. 1927 ~ Eartha Kitt, Singer. Kitt’s birth certificate listing her actual birthdate as 1/17/27 was found in 1997. She has celebrated her birthday as Jan. 26 (1928) all of her life and says, “It’s been the 26th of January since the beginning of time and I’m not going to change it and confuse my fans.”
. 1938 ~The first jazz concert is performed at Carnegie Hall.Benny Goodman and his orchestra performed at this iconic New York City venue and the event included guests like Count Basie and other popular names of the day. It gave the genre credibility as a legitimate musical preference.
. 1941 ~ Gene Krupa and his band recorded the standard, Drum Boogie, on Okeh Records. The lady singing with the boys in the band during the song’s chorus was Irene Daye.
. 1944 ~ Chris Montez, Singer
. 1948 ~ Mick Taylor, Singer, rhythm guitar with The Rolling Stones
. 1955 ~ Steve Earle, Songwriter, singer, guitar
. 1956 ~ Paul Young, Singer
. 1959 ~ Susanna Hoffs, Singer, guitar with The Bangles
. 1960 ~ John Crawford, Singer, bass with Berlin
. 1969 ~ Lady Samantha, one of the very first recordings by Reginald Kenneth Dwight (aka Elton John), was released in England on Philips records. The song floundered, then bombed. The rock group, Three Dog Night, however, recorded it for an album.
. 2001 ~ Pianist and singer Emma Kelly, the “Lady of 6,000 Songs” made famous by the book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” died from a liver ailment at the age of 82. Kelly’s nightclub act, in which she tapped her vast repertoire of American popular standards five nights a week until she became ill a month ago, was a must-see for Savannah tourists itching to meet a real-life character from author John Berendt’s Southern Gothic best seller. Though the book helped her book performances from New York to Switzerland, Kelly continued to crisscross south Georgia to play church socials and high school graduations, Kiwanis luncheons and wedding receptions. Berendt devoted an entire chapter to Kelly in the 1994 book, describing her as a teetotaling Baptist who would play smoky cocktail lounges Saturday nights and Sunday school classes the next morning. Kelly performed at her own nightclub, Emma’s, in Savannah, for five years in the late 1980s. She then bounced between lounges near the downtown riverfront. She also independently recorded three albums, the last of which were released posthumously, her son said.
. 2001 ~ Jazz musician, composer and conductor Norris Turney, who played alto sax and flute with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and led the Norris Turney Quartet, died of kidney failure at the age of 79. Turney recorded with a number of bands over the years, and toured with Billy Eckstine, Ray Charles and others. He was an original member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra directed by Wynton Marsalis. Turney’s lone CD as a bandleader, “Big, Sweet ‘N Blue,” was warmly received by jazz critics.
. 2002 ~ Edouard Nies-Berger, the veteran organist and protege of Albert Schweitzer, died at the age of 98. Nies-Berger, who played with the New York Philharmonic, was a native of Strasbourg in Alsace. His father, a church organist, was an associate of Schweitzer. The doctor, philosopher and Nobel laureate was pastor of a nearby church where the teenage Nies-Berger played occasionally. Nies-Berger moved to New York in 1922 and for the next 15 years played the organ in houses of worship across the country. By the mid-’30s he settled in Los Angeles and performed in the soundtracks of several films, including “The Bride of Frankenstein” and “San Francisco.” He returned to Europe in 1937 to study conducting with Bruno Walter in Salzburg, Austria. After conducting for two years in Latvia and Belgium he returned to the United States. He was named organist of the New York Philharmonic, where he played under the direction of such conductors as Walter, George Szell and Leonard Bernstein. Nies-Berger was reunited with Schweitzer in 1949, when the humanitarian visited the United States. For six years they collaborated on the completion of Schweitzer’s edition of the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach. After serving at St. Paul’s in Richmond, Nies-Berger returned to Europe for several years to perform as a recitalist and write several books, including a memoir of Schweitzer. In 1991 he was awarded the gold medal of the Art Institute of Alsace, and in 1993 was named a knight of the arts and letters by the French Ministry of Education and Culture.
. 2013 ~ Lizbeth Webb, English soprano, died at the age of 86
On January 18, 1958 Leonard Bernstein began presenting his television series What does music mean? The series ran for 53 programs. Some of the episodes can be found below:
Part 1 What is Classical Music?
Plot: Bernstein conducts Handel’s Water Music and cites it as an indisputable example of classical music. “Exact” is the word that best defines classical music, Bernstein says and he demonstrates with musical illustrations from Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto, Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 in C Major and The Marriage of Figaro, and Haydn’s Symphony No. 102.
The decline of classical music at the end of the eighteenth century is tied to Beethoven’s innovations and the Romantic movement, and Bernstein conducts Beethoven’s Egmont Overture.
Part 2 What is Melody?
Plot: Bernstein discusses the different forms melody can take, including tune, theme, motive, melodic line and musical phrase. He illustrates by conducting the orchestra in excerpts from Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Hindemith, and Brahms.
Part 3 What is a Mode?
Plot: Bernstein discusses scales, intervals, and tones, and analyzes several pieces, including Debussy’s Fêtes, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, and music from the Kinks and the Beatles, to illustrate different modes.
An excerpt from Bernstein’s ballet Fancy Free is also performed.
. 1929 ~ Billy Walker, Singer, known as the ‘masked singer’
. 1931 ~ Caterina Valente, Singer
. 1936 ~ Harriet Hilliard, vocalist and wife of bandleader Ozzie Nelson, sang Get Thee Behind Me Satan, for the movie “Follow the Fleet.” The song was originally written by Irving Berlin and was previously intended for Ginger Rogers to sing in the movie “Top Hat.”
. 1938 ~ Jack Jones (John Allan Jones), Singer, son of Allan Jones and wife, actress, Irene Hervey.
. 1939 ~ The program, “Honolulu Bound”, was heard on CBS radio. Phil Baker and The Andrews Sisters were featured on the program.
. 1949 ~ Joaquín Turina, Spanish pianist/conductor/composer (Rima), died at the age of 66
. 1956 ~ Rock ‘n’ roller, Little Richard, was singing the newly released Tutti-Frutti. The Pat Boone version became even more popular as a cover record.
. 1964 ~ A hootenanny was held for the first time at the White House, as the NewChristy Minstrels entertained President and Lady Bird Johnson, as well as Italy’s President.
. 1965 ~ Jeanette (Anna) MacDonald passed away. She was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy
. 1968 ~ LL Cool J (James Todd Smith), Rap singer
. 1970 ~ Diana Ross and the Supremes perform their final concert
. 1995 ~ Alexander Gibson, British conductor and founder of the Scottish Opera, died at the age of 68
.2024 – Peter Schickele died at the age of 88. He was best known as P.D.Q. Bach and wrote a biography under that name titled Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach. There’s a copy in the music studio if anyone wants to borrow it.
Peter Schickele, a virtuoso of versatility and a maestro of musical mirth, embarked on his final cadence in his home in Bearsville, N.Y. His daughter, Karla Schickele, confirmed his passing, marking the end of a vibrant era. Schickele’s health had waned following a series of infections last fall, but his legacy resonates with a crescendo of creativity and humor.
A composer of serious concert music, Schickele’s symphonic, choral, solo instrumental, and chamber works numbered over 100, enchanting audiences since the 1950s. His compositions, which graced the repertoires of the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Lark Quartet, the Minnesota Opera, and other prestigious ensembles, reflected his deep musical prowess. His talents also shone in the realms of film scores and Broadway musicals, showcasing his versatility and profound understanding of diverse musical genres.
Yet, it was under the guise of his riotously comedic alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach, that Schickele achieved iconic status. In this whimsical persona, he masterfully blended the gravitas of classical music with the lightheartedness of parody. For over fifty years, he delighted and surprised audiences with performances that were a fantastical fusion of Mozart, the Marx Brothers, and Rube Goldberg. His prizewinning recordings and even a book-length biography of P.D.Q. Bach playfully punctured the oftentimes solemn bubble of classical-music culture, bringing a refreshing irreverence to the concert hall.
Peter Schickele’s life was a symphony of serious music and satirical comedy, leaving behind a legacy that dances between the profound and the playful, reminding us that at the heart of great art lies the joy of creation.
. 1884 ~ Sophie Tucker (Abuza), Russian-born American burlesque and vaudeville singer
. 1904 ~ Richard Addinsell was born
More information about Addinsell
. 1909 ~ Quentin ‘Butter’ Jackson, Trombonist, played with Duke Ellington
. 1910 ~ Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn were heard via a telephone transmitter; rigged by DeForest Radio-Telephone Company to broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
. 1930 ~ Robert ‘Squirrel’ Lester, Singer with The Chi-Lites
. 1938 ~ Singer Allan Jones recorded The Donkey Serenade for Victor Records. The song became the one most often associated with the singer. Allan sang and acted in several Marx Brothers films: “A Night at the Opera”, “A Day at the Races”, but the film that catapulted him to stardom was the operetta, “Firefly”, with Jeanette MacDonald. Singer Jack Jones is the son of Allan and wife, actress Irene Hervey.
. 1941 ~ The four Modernaires joined to sing with the Glenn Miller Band on a permanent basis beginning this day. They had a ‘solo’ hit in 1946 with To Each His Own.
. 1957 ~ Elvis Presley recorded All Shook Up and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin for Victor Records in Hollywood. The former tune became Elvis’ ninth consecutive gold record.
. 1961 ~ Wayne Marshall, English pianist, organist and conductor
. 1962 ~ Singer Chubby Checker set a record, literally, with the hit, The Twist. The song reached the #1 position for an unprecedented second time – in two years. The Twist was also number one on September 26, 1960.
. 1968 ~ Johnny Cash performed live for the second time at Folsom Prison in the prison cafeteria which was recorded as the album “Johnny Cash at At Folsom Prison”.
. 2001 ~ Kenneth Haas, the former general manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, died after a long illness at the age of 57. Haas was general manager of the Boston orchestra from 1987 to 1996 and was instrumental in appointing Keith Lockhart conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. Haas was general manager of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1976 to 1987 after performing the same job for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1975. In Cleveland he established the orchestra’s chamber music and recital series.
. 2001 ~ Michael Cuccione, youngest of the five-member spoof boy band 2gether, died at age 16 from complications from Hodgkin’s disease. The teen played Jason “Q.T.” McKnight on the MTV show “2gether,” which poked fun at the boy band craze. His character had a fictional illness, “biliary thrombosis,” but Cuccione really had suffered from Hodgkin’s disease as a child and underwent five months of chemotherapy. The singer-actor set up a cancer research foundation co-wrote a book with his grandmother and appeared on “Baywatch” as a cancer victim.
• 1719 ~ Johann Christoph Altnikol, German organist, bass singer, and composer. He was a son-in-law and copyist of Johann Sebastian Bach
• 1818 ~ Franz Gruber of Oberndorf, Germany, composed the music for “Silent Night” to words written by Josef Mohr. The traditional song was sung for the first time during Midnight Mass on this night.
• 1824 ~ Peter Cornelius, German composer and writer
• 1871 ~ Opera-goers in Cairo, Egypt were treated to Verdi’sAida in its world premiere. The composer was commissioned to write the opera for festivities celebrating the opening of the Suez Canal
• 1887 ~ Lucrezia Bori, Spanish lyric composer
• 1893 ~ Harry Warren (Salvatore Guaragna), Composer, Song Writer’s Hall of Famer: Best Song Oscar
• 1906 ~ Professor Reginald A. Fessenden sent his first radio broadcast from Brant Rock, MA. The program included a little verse, some violin and a speech.
• 1918 ~ Zara Nelsova, Canadian-born American cellist
• 1914 ~ Ralph Marterie, ‘Caruso of the trumpet’: musician, bandleader
• 1924 ~ Carol Haney, Dancer, member of Jack Cole dance company, worked with Bob Fosse, in films
• 1928 ~ The first broadcast of The Voice of Firestone was heard. The program aired each Monday evening at 8:00. The Voice of Firestone became a hallmark in radio broadcasting. It kept its same night, time (in 1931 the start time changed to 8:30) and sponsor for its entire run. Beginning on September 5, 1949, the program of classical and semiclassical music was also seen on television.
• 1930 ~ Robert Joffrey (Khan), Choreographer with The Joffrey Ballet; died in 1988
• 1931 ~ Ray Bryant, Pianist, composer
• 1944 ~ Mike Curb, Music executive, producer, Oscar-winner
• 1944 ~ The Andrews Sisters starred in the debut of The Andrews Sisters’ Eight-To- The-Bar-Ranch on ABC radio. Patti, Maxine and LaVerne ran a fictional dude ranch. George ‘Gabby’ Hayes was a regular guest along with Vic Schoen’s orchestra. The ranch stayed in operation until 1946.
• 1945 ~ Lemmy (Ian Kilmister), Bass, singer with Motorhead
• 1946 ~ Jan Akkerman, Guitar, lute with bands: Friendship Sextet, Johnny and the Cellar Rockers
• 1951 ~ Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors”, the first opera composed for television, made its debut on NBC-TV. Amal and the Night Visitors became a Christmas classic.
• 1955 ~ The lovely Lennon Sisters debuted as featured vocalists on The Lawrence Welk Show on ABC-TV. They became regulars with Welk within a month and stayed on the show until 1968.
• 1957 ~ Ian Burden, Keyboards with Human League
• 1977 ~ The Bee Gees spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve at the top of the music charts. How Deep is Your Love became #1 this day and stayed that way for three weeks.
• 2000 ~ Felix Popper, a conductor and music administrator at the New York City Opera, died at the age of 92. Popper joined the New York City Opera in 1949 as an assistant conductor and vocal coach. By 1958 he was named music administrator, and he played an important role in guiding the opera through a period in which the house truly established itself. During this time, the company is credited with discovering important American singers such as Johanna Meier, Tatiana Troyanos, Gianna Rolandi, Faith Esham and Jane Shaulis. Popper retired from the opera in 1980 but continued to work as a consultant and vocal coach.
• 2000 ~ Longtime Detroit blues radio personality and promoter Famous Coachman died of an apparent heart attack. He was 75. Coachman was host of the weekend blues and gospel show on Detroit’s WDET for 21 years until 1997 and remained busy in the city’s music world until his death. “Everybody knew Coachman,” said JoAnn Korczynska, blues music director for WHFR at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn. “He really did know B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. When I met John Lee Hooker, one of the first things he said to me was `How is Coachman doing?'” Coachman said he was named “Famous” because “my mother knew I would be.”
• 2000 ~ Nick Massi, an original member of the Four Seasons who handled bass vocals and vocal arrangements throughout the band’s glory days, died of cancer at the age of 73. Massi was born in Newark as Nicholas Macioci. The longtime West Orange resident performed with several bands before joining Frankie Valli in a group called the Four Lovers. By 1961, the group had evolved into the Four Seasons. Massi remained with the group until 1965, when he grew tired of touring, Valli said. Massi performed on hits such as Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man and Rag Doll, which friends said was his favorite. During his tenure, the group made the Billboard Top 40 chart 17 times and toured throughout the United States and overseas, melding doo-wop vocals with a contemporary beat. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Valli’s falsetto was the band’s trademark, but he said Massi was his musical mentor. “He could do four-part modern harmonies that would amaze musicians who had studied for years. And he did it all in his head without writing it down,” Valli said.
Edgard Varèse was born in Paris, December 22, 1885 and died in New York, November 6, 1965. Although born in France, Varèse lived and worked most of his life in the United States. A pioneer of the avant-garde movement in music, Varèse experimented with electronic music, musique concréte;, and some highly original experimentation in the uses and organization of rhythm. The works for which he is best known are those in which he completely rejects traditional melody and harmony, instead building these compositions from blocks of sounds, relying on tone color, texture and rhythm. Varèse’s most original work exemplifying this technique is probably Ionisation, which is scored for a huge percussion ensemble, piano, and sirens.
Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams lived between 1872 and 1958. He is considered to be a romantic composer. His works include Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis and Mass in G Minor.
Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi lived between 1813 and 1901. He is considered to be a romantic composer. He was an Italian operatic composer who achieved his first major success with Nabucco (1842). He was the leading figure of Italian music in the nineteenth century and made important contributions to the development of opera.
The singing melodies of his popular operas, like Rigoletto, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Aida, have come to represent Italian opera to much of the world. The late operas Otello and Falstaff crowned his achievement.
de Victoria
One of the works of Tomás Luis de Victoria was chosen in Best 100 Classical Pieces of the Millenium.
Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi lived from 1678 until 1741 and was considered to be a baroque composer. He was an Italian composer of instrumental music and opera. He was important in the development of the concerto. Vivaldi was ordained as a priest in 1703, but gave up saying Mass due to a chest illness. From 1704 until 1740, he taught violin at an orphanage, gave recitals, played the violin in operatic performances and produced some operas of his own.
The concertos that Vivaldi wrote helped define the genre in the Baroque and into the Classical era. These normally comprised three movements (fast, slow, fast); the fast movement regularly employed a ritornello form. In this form, an orchestral melody alternates with the freer sections that feature the soloist or soloists. The repetition of the ritornello provides a point of reference for the listener, allowing the soloist to stand out. It also allows the composer a greater degree of freedom in how the soloist’s material is treated.
Vivaldi’s concertos also stand out for the degree of inventiveness that he brought to them. While challenging the player, they also engage the listener. One of his most famous groups of concertos, The Four Seasons, demonstrates this well, and shows the more dramatic and colorful potential of the genre. Each concerto represents a different season, and the music illustrates in sound a picture created by an accompanying poem. Vivaldi uses his ingenuity to take the mundane sounds of daily life (the barking of a dog, the buzzing of flies), along with more dramatic sounds (a violent spring storm), and portray them in purely musical language that stands on its own merit. These early examples of program music well deserve their place in the popular canon of classical music.
Works:
Orchestral music, including over 239 violin concertos, including Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), Op.8, Nos.1-4, c.1725), other solo concertos (bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, recorder), double concertos, ensemble concertos, sinfonias
Chamber music, including sonatas for violin, cello and flute, trio sonatas
Vocal music, including oratorios (Juditha triumphans, 1716), Mass movements (Gloria), Magnificat, psalms, hymns and motets
Secular vocal music, including solo cantatas and operas
His most famous work, The Four Seasons, was written in 1725.
Joseph Lamb (1887 to 1960) was an extraordinarily gifted ragtime pianist and composer along with Scott Joplin and James Scott. He differed from them, though, because the art of improvisation completely baffled him. In response to this, Lamb viewed ragtime as an art form written on paper, instead of a spontaneous one. Though his style and approach were markedly different from his peers, he still left behind a rich legacy and remained one of the most influential ragtime composers.
Lehar
Franz Lehar, 1870 to 1948 was the son of a bandmaster serving principally in Hungary. He followed his father’s profession, before winning, in 1902, success in the theatre in Vienna, where he succeeded in the following years in reviving the operetta, providing music of greater distinction, with tenor arias written specifically for Richard Tauber.
The reputation of Franz Lehar as a composer of operetta is assured as he wrote nearly forty of them. Of these by the far the best known is Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), first staged in Vienna in 1905, the favourite operetta of Adolf Hitler.
Lennon
John Lennon, 1940 to 1980,was a pop star, composer, songwriter, and recording artist. He was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK. and was The Beatles rhythm guitarist, keyboard player, and vocalist, and a partner in the Lennon–McCartney song-writing team. He married Japanese artist Yoko Ono in 1969. On the birth of his son, Sean (born in 1975), he retired from music to become a house-husband. Five years later he recorded (Just Like) Starting Over, but he was shot and killed by a deranged fan just before its release. His death affected millions of people, record sales soared, and he continues to be admired by new generations of fans.
Lerner and Lowe
Alan Jay Lerner,
Playwright, born August 31, 1918, New York, New York; died June 14, 1986
Frederick Loewe,
Composer, born June 10, 1904, Vienna, Austria; died February 14, 1988
Frederick Loewe, an unheralded Vienna-born composer, and Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist-playwright son of the proprietors of an American chain of women’s clothing shops, with sketches and lyrics for two Harvard Hasty Pudding shows among his major credits, met by chance at New York’s Lambs Club in 1942. Had they not, Brigadoon would never have emerged from the mists of the Scottish Highlands to make the world feel “Almost Like Being in Love” . . . no one would have been there to “Paint Your Wagon” . . . My Fair Lady would still be a less than lyrical English girl from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion who couldn’t sing a note. . . we might never have thought to “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” like “Gigi” . . . and Camelot would most likely have stayed within the pages of Arthurian legend.
When the two, who were destined to enrich the American musical theater with some of its most poignant, rousing, and memorable lyrics, engaging books and powerful musical scores, had that chance meeting more than 50 years ago, neither was widely known. Loewe’s Great Lady had had a brief run on Broadway in 1938. Lerner had added radio scripts to his Hasty Pudding Club show credits. But later collaborations after one brief failure, What’s Up? (1943), and the moderately successful The Day Before Spring (1945), which ran five months on Broadway, made musical history.
Alan Jay Lerner was one of three sons of Joseph J. Lerner, who founded Lerner Stores, Inc. He was educated in England and at the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, before entering Harvard. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music during vacations from Harvard. After graduating in 1940 with a B.S. degree, he wrote advertising copy and radio scripts for such programs as the “Philco Hall of Fame.”
Frederick “Fritz” Loewe was the son of Edmund Loewe, an eminent operetta tenor. When he was two, Frederick accompanied his father on a tour of the United States. The youngster played piano at four and, at nine, composed the tunes for a music hall sketch in which his father toured Europe. At 15, he wrote “Katrina,” a popular song that sold 3,000,000 copies in Europe. He had begun his own concert career as soloist with some of Europe’s leading symphony orchestras at the age of 13 after having studied with the noted European musician Ferruccio Busoni and Eugene d’Albert. In 1923, young Loewe was awarded the Hollander Medal in Berlin and studied composition and orchestration with Nickolaus von Reznicek.
The following year, the younger Loewe accompanied his father to America. Since neither a concert he gave at New York’s Town Hall, nor a subsequent week’s engagement at the Rivoli Theater led to further concert engagements, he tried teaching music and playing at Greenwich Village night clubs. When music failed to earn him a living, he worked as a busboy in a cafeteria and as a riding instructor at a New Hampshire resort. He took up flyweight boxing and failed, then went West, cowpunching, gold mining, and carrying mail on horseback over the Montana mountains before returning to New York where he found work as a piano player. In 1935, Loewe’s song “Love tiptoes Through My Heart” was accepted for the musical Petticoat Fever. His own musical, Salute to Spring, was presented in St. Louis in 1937. The next year, his Great Lady reached Broadway, but ran for only 20 performances.
The first Lerner-Loewe collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor’s farce The Patsy for a Detroit stock company in 1942. They called it Life of the Party and it enjoyed a nine-week hit that encouraged them to continue with the musical comedy What’s Up? which opened on Broadway in 1943. Lerner wrote the book and lyrics with Arthur Pierson, and Loewe composed the music. It ran for 63 performances and was followed in 1945 by their The Day Before Spring.
It was when the curtain went up to the haunted strains of bagpipes on the night of March 13, 1947, and the mist-shrouded Scottish Highland village of Brigadoon first appeared, that the team of Lerner and Loewe also emerged as potentially legendary. The musical, which after its original 581 performances on Broadway, toured extensively and has been revived frequently, won the “best musical”award from the New York Drama Critics Circle the year it opened and was hailed as having “evoked magic on Broadway.”
Between Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon, the next team effort by Lerner and Loewe, Lerner wrote Love Life, with music by Kurt Weill, which was selected as one of the best plays of the 1948-49 Broadway season, plus the story, screenplay and lyrics for the films Royal Wedding and Brigadoon and the story and screenplay for An American in Paris, for which he won an Oscar in 1951.
Paint Your Wagon rolled in in 1951, and then, five years later, on March 15, 1956, My Fair Lady opened and became one of the most spectacular successes–artistic and financial–in the history of the American theater. Playing a record 2,717 performances on Broadway alone, it went on to break all other existing world records. This musicalization of Shaw’s classic Pygmalion was named “outstanding musical of the year” by the New York Drama Critics Circle–and by millions of theater goers.
Lerner and Loewe’s next collaboration was on the film adaptation of the Colette novel Gigi, another success filled with songs destined to become standard.
There was more collaborating to come–the film version of the Antoine de Saint-Exupery fable The Little Prince in 1972, but the 1960 Broadway hit Camelot which brought Arthurian England to life for its most shining hour, rang the curtain down on the phenomenon of Lerner and Loewe. Loewe, who had suffered a heart attack in 1958, went into retirement.
In tribute to his long time former partner, Lerner wrote, “There will never be another Fritz. . . . Writing will never again be as much fun . A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more than I understood or misunderstood him, and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me.”
Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022) was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “The Killer”, he was described as “rock ‘n’ roll’s first great wild man”.
Liadov
Anatol Konstantinovich Liadov lived from 1855 until 1914. He was the son of a conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, and was trained at the Conservatory, where he was briefly a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and later a member of the teaching staff. He was associated with Balakirev and subsequently became a member of Belyayev’s circle, helping, in particular, in the establishment of the publishing-house that Belyayev established for Russian composers.
He was a thoroughly competent musician, conductor and composer, but did not apply himself constantly to work. His failure to supply music for the Dyagilev ballet in Paris in 1910 allowed Stravinsky his first chance with the Ballets russes. His compositions are characteristic of the period in Russian nationalism, when nationalism was joined with technical competence inculcated at the Conservatories.
The best known orchestral compositions by Liadov are the descriptive Russian fairy-tale pieces Kikimora, Baba-Yaga and Volshebnoye ozero (The Enchanted Lake). His last orchestral work was the symphonic poem Skorbnaya pesn. All are very much in the nationalist tradition exemplified by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Liadov wrote a number of shorter piano pieces, including Fugues and a set of Canons, testimony to his contrapuntal ability. Other pieces have characteristic titles, examples of pleasing and well crafted compositions for which there was a ready market.
Liadov wrote a setting of the final scene of Schiller’s Die Braut von Messina (The Bride from Messina) for his Conservatory graduation. Of some 26 songs, eighteen are Children’s Songs.
Liberace
(Walter) (Wladziu Valentino) Liberace, American pianist and showman. Lee, as he was known, was the master of Las Vegas. Hundreds of thousands flock to his museum there (operated by his brother, George) to see Liberace’s garish suits, trademark candelabra, and learn of the myths behind this hugely successful star of television, stage and concerts the world over.
Ligeti
György Ligeti, a composer, was born in 1923 in Transylvania. He studied and later taught at the Budapest Academy of Music. After leaving Hungary in 1956, he worked at the electronics studio in Cologne, then settled in Vienna, where he developed an experimental approach to composition. His first large orchestral work, Apparitions (1958–9), made his name widely known. In Aventures (1962) he uses his own invented language of speech sounds. He has also written a choral requiem, a cello concerto, and music for harpsichord, organ, and wind and string ensembles.
Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti was born in Bucharest and lived from 1917 until 1950. He was a pianist and composer who studied in Paris with Cortot and Boulanger, and after World War 2 established an international reputation as a gifted pianist, especially in the works of Chopin. His compositions include a Symphonie concertante for two pianos and strings, and a concertino for piano and orchestra. His career was cut short when he died of a rare form of cancer.
Liszt
Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, near Doborján, 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 Niccolò 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 scales, trills, arpeggios, leaps, 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 Pruludes, 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, Dvořák, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss.
Lloyd Webber
British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the most successful composers of this era with hugely successful commercial hits such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Sunset Boulevard, Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Evita. Cats, the longest-running production in Broadway history, closed after 7,397 performances on June 25, 2000.
Locatelli
Pietro Antonio Locatelli lived from 1695 until 1764. He was born in Bergamo, later moving to Rome, where he might have studied with Corelli, but more probably was a pupil of Valentini. He was an Italian composer of sonatas and concerti, but he was best known as a virtuoso violinist playing mostly in Amsterdam where he settled in 1721. He won a reputation as a virtuoso, performing in Italy, in Bavaria and in Berlin. In 1729 he settled in Amsterdam, where he taught and conducted an amateur orchestra and was able to pursue his wider cultural interests.
Locatelli wrote a number of concerti grossi, following the example of Corelli. The first set, published in Amsterdam in 1720, include twelve fugues. L’arte del violino (The Art of the Violin), published in 1733, contains twelve violin concertos and 24 Caprices, precursors of Paganini’s famous set for unaccompanied violin. A further set of six concertos was published two years later and a set of six, published in 1744, is scored for four violins, two violas and basso continuo. Locatelli combines the Roman style of Corelli with, in his solo concertos, the virtuosity of Vivaldi in Venice.
In his Concerti grossi, works for string orchestra with a smaller group of soloists, Locatelli at first follows the pattern of Corelli, with one or two violas added to Corelli’s solo group of two violins, cello and harpsichord. There is also a Concerto grosso that includes a group of solo wind instruments, in addition to solo violin concertos. Some of these works have programmatic titles. His L’arte del violino (The Art of the Violin) includes 24 Caprices for unaccompanied violin, challenging works that have been regarded by some as foreshadowing the Caprices of Paganini in the following century. Locatelli also published sets of trio sonatas and solo sonatas, including a set of the latter for flute and basso continuo.
Loewe
Frederick “Fritz” Loewe lived from 1904 until 1988. He was a composer, born in Vienna, Austria and at age 13 he was the youngest pianist to solo with the Berlin Symphony. At age 15 he composed Katrina (1919), which sold two million copies of sheet music in Europe. Although he had studied with great European masters of the piano, when he came to the U.S.A. in 1924 he failed as a piano virtuoso. He took up a series of odd jobs–prospecting for gold, professional boxing–but by the mid-1930s he had launched his career as a composer for the musical theater. Not until he teamed up with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner in 1942, however, did he find his true talent; their first big success was Brigadoon (1947) and this was followed by such classic stage and film musical scores as My Fair Lady (1956), Gigi (1958), and Camelot (1960). This last led to their falling-out and they did not collaborate again until in 1973 when they made a stage version of their film musical, Gigi. Their last collaboration was The Little Prince (1974), after which Loewe retired.
If ever I would leave you from Camelot won him a Grammy Award.
Lully
Jean Baptiste Lully lived from about 1632 until 1687 and was considered to be a baroque composer. He was an Italian-born French court composer who molded Italian opera music to suit the French text. He was the first to compose French overtures, which served as model for subsequent composers, especially J. S. Bach. He changed his name from the Italian Giovanni Battista Lulli when he became a French citizen.
Lully was conducting a Te Deum to celebrate Louis XIV’s recovery from illness. He was banging loudly on the floor with a staff when he struck his foot with such force that it developed an abscess, from which the unfortunate Lully died shortly after.
Lunceford
James Melvin Lunceford was born. June 6, 1902, Fulton, Miss., U.S. and died on July 12, 1947, Seaside, Ore. He was an American jazz dance-band leader whose rhythmically appealing, well-disciplined orchestra performed arrangements by trumpeter Sy Oliver and others to popular acclaim from 1934 to 1945 and influenced both swing and post-World War II dance bands.
Lunceford, during his youth, acquired proficiency on all reed instruments, but he seldom played with his band because he preferred to conduct. He taught and organized a student orchestra in a Memphis, Tenn., high school before beginning his professional career as a bandleader in 1929. Practiced showmanship, precise ensembles, and a medium two-beat swing tempo rather than exciting soloists were the Lunceford band’s trademarks. The band’s most popular songs included Organ Grinder’s Swing (1936) and For Dancers Only (1937). The Lunceford band was considered to be on a par with bands led by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman during the 1930s, and in 1940 the ensemble won a celebrated “battle of the bands” from a field of 28 groups, among them Basie’s, Goodman’s, and Glenn Miller‘s. Arranger Oliver left Lunceford in 1939, and by 1942 the band’s popularity had declined. Following Lunceford’s death while on tour, pianist Edwin Wilcox and saxophonist Joe Thomas led the band for several years.
Lutoslawski
Witold Lutoslawski lived from 1913 until 1994. He was born and studied in Warsaw, winning a distinguished international reputation particularly from the 1950s onwards, a leading composer among a group of creative artists of outstanding ability, remarkable in his handling of forms and textures of great originality.
The genius of Lutoslawski was early evident in his 1938 Symphonic Variations. The years after the war brought a return to more conventional national modes of composition, heard in his Little Suite and Concerto for Orchestra. Later works have allowed a more experimental approach on a broader palette, to be heard in his Funeral Music of 1958, his Second Symphony and the Prelude and Fugue for thirteen string instruments.
Characteristic works for voice and orchestra include Paroles tissées for tenor and chamber orchestra, and Three Poems by Henri Michaux for twenty voices and orchestra.
1735 ~ Johann Christian Bach, German composer
J.C. Bach was one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons. After he moved to London, he became known as the London Bach.
More information about J.C. Bach
1791 ~ Giacomo Meyerbeer, German Composer
More information about Meyerbeer
1912 ~ John Cage, American avant-guarde composer, pianist and writer
Read quotes by and about Cage
More information about Cage
• 1934 ~ Carol Lawrence (Laraia), Singer, actress
• 1939 ~ John Stewart, Singer with The Kingston Trio; songwriter
• 1945 ~ Al Stewart, Singer, guitarist with Time Passages
• 1946 ~ Freddie Mercury (Bulsara), singer, Queen, (1975 UK No.1 single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ also UK No.1 in 1991, plus over 40 other UK Top 40 singles. 1980 US No.1 single ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’). Solo, (1987 UK No. 4 single ‘The Great Pretender’). Mercury died of bronchio-pneumonia on November 24th 1991 aged 45, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.
• 1946 ~ Loudon Wainwright III, Songwriter, singer
• 1956 ~ Johnny Cash hit the record running with I Walk the Line. Cash’s debut hit song climbed to #17 on the pop music charts.
• 1969 ~ Dweezil Zappa, Musician: guitar: MTV; son of musician Frank Zappa, brother of singer Moon Unit Zappa
• 1972 ~ Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway won a gold record for their duet, Where is the Love. The song got to number five on the pop music charts and was one of two songs that earned gold for the duo. The other was The Closer I Get To You in 1978.
• 2002 ~ Florence Lessing, a dancer who performed in films, nightclubs and Broadway musicals died. She was 86. Lessing worked with the famous jazz-dance choreographer Jack Cole, who spotted her as a teenager in an East Indian dance class. Lessing, Cole, and the teacher of the class, Anna Austin, formed a trio that performed at the Rainbow Room in 1938 and in the musical “Moon Over Miami” in 1939. Lessing went on to perform in many Broadway shows, including “Windy City,” choreographed by Katherine Dunham, and “Sailor Beware” and “Kismet,” both choreographed by Cole. She appeared in the 1952 film musical “Just for You,” which was choreographed by Helen Tamiris and starred Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. Lessing, who studied a wide variety of dance forms, choreographed two of her own nightclub acts in the mid-1940s and taught dance at several schools.
• 2003 ~ Gisele MacKenzie, a singer-actress who became one of early television’s biggest stars through her appearances on “Your Hit Parade,” died. She was 76. Once known as Canada’s first lady of song, MacKenzie moved to Los Angeles with her family in 1951. In 1952 and 1953 she toured with Jack Benny, who recommended her for a spot on “Your Hit Parade.” In 1957, she left the show to headline her own musical variety program, “The Gisele MacKenzie Show.” It lasted half a year. She returned to weekly television in 1963 as a regular on “The Sid Caesar Show.” She also appeared on radio in Los Angeles with Edgar Bergen and Morton Downey. She was a regular on Bob Crosby’s Club 15 show and a featured performer on radio’s “The Mario Lanza Show.” She continued to appear regularly on television into the 1990s, on such shows as “Studio One,” “The Hollywood Squares,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “MacGyver” and “Boy Meets World.”
The Piano Puzzlers book is available in the O’Connor Music Studio library if you’d like to give any a try. Piano Puzzlers as heard on American Public Media’s “Performance Today.” Includes 32 tunes with songs by Gershwin, Berlin, Arlen, Porter, Rodgers, Fats Waller, Lennon & McCartney, and others disguised in the styles of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Janacek, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, and Copland.
Includes an introduction by Fred Child, host of “Performance Today” as well as background info by Bruce Adolphe. “Bruce Adolphe has taken a common musician’s party game and elevated it to high art and truly funny musical slapsticks. The Piano Puzzlers are a unique combination of extraordinary insight into the styles of many composers subtle, expert workmanship and great, great fun!”
If you’re a music geek (like me), I have a program for you. Now, let me be clear, to fully qualify as a music geek…you must have a fond appreciation for classical music (no, Poison, Quiet Riot, and Zepplin do not count as classical music). So, if you’re a “music geek” without an appreciation for classical music…well, I hate to burst your bubble…but, you’re not truly a music geek. Instead, you’re a music appreciator, but not a geek. So, if you just listen to indie music and scowl at anything on a label larger than Matador…don’t bother following the link I’ll provide…the fun will be lost on you…And, you probably won’t have a chance.
Every Wednesday night, on my way home from WNL, I turn on my local NPR station to listen to Piano Puzzlers on Performance Today. It’s absolutely incredible. A pianist/composer (Bruce Adolphe) takes a familiar folk or pop tune and sets it inside a classical masterpiece (or in the style of a particular composer). Sometimes it’s easy…sometimes it’s ridiculously difficult. There are days when I say, “got it” on the first pass. Then there are days when I say, “what the heck?” And, more often than not, I’m able to get either the popular/folk tune or the composer.
This is sad to admit, but there are nights when I’ll slow down on the drive home or sit in the car in the driveway to finish an episode. In fact, I get a little worked up if someone stops me after WNL…as I might miss the beginning of Piano Puzzlers (it usually hits around 8:20pm on our local station).
Take a listen to some of the archives and see if you can figure it out! It’s really cool…but probably only appreciated by music geeks (the kind of people that listen to NPR for their musical programs and not just the snipets of cool indie rock between segments on All Things Considered…which is a great show too).
1735 ~ Johann Christian Bach, German composer
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