sing professionally. She visited London and Paris in 1886 and debuted in Brussels as Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” in 1887.

First diva of the century as Nellie Melba (from her home town), she demanded a pound more than Caruso at his peak for her three-octave voice. Upset that Escoffier named a dessert Peach Melba without paying royalties, she patented her name in the US. For WWI fundraising concerts she was made a Dame Commander of the Order for the British Empire in 1918. Her career took her to London’s Covent Garden and New York’s Metropolitan opera houses. She gave her name to Melba Toast, Peach Melba and Melba Sauce. Melba died 1931 from and infection following an unsuccessful face lift.

Melchoir

Lauritz Lebrecht Hommel Melchior was a tenor who born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1890. He died in 1973. Beginning as a baritone in 1913, he went on to become arguably the foremost Wagnerian tenor of the century. He sang in Bayreuth from 1924 until 1931 and regularly at the Metropolitan Opera from 1926 until 1950). In the late 1940s and early 1950s he appeared in several Hollywood movies.

Melchior was sometimes called ‘The Heroic Tenor’ or ‘The Premier Heldentenor of the 20th Century’.

Mendelssohn

Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn lived between 1809 and 1847. He is considered to be a romantic composer and pianist best known for his symphonies and concert overtures. Mendelssohn played the piano in public by the age of nine, so he was often compared to Mozart.

He composed works for solo instruments and orchestra, and German songs. Some of his better known works are the “Wedding March”, “Elijah” and “Fingal’s Cave”. Felix Mendelssohn, along with Hector Berlioz was one of the first conductors of a large orchestra.

Mendelssohn harmonized the works of other composers, including Johann Cruger.

Menotti

Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” was the first opera ever written for television and is the most frequently performed opera in the United States. He won a Pulitzer prize for his opera, The Consul, in 1950.

Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin made his violin debut as a child prodigy by appearing with the San Francisco Orchestra at the age of 7 in 1923. He was wearing short pants, which were then fashionable for boys his age. He later became a music statesman by promoting music as a univeral peacemaker and as a means to realize greater global understanding. He was born in New York City in 1916 but became a British citizen in 1985.

Messiaen

Olivier (Eugène Prosper Charles) Messiaen lived from 1908 until 1992. He was a composer and organist, born in Avignon, France. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included Paul Dukas.

His 20/21 earned him a Grammy

Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer lived from 1791 until 1864. He was a German Grand opera composer. His most famous works are “Les Huguenots” and “L’Africaine”. His Hellish Waltz from Robert du Diable, transcribed by Liszt probably caused more public commotion than any other piano piece in history.

Midori

Midori (Mi Dori Goto) is a Japanese violin virtuoso who began lessons at age four.

Milhaud

arius Milhaud, 1892 to 1974, was born in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence. Darius Milhaud was trained at the Paris Conservatoire, originally as a violinist, before turning to composition. He enjoyed a close association with the diplomat-poet Paul Claudel, whom he accompanied to Brazil as secretary, after Claudel’s appointment as Minister at the French delegation in Rio de Janeiro. On his return to Paris in 1918, after two years abroad, Milhaud was for a time in the circle of Jean Cocteau and a member of the diverse group of French composers known as Les Six. Extremely prolific as a composer in many genres, Milhaud spent the years of the 1939 war in the United States, where he taught, combining this position with a similar post at the Paris Conservatoire after 1947.

Two works in particular have proved attractive additions to repertoire. The first, Saudades do Brasil, a suite for piano, is based on music heard in Brazil during the composer’s stay there between 1916 and 1918. Scaramouche, arranged for two pianos from incidental music for Moli?re’s Le M?decin Volant, is a lively jeu d’esprit, in the spirit of the commedia dell’arte character of the title.

Darius Milhaud wrote a considerable amount of music for the theatre, operas, ballets and incidental music, as well as film and radio scores. Collaboration with Claudel brought the opera Christophe Colombe and a number of compositions of incidental music for plays ranging from those of Shakespeare to the work of contemporaries such as Brecht, Supervielle, Giraudoux and Anouilh. With Cocteau he wrote the ballets Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof) and the jazz La Cr?ation du Monde, for the Ballets n?gres. These represent only a small fraction of his dramatic work.

Milhaud was equally prolific as a composer of orchestral music of all kinds, including twelve symphonies and a variety of concertos, some of which reflect the influence of his native Provence.

Milhaud contributed widely also to the repertoire of French song both in choral settings and in songs for solo voice and piano, with texts chosen from a great variety of sources from Rabindranath Tagore and Andre Gide to the words of Pope John XXIII, the last in a choral symphony Pacem in terris.

In addition to eighteen string quartets and useful additions to duo sonata repertoire, not least for viola, an instrument used for the Quatre Visages of 1943, representations in music of four different kinds of girls, Milhaud provided for wind quintet the charming suite La cheminée du roi René and the attractive Pastorale of 1935 for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. He shows here, as elsewhere, a characteristically French adroitness in writing for woodwind instruments.

Miller

(Alton) Glenn Miller, lived from 1904 until 1944 and was born in Clarinda, Iowa. He was a trombonist who he attended the University of Colorado before joining Ben Pollack’s orchestra in Chicago in 1924. He moved to New York in 1928, where he free-lanced for the next nine years as a studio musician and worked as a sideman with a succession of bandleaders, including Red Nichols, the Dorsey Brothers, and Ray Noble. After his first band failed in 1937, he put together a second orchestra in 1938. For the next four years, with hits such as “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood,” it was the most successful dance band of the period. In 1942, he joined the U.S. Air Force, for which he organized the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band to entertain the troops. While stationed in Europe, he died on a flight from England to France in a plane that disappeared over the English Channel.

Minelli

Liza May Minnelli was born in 1946 in Los Angeles, California. She is a singer, dancer, stage and screen actress. Her parents are actress Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli and her half-sister is singer-actress Lorna Luft.

Minnelli was less than 3 years old when she made her screen debut in In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which co-starred her mother. She became the youngest-ever actress to win a Tony Award, for Flora, the Red Menace (1965), at age nineteen. She is the only singer in history to sell out Carnegie Hall for three weeks straight.

Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi lived from 1567 until 1643 and was considered to be a baroque composer. He was the first great composer of opera.

Monteverdi introduced the orchestral prelude, enlarged the orchestra, and improved its role by recognizing instrumental differences. His first opera “Orfeo” was performed in 1607.

Moog

Robert Moog was born in 1934. He invented the first music synthesizer in 1964.

Morley

Morton

Jelly Roll Morton, born Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe in 1885, was one of the most influential composers of the jazz era, bridging an important gap between ragtime, blues, and jazz. In a sense, he was the first great jazz composer.

His career began in New Orleans, where he began to experiment with a unique blend of blues, ragtime, Creole, and Spanish music in bordellows as a piano player. Along with being a musician, he also worked as a gambler, pool shark, vaudeville comedian, and was known for his flamboyant personality and diamond front tooth.

Morton became successful when he started making what would be some of the first jazz recordings in 1923 with “the New Orleans Rhythm Kings”. Whether he played on the West Coast, New Orleans, or in Chicago, his recordings were always very popular. He joined the group “the Red Hot Peppers” in 1924 and made several classic albums with the Victor label.

Nothing but success came to him until 1930, when “Hot Jazz” began to die out, and big bands began to take over. Morton died in 1941, claiming that a voodoo spell was the cause of his demise.

Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso.

Mouret

Jean Joseph Mouret’s Rondeau was the theme for many years of TV’s Masterpiece Theater Mouret wrote his music in Paris in the early 1700’s

Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Theophilus Mozart lived between 1756 and 1791. He is considered to be a classical composer. Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria, began composing before most children go to kindergarten. By the time he was six he had played the piano and violin in public.

A Wunderkind, a prodigy of the first rank before the age of five, Mozart astounded the musical world with compositions of unsurpassed brilliance. His father Leopold had recognized his talent at the age of three and immediately set out to teach him to play the harpsichord, violin, and organ. Mozart and his sister made their debut in Munich when he was just six and traveled about Europe together, performing at courts and before royalty, always with success. While still a little child Mozart was inventing symphonies, sonatas, and his first opera. Legends abound about how Mozart could hear an entire work in his head and write everything down without making even one change.

As a child performer he was often treated as a freak. People would cover his hands as he played the piano, make him compose tunes on the spot and perform all sorts of other musical tricks.

In 1787 Mozart became court composer to Joseph II. He played for royalty, received commissions from aristocrats and in his short lifetime composed nearly a thousand masterpieces, including symphonies, operas, serenades, sonatas, concertos, masses, vocal works, and church works.

Mozart was a prolific composer writing masterpieces using every form of music, including his operas “The Marriage of Figaro” (based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais), “Don Giovanni”, “Cosi fan tutte” and “The Magic Flute”. His mastery of instrumental and vocal forms, from symphony to concerto and opera, was unrivalled in his own time and perhaps in any other.

Composing the Requiem Mass commissioned for Count Walsegg, he felt he was writing his own requiem and he died before it was finished.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer, died in Vienna Austria at the age of 35, penniless, on December 5th, 1791, of malignant typhus. Mozart, the precocious child prodigy, composed several pieces that are deemed central to the classical era. Though he ranked as one of the greatest musical genius, he did not live a life of affluence as none of his compositions earned him a decent commission but the world is forever enriched by such works as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the Symphonies No. 38 through 41 and the Coronation Mass.
In the year 2000, there have been some new discoveries about Mozart’s death.

Munch

Charles Munch was a French composer who lived from 1891 until 1968. He was born in Strasbourg, France. After a long career as a violinist, he made his conducting debut in Paris in 1932 and three years later organized his own orchestra there. He became conductor of the Boston Symphony in 1949 and stayed until 1962. In the latter year he organized the Orchestre de Paris; he died on tour with that group in Virginia. Munch was known for allowing his players room to express themselves, producing warm and musical performances.

Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky lived from 1839 until 1881. This Russian composer, born in Karevo, Russia, was educated for the army, but resigned his commission in 1858 and began the serious study of music under Balakirev.

He is most known for his dramatic opera Boris Godunov, first performed in St Petersburg in 1874. In this opera, he emphasized that speech is made more poignant by the accompanying music.

His piano suite Pictures from an Exhibition (1874) has also kept a firm place in the concert repertoire. Other operas and large-scale works remained uncompleted as the composer sank into the chronic alcoholism which hastened his early death. His friend Rimsky-Korsakov undertook the task of musical executor, arranged or completed many of his unfinished works, and rearranged some of the finished ones.

Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia.

Mutter

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s remarkable career began at the age of 13 when she appeared as soloist with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic at the 1977 Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Since then she has been in demand as both a soloist and chamber music partner in major music centers throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Her long list of honors for recordings includes the Grand Prix du Disque, the Grammy Award in the United States, and Holland’s Edison Award. Her most recent releases have been “The Berlin Recital” with pianist Lambert Orkis and live recordings of Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Schumann’s “Fantasy” with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur. Her recording of Penderecki’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer (coupled with Bartok’s Violin Sonata No. 2) was released in early 1998. All of Beethoven’s sonatas will be recorded live during her worldwide tour and released by the autumn of 1998.

An ardent champion of contemporary music, Miss Mutter has given premiere performances of several works written especially for her by composers such as Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm and Sebastian Currier. Over the next few years she will participate in premiere performances of works by contemporary composers whom she especially admires.

In 1987 Miss Mutter established the Rudolf Eberle Endowment which supports talented young string musicians throughout Europe. This endowment was recently incorporated into the Munich-based Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation and Friends Circle which share the same objective.

Miss Mutter has a strong commitment to social and health problems of our time. She supports work in these fields through regular benefit concerts. The proceeds from one of her three Beethoven evenings in Munich will go to the Christiane-Herzog-Stiftung for sufferers of cystic fibrosis. In the same year she will perform a benefit concert for the German Red Cross with the proceeds going to an orphanage in Romania. In Philadelphia a concert for Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music will take place.

She is a holder of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Composers – F

Posted by MaryO on January 22, 2025

Field

John Field lived from 1782 until 1837 and was an Irish pianist and composer. He has been credited the invention of the Nocturne, a form later adopted and developed by Chopin. Field was born in Dublin in 1782, the son of a violinist, but moved with his family to London in 1793, perhaps taking violin lessons from Haydn’s friend Salomon.

He became an apprentice of Muzio Clementi, appearing in a series of important London concerts, and later touring widely. After concerts in Russia, he remained in St. Petersburg, where he became a fashionable teacher and performer, moving to Moscow in 1821. Illness brought him, in 1831, to London again, a visit followed by a continental tour and a final return to Moscow, where he died in 1837.

Flowtow

Friedrich Adolf Ferdinand, Freiherr von Flotow was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera Martha, which was popular in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th.

Composers – C

Posted by MaryO on January 22, 2025

Cahn

Sammy Cahn (Samuel Cohen) lived from 1913 until 1993. If you care about anything at all, there’s a song written by Sammy Cahn for you to relate to. Sammy Cahn, the Tin Pan Alley legend, was born Samuel Cohen in New York City.

As a youngster, little Sammy wanted to grow up to be a famous vaudeville fiddler. How lucky we are that he stopped thinking about this in his teenage years. That’s when he met pianist, Saul Chaplin. Sammy wrote the words and Saul wrote the music to their first hit, Rhythm is Our Business for bandleader, Jimmie Lunceford. Then Until the Real Thing Comes Along for Andy Kirk and the jazz classic, Shoe Shine Boy, performed by Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, the Mills Brothers, even Bing Crosby. The Andrews Sisters were lucky to know Sammy, too. It was his adaptation of the Yiddish song, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön that became their signature.

Frank Sinatra’s many signature titles were Sammy Cahn’s words, too (with Jimmy Van Heusen’s music): All the Way (won an Oscar in 1957), My Kind of Town, and Grammy Award-winning September of My Years. As part of the personal song-writing team for Mr. Sinatra, Sammy also wrote Love and Marriage, The Second Time Around, High Hopes (another Oscar winner in 1959) and The Tender Trap.

If you still haven’t found a song that makes you care, try these additional Oscar winners by Sammy Cahn: Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and Call Me Irresponsible (1963). He composed 22 other songs that were nominated but didn’t win the gold statue!

Want to know more? Pick up the autobiography of the talented Sammy Cahn, written in 1974, I Should Care.

Cage

John (Milton) Cage lived from 1912 until 1992. He was an American composer who was born in Los Angeles, California, USA. He studied with a number of teachers including Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, who helped provoke his avant-garde proclivities. He began writing all-percussion pieces in the 1930s and proclaimed the use of noise as the next musical horizon; in 1938 he introduced the “prepared piano,” an instrument whose sound is radically modified by various objects placed on the strings. While writing much for prepared piano in the 1940s, notably the Sonatas and Interludes, he also produced some pioneering electronic music. Among the most widely influential elements of his thought was the idea of indeterminacy, music that is not strictly controlled, as seen in his 1951 Landscape No. 4 for twelve radios – the sound of which depends on what happens to be on the air. Later works, especially the notorious 4’33” (1954), involve complete silence. He continued to develop such concepts and he also produced several quirky, engaging books beginning with the 1961 Silence. In his later years he was widely acclaimed as one of the more original of American artists.

Caruso

Enrico Caruso was a tenor opera singer who lived from 1873 until 1921. His best known roles are Canio in Pagliacci, Rodolfo in La Bohème. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Rigoletto. He sang nearly 70 roles and appeared in nearly every country of Europe and North and South America. His final performance was La Juive at the Met in 1920.

Carissimi

Giacomo Carissimi lived from 1604 until 1674. He is considered to be one of the greatest Italian composers of the 17th century, notable for his oratorios and secular cantatas.

Cash

John R. Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark., one of seven children. When he was 12, his 14-year-old brother and hero, Jack, died after an accident while sawing oak trees into fence posts. The tragedy had a lasting impact on Cash, and he later pointed to it as a possible reason his music was frequently melancholy.

He worked as a custodian and enlisted in the Air Force, learning guitar while stationed in Germany, before launching his music career after his 1954 discharge.

“All through the Air Force, I was so lonely for those three years,” Cash told The Associated Press during a 1996 interview. “If I couldn’t have sung all those old country songs, I don’t think I could have made it.”

Cash launched his career in Memphis, performing on radio station KWEM. He auditioned with Sun Records, ultimately recording the single Hey Porter, which became a hit.

Sun Records also launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and others.

Folsom Prison Blues, went to No. 4 on the country charts in 1956, and featured Cash’s most famous couplet: “I shot a man in Reno/ just to watch him die.”

Cash recorded theme albums celebrating the railroads and the Old West, and decrying the mistreatment of American Indians. Two of his most popular albums were recorded live at prisons. Along the way he notched 14 No. 1 country music hits.

Because of Cash’s frequent performances in prisons and his rowdy lifestyle early in his career, many people wrongly thought he had served prison time. He never did, though he battled addictions to pills on and off throughout his life.

He blamed fame for his vulnerability to drug addiction.

“When I was a kid, I always knew I’d sing on the radio someday. I never thought about fame until it started happening to me,” he said in 1988. “Then it was hard to handle. That’s why I turned to pills.”

He credited June Carter Cash, whom he married in 1968, with helping him stay off drugs, though he had several relapses over the years and was treated at the Betty Ford Center in California in 1984.

June Carter Cash was the daughter of country music great Mother Maybelle Carter, and the mother of singer Carlene Carter, whose father was country singer Carl Smith. Together, June Carter and Cash had one child, John Carter Cash. He is a musician and producer.

Singer Roseanne Cash is Johnny Cash’s daughter from his first marriage, to Vivian Liberto. Their other three children were Kathleen, Cindy and Tara. They divorced in 1966.

In March 1998, Cash made headlines when his California-based record company, American Recordings, took out an advertisement in the music trade magazine Billboard. The full-page ad celebrated Cash’s 1998 Grammy award for best country album for “Unchained.” The ad showed an enraged-looking Cash in his younger years making an obscene gesture to sarcastically illustrate his thanks to country radio stations and “the country music establishment in Nashville,” which he felt had unfairly cast him aside.

Jennings, a close friend, once said of Cash: “He’s been like a brother to me. He’s one of the greatest people in the world.”

Cash once credited his mother, Carrie Rivers Cash, with encouraging him to pursue a singing career.

“My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You’ll be singing for the world someday.”

Dozens of hit records like Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Sunday Morning Coming Down defined Cash’s persona: a haunted, dignified, resilient spokesman for the working man and downtrodden.

Cash’s deeply lined face fit well with his unsteady voice, which was limited in range but used to great effect to sing about prisoners, heartaches, and tales of everyday life. He wrote much of his own material, and was among the first to record the songs of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson.

One Piece at a Time was about an assembly line worker who built a car out of parts stolen from his factory. A Boy Named Sue was a comical story of a father who gives his son a girl’s name to make him tough. The Ballad of Ira Hayes told of the drunken death of an American Indian soldier who helped raise the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, but returned to harsh racism in America.

Cash said in his 1997 autobiography “Cash” that he tried to speak for “voices that were ignored or even suppressed in the entertainment media, not to mention the political and educational establishments.”

Cash’s career spanned generations, with each finding something of value in his simple records, many of which used his trademark rockabilly rhythm.

Cash was a peer of Elvis Presley when rock ‘n’ roll was born in Memphis in the 1950s, and he scored hits like Cry! Cry! Cry! during that era. He had a longtime friendship and recorded with Dylan, who has cited Cash as a major influence.

He won 11 Grammys – most recently in 2003, when Give My Love To Rose earned him honors as best male country vocal performance – and numerous Country Music Association awards. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

His second wife, June Carter Cash, and daughter Roseanne Cash also were successful singers. June Carter Cash, who co-wrote Cash’s hit Ring of Fire and partnered with her husband in hits such as Jackson, died in May 2003.

The late 1960s and ’70s were Cash’s peak commercial years, and he was host of his own ABC variety show from 1969-71. In later years, he was part of the Highwayman supergroup with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.

In the 1990s, he found a new artistic life recording with rap and hard rock producer Rick Rubin on the label American Recordings. And he was back on the charts with the 2002 album “American IV: The Man Comes Around.”

Most recently, Cash was recognized for his cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt with seven nominations at the August 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. He had hoped to attend the event but couldn’t because of his hospital stay. The video won for best cinematography.

He also wrote books including two autobiographies, and acted in films and television shows.

In his 1971 hit Man in Black, Cash said his black clothing symbolized the downtrodden people in the world. Cash had been “The Man in Black” since he joined the Grand Ole Opry at age 25.

“Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkle clothes and cowboy boots,” he said in 1986. “I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I’ve worn black clothes ever since.”

Johnny Cash, ‘”The Man in Black” who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and A Boy Named Sue, died Friday, September 12, 2003. He was 71.

“Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.”

Cash had battled a disease of the nervous system, autonomic neuropathy, and pneumonia in recent years. Cash lived in Hendersonville, Tenn., just outside of Nashville. He also had a home in Jamaica.

Cesti

Marc Antonio Cesti, 1623 to 1669, was an Italian composer working in Venice, Rome and Vienna. He reputedly wrote over one hundred operas of which 15 are extant.

Charles

Ray Charles (Robinson) is a singer, pianist, composer who was born in Albany, Ga in 1930. He lost his sight (from glaucoma) when he was six and attended a school for the blind where he learned to read and write music in braille and play piano and organ. Orphaned at age 15, he left school and began playing music to earn a living, moving to Seattle, Wash., in 1947. Dropping his last name, he performed at clubs in the smooth lounge-swing style of Nat “King” Cole. After some hits on Swing Time Records, he switched to Atlantic Records in 1952 and began to develop a rougher blues and gospel style. For New Orleans bluesman, Guitar Slim, he arranged and played piano on “The Things I Used To Do” (1953); the record sold a million copies. He went on to record his own “I’ve Got a Woman” in 1955 with an arrangement of horns, gospel-style piano, and impassioned vocals that led to the gospel-pop and soul music of the 1960s and to his hit “What’d I Say” (1959). Possessing a multifaceted talent, he recorded with jazz vibist Milt Jackson, made a country and western album that sold 3 million copies (1962), and continued to release a variety of pop hits, Broadway standards, and blues, gospel, and jazz albums. A major influence on popular black music during his early years, he gradually reached out to influence both white musicians and audiences. And although he had been convicted of using drugs in the 1950s, he lived to see the day when he was so acceptable to mainstream Americans that he became virtually the chief image for promoting Pepsi-Cola and he was asked to perform at many national patriotic and political events.

Charpentier

Marc Antoine Charpentier, 1636 to 1704, was a French composer who studied in Italy. When he returned to France he became the most outstanding French composer of oratorios.

Cherubini

Luigi Cherubini lived from 1760 until 1842. The Italian composer Cherubini came to occupy a dominant position in French musical life. He was employed at the Conservatoire in Paris on its foundation and from 1822 was director of the institution, retaining this position until the year of his death. His works include compositions for the stage, the church and for political purposes, a requirement of the turbulent revolutionary years.

Cherubini wrote some 30 operas and of these Les deux journées, now seldom heard, had influence on Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. The opera Médée, first staged in Paris in 1797, remains in occasional repertoire, with the aria Ah, nos peines, providing a popular soprano operatic recital item.

Chopin

Step into the melodious world of Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), the Polish maestro who danced his fingers across the piano keys, creating ripples in the Romantic era. Renowned globally as a virtuoso pianist and composer, Chopin dedicated his life to the ivory keys, weaving compositions that spoke a poetic language, unmatched in technique and emotional depth.

Born in the quaint village of Żelazowa Wola, in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, Chopin grew up under the artistic skyline of Warsaw. As Congress Poland unfolded its wings, so did Chopin’s prodigious talent. By the tender age of 20, having already mastered his art in Warsaw, he embarked on a journey just before the November 1830 Uprising broke out, a journey that would take him to the heart of Paris at 21.

Parisian life saw Chopin shine not in grand concert halls, but in the intimate embrace of salons, where his music found a home. In these salons, he enchanted a select few with 30 public performances, sustaining his life through the sale of his compositions and highly sought-after piano lessons. Among his admirers and friends was the legendary Franz Liszt, alongside other contemporaries like Robert Schumann, who were spellbound by his musical prowess.

Chopin’s life, however, was a nocturne shadowed by the relentless pursuit of tuberculosis, which ultimately claimed him on October 17, 1849. For 11 years, he battled the disease, pouring his soul into his music.

The essence of Chopin’s music is a beautiful paradox – it’s an intricate blend of lyrical romanticism, the rustic charm of Polish folk tunes, and awe-inspiring technical virtuosity. His legacy lives on in the dreamy realms of his nocturnes, the precision of his études, and the rhythmic grace of his waltzes. Transcending the barriers of piano, his compositions have found new life in various instruments and have gracefully waltzed into films, television shows, and commercials.

Chopin’s melodies are not just notes strung together; they are a testament to his undying love for Poland and his genius, resonating through time and continuing to stir the hearts of audiences worldwide. In Chopin’s music, we find an eternal resonance that speaks of passion, homeland, and the unquenchable spirit of creativity.

Christoff

Boris Christoff lived from 1914 until 1993. He was a bass-baritone who was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He studied law in Sofia, then studied singing in Rome and Salzburg. His debut recital was in Rome in 1946. He sang at La Scala in Milan in 1947, at Covent Garden in 1949, and from 1956 in the USA.

Clementi

Muzio Clementi lived from 1752 until 1832. He was a composer and pianist who born in Rome. In 1766 he was brought to England, where he conducted the Italian Opera in London (1777–80), toured as a virtuoso pianist (1781), and went into the piano-manufacturing business. He wrote the Gradus ad Parnassum from 1817 to 1826, a piano method on which subsequent piano methods have been based. He composed mainly piano and chamber music.

Coates

Eric Coates lived from 1886 until 1957 and was the greatest British composer of light music in the 20th century, though his education never looked to be leading him in that direction. He was born in the midlands of England, in the county of Nottinghamshire, in 1886. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, taking viola with the legendary Lionel Tertis, and composition with Frederick Corder. But it was as a violist that he earned his living, joining the famous Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood. From 1913 to 1919 he was principal viola, and a list of first British performances by that orchestra would indicate that he came into contact with all the most avant garde music of his day. Yet it was to be in the field of light music that he was to become famous.

It was the time of the radio, the BBC Light Programme with its demands for new music, and the need to brighten the country after the First World War, and above all it was the day of the ‘bright young thing’. It was the perfect scene for a composer who could produce a seemingly endless stream of easily memorable melodies. A publishing house commissioned him to write a major light music work for orchestra each year, while they were happy to take anything from him including his large output of songs.

Orchestras demanded that he conduct his own music with them, and he started a second career as a conductor of light music including many appearances with the BBC Theatre Orchestra. His music spoke to all generations, from those looking for nostalgia, to the very young, with his phantasies, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘The Three Bears’. He produced one major success after another, his music in the war years valuable to the morale of the nation, and included the stirring march for the Eighth Army to mark their Alamein victory in 1942 under General Montgomery.

Though he continued conducting his own music after the war, including definitive recordings of much of his output, his compositional career seemingly burned out. Then in a sudden flurry of activity he produced a number of fine works in his last years. That period included the Dambusters March for the film on that theme, the first time he succumbed to the many film music offers made to him.

He had so many successes, and his music became known to just about everyone in the UK, that it was thought he had a considerable output, but apart from his songs, it numbered less than fifty. Without doubt it was his training in classical music, and the years in the orchestra, that enabled him to write so fluently and so colourfully.

Sleepy Lagoon dates from 1930, but was not a huge success until an American dance orchestra turned it into a slow foxtrot. That led to the work being chosen for the opening music to the longest running radio show, Desert Island Discs, which started in 1948 and is still broadcast 50 years later. It remains probably the best known melody in the UK.

Two years later, among a number of short pieces written at this time, comes the very relaxed, Lazy Nights. Springtime Suite dates from 1937, and though its three movements never quite achieved the success of his other suites, it is one of his most skilfully constructed works. The previous year Coates met a commission from a virtuoso saxophonist for a new work. The brilliant Saxo-Rhapsody was the result. Composed in less than a month, its jaunty and jolly atmosphere so perfectly captured the nature of the instrument, while providing the soloist with a piece of unabashed showmanship.

The waltz was still the ballroom favourite, and Coates provided a number of such works, though truth to tell, they were more often played as an orchestral work than for dancing. Footlights dates from 1939, the same year that saw the little orchestral romance, Last Love.

Four Ways Suite dates from 1925, Coates looking in four directions, north, south, east and west. The north is represented by Scotland; the second movement has a distinct Italian flavour; China is the east, and flying in the face of the mood among British musicians at that time, it is jazz for the West. The disc ends with Coates’ last composition, High Flight, intended for a Warwick film of 1957.

Cohan

George M. (Michael) Cohan was an actor, singer, composer os songs such as Over There, The Yankee Doodle Boy, Give My Regards to Broadway, Mary’s a Grand Old Name, You’re a Grand Old Flag and Harrigan. He was the subject of movie called Yankee Doodle Dandy, as well as a Broadway show named George M!

There is a statue of George M. Cohan in New York.

Cole

Nat King Cole lived from 1917 until 1965. He was born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Chicago. Cole was a jazz pianist, singer, bandleader,for the King Cole Trio, a songwriter who wrote Straighten Up and Fly Right, an actor in St. Louis Blues, the first black entertainer to host a national TV show and the father of singer Natalie Cole.

His daughter, Natalie, became a pop music star with many hits in the 1990s – including an album of standards made popular by her father: “Mona Lisa”, “For Sentimental Reasons”, “Nature Boy”, “Too Young” and “Unforgettable”. With modern recording technology, she was able to record a duet with her father’s voice.

His first recording was in 1936. Although Cole’s commercial success as a pop artist was phenomenal, it unfortunately came with the sacrifice of his exemplary and extremely influential talents as a jazz pianist. Before he turned full-time to singing, he had already influenced the likes of Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, and Ray Charles with his intricate and innovative piano style and piano/guitar/bass lineup.

Cole’s songs included: Mona Lisa, Too Young, Unforgettable, Pretend, Ballerina, Ramblin’ Rose and The Christmas Song Cole passed away Feb 15, 1965 and was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1990.

Coleman, Cy

Born Seymour Kaufman of immigrant East European Jewish parents in the Bronx, Coleman’s first major hit was Wildcat, the 1960 musical about wildcat oil drilling that starred Lucille Ball (news) and featured the classic Hey Look Me Over. His later hits included City of Angels and Barnum.

Coleman was a self-taught jazz pianist whose career started at the age of 7 when he played a recital at Carnegie Hall.

Songs such as Witchcraft and The Best is Yet to Come were made popular by Sinatra, while another longtime collaborator was screenwriter and lyricist Adolph Green, best known for 1950s classic Singin’ in the Rain.

Coleman also worked closely with Shirley MacLaine, conceiving and co-writing her television special If My Friends Could See Me Now and creating the musical Gypsy in My Soul in 1976 that won Emmy awards for both Coleman and MacLaine.

He won three Tony Awards (news – web sites) as well as several Grammys and Emmys and an Oscar nomination for the music for the 1969 film Sweet Charity. which also starred MacLaine.

Coleman, Ornette

Ornette Coleman is a jazz musician, saxophonist and composer. He was born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas. His experiments in free-form improvisation sharply divided the jazz establishment upon his emergence in 1959. Largely self-taught, he played in rhythm-and-blues bands before settling in Los Angeles in 1951, where he gradually formed a quartet of musicians who were receptive to his unorthodox ideas. He first recorded in 1958 and made his New York debut the following year. He made a series of important recordings between 1959 and 1961 that shaped the direction of jazz for the next twenty years. A sporadic performing artist after the early 1960s, he occasionally led both a conventional jazz quartet and the rock band Prime Time, but turned increasingly to composition, producing several works for symphony orchestra in accordance with his “harmolodic theory.”

Copland

Aaron Copland lived between 1900 and 1990. He is considered to be a twentieth century composer.

Copland often used American folk music in his ballets, such as “Appalachian Spring”, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Copland also wrote background music for movies and a ballet based on the story of Billy the Kid. He often used American themes in an expressive modern style, sometimes employing jazz rhythms.

Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli lived from 1653 until 1713. His contributions to the development of European music are the foundations of violin technique and creating the basic style for concerti grossi.

He spent most of his life in Rome, under the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Ottobani.

Couperin

François Couperin lived from 1668 until 1733. He was part of a famous French musical family and is most well-known for his harpsichord music.

Cowell

Henry Dixon Cowell lived from 1897 until 1965. He was a composer who was born in Menlo Park, California. Cowell was largely self-taught as pianist and composer. In his teens he gravitated to radical musical experiments including his trademark use of tone-cluster harmony. From the 1920s he pursued an international career as composer, concert promoter, and pianist, specializing in his own and others’ “ultra-modern” music; he also taught and wrote books including the 1919 New Musical Resources, and in 1927 founded the historic New Music Quarterly. In his own music, progressive ideas appear alongside traditional material; his works include 20 symphonies.

Cristofori

Bartolommeo Cristofori (1655) Italian instrument maker, credited with designing the first pianoforte, which he called “the harpsichord that plays soft and loud”.

Cruger

Johann Cruger lived from 1598 until 1662. His Now Thank We All our God was harmonized by Felix Mendelssohn.

Cugat

Xavier Cugat lived from 1900 until 1990. He was a violinist and bandleader who was born in Barcelona, Spain and raised in Cuba. He first became popular in the United States in the 1920s with his tango orchestra; in the 1930s he introduced other Latin dance rhythms including the Cuban rumba. In the 1940s he appeared in many musical films, such as You Were Never Lovelier (1942). He promoted the popularity of Latin music in the United States.

Czerny

Carl Czerny was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works. His books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching.

Czerny is in the center top of this image. He influenced many!

🪴 Neighborhood Plant Clinic, Today
Calling all home gardeners! Drop in for horticultural tips, information, techniques, and advice from the Fairfax County Master Gardeners. Weekly until July 26
🐷 Get Outside Challenge: Meet the Piglets, Today
July 8-14 – Meet the Piglets – Come say hello to the newest (and cutest) members of the farm! These muddy little mischief-makers may be a bit smelly, but they’re smarter than you think.
🌈 Can You Find the Colors?, Today through August 18th
Pictures of paint palettes showing some of our favorite colors are scattered among the children’s books. This scavenger hunt at the City of Fairfax branch is fun for all ages and runs during FCPL’s Summer Reading Adventure – June 11th through August 18th!
🌱 Master Gardener Plant Clinic, Today
Experts answer your gardening questions on Saturday mornings. Adults. Through July 26
🎶 Sing, Dance and Laugh Together at Arts in the Parks, Today
Gather the entire family and head out to the Fairfax County Park Authority’s Summer Entertainment Series. Make it a summer to remember with Arts in the Parks. The Arts in the Parks series features children’s performances on Wednesday and Saturday mornings and Saturday evenings through August. Award-winning entertainers present interactive performances designed to both educate […]
🌻 Summer of Sunflowers, Today through August 15
July 12 -August 15 ~ Summer of Sunflowers – Cut your own Sunflowers & Sip Rose
🌞 Get Outside Challenge, Today through August 12
Looking for simple, screen-free summer fun for your family? Join us for Get Outside – a summer long program designed to help families unplug, explore, and create memories together. Every day brings a new adventure and opportunity to ditch your screens. Daily until August 12
🦆 Scavenger Hunt: Colorful Birds Color Our World! #2, Through July 23
Get a birding log and go on a colorful bird scavenger hunt around the library! Once you have found all 5 birds, come to the info desk to receive a small prize!
🐻‍❄️ Awesome Animal Ambassadors, July 21
Join us for a show, tell, and touch experience focusing on general facts, unique characteristics, and animal stewardship.
📆 O'Connor Music Studio Calendar
Updated daily with music and Northern Virginia events.

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Daily Archives: January 22, 2025

January 22: On This Day in Music

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