Today’s piece is Beethoven’s Rage Over a Lost Penny found in Piano Pronto Movement 4, Songs I Love to Play 2 and Beethoven: Exploring His Life and Music. The official title is The “Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio” in G major, Op. 129 (Italian for “Rondo in the Hungarian [i.e. gypsy] style, almost a caprice”).
The story goes –
At one point Beethoven was composing this piece, a booming and boisterous piece that exuded energy and vitality.
One night a neighbor heard a loud dispute.
Beethoven was in a rage, accusing a maid of stealing a gold penny. The maid ran out and was never heard from again.
The neighbor then heard furniture crashing, and he could only conclude that the great Maestro was tipping over furniture, madly looking for the lost gold penny.
The story spread through the neighborhood and became part of the legend of Beethoven’s bad moods and curmudgeonly behavior.
• 1834 ~ Hermann Mendel, German music lexicographer
• 1909 ~ Karl Ulrich Schnabel, German pianist and composer
• 1912 ~ Marina Koshetz, who followed her famous Russian diva mother Nina to the opera and concert stage and into the movies, was born. Koshetz was born in Moscow, trained in France and came to the United States as a teenager. She made her debut substituting for her mother Nina Koshetz on radio’s “Kraft Music Hall.” Using her father’s surname, she began appearing in films in the early 1930s as Marina Schubert. Among her early films were “Little Women,” “All the King’s Horses” and “British Agent.”
Marina concentrated more on her voice in the 1940s. Adopting the professional name Marina Koshetz, she went on to sing with the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Koshetz made her Los Angeles recital debut at the old Philharmonic Auditorium in 1947.
• 1921 ~ Buddy (William) Collette, Musician. reeds, piano and composer
• 1939 ~ After becoming a success with Ben Bernie on network radio, Dinah Shore started her own show on the NBC Blue radio network. Dinah sang every Sunday evening. Dinah also had a successful TV career spanning over two decades.
• 1940 ~ Columbia Records cut the prices of its 12-inch classical records. The records were priced to sell at $1. Within two weeks, RCA Victor did the same and ended a record-buying slump brought on by disinterested consumers.
• 1958 ~ Randy DeBarge, Musician, bass, vocals with DeBarge
• 1973 ~ Stevie Wonder came close to losing his life, following a freak auto accident. Wonder, one of Motown’s most popular recording artists, was in a coma for 10 days. Miraculously, he recovered and was back in the recording studio in less than eight weeks.
• 1981 ~ Stevie Nicks’ first solo album, Bella Donna, was released. The lead singer for Fleetwood Mac scored a top-three hit with Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around from the album. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers were featured on the track. Nicks went on to record a total of 11 hits for the pop-rock charts through 1988.
• 2012 ~ Marvin Hamlisch, American composer and conductor, died at the age of 68
• 2016 ~ Pete Fountain, the famed New Orleans jazz clarinetist whose 60-year career was marked by performances for presidents and a pope, making him an international ambassador for the music and culture of his hometown, died at the age of 86.
The following ornament table is a transcription of the one appearing in the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, written by Johann Sebastian Bach for the keyboard instruction of his eldest son.
A scan of the original manuscript appears at Dave’s J.S. Bach Page.
The German title translates as “Explanation of various signs, showing how to play certain ornaments correctly.”{1} Bach gives the sign for each ornament on the upper of the paired staves, while the lower shows its execution directly beneath.
(This blog has) simply modernized the clefs in my transcription, since Bach’s manuscript uses soprano clefs, as several composers continued to do throughout the 18th century in place of the treble clef now used in all keyboard music.
After the transcription graphic showing the table, there appear clickable buttons which are keyed to AU sound files; you can click on any of the ornaments and hear a sound file play its execution.
Today’s piece is from a TV show my son used to love to watch: Inspector Gadget. The show followed the adventures of a powerful but dimwitted cyborg police inspector named Gadget as he investigates the criminal schemes of Dr. Claw and his organization, MAD, as they fruitlessly attempt to stop him. However, neither side was aware that it is Gadget’s niece, Penny, and her dog, Brain, who are truly responsible for thwarting MAD.
Now, for just the theme
One of my favorite piano duet (I have the sheet music!)
• 1397? ~ Guillaume Du Fay, French composer. Considered the leading composer of the early Renaissance.
More information about Du Fay
• 1694 ~ Leonardo Leo, Italian composer and organist
• 1811 ~ Ambrose Thomas, French composer, primarily of operas
• 1890 ~ Erich Kleiber, Austrian conductor
• 1891 ~ Henry Charles Litolff, French pianist/composer, died at the age of 73
• 1924 ~ The comic strip Little Orphan Annie debuted in the New York Daily News. Annie and her little dog, Sandy, were creations of cartoonist Harold Gray. His work would come to life in the Broadway and film adaptations of Annie a half-century later, with great success.
• 1926 ~ Jeri Southern (Genevieve Hering), Singer
• 1940 ~ Damita Jo (DuBlanc), Singer
• 1942 ~ Rick Huxley, Bass with Dave Clark Five
• 1943 ~ Sammi Smith, Singer
• 1947 ~ Rick Derringer (Zehringer), Singer, songwriter with The McCoys, record producer
• 1953 ~ Samantha Sang, Singer
• 1957 ~ Dick Clark’s American Bandstand caught the attention of network executives at ABC-TV in New York, who decided to put the show on its afternoon schedule. Many artists, acts and groups of the rock ’n’ roll era debuted on American Bandstand – Simon and Garfunkel, Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker – catapulting Clark into the spotlight as one of TV’s most prolific producers and hosts.
• 1958 ~ Joseph Holbrooke, English pianist, conductor and composer (3 Blind Mice), died at the age of 80
• 1975 ~ Singer Stevie Wonder signed the recording industry’s largest contract: $13 million over a seven-year period. Wonder stayed with his original label, Tamla/Motown, while other major Motown artists, including Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and The Four Tops had left the label over creative differences and financial accounting disputes.
Many homeowners don’t realize that there are movers available to them who specialize in the transportation and storage of pianos. A piano is a delicate instrument and not something you want to take risks with. By trusting this major job to a piano mover, you can rest easy knowing that one of the most valuable items in your home is being transported with the care it deserves.
But It Weighs 1500 Pounds. How Delicate Can It Be?
This is exactly where many homeowners go wrong. Sure, that piano in your living room is heavy enough to throw out the backs of four or five of your best buddies as you wrestle it out the door and up into the truck, but don’t let that fool you. Despite its bulky appearance, it is also a precision musical instrument with over 1000 moving parts and 200 finely-tuned strings, any number of which can be damaged and require repair if your piano isn’t handled properly in a move.
Your Piano Mover Understands Pianos
These intricate inner workings of a piano are exactly why hiring an expert in piano moving is so important. These professionals understand pianos and moving them, from the safest way to lift and twist a standard upright piano to get it out the door, to how to properly disassemble a grand piano and transport it without causing any damage. And even more importantly, a piano mover understands that when your piano is delivered to your new home, you expect to be able to sit down and play it right away. It’s why many piano movers keep tuners and repairmen on staff, and why the rest will have a trusted list of professionals available on request if you need it.
And, we’re back with Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. Clair de Lune is French for “light of the moon”, or “moonlight”. Debussy liked to create tonal “impressions” rather than conventional melodies. Clair de Lune” is a famous example of this as it creates the feeling of rippling water.
• 1921 ~ Herb (Mitchell) Ellis, Guitarist, singer with Soft Winds
• 1927 ~ Radio station 2XAG, later named WGY, the General Electric station in Schenectady, NY, began experimental operations from a 100,000-watt transmitter. Later, the FCC regulated the power of AM radio stations to not exceed 50,000 watts on ‘clear channels’ (where few, if any, stations would cause interference with each other).
• 1927 ~ Singer Jimmie Rodgers recorded his first sides for Victor Records in Bristol, TN. He sang Sleep Baby Sleep and Soldier’s Sweetheart.
• 1929 ~ Gabriella Tucci, Italian soprano
• 1938 ~ Simon Preston, British organist
• 1939 ~ Frankie Ford (Guzzo), Singer
• 1940 ~ Timi (Rosemarie) Yuro, Singer
• 1943 ~ David Carr, Keyboards with The Fortunes
• 1978 ~ Frank Fontaine passed away. He was an American stage, radio, film and television comedian and singer.
• 2000 ~ Jerome Smith, founding guitarist of KC & The Sunshine Band, died after being crushed in a construction accident. He was 47. KC & The Sunshine Band reached the top of Billboard Magazine’s charts in 1975 with Get Down Tonight. Before Smith left the group, it had five No. 1 songs, including Boogie Shoes and That’s the Way (I Like It), and three Grammys.
• 1778 ~ La Scala, one of the world’s great opera houses, opened on this day. They premiered William Tell by Gioachino Rossini
• 1823 ~ Francisco Asenjo Babieri, Spanish composer
• 1884 ~ Louis Gruenberg, Polish-born American composer
• 1902 ~ Ray Bloch, Conductor and orchestra leader
• 1917 ~ Charlie Shavers, Trumpeter with the John Kirby Sextet and composer of Undecided
• 1918 ~ Les Elgart, Lead trumpet, bandleader for Les and (brother) Larry Elgart
• 1921 ~ Richard Adler, Broadway Composer, lyricist
• 1926 ~ Tony Bennett (Benedetto), Grammy Award-winning American singer of popular music
• 1941 ~ Beverly Lee, Singer with The Shirelles
• 1949 ~ B.B. (Morris) Dickerson, Bass and singer with War
• 1951 ~ Johnny Graham, Guitarist with Earth, Wind and Fire
• 1963 ~ The Beatles made their final appearance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. The group was about to leave its hometown behind for unprecedented worldwide fame and fortune.
• 1963 ~ The Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl, was released on Capitol Records. It became one of their biggest hits. Surfer Girl made it to number seven on the hit music charts on September 14, 1963
• 1963 ~ Comedian Allan Sherman’s summer camp parody, Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh! (A Letter from Camp) was released on Warner Brothers Records. The melody was based on the Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli’s opera La Giaconda. This dance was also performed in the original Disney movie Fantasia.
• 1971 ~ Paul McCartney formed a new band called Wings. Joining McCartney in the group were Denny Laine, formerly of The Moody Blues, Denny Seilwell and McCartney’s wife, Linda.
• 1998 ~ Alfred Schnittke, one of the most original and influential composers to emerge from the Soviet Union, died. He was 63.
• 2001 ~ Jeanne Loriod, the leading performer of an electronic instrument used in film scores and symphonic works to produce mysterious glassy tones, died in southern France. She was 73. Loriod, who played the ondes martenot – invented by the French musician Maurice Martenot – died of a stroke in Juan-les-Pins, Le Monde newspaper reported.
She was the younger sister of pianist Yvonne Loriod, who was married to composer Olivier Messiaen. The three musicians often collaborated.
The ondes martenot – which translates as “Martenot waves” – produces electronic waves from a system of transistors, a keyboard and a ribbon attached to a ring on the performer’s forefinger.
Loriod’s career took her all over the world. She performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic, among others.
Composers such as Tristan Murail, Jacques Charpentier and Michael Levinas wrote works for her, according to Le Monde. Loriod had also been planning to collaborate with the pop group Radiohead, the paper wrote.
• 2008 ~ Louis Teicher died at 83. He was half of the piano duo Ferrante & Teicher, which toured for four decades and released 150 albums, some as suitable for elevators as for concert halls.
• 2016 ~ Ricci Martin, an entertainer/musician son of Dean Martin, died at the age of 62.
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MaryO'Studio 