Alfred Brendel was born in 1931 in Wiesenberg, Czech Republic.
After World War II, Brendel composed music, as well as continuing to play the piano, to write and to paint. However, he never had more formal piano lessons and, although he attended master classes with Edwin Fischer and Eduard Steuermann, he was largely self-taught after the age of six.
He made his debut in Graz (1948), and has since performed widely throughout Austria, where he lives.
He is known for his interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, and Schoenberg. He tours internationally, and has written many essays on music.
A short insight from Alfred Brendel on his recording career:
Danse macabre, Op. 40, is a tone poem for orchestra, written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. It started out in 1872 as an art song for voice and piano with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis, which is based on an old French superstition. In 1874, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin.
Get a free copy of the sheet music at IMSLP (Look for Arrangements and Transcriptions) or borrow a copy from the O’Connor Music Studio. I have this arranged for organ, piano, duet, simplified…
Amazon has a great Dover edition for solo piano. This splendid compilation features a variety of the composer’s best piano works, all reproduced from authoritative sources. Taking its title from the popular orchestral work “Danse Macabre” (presented here in the brilliant arrangement by Liszt), this collection also includes “Allegro appassionato,” “Album” (consisting of six pieces), “Rhapsodie d’Auvergne,” “Theme and Variations,” plus six etudes, three waltzes, and six etudes for left hand alone.
The final movement is the best known part of the symphony, thanks to its use in the Julia Roberts movie, Sleeping With The Enemy. It features a four-part structure, which Berlioz described in his own program notes from 1845 as follows:
“He sees himself at a witches’ Sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the Sabbath… Roar of delight at her arrival… She joins the diabolical orgy… The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae.”
The Dies irae melody is one of the most-quoted in musical literature, appearing in the works of many diverse composers.
The traditional Gregorian melody has also been used as a theme or musical quotation in a number of classical compositions, notable among them:
Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, near Ödenburg, October 22, 1811 and died in Bayreuth, July 31, 1886. He was a Hungarian composer and pianist who was a major influence during the romantic period. Liszt was an outstanding pianist at seven, composed at eight and made concert appearances at nine. In addition to being a piano virtuoso, he was also a critic, conductor, city music director, literary writer and transcriber of the works of other composers. He transcribed Beethoven’s Symphonies for the piano.
Franz Liszt began his career as the outstanding concert pianist of the century, who, along with the prodigious violinist Niccoló Paganini (1782-1840), created the cult of the modern instrumental virtuoso. To show off his phenomenal and unprecedented technique, Liszt composed a great deal of music designed specifically for this purpose, resulting in a vast amount of piano literature laden with dazzling, and other technical marvels. In this vein, Liszt composed a series of virtuosic rhapsodies on Hungarian gypsy melodies, the best-known being the all too familiar Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2. Liszt developed the rhapsody as a form of serious music. This kind of music is worlds apart from the generally more introspective, poetic music of pianist-composer Frédéric Chopin.
Liszt was wildly handsome and hugely talented. He was extremely popular in Paris during the 1830’s. It is said that women actually fainted at his piano recitals. He was the first to position the piano so that its lid reflected the sound and the audience could see his profile as he performed.
Liszt was the first to write a tone poem, which is an extended, single-movement work for orchestra, inspired by paintings, plays, poems or other literary or visual works, and attempting to convey the ideas expressed in those media through music. Such a work is Les Préludes, based on a poem in which life is expressed as a series of struggles, passions, and mysteries, all serving as a mere prelude to . . .what? The Romantic genre of the symphonic poem, as well as its cousin the concert overture, became very attractive to many later composers, including Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss.
Listen to Liszt’s transcription of Meyerbeer’s Hellish Waltz from Robert du Diable, which probably caused more public commotion than any other piano piece in history.
• 1930 ~ Dory Previn, Songwriter with André Previn
• 1939 ~ Ray Jones, Bass with Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas
• 1943 ~ Paul Zukofsky, American violinist
• 1943 ~ Bobby Fuller, Singer, guitarist with Bobby Fuller Four
• 1945 ~ Leslie West (Weinstein), Singer, musician, guitarist with Mountain
• 1945 ~ Eddie Brigati, Singer, musician with The (Young) Rascals
• 1959 ~ “Take Me Along” opened on Broadway and quickly became an American classic. WalterPidgeon starred along with Jackie Gleason.
• 1966 ~ The Supremes rocketed to the top of the pop album charts with “Supremes A’ Go-Go”. They were the first all-female vocal group to hit the top of the LP chart.
• 1969 ~ Michael Tilson Thomas, the 25-year-old assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, took over for ailing conductor William Steinberg in the symphony’s appearance in New York City.
• 1971 ~ Folk singer Joan Baez received a gold record for her hit, The Night They DroveOld Dixie Down. It turned out to be her biggest hit, peaking at #3 on the charts on October 2, 1971.
• 1983 ~ Celebrating its 100th anniversary, New York’s Metropolitan Opera featured a daylong concert with some of the world’s greatest opera stars. On stage at the Met were Dame Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.
• 2001 ~ Tom Baker, one of Australia’s most respected jazz musicians, died of a heart attack while touring in the Netherlands. He was 49. Baker, a native of California, took up residence in Australia 30 years ago. He was a regular at Sydney’s famous jazz club, The Basement. Willie Qua, drummer and co-founder of one of Australia’s best-known jazz bands, Galapagos Duck, said Baker had often played as “a part-time member” of the band and was an icon of the Sydney jazz scene. Baker formed his first band, Tom Baker’s San Francisco Jazz Band, in 1975, earning himself a reputation as one of Australia’s very best jazz musicians. Recently he toured extensively through Europe and America.
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, S.244/2, is the second in a set of 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies by composer Franz Liszt, and is by far the most famous of the set. Few other piano solos have achieved such widespread popularity, offering the pianist the opportunity to reveal exceptional skill as a virtuoso, while providing the listener with an immediate and irresistible musical appeal.
In both the original piano solo form and in the orchestrated version this composition has enjoyed widespread use in animated cartoons. Its themes have also served as the basis of several popular songs.
It is probable that you have heard this piece of music somewhere at one time or another because it is perhaps the most prominent piece of classical (romantic, actually) music featured in animated cartoons across the years.
Now, let the anvils fall and dynamite explode!
And, in real life, Valentina Lisitsa plays Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Louis Teicher, who died Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 83, 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.
Scott W. Smith Collection
Arthur Ferrante (standing) and Louis Teicher in 1964.
duo pianists and Juilliard alums
Yet for their fans — and there were enough to purchase 88 million of their records — they were “the grand twins of the twin grands,” virtuoso showmen in the tradition of Liberace and perhaps Liszt.
Ferrante & Teicher were perhaps best-known for their hit instrumental versions of 1960s movie themes, including “The Apartment,” “Exodus,” and “Midnight Cowboy.” In the 1970s, they sent an average of three albums annually up the charts.
Their glistening, Muzak-friendly stylings, some of which today sound of a piece with the cascading strings of Mantovani, did not always appeal to critics, who found them hackneyed or camp.
“Passionless … lifeless … numbing,” sniffed the Washington Post in 1978. The irony in this was that, in the earlier decades, the duo was seen as cutting-edge. In the 1950s, they used prepared piano to create space-age sounds. They continued touring until 1989, and survived to see their music revived by retro-hip audiophiles in recent years.
Born August 24, 1924, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Teicher was a child prodigy who began studying at the Juilliard School of Music at age 6. Teicher received his piano diploma at 16, and after further studies he joined the Juilliard theory faculty at 20.
Inspired by the two-piano repertoire they’d studied under Carl Friedberg, Teicher and Arthur Ferrante, also a precocious Juilliard graduate, decided to become a duo in 1946.
“We became professionals out of necessity,” Teicher told the Juilliard Alumni News in 2004. “It was the Depression era, and you did whatever you could to pick up some money.”
They booked their own concerts at colleges and universities in Canada and America. Supplied with grand pianos by Steinway, they maintained a fleet of trucks to transport them around the country and sometimes even slept in the van.
They made their mark with a classical repertoire. A 1948 concert at the Town Hall was attended by an audience of 1,400, who heard them play Liszt’s “Concerto Pathétique” and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” But the crowd went nuts for their rendition of the latin-charged “Tico Tico,” then a popular nightclub hit. Their future lay in such crowd-pleasing fare.
They first modified their pianos, Teicher told the Juilliard Alumni News, in order to simulate the percussion in Ravel’s “Bolero.” Later they used chains, cotton balls, and glass, and sometimes strummed the strings to achieve various effects. They seemed to herald what they subtitled their 1956 disk “Soundproof: The Sound of Tomorrow Today.” Though appearing often on the easy-listening, summer pops orchestra circuit, they were smuggling the avant-garde in the back door. They were booked on all the 1950s variety shows.
Humor was an important part of their arsenal, both in terms of repertoire and costume. They dressed in identical flamboyant outfits — “straight from a Liberace fire sale” said one wag — and horn-rim spectacles. It was a kind of running joke that audiences couldn’t tell them apart. Each night, they said, fans backstage would ask whether pianists in a duo required lesser skills than soloists.
Ferrante & Teicher charted 22 gold and platinum records, beginning with the theme from “The Apartment” (1960), and claimed to have played 5,000 concerts attended by 18 million people. If their names evoke blank stares from today’s audiences, it is because, for all their wit, their music was as evanescent as smoke in a summer breeze. Some of their signature pieces can be seen on YouTube.
Teicher died of a heart attack at home in Sarasota, Fla., according to a statement from the duo’s manager, Scott Smith.
He is survived by his wife, Betty, his children Richard, Susan, and David, and several grandchildren.
“Although we were two individuals, at the twin pianos our brains worked as one,” said Mr. Ferrante, who also survives him. “I will miss him dearly, and as pianists it’s ironic how we both ended up living on keys” — in Florida.
• 1828 ~ François Auguste Gevaert, Belgian composer, musicologist, conductor and organist
• 1845 ~ The French Army introduced the saxophone to its military band. The musical instrument was the invention of Adolphe Sax of Belgium.
• 1847 ~ Ignacio Cervantes, Pianist
• 1886 ~ Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer and pianist died. Originator of the symphonic poem, he was a prolific teacher and a huge influence on Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
More information about Liszt
• 1911 ~ George Liberace, Violinist, conductor; administrator of Liberace Museum; brother of pianist/entertainer Liberace
• 1939 ~ John West, Musician, guitarist with Gary Lewis and the Playboys
• 1942 ~ Harry James and his band recorded the classic I’ve Heard that Song Before, for Columbia Records. Helen Forrest sang on the million-seller.
• 1943 ~ Lobo, Singer
• 1946 ~ Gary Lewis (Levitch), Singer with Gary Lewis and the Playboys, entertainer Jerry Lewis’ son
• 1946 ~ Bob Welch, Guitarist and singer with Fleetwood Mac
• 1947 ~ Karl Green, Musician, guitar and harmonica with Herman’s Hermits
• 1964 ~ Jim Reeves, popular U.S. country music singer, died in an aircrash near Nashville.
• 1985 ~ Prince was big at the box office with the autobiographical story of the Minneapolis rock star, Purple Rain. The flick grossed $7.7 million in its first three days of release on 917 movie screens. The album of the same name was the top LP in the U.S., as well.
Antonei Sergejvitch Tartarov was a fictional Russian pianist whose real name was Jean-Jacques Hauser.
He had an exceptional gift for improvisation.
On April 16, 1968 Hauser fooled an audience of 2,000 people in Zurich into thinking not only that he was a little-known Russian virtuoso (Tartarov), but that much of the improvised material in his program was composed by Beethoven, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Liszt.
Imagine when it was announced that the music the audience had just applauded as works of genius had actually been improvised on the spot by a home-grown Swiss pianist.
1811 ~ Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer and pianist
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