Muzio Clementi lived from January 23, 1752 until March 10, 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.
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.
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.
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.
. 1626 ~ John Dowland, English composer (In Darkness We Dwell), died at the age of 62
. 1899 ~ Alexander Tcherepnin, pianist and composer
. 1903 ~ First performance of “The Wizard of Oz” as a Broadway musical
. 1917 ~ Billy Maxted, Pianist, songwriter, arranger and bandleader
. 1927 ~ The first opera to be broadcast over a national radio network was presented in Chicago, IL. Listeners heard selections from “Faust” by Charles Gounod.
. 1932 ~ Annunzio Paolo Mantovani gave a memorable concert at Queen’s Hall in England to ‘glowing notices’. This was the beginning of the musician’s successful recording career that provided beautiful music to radio stations for nearly five decades. Better known as just Mantovani, his music still entertains us with hits like Red Sails in the Sunset, Serenade in the Night, Song from Moulin Rouge and Charmaine.
. 1939 ~ Wolfman Jack (Robert Smith), Disc jockey, icon of ’60s radio, broadcasting from XERF, then XERB in Mexico and heard throughout a major part of the U.S.; TV announcer: The Midnight Special; actor: American Graffiti; author: Have Mercy! Confessions of the Original Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal
. 1941 ~ Placido Domingo, Spanish tenor and conductor
More information about Domingo 
Grammy winner
Washington Honored Eastwood, Baryshnikov, Domingo, Berry in 2000
. 1941 ~ Ritchie Havens, American rock singer
. 1942 ~ Mac (Scott) Davis, Singer, actor, host of The Mac Davis Show, songwriter, ACM Entertainer of the Year in 1975
. 1942 ~ Nostalgia buffs will want to grab the greatest hits CD of Count Basie (on Verve) and crank up One O’Clock Jump. Just one of the many signature tunes by Bill Basie; the tune was originally recorded on Okeh Records this day.
. 1948 ~ Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Italian composer and teacher
. 1950 ~ Billy Ocean, Grammy Award-winning R&B Male Vocal in 1984
. 1957 ~ Singer Patsy Cline appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s nighttime TV show. She sang the classic, Walking After Midnight, which quickly launched her career.
. 1959 ~ The Kingston Trio (Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds and Dave Guard) received a gold record for Tom Dooley. The Kingston Trio recorded many hits, including Greenback Dollar, M.T.A., Reverend Mr. Black, Tijuana Jail, and the war protest song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?.
. 1966 ~ George Harrison of The Beatles married Patricia (Patty) Anne Boyd in Surrey, England. The two met on the set of the movie, “A Hard Day’s Night”.
. 1970 ~ ABC-TV presented “The Johnny Cash Show” in prime time. Previously, the show had been a summer replacement. The regular season series was a big boost for country music. Johnny wore black in the all-color show, however, like he still does today.
. 1978 ~ The soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever” reached #1 on the album charts — a position it held for the next six months.
. 1987 ~ Thirty years after its release, Jackie Wilson’s single, Reet Petite (written by Motown founder Berry Gordy), ended a month at the top of England’s music charts. Three years earlier, on this same date, Jackie Wilson died after being in a coma (following a heart attack) for eight and a half years.
. 2002 ~ Peggy Lee, the singer-composer whose smoky voice in such songs as Is That All There Is? and Fever made her a jazz and pop legend, died of a heart attack. She was 81. Lee battled injury and ill health, including heart trouble, throughout a spectacular career that brought her a Grammy, an Oscar nomination and sold- out houses worldwide. In more than 50 years in show business, which began during a troubled childhood and endured through four broken marriages, Lee recorded hit songs with the Benny Goodman band, wrote songs for a Disney movie and starred on Broadway in a short-lived autobiographical show, Peg. A string of hits, notably Why Don’t You Do Right?, made her a star. Then she fell in love with Goodman’s guitarist, Dave Barbour, and withdrew from the music world to be his wife and raise their daughter, Nicki. She returned to singing when the marriage fell apart. Lee’s other notable recordings included Why Don’t You Do Right? I’m a Woman, Lover, Pass Me By, Where or When, The Way You Look Tonight, I’m Gonna Go Fishin‘ and Big Spender. The hit Is That All There Is? won her a Grammy for best contemporary female vocal performance in 1969. She collaborated with Sonny Burke on the songs for Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp, and was the voice for the wayward canine who sang He’s a Tramp (But I Love Him).
. 2022 ~ Marvin Lee Aday (Meatloaf), died at age 74. He was a singer who appeared in several television shows and films, including the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Fight Club” and “Wayne’s World.”
Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals is featured in Disney’s Fantasia and the newly released Fantasia 2000.
Salieri
Antonio Salieri lived from 1750 until 1825. Born in Legnago, he was brought as a boy to Vienna by Florian Gassmann, his predecessor as court Kapellmeister who supervised his musical training and education. He owed much to the influence and patronage of Gluck, to whom he seemed a natural successor in the field of opera. He won similar success to the latter also in Paris with his operas for the French stage. His pupils included Beethoven and Schubert, Czerny, Hummel, Moscheles and one of Mozart’s sons. He was a prolific composer, principally in vocal music of all kinds.
Thanks to Pushkin and Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as Shaffer and the film Amadeus, Salieri has been cast as the villain in the tragedy of Mozart’s early death. Antonio Salieri occupied a position of great importance in the music of Vienna. From 1774 he was court composer and conductor of the Italian opera, serving as court Kapellmeister from 1788 until 1824.
Salieri wrote some 45 operas, ranging from Tarare, with a libretto by Beaumarchais, for Paris and settings of libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte for Vienna to the Shakespearean comedy Falstaff and the operetta Prima la musica poi le parole (First the Music then the Words), staged at the imperial palace of Sch?nbrunn in 1786 on the same evening as Mozart’s German Singspiel Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario).
Salieri wrote a quantity of church music, as well as oratorios. He left still more secular vocal music, ranging from cantatas and choruses to duets and solo arias.
Rather less instrumental music by Salieri survives. This includes music for the ballet, sinfonias, concertos and music for various smaller ensembles.
As well as a significant quantity of ballet music, Salieri wrote concertos, including an organ concerto and a piano concerto, a Birthday Symphony and a set of variations on La folia di Spagna, (The Folly of Spain) the dance tune used by Corelli and many other Baroque composers.
Salieri’s chamber music consists principally of serenades, cassations and marches.
Satie
Erik Satie lived from 1866 until 1925 and was a French composer whose spare, unconventional, often witty music represents a first break with 19th century French Romanticism.
Scarlatti, Alessandro
(Pietro) Alessandro (Gaspare) Scarlatti lived from 1660 until 1725 and was the father of Domenico Scarlatti. Allessandro was a leading composer of early Italian opera and one of the most important figures in developing classical harmony.
Scarlatti, Domenico
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) is an important Baroque composer from Italy. He composed more than 500 keyboard sonatas, many of which are in one movement. Occasionally, he wrote them in pairs of similar or contrasting mood. Scarlatti used interesting melodies and combined them with a rhythmic vitality.
Scharwenka
Franz Xaver Scharwenka was born near Posen, Germany. He lived from 1850 until 1924 and was a pianist and composer. In 1881 he started a music school in Berlin, and spent the years from 1891 until 1898 in New York City directing the Scharwenka Music School. He composed symphonies, piano concertos, and Polish dances.
Schickele
Peter Schickele is a composer in his own right, in addition to “discovering” P.D.Q. Bach He recently arranged Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance for the new Disney movie Fantasia 2000.
Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg lived from 1874 until 1951. He was a German composer whose revolutionary method of composition (based on a series of 12 tones called 12-Tone Music) influenced many later composers.
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert lived between 1797 and 1828. He is considered to be a romantic composer. He was an Austrian composer who was one of the greatest creators of melody and foremost writer of ‘lieder’ (German songs).
Although he only lived for 31 years, Schubert composed more than 600 songs, 22 piano sonatas and many short piano pieces. This melodic output has never been equaled either in quantity of quality. He was one of the first musicians to earn a living from the sale of his music.
Schubert’s Ave Maria was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia.
Schumann, Clara Wieck
Clara Wieck Schumann was a fine pianist and composer. She married Robert Schumann.
Schumann, Robert
Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, June 8, 1810 and died in Endenich, near Bonn, July 29, 1856. He was a German composer and pianist. With Chopin and Liszt he developed much of the technique of Romantic piano music.
He was a child prodigy, but his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. He did attend law school for a while but soon left to become a musician.
His earliest compositions were piano pieces, but he also wrote a popular piano concerto, several symphonies, and chamber music.
A master of the more intimate forms of musical compositions, Schumann is unique in music history as being one of the great composers who concentrated on one musical genre at a time, with the bulk of his earliest compositions being for the piano. Schumann’s piano music (and later his songs) remain supreme examples of the Romantic style of the second quarter of the nineteenth-century. Immensely influenced by literature and poetry, it is the dreamy nature of his music which most affects the listener, as can be heard in the fifth movement from the piano suite entitled Carnaval. Aside from three piano sonatas, most of his work for the instrument is in the form of suites comprising short, poetic pieces, each expressing a different mood.
Schumann composed his 13-piece collection Scenes from Childhood in 1838, shortly after he became engaged to Clara Wieck, who also was a fine musician and the most celebrated woman pianist of her time. Clara Wieck was the daughter of his first music teacher, who had opposed their union.
In 1840, Schumann was finally able to marry Clara Wieck. Schumann’s happiness found an outlet in the great number of Lieder he wrote during that year. The first number from his song cycle Dichterliebe, Im wundersch?nen Monat mai (A Poet’s Love: “In the beautiful month of May” ) is another example of the composer’s harmonic and melodic style.
In order to publicize his own music and to stimulate and improve the musical tastes of the burgeoning concert-going public, Schumann founded Die Neue Zeitschrift f?r Musik (The New Journal for Music) in 1834, and remained active as its editor for ten years. In the pages of this publication, Schumann considerably raised the standards of music criticism and did much to promote the careers of young composers such as Fr?d?ric Chopin, Hector Berlioz, and especially Johannes Brahms, who was to become a very close friend of Schumann. Throughout his life, Schumann felt himself divided by two contrasting natures: the gentle, poetic, Apollonian side, which he called “Eusebius”; and the more forthright, dramatic and stormy side he named “Florestan”. Because of this rift in his personality, he feared insanity for much of his life, and eventually did spend his last years in an asylum.
Scott, Cyril
Cyril Meir Scott lived from 1879 until 1970. He was a composer, born in Oxton, Cheshire, NWC England, UK. As a child he studied the piano in Frankfurt, later returning there to study composition. His works won a hearing in London at the turn of the century, and in 1913 he was able to introduce his music to Vienna. His opera, The Alchemist, had its first performance in Essen in 1925. He composed three symphonies, piano, violin, and cello concertos, and numerous choral and orchestral works, but is best known for his piano pieces and songs.
Scott, James
James Scott (1886 to 1938) was a Ragtime composer along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb.
Although an extremely important figure in ragtime, Scott was always viewed as second to Scott Joplin in terms of musical expertise and prowess. However, Scott developed a very unique sound within the form of ragtime. He received lessons as a boy from John Coleman, a Missouri pianist, who recognized the boy’s genius. Soon after, he gained the attention of both the respected composer Charles Dumars, and the ragtime master himself, Scott Joplin, and the rest is history.
Seals, Son
Born in Osceola, Ark., Son Seals learned guitar from his father, a former minstrel show performer and juke joint operator. He initially established himself professionally as a drummer, working with guitarist Earl Hooker and appearing behind Albert King on the 1968 Stax album “Live Wire/Blues Power.”
Seals moved to Chicago in 1971 and began fronting his own groups on the city’s South Side.
Seals helped establish Chicago-based Alligator Records as the era’s premier blues label with a run of albums featuring his tough songs, brooding vocals and spikey guitar work. Signed to Alligator, he made an immediate impression with his impassioned 1973 debut “The Son Seals Blues Band.” After the release of its 1977 sequel “Midnight Son,” the New York Times called Seals “the most exciting young blues guitarist and singer in years.”
He won three W.C. Handy Blues Awards, and received a Grammy Award nomination in 1980 for his work on the live compilation “Blues Deluxe.”
Seals had a tempestuous relationship with Alligator and its founder-owner Bruce Iglauer, who also managed him; he departed the label in the mid-’80s, but returned to the fold in the ’90s. His last album “Lettin’ Go” was cut for Telarc in 2000.
He toured widely, despite the loss of a leg to diabetes. Late in his career he opened several shows for the jam band Phish, who covered his song “Funky Bitch.”
Seals had 14 children.
Segovia
Andrés Segovia lived from 1894 until 1987. He was a guitarist who was born in Linares, Spain. Largely self-taught, he gave his first concert in 1909, and quickly gained an international reputation. Influenced by the Spanish nationalist composers, he evolved a revolutionary guitar technique permitting the performance of a wide range of music, and many modern composers wrote works for him. He was created Marquis of Salobrena by royal decree in 1981
Shaw, Artie
Artie Shaw was born Arnold Jacob Arshawsky to a seamstress mother and photographer father in New York City on May 23, 1910, Shaw was about as restless a jazz star as one could find.
He formed and reformed bands, married and divorced eight times, gave up music for more than 30 years and put down his clarinet in 1954 never to play it in public again, quitting at age 44.
Critics dismissed his work at first. But soon they hailed him as a unique voice in swing-era jazz, especially for his beautiful tone and control of his instrument’s top register.
The Down Beat critic Howard Mandel once wrote: “In Shaw’s lips and hands the clarinet bent as pliantly as a blade of grass; it thrilled him to make glissandi, fast or sad melodies, and wonderful virtuosic turns.”
Among his famous songs were a 1938 rendition of “Begin the Beguine,” which made him a national star and chief rival to legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman, “Oh, Lady Be Good,” “Stardust,” “Indian Love Call” and “Frenesi.”
He once said the success of “Begin the Beguine” was like an anchor around his neck.
As smooth as his tone was, Shaw was a man at war with himself. A crusty, self-declared perfectionist, Shaw gave up the clarinet because he said could not reach the level of artistry he desired.
In 1981, he ended a long musical intermission by reorganizing a band that bore his name and played his music — but with another clarinetist, Dick Johnson, leading the orchestra and playing the solos Shaw made famous.
Shaw traveled with the orchestra as a guest host and sometime conductor of the band’s signature opening number, “Nightmare.”
Shaw’s bands in the 1930s and 1940s featured a who’s who of jazz greats including Billie Holiday, Buddy Rich, Roy Eldridge and “Hot Lips” Page. At the height of his popularity, he earned $30,000 a week, a huge sum for the Depression Era.
He was one of the few white bandleaders who sought out black talent. Decades after Billie Holiday sang with him, Shaw still marveled at the sound of her voice.
“When she sang something, it came alive. I mean that is what jazz is all about,” he once said.
Shaw called himself a difficult man, a view his eight former wives, including novelist Kathleen Winsor and actresses Evelyn Keyes, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner might have agreed with. He recalled once almost erupting when a woman asked if he could play something with a Latin beat.
Of Shaw’s string of former wives, manager Curtis recalled, “He said he never had to pay any alimony because they were all as rich as he was.”
It was once a national joke to have as many wives as Artie Shaw had.
In a 1985 interview with Reuters, Shaw said he gave up playing when he decided he was aiming for a perfection that could kill him.
“I am compulsive. I sought perfection. I was constantly miserable. I was seeking a constantly receding horizon. So I quit,” he said.
“It was like cutting off an arm that had gangrene. I had to cut it off to live. I’d be dead if I didn’t stop. The better I got, the higher I aimed. People loved what I did, but I had grown past it. I got to the point where I was walking in my own footsteps,” he said in that interview.
Shaw spent his time as a guest on television game shows, writing an autobiography and a novel, traveling and lecturing.
But starting in the 1980s, Shaw returned to the road with his revived band as its host and sometime conductor of its opening number before turning over to Johnson.
Sibelius
Jean Sibelius (1865 until 1957) was the most famous composer in Finland. He is the best known of the Finnish composers chiefly remembered for his seven symphonies (Finlandia). In 1897, at the age of 32, Sibelius was awarded a lifelong pension by the Finnish government so that he could devote all his time to composing.
Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 to 1975) was a Russian composer renowned for his brilliant symphonies. His daring and experimental style brought him often in conflict with authorities.
Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto number 2 is featured in Disney’s newly released Fantasia 2000.
Schuetz
Heinrich Schuetz (1585- 1672) was a German composer who was born in Koestritz, Germany. Schuetz travelled to Italy to study in Venice. After his return he played an important role in bringing the Italian baroque style of music to Germany.
His compositions include church music, psalms, motets, passions, a German requiem, and the first German opera, Dafne, produced in Torgau in 1627. As a German Protestant Schuetz contributed greatly to German cultural unity after the 30-year war.
Smetana
Bedřich Smetana lived from 1824 until 1884. He wrote national music based on Bohemian folk tunes. Smetana was a child prodigy, playing is a string quartet by the age of 5 and composing by the age of 8.
He had to teach to support himself, but he maintained his Like Beethoven, Smetana did not allow his loss of hearing to stop him from composing. One of his greatest works was composed after his hearing was gone.
In The Bartered Bride he produced one of the greatest of all comic operas.
Smith
Bessie Smith (1894 to 1937) was perhaps the most influential female blues singer to ever live, so much so that she was given the nickname “the Empress of the Blues”. She was born into poverty in the 1890s, and started her singing career young. She was blessed with a deep, expansive voice that was powerful yet still had a very expressive quality to it. She rose to fame in the 1920s during the Depression, after she moved to New York City and began recording with jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. Sadly, she was killed in a tragic automobile accident in 1937, after her career was in shambles, and she had began turning to alcohol.
Sondheim
(Joshua) Stephen Sondheim was born in 1930 in New York City. Is is a composer, lyricist who received tutoring from family friend Oscar Hammerstein II and at age 17 was a production assistant for Richard Rodgers and Hammerstein. He wrote some music for television shows and for the play Girls of Summer (1956) before making his debut on Broadway by writing lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957) and Jule Styne’s Gypsy (1959). He first wrote music as well as words for the successful farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). With producer-director Harold Prince he wrote both words and music for a string of innovative works, including A Little Night Music (1973) – which contained his best-known song, “Send in the Clowns” – and Pacific Overtures (1976), which combined elements of the Broadway musical with Japanese Kabuki theater. He won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize in drama for Sunday in the Park with George (1984).
Known for their often complex wordplay, evocative music, and unconventional subject matter, his works for stage, screen, and television mark him as one of the true artists of modern musical theater, one of the few who could inspire fans to wait overnight in freezing weather for tickets to merely a revue featuring his songs. He himself remains a private person, never courting publicity, and about all the public knows of him is that he enjoys word-based puzzles and party games.
Sor
Fernando Sor lived from 1778 until 1839. He is a Catalan composer chiefly known for his many compositions for guitar, his own instrument. Although originally opposed to the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, he later accepted a position under the French government and was, in consequence, obliged to seek refuge abroad, in London, and in Paris, where he established himself as a successful performer, teacher and composer.
Sor published a quantity of music for guitar, some of it pedagogical in purpose and some of it for concert performance. His Methode pour la guitarre, published in 1830, is among the most important books on guitar technique.
Sor wrote a number of boleros and seguidillas for voices and guitar, in addition to Spanish, Italian and English songs and duets for voice and piano.
Sor’s opera Telemaco nell’isola de Calipso (Telemachus on the Island of Calypso) was staged in Barcelona in 1797. Sor’s other theatre music was principally for the ballet, including a successful Cendrillon (Cinderella), a march from which he arranged for guitar.
SPEBSQSA
The SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America) was founded April 11, 1938 by 26 singing, striped-shirted gentlemen. Now we know that’s 6 quartets worth, but that?s what it took to get the organization humming. So, let?s head for the barbershop and ask for a “shave & a haircut, two bits!” or a refrain of Sweet Adeline.
By the way, Sweet Adeline, the love song that became a favorite of barbershop quartets, was written in 1903 by Richard Gerard and Henry Armstrong and there really was a sweet Adeline. She was opera singer Adelina Patti.
Today, female barbershop quartets are called Sweet Adelines.
Stern
Isaac Stern is a violinist who was born in Kremenets, Russia in 1920. Brought in infancy to the U.S.A. by his family, he grew up in San Francisco and took up the violin at age eight, later studying at the city’s conservatory from 1928 until 1931 and debuting with the orchestra at age 11. After years of further study and growth, he achieved an outstanding success at his Carnegie Hall debut in 1943. He went on to a career in the highest rank of international violinists – the only one to have been entirely trained in America. From 1961 he often played chamber music with pianist Eugene Istomin and cellist Leonard Rose; for many years he was president of New York’s Carnegie Hall, which he helped save from demolition. An intense and individual player, he both mastered the standard repertoire and introduced many new works. As a cultural ambassador he made tours of Russia in 1956 and of China in 1979.
Still
William Grant Still lived from 1895 until 1978. He was a composer who was born in Woodville, Miss. He has been called “the dean of Afro-American composers”. Still worked with W. C. Handy and graduated from Oberlin College. His music, while classical in technique, grew out of black life; his works include the Afro-American Symphony (1931).
Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was born in 1928 and has been among the leading avant-garde figures in German music since the 1950s. In spite of material difficulties, he studied in Cologne with Frank Martin and was subsequently strongly influenced by attendance at Darmstadt, where summer sessions contributed largely to the development of new music. He went on to study with Messiaen in Paris. Parallel to his work in electronic music, he explored the human element in performance, moving from total serialism, in which every aspect of a piece is controlled by a predetermined serial pattern, to a more flexible approach.
The numbering of Stockhausen’s works allows his earlier compositions the numbering of fractions, with his Kontre-Punkte of 1952 as the first whole number, No. 1. A varied and fascinating series of compositions includes Stimmung for electronically treated voices, Mantra, for two pianos, woodblocks and crotales, the result of a visit to the Osaka World Fair, at which his music was featured. Zyklus has an important part in modern percussion repertoire, while work continues on Licht, a project divided into seven days and involving dramatic use of instrumental performance. The size of this work, calculated to reach completion in 2002, is characteristic of the composer’s Wagnerian tendencies.
Of particular interest in the development of Stockhausen’s ideas is Gruppen, first performed in 1958, and using three orchestras surrounding the audience. Use of short-wave radio occurs in Hymnen, Spiral and his celebration of the bicentenary of Beethoven’s birth, Kurzwellen mit Beethoven (Short-Wave with Beethoven). Aus den sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days), a series of fifteen compositions, is written without notes but with verbal directions to performers, on whose particular imagination and ability he as so often relies. His continuing work Licht (Light) allows a significant dramatic element for solo trumpet in Donnerstag (Thursday), but all in all the comprehensive nature of Stockhausen’s work and its development over the last forty years defy succinct summary.
Stokowski
Leopold (b. Antoni Stanislaw Boleslawowicz) Stokowski lived from 1882 until 1977. He was a conductor who born in London, England. After musical studies in London, Paris, and Germany, Stokowski came to America in 1905 and four years later was named conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony. He left that post in 1912 for a long and celebrated tenure as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, in which he cultivated a popular but later dated creaminess of sound. Stokowski became the great matinee idol of conductors – that despite his bold championing of advanced composers including Varese, Berg, and Schoenberg – and was for awhile linked with Greta Garbo. Resigning from Philadelphia in 1938, he went on to conduct for shorter periods orchestras including the NBC Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony (1955 to 1962), and American Symphony (1962 to 1973), the latter of which he founded. His popularity is reflected in the fact that he appeared in several movies, notably One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), Fantasia (1940) and Disney’s newly released Fantasia 2000.
Strauss, Johann Jr.
Johann Strauss Jr. (1825 – 1899) was the most famous of a musical family. He formed his own orchestra in Vienna and became known as The Waltz King.
Although his father wanted him to become a bank clerk, the supremely talented and devastatingly handsome Johann Strauss, Jr, was drawn to music. At the age of 19 he started his own orchestra, eventually providing orchestras for 14 of Austria’s ballrooms.
The Blue Danube was one of the more than 500 waltzes he composed and it became his “theme song”.
When Strauss visited the United States in 1872, he conducted 20,000 musicians and singers in a huge performance of The Blue Danube at the Boston Peace Jubilee.
Strauss, Johann Sr.
Johann Strauss, Sr. was an Austrian composer, best known for his “Radetzky March.”
Strauss, Richard
Richard Strauss was born June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany. He died on September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. He was a German composer and conductor known for his intense emotionalism in his symphonic poems. He characterized himself as ‘composer of expression’ which is born out in his colorful orchestration. In his operas he employed Wagnerian principles of music drama, but in a more compact form.
Strauss was composing by the age of six, having received basic instruction from his father, a virtuoso horn player. This was, however, his only formal training. The elder Strauss instilled in his son a love of the classical composers, and his early works follow in their path. Strauss’ first symphony premiered when he was seventeen, his second (in New York) when he was twenty. By that time, Strauss had directed his energies toward conducting, and in 1885 he succeeded Hans von B?low as conductor of the orchestra in Meiningen. For the next forty years, he conducted orchestras in Munich, Weimar, Berlin and Vienna.
As a conductor, Strauss had a unique vantage point from which to study the workings of the orchestra. From this vantage point he developed a sense for orchestration that was unrivaled. He immediately put this sense to use in a series of orchestral pieces that he called “tone poems”, including Macbeth, Don Juan, Tod und Verklärung, Till Eulenspeigels lustige Streiche and Don Quixote. These works are intensely programmatic, and in the last two, Strauss elevated descriptive music to a level not approached since the techniques of text painting during the Renaissance. He also used his knowledge of orchestral techniques to produce a revised version of Hector Berlioz’s important orchestration treatise; this edition remains a standard to this day.
After the turn of the century, Strauss began to shift his focus to opera. With his principal librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, he created two forward-looking and shocking works: Salome, based on Oscar Wilde’s controversial play, and Elektra, Hoffmannsthal’s version of the classical Greek tragedy. In these works, the intense emotions and often lurid narrative elicited a more daring and demanding musical language full of extreme chromaticism and harsh timbres. But with his next opera, Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss seems to have left this aside, turning to a more focused, almost neoclassical approach in his later works. With this, Strauss settled into a comfortable place in German musical society, perhaps too comfortable, given his willingness to acquiesce to the artistic maneuverings of the rising Nazi regime. In the end, he broke with the Nazis on moral grounds, and died virtually penniless in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Musical Examples:
- Don Quixote
- Suite from Le Bourgoise gentilhomme, Op.60, Prelude
- Also Sprach Zarathustra
One of Richard Strauss’ most popular works is Also Sprach Zarathustra since it was made popular in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick science-fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Thus Spake Zarathustra) is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical treatise of the same name. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt. A typical performance lasts half an hour.
The work has been part of the classical repertoire since its first performance in 1896. The initial fanfare — entitled “Sunrise” in the composer’s program notes — became particularly well known to the general public due to its use in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as the theme music of the Apollo program. The fanfare has also been used in many other productions.
The piece starts with a sustained double low C on the double basses, contrabassoon and organ. This transforms into the brass fanfare of the Introduction and introduces the “dawn” motif (from “Zarathustra’s Prologue”, the text of which is included in the printed score) that is common throughout the work: the motif includes three notes, in intervals of a fifth and octave, as C–G–C (known also as the Nature-motif). On its first appearance, the motif is a part of the first five notes of the natural overtone series: octave, octave and fifth, two octaves, two octaves and major third (played as part of a C major chord with the third doubled). The major third is immediately changed to a minor third, which is the first note played in the work (E flat) that is not part of the overtone series.
“Of Those in Backwaters” (or “Of the Forest Dwellers”) begins with cellos, double-basses and organ pedal before changing into a lyrical passage for the entire section. The next two sections, “Of the Great Yearning” and “Of Joys and Passions”, both introduce motifs that are more chromatic in nature.
“Of Science” features an unusual fugue beginning in the double-basses and cellos, which consists of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. It is one of the very few sections in the orchestral literature where the basses must play a contra-b (lowest b on a piano). “The Convalescent” acts as a reprise of the original motif, and ends with the entire orchestra climaxing on a massive chord. “The Dance Song” features a very prominent violin solo throughout the section. The end of the “Song of the Night Wanderer” leaves the piece half resolved, with high flutes, piccolos and violins playing a B major chord, while the lower strings pluck a C.
One of the major compositional themes of the piece is the contrast between the keys of B major, representing humanity, and C major, representing the universe. Because B and C are adjacent notes, these keys are tonally dissimilar: B major uses five sharps, while C major has none.
Works:
- Orchestral music, including symphonic poems: Macbeth (1888), Don Juan (1888-1889), Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration, 1889), Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, 1895), Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1896), Don Quixote (1897) and Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life, 1898); 2 symphonies (Domestic, 1903 and Alpine, 1915); 3 concertos (2 for horn, 1 for oboe)
- 15 operas, including Salome (1905), Elektra (1909), Der Rosenkavalier (The Cavalier of the Rose, 1911), Ariadne auf Naxos (1912) and Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman, 1935)
- Choral works (with and without orchestra), chamber works
Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky lived between 1882 and 1971. He is considered to be a twentieth century composer. Both Stravinsky and Prokofiev were students of Rimsky-Korsakov. Stravinsky is a Russian composer renowned for his ballet scores beginning with Firebird, and Petrushka for the Ballets Russes in Paris.
Rite of Spring created a scandal because of its complex rhythms and polytonal harmonies. Despite this, Stravinsky’s music greatly influenced contemporary music. After residing in France he moved in 1939 to the U.S. where he continued writing music for the stage.
His most famous works are for the ballet. His two most popular are The Firebird (featured in Fantasia 2000), based on a legend of a prince capturing a Firebird and receiving a magic feather, and Petrushka, in which a lovable doll is brought to life.
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia.
Suk
Joseph Suk lived from 1875 until 1935. He was born in Krhaechaovice, Czech Republic and was a composer and violinist. He studied in Prague under Dvorák, whose daughter he married, and carried on the master’s Romantic tradition by his violin Fantaisie (1903), the symphonic poem Prague, and particularly by his deeply felt second symphony, Asrael (1905), in which he mourned the deaths of his master and of his wife. He was for 40 years a member of the Czech Quartet, and in 1922 became professor of composition in the Prague Conservatory.
Sullivan
Arthur (Seymour) Sullivan was an operetta composer. He teamed up with Sir William Gilbert to write H.M.S. Pinafore, The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance and others. A recent movie about Gilbert and Sullivan, Topsy-Turvey, won an Oscar in 2000.
von Suppé
Franz von Suppé was an Austrian composer of light operas, notably “Poet and Peasant”. He lived from 1819 until 1895.
Suzuki
Shin’ichi Suzuki was born in 1898 in Nagoya, Japan and is a very famous music teacher. He studied in Tokyo and Berlin, and with three of his brothers founded the Suzuki Quartet. His mass instruction methods of teaching young children to play the violin have been adopted in many countries, and adapted to other instruments.
1586 ~ Johann Hermann Schein, German composer
. 1703 ~ Joseph-Hector Fiocco, Belgian composer and violinist
. 1855 ~ Amedee-Ernest Chausson, French composer
. 1870 ~ Guillaume Lekeu, Belgian composer
. 1876 ~ Josef Hofmann, Polish pianist and composer
. 1881 ~ First American performance of Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No 94 G major aka “Surprise Symphony”. More about this symphony.
. 1889 ~ Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, American blues guitarist, folk singer and songwriter
. 1891 ~ Mischa Elman, violinist
1894 ~ Walter Hamor Piston, American composer
More information about Piston
. 1899 ~ Alexander Tcherepnin, Composer
. 1922 ~ Ray Anthony (Antonini), Bandleader
. 1926 ~ David Tudor, American pianist and composer of experimental music
. 1935 ~ Buddy Blake (Buddy Cunningham), Recording artist: recorded for Sun Records as B.B. Cunningham and Buddy Blake; record executive: Cover Record Co., Sam Phillips’ Holiday Inn label
. 1941 ~ Ron Townson, Singer with The 5th Dimension
. 1942 ~ Harry Babbitt sang as Kay Kyser and his orchestra recorded, Who Wouldn’t Love You, on Columbia Records. The record went on to be a big hit for Kyser.
. 1947 ~ George Grantham, Drummer with Poco
. 1958 ~ The rock ‘n’ roll classic, Get a Job, by The Silhouettes, was released.
. 1958 ~ Elvis Presley got a little U.S. mail this day with greetings from Uncle Sam. The draft board in Memphis, TN ordered the King to report for duty; but allowed a 60-day deferment for him to finish the film, “King Creole”.
. 1964, The Beatles, a British rock group, released its first LP album, “Meet The Beatles“, in the US record stores. The album turned out to be a super hit and reached #1 position on music charts by early February.
. 1965 ~ John Michael Montgomery, Country singer
. 1965 ~ Alan Freed, the ‘Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll’, died in Palm Springs, CA. Freed was one of the first radio disc jockeys to program black music, or race music, as it was termed, for white audiences. In the 1950s, Freed, at WJW Radio in Cleveland, coined the phrase, “rock ‘n’ roll,” before moving to WABC in New York. He was fired by WABC for allegedly accepting payola (being paid to play records by certain artists and record companies). The 1959-1960 congressional investigation into payola made Freed the scapegoat for what was a widespread practice. Freed, not so incidentally, died nearly penniless after the scandal was exposed.
. 2002 ~ Actress, writer and musician Carrie Hamilton, daughter of actress Carol Burnett, died of cancer. She was 38. Hamilton, whose father was the late producer Joe Hamilton, appeared in the television series “Fame” and had guest roles on other shows, including “Murder She Wrote,” “Beverly Hills 90210” and “thirtysomething.” She also starred in television movies. She and her mother collaborated on a stage version of Burnett’s best-selling memoir “One More Time.” The resulting play, “Hollywood Arms,” will have its world premiere in Chicago in April, said Burnett’s publicist, Deborah Kelman. Hamilton spoke publicly in the ’80s about her struggles with addiction and her decision to go drug-free. She starred as Maureen in the first national touring version of the musical “Rent” and wrote and directed short films through the profit-sharing production company Namethkuf. She won “The Women in Film Award” at the 2001 Latino Film Festival for her short film “Lunchtime Thomas.”
. 2002 ~ John Jackson, who went from gravedigger to one of the pre-eminent blues musicians in the country, died from kidney failure. He was 77. During his long career, Jackson played for presidents and in 68 countries. Jackson earned a living as a cook, a butler, a chauffeur and a gravedigger before his music career took off. He was playing guitar for some friends at a gas station in Fairfax in 1964 when Charles L. Perdue, who teaches folklore at the University of Virginia, pulled in to get some gas. He listened as Jackson taught a song to a mailman he knew. He and Jackson became friends, and Perdue eventually helped launch Jackson’s career by introducing him to people in the music business. The seventh son of 14 children, Jackson had just three months’ education at the first-grade level. But he earned the admiration of fans from all walks of life around the world. B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Pete Seeger are among the performers he has played with and befriended. Among his numerous awards is the National Endowment for the Arts’ Heritage Fellowship Award, which he received in 1986.
2014 ~ Death of Italian conductor Claudio Abbado.
. 1835 ~ César Cui, Russian composer and music critic
More information about Cui
1841 ~ Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier, French composer
More information about Chabrier
. 1913 ~ Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminski), Comedian, dancer, singer, actor, entertainer
. 1939 ~ Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded Jeepers Creepers on Decca Records. Satchmo lent his vocal talents to this classic jump tune.
. 1941 ~ Bobby Goldsboro, Singer
. 1941 ~ David Ruffin (Davis Eli Ruffin), Lead singer with The Temptations
. 1944 ~ ‘Legs’ Larry Smith, Drummer with The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Bob Kerr’s Whoopee Band
. 1944 ~ The first jazz concert was held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The stars of the concert were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden. What a ticket!
. 1948 ~ Ted Mack came to television as “The Original Amateur Hour” debuted on the DuMont network. The program continued on different networks for a 22-year run on the tube. Teresa Brewer and Pat Boone got their start on this program.
. 1953 ~ Brett Hudson, Singer, comedian with Hudson Brothers
. 1958 ~ Leonard Bernstein began presenting his television series What does music mean? The series ran for 53 programs.
. 1968 ~ Singer Eartha Kitt made headlines, as she got into a now-famous confrontation with Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, wife of the President of the United States, at a White House luncheon to discuss urban crime. Ms. Kitt told Lady Bird (the First Lady) that American youth were rebelling against the war in Vietnam, linking the crime rate with the war escalation. She had a lot to say and it definitely was not “C’est Si Bon”.
. 1986 ~ Dionne Warwick’s single for AID’s research, That’s What Friends are For, became her second #1 song on the music charts. Although Dionne had many hits in the 1960s, singing Burt Bacharach tunes like I Say a Little Prayer and Do You Know the Way to San Jose.
. 2017 ~ Roberta Peters, American operatic soprano (NY Met), died at the age of 86
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.
. 1712 ~ John Stanley, English composer and organist
. 1728 ~ Johann Gottfried Muthel, German composer and noted keyboard virtuoso
. 1734 ~ François-Joseph Gossec, Belgian composer
More information about Gossec
. 1750 ~ Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer (Adagio in G Minor), died at the age of 78
. 1876 ~ The saxophone was played by Etta Morgan at New York City’s Olympic Theatre. The instrument was little known at the time in the United States.
. 1913 ~ Vido Musso, Reed instruments, played with Benny Goodman, bandleader: Stan Kenton was his pianist
. 1917 ~ Ulysses Simpson Kay, US composer, born in Tucson, Arizona (d. 1995)
. 1920 ~ George Handy (George Joseph Hendleman), Pianist, composer, arranger for the Boyd Raeburn band, Alvino Rey band, Paramount Studios
. 1922 ~ Betty White, Emmy Award-winning actress on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, singer
. 1926 ~ Moira Shearer, Ballerina
. 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
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!
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