Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of ten pieces (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed for the piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.
The suite is Mussorgsky’s most famous piano composition and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists. It has become further known through various orchestrations and arrangements produced by other musicians and composers, with Maurice Ravel’s arrangement being by far the most recorded and performed.
You can download the sheet music at IMSP or I have a copy of the book, as well as simplified sheet music.
The work opens with a brilliant touch – a “promenade” theme (above) that reemerges throughout as a transition amid the changing moods of the various pictures.
The ten pictures Mussorgsky depicts are:
a gnome-shaped nutcracker;
a troubadour plaintively singing outside an ancient castle;
children vigorously playing and quarreling in a park;
a lumbering wooden Polish ox-cart;
a ballet of peeping chicks as they hatch from their shells;
an argument between two Warsaw Jews, one haughty and vain, the other poor and garrulous;
shrill women and vendors in a crowded marketplace;
the eerie, echoing gloom of catacombs beneath Paris;
the hut of a grotesque bone-chomping witch of Russian folklore named Baba Yaga;
and a design for an entrance gate to Kiev.
The whole piece for piano. See if you can tell which pictures are which.
• 1935 ~ Gilbert Kalish, American pianist and professor at SUNY-Stony Brook
• 1936 ~ Tom Springfield, Folk singer with the Springfields
• 1939 ~ Paul Williams, Singer with The Primes and The Temptations
• 1940 ~ Bertram Shapleigh, Composer, died at the age of 69
• 1942 ~ Mike Abene, Composer of the score to Goodbye, New York
• 1942 ~ Jo Stafford joined Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra for Manhattan Serenade, which was recorded for Victor Records, in Manhattan.
• 1945 ~ James Orville Fulkerson, Composer
• 1949 ~ “High Button Shoes” closed at Century Theater New York City after 727 performances
• 1951 ~ Joe Puerta, Musician, bass, singer
• 1952 ~ Henriette H Bosmans, Dutch cello player, pianist, composer, died at the age of 56
• 1955 ~ “7th Heaven” closed at ANTA Theater New York City after 44 performances
• 1955 ~ “Almost Crazy” closed at Longacre Theater New York City after 16 performances
• 1955 ~ “Lawrence Welk Show” premiered on ABCIn Welk’s 24-piece band was the ’Champagne Lady’, Alice Lon.
More information about Welk
• 1956 ~ Elvis Presley recorded Hound Dog and Don’t Be Cruel
• 1960 ~ “Once Upon a Mattress” closed at Alvin Theater New York City after 460 performances
• 1971 ~ Edward Ballantine, Composer, died at the age of 84
• 1972 ~ “Fiddler on the Roof” closed at Imperial Theater New York City after 3242 performances
• 1973 ~ Betty Grable, U.S. actress, singer and World War Two pin-up girl, died. Her films included “How To Marry A Millionaire,” “Down Argentine Way” and “Tin Pan Alley.”
• 1979 ~ Sony introduced the Walkman, the first portable audio cassette player. Over the next 30 years they sold over 385 million Walkmans in cassette, CD, mini-disc and digital file versions, and were the market leaders until the arrival of Apple’s iPod and other new digital devices.
• 1982 ~ Paul Rovsing Olsen, Composer, died at the age of 59
• 1984 ~ Ramiro Cortes, Composer, died at the age of 50
• 1984 ~ Epic Records set a record as two million copies of the Jacksons’ new album, Victory, were shipped to stores. It was the first time that such a large shipment had been initially sent to retailers. The LP arrived just days before Michael and his brothers started their hugely successful Victory Tour.
• 1987 ~ Michael Bennet, Choreographer of A Chorus Line, died at the age of 44
• 1990 ~ Snooky Lanson (Roy Landman) passed away
• 1992 ~ Edith Valckaert, Belgian violinist, died at the age of 42
• 1992 ~ Jose Monje, Spanish flamenco singer, died
• 1994 ~ Marion Williams, Gospel singer, died at the age of 66
• 1995 ~ “Rose Tattoo” closed at Circle in the Square New York City after 80 performances
• 2002 ~ Ray Brown, a legendary jazz bassist who played with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and his one-time wife Ella Fitzgerald in a career that spanned a half-century, died in his sleep in Indianapolis. He was 75. Brown was in Indianapolis for an engagement at the Jazz Kitchen. Brown, whose fluid sound helped define the bebop era, started his career in the 1940s and performed during jazz’s Golden Age with Gillespie, Parker and Bud Powell. He was a founder of bebop and appeared with Gillespie in the 1946 film “Jivin’ in Be-Bop.” Brown later became musical director and husband of singer Ella Fitzgerald. They divorced in the early 1950s. Ray Matthews Brown was born in Pittsburgh in 1926 and moved in 1945 to New York. While playing in Gillespie’s Big Band in 1946 and 1947, he became Fitzgerald’s music director – and, in the late 1940s, her husband. Brown played with an early edition of what became the Modern Jazz Quartet, recording with the Milt Jackson Quartet in 1951. He subsequently was a founding member of the Oscar Peterson’s Trio, which ranked among jazz’s most popular groups of the ’50s and ’60s. Among his recordings is the solo effort Something for Lester.
• 2002 ~ Experimental composer Earle Brown, whose visually elegant scores and collaborative spirit pushed traditional musical composition, died at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 75. Brown worked with composer John Cage and became known for his graphic scores. One of their most famous works is “December 1952.” Brown believed in allowing musicians much freedom in playing his compositions, describing “December 1952” as “an activity rather than a piece by me, because of the content being supplied by the musicians.” Brown’s music was highly influential in Europe and he was repertory director of an important series of new-music recordings that included works by 49 composers from 16 countries between 1960 and 1973. He taught at Yale University, the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and at the Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals.
• 2016 ~ Earle Brown, American Composer (open form), died at the age of 75
• 2019 ~ Michael Colgrass, American-Canadian composer who won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the piece “Déjà vu”, died at the age of 81
• 1933 ~ Strauss and von Hofmannsthal’s opera “Arabella,” premiered in Dresden.
• 1935 ~ James Cotton, blues vocalist
• 1939 ~ Louis Davids (Simon David), Cabaret performer/chorus performer, died
• 1941 ~ Twila Tharp, Choreographer
• 1941 ~ John Gould, British composer and musical comic
• 1942 ~ Andrae Crouch, Gospel Singer
• 1945 ~ Debbie Harry, American singer
• 1946 ~ June Montiero, American vocalist
• 1947 ~ Clarence Lucas, Composer, died at the age of 80
• 1950 ~ Edward Faber Schneider, Composer, died at the age of 77
• 1954 ~ Fred Schneider, Singer for pop-punk band the B-52s
• 1956 ~ Elvis Presley appeared wearing a tuxedo on the Steve Allen Show
• 1960 ~ Benjamin Britten’s cantata “Carmen Baseliense,” premiered in Basel.
• 1963 ~ The Beatles recorded She Loves You & I’ll Get You
• 1964 ~ Pierre Monteux, French/American conductor, died at the age of 89
• 1965 ~ Claude Thornhill, Composer, died at the age of 55
• 1967 ~ “Funny Girl”, the story of Fanny Brice, closed at Winter Garden Theater New York City after 1348 performances.
• 1967 ~ The Beatles’Sgt Pepper’s LonelyHearts Club Band, went #1 for 15 weeks
• 1968 ~ John Lennon’s first full art exhibition (You are Here)
• 1969 ~ John & Yoko were hospitalized after a car crash
• 1969 ~ Shelby Singleton bought Sun Records from Sam Phillips
• 1970 ~ Jimi Hendrix first recording session (New York City)
• 1972 ~ “Follies” closed at Winter Garden Theater New York City after 524 performances
• 1972 ~ “Hair” closed at Biltmore Theater New York City after 1750 performances
• 1973 ~ Mario La Broca, Composer, died at the age of 76
• 1973 ~ “Jesus Christ Superstar”, by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice, closed at Mark Hellinger New York City after 711 performances
• 1978 ~ “Act” closed at Majestic Theater New York City after 233 performances
• 1982 ~ John Everett Watts, Composer, died at the age of 51
• 1982 ~ Shon Coco Palm, (Jacobo JM Palm), Curaçan Composer, died
• 1982 ~ ABC national music radio network scheduled premiere, but it never happened
• 1988 ~ Hellmuth Christian Wolff, Composer, died at the age of 82
• 1988 ~ Lex van Delden, Dutch Composer and writer, died at the age of 68
• 1995 ~ “Kiss of the Spider Woman” closed at Broadhurst New York City after 906 performances
• 1996 ~ Placido Domingo became art director of Washington Opera
• 2015 ~ Val Doonican, Irish singer and entertainer, died at the age of 88
• 2018 ~ Dame Gillian Lynne [Pyrke], British dancer, choreographer and actress, known for Broadway work on “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” died at the age of 92
Today’s piece is the other one of two pieces that are so often played incorrectly that they have the distinction of being banned from competition in Northern Virginia Piano Teacher competitions.
The first was Fur Elise. This one is Spinning Song by Albert Ellmenreich. It’s in many, many piano method books. When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I tore it out of my book, put it in a construction paper cover and played it for some Girl Scout talent show. I have no idea why I couldn’t leave it in the book.
The left hand is supposed to sound like the foot pumping the wheel to make it move
This is part of a larger work called Musikalische Genrebilder, Op.14 which can be downloaded at IMSLP:
Spinnliedchen (Spinning Song), the best known item from the set, seems to be universally referred to as number four. The announcement of the first edition in Hofmeister’s Monatsberichte lists it as the fifth item. In Schirmer’s 1878 edition (see cover: here) of Op.14 it appears that items two and three were possibly combined into one number (entitled Sorrow and Consolation) so that Spinnliedchen became number four. Perhaps, this is the origin of the re-numbering.
To learn this sheet music, it’s available in Piano Pronto Movement 4 and Alfred Premier Piano Course Book 6
Here’s a sample:
A tutorial
With scrolling sheet music
For organ
How to conduct(?)
While this piece is not usually popular with other instruments, a trumpet quartet gave it a try
The DMS Percussion Ensemble
Singers from the Londonderry Middle School gave it a try:
The first half of this video is flute tuning. After that is a lovely flute duet.
• 1666 ~ Adam Krieger, German Composer, died at the age of 32
• 1669 ~ Mauritius Vogt, Composer
• 1722 ~ Jiri Antonin Benda, Composer
• 1723 ~ Christian Ernst Graf, Composer
• 1743 ~ Niels Schiorring, Composer
• 1792 ~ Francesco Antonio Rosetti, Composer, died
• 1818 ~ Edward John Hopkins, English organist and composer
• 1819 ~ Ernst Ludwig Gerber, Composer, died at the age of 72
• 1846 ~ Ricardo Drigo, Composer
• 1889 ~ Eugenio Terziani, Composer, died at the age of 64
• 1890 ~ Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, Composer, died at the age of 71
• 1896 ~ Wilfred Pelletier, Canadian conductor for Voice of Firestone
• 1908 ~ Lucino Tinio Sacramento, Composer
• 1914 ~ Natko Devcic, Composer
• 1917 ~ Lena Horne, American singer of popular music
• 1917 ~ “Buddy” Rich, American jazz drummer and bandleader
• 1918 ~ Stuart Foster, American singer
• 1921 ~ Gordon Reynolds, Musician
• 1923 ~ Claude Antoine Terrasse, Composer, died at the age of 56
• 1925 ~ Will Gay Bottje, Composer
• 1929 ~ Alexander Kelly, Pianist and teacher
• 1930 ~ June Valli, American singer on Your Hit Parade
• 1931 ~ James Loughran, British conductor
• 1932 ~ Martin Mailman, American composer
• 1936 ~ Pauls Dambis, Composer
• 1939 ~ Chris Hinze, Dutch flutist
• 1939 ~ Lindembergue Cardoso, Composer
• 1939 ~ Frank Sinatra made his first appearance with Harry James’ band. Sinatra was center stage at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, MD, where he sang My Love for You
• 1941 ~ Micki Grant, Composer
• 1941 ~ Mike Leander Farr, Record producer
• 1943 ~ Florence Ballard, Singer with the Supremes
• 1944 ~ Glenn Shorrock, Australian singer with Little River Band
• 1946 ~ Billy Brown, singer with Ray, Goodman, Brown
• 1946 ~ Michael Zadora, Composer, died at the age of 64
• 1947 ~ Jasper van’t Hof, Dutch jazz pianist (Live in Montreux)
• 1951 ~ Andrew Scott, Welch rock guitarist
• 1951 ~ “Victor Borge Show,” last aired on NBC-TV.
• 1953 ~ Gote Carlid, Composer, died at the age of 32
• 1956 ~ “Pipe Dream” closed at Shubert Theater New York City after 245 performances
• 1956 ~ “Shangri-La” closed at Winter Garden Theater New York City after 21 performances
• 1959 ~ Lazare Saminsky, Composer, died at the age of 76
• 1960 ~ Clarence Cameron White, Composer, died at the age of 79
• 1969 ~ Jan Evangelista Zelinka, Composer, died at the age of 76
• 1982 ~ “Lena Horne: Lady, Music” closed at Nederlander New York City after 333 performances
• 1983 ~ Bo Gentry, Songwriter and producer, died
• 1985 ~ Yul Brynner left his role as the King of Siam after 4,600 performances in The King and I at the Broadway Theatre in New York City. The show had run, on and off, for over 34 years and 191 performances.
• 1987 ~ Federico Mompou, Composer, died at the age of 94
• 1993 ~ “Les Miserables” opened at Point Theatre, Dublin
• 1995 ~ Phyllis Hyman, Rhythm and Blues Jazz singer, died at 45
• 1996 ~ “State Fair,” closed at Music Box Theater New York City after 118 performances
• 2001 ~ Chet Atkins, whose guitar style influenced a generation of rock musicians even as he helped develop an easygoing country style to compete with it, died at the age of 77.
Atkins recorded more than 75 albums of guitar instrumentals and sold more than 75 million albums. He played on hundreds of hit records, including those of Elvis Presley (Heartbreak Hotel), Hank Williams Sr. (Your Cheatin’ Heart, Jambalaya) and The Everly Brothers (Wake Up Little Susie). As an executive with RCA Records for nearly two decades beginning in 1957, Atkins played a part in the careers of Roy Orbison, Jim Reeves, Charley Pride, Dolly Parton Jerry Reed, Waylon Jennings, Eddy Arnold and many others. “It’s impossible to capsulize his life – due to the profound impact he’s had as a wonderful human being and incredible member of our industry,” said Joe Galante, chairman of the RCA Label Group in Nashville. “His artistry and his influence as an industry leader have impacted so many. “There is no way to replace him nor what he has meant to music and our Nashville community.” Atkins helped craft the lush Nashville Sound, using string sections and lots of echo to make records that appealed to older listeners not interested in rock music. Among his notable productions are The End of the World by Skeeter Davis and He’ll Have to Go by Reeves. “I realized that what I liked, the public would like, too,” Atkins said in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press. ‘”Cause I’m kind of square.”
Chester Burton Atkins was born June 20, 1924, on a farm near Luttrell, Tenn., about 20 miles northeast of Knoxville. His elder brother Jim Atkins also played guitar, and went on to perform with Les Paul. Chet Atkins’ first professional job was as a fiddler on WNOX in Knoxville, where his boss was singer Bill Carlisle. “He was horrible,” Carlisle said at a tribute concert to Atkins in 1997. “But I heard him during a break playing guitar and decided to feature him on that.” Atkins’ unusual fingerpicking style, a pseudoclassical variation influenced by such diverse talents as Merle Travis and Django Reinhardt, got him hired and fired from jobs at radio stations all over the country. Atkins sometimes joked that early on his playing sounded “like two guitarists playing badly.” During the 1940s he toured with many acts, including Red Foley, The Carter Family and Kitty Wells. RCA executive Steve Sholes took Atkins on as a protege in the 1950s, using him as the house guitarist on recording sessions. RCA began issuing instrumental albums by Atkins in 1953. George Harrison, whose guitar work on early Beatles records is heavily influenced by Atkins, wrote the liner notes for “Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles.” Sholes put Atkins in charge of RCA Nashville when he was promoted in 1957. There, he helped Nashville survive the challenge of rock ‘n’ roll with the Nashville Sound. The lavish sound has been criticized by purists who prefer their country music raw and unadorned. Atkins was unrepentant, saying that at the time his goal was simply “to keep my job.” “And the way you do that is you make a hit record once in a while,” he said in 1993. “And the way you do that is you give the audience something different.” Atkins quit his job as an executive in the 1970s and concentrated on playing his guitar. He’s collaborated with a wide range of artists on solo albums, including Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney, Eric Johnson, George Benson, Susie Bogguss and Earl Klugh. At the time he became ill, Atkins had just released a CD, “The Day Finger Pickers took over the World.” He also had begun regular Monday night performances at a Nashville club. “If I know I’ve got to go do a show, I practice quite a bit, because you can’t get out there and embarrass yourself.” Atkins said in 1996. “So I thought, if I play every week I won’t be so rusty and I’ll play a lot better.”
• 1943 ~ Roger Ruskin Spear, English saxophonist, kazoo with The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
• 1945 ~ Little Eva (Boyd), Singer
• 1946 ~ “Are You with It?” closed at Century Theater New York City after 264 performances
• 1946 ~ “Billion Dollar Baby” closed at Alvin Theater New York City after 219 performances
• 1948 ~ Ian Paice, Musician, drums with Paice Ashton Lord
• 1953 ~ Jules van Nuffel, Composer, died at the age of 70
• 1955 ~ Bill Haley and His Comets reached the top of the pop music charts with Rock Around the Clock. The smash hit stayed there for eight straight weeks. The song was featured in the film Blackboard Jungle. Most consider the hit song the first rock ’n’ roll single.
• 1963 ~ “Little Me” closed at Lunt-Fontanne Theater New York City after 257 performances
• 1963 ~ The Beatles’ 1st song From Me to You hits UK charts
• 1964 ~ Milenko Zivkovic, composer, died at the age of 63
• 1966 ~ Arthur Meulemans, Belgian Composer, died at the age of 82
• 1968 ~ Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Tiny Tim peaked at #17
• 1969 ~ Shorty Long, Soul singer and pianist, died at the age of 29
• 1969 ~ Vesselin Stoyanov, Composer, died at the age of 67
• 1970 ~ NBC presented an evening of exciting and entertaining TV with the award-winning Liza Minelli Special.
• 1980 ~ “Sweeney Todd” closed at Uris Theater New York City after 557 performances
• 1984 ~ Singer Bruce Springsteen kicked off his first U.S. tour in three years, before 17,700 fans at the Civic Center in St. Paul, MN. Music critics called the Boss, “the most exciting performer in rock.”
• 1992 ~ “Salome” opened at Circle in Sq Theater New York City for 9 performances
• 1994 ~ Kurt Eichhorn, Conductor, died at the age of 85
• 1994 ~ Ray Crane, Trumpeter, died at the age of 63
• 1998 ~ Horst Jankowski passed away
• 2001 ~ Kimo Wilder McVay, a veteran talent agent who promoted singer Don Ho into an international star, died at the age of 73. McVay introduced Ho, known for his song Tiny Bubbles, to tourist audiences in the 1960s at his Duke Kahanamoku’s nightclub in Waikiki. He represented Hawaii’s top talents in an up-and-down career that spanned nearly five decades, but slowed his work when diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago. McVay was the son of Navy Capt. Charles B. McVay III, who was found guilty at a court-martial trial of failing to steer a zigzag course to evade a Japanese submarine that sank the USS Indianapolis in 1945. The younger McVay’s years of trying to clear his father’s name resulted in congressional action last year to exonerate the Indianapolis’ skipper, who committed suicide in 1968.
• 2002 ~ Rosemary Clooney, the mellow-voiced singer who co-starred with Bing Crosby in “White Christmas” and staged a dramatic comeback after her career was nearly destroyed by drugs and alcohol, died. She was 74. Clooney soared to fame with her 1951 record of Come on-a My House, and became a star in television and films. Her career was sidelined by her marriage to Oscar-winning actor Jose Ferrer and the births of their five children. The pair divorced, and her attempts to return to performing were sabotaged by her erratic behavior. Having undergone a series of emotional upsets – she was devastated by Martin Luther King’s assassination, and was present in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Robert F. Kennedy was shot – the blond singer had a breakdown during a 1968 engagement in Reno. She underwent harrowing confinement in a psychotic ward, then began rebuilding her life, gradually resuming her career and reaching new heights as a singer. She performed a concert with Crosby in the Christmas of 1975 at the Los Angeles Music Center, and the pair continued on to Chicago, New York and London. Clooney won a new record contract, and singing dates poured in. In 1995, she received an Emmy Award nomination for guest actress in a drama series for her role on “ER” with her nephew, actor George Clooney. He is the son of her brother, former television news anchor Nick Clooney. In 1996, Clooney married Hollywood dancer Dante DiPaolo.
• 2002 ~ Edmund Anderson, a former stockbroker and producer who was close friends with musician Duke Ellington, died. He was 89. Anderson and Ellington met in 1936 and remained friends until Ellington’s death in 1974. Anderson was said to have pressed Ellington to perform at Carnegie Hall, which he did for the first time in 1943. Anderson worked for his father’s brokerage, Anderson & Company, but had a strong interest in music and also produced broadcasts for radio, including a program known as “The Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy Show.” He also composed music, including the love song Flamingo, written in collaboration with Ted Grouya and recorded by Ellington and his band.
In September 2003, the Inveraray Piping Project was born. With the assistance of local people, Tuesday nights at Inveraray Primary School became the time and venue for weekly piping tuition and practices and the small group began to grow. By May 2004, there were five young pipers and a drummer who remain members to this day.
In 2005, built upon these foundations, Inveraray and District Pipe Band was formed. It competed in its first competition in the Novice Juvenile grade at Cowal Games in August 2005, with borrowed drums and its young members clad in uniforms of various colours.
2006
Winner of the overall Scottish award for Best Lottery Funded Project (and a win in the UK-wide “Local Legend” category for Stuart Liddell) in the National Lottery Awards.
Prize winner in all five RSPBA major Championships in the Novice Juvenile grade in IDPB’s first full year.
2007
Winner of four out of five Novice Juvenile major championships, including the Worlds.
2008
Winner of four out of five Juvenile major championships, including the Worlds.
2009
Winner of all five major championships in Grade 2.
The Grade 2 band’s success in 2009 meant that it was immediately promoted to Grade 1 for the 2010 season.
The band continues to be a regular prize winner at the major events and a centre of excellence built on strong foundations. The attention to detail and focus on individual and collective playing quality that were a feature of its embryonic beginnings remain to this day in all sections of the band. The current incarnation of IDPB is less parochial- in fact, truly international- with members from several continents. The membership features highly decorated individual performers; graduates of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; an abundance of capable composers and arrangers, and several performers with a wider musical pedigree than purely piping or drumming.
In 2017 Inveraray and District Pipe Band won the World Pipe Band Championships. A total of 219 bands including 8,000 pipers from 15 nations took part in the contest, now in its 70th year.
Edit! I posted this at 9:00 am EST (June 30, 2018) and later in the day, Inveraray and District Pipe Band won the Grade One European Pipe Band Championship.
Another Edit! The band won the World Championships for the second time in 2019.
This is Inveraray and District’s performance of the band’s Masterblaster medley which won the band the Grade One European Pipe Band Championship on Saturday 30 June 2018. The event was held in a meticulously prepared, sun-scorched Grant Park. These championships will be moving on to Inverness in 2019 after six very successful years in Forres.
• 1742 ~ Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner, Composer, died at the age of 52
• 1788 ~ Johann Christoph Vogel, Composer, died at the age of 32
• 1798 ~ Pierre Dutillieu, Composer, died at the age of 44
• 1806 ~ Napoleon Coste, Composer
• 1815 ~ Robert Franz, Composer
• 1831 ~ Joseph Joachim, Hungarian violinist, composer and conductor
Read more about Joachim
• 1852 ~ Hans Huber, Composer
• 1853 ~ Edwin Arthur Jones, Composer
• 1855 ~ Giovanni Agostino Perotti, Composer, died at the age of 86
• 1857 ~ Joseph Fischhof, Composer, died at the age of 53
• 1872 ~ Ludwig Friedrich Hetsch, Composer, died at the age of 66
• 1874 ~ Oley Speaks, Composer
• 1876 ~ August W Ambros, Austria musicologist, died at the age of 59
• 1885 ~ Giuseppe Mule, Composer
• 1887 ~ Boleslav Vomacka, Composer
• 1890 ~ Edouard Gregoir, Composer, died at the age of 67
• 1891 ~ Jose Inzenga y Castellanos, Composer, died at the age of 63
• 1893 ~ Luciano Gallet, Composer
• 1893 ~ Nils Bjorkander, Composer
• 1895 ~ Kazimierz Sikorski, Composer
• 1902 ~ Richard Rogers, Academy Award-winning American composer for the musical theater
Read more about Rogers
• 1904 ~ Wlodzimierz Pozniak, Composer
• 1904 ~ Daniel Decatur Emmett passed away
• 1906 ~ Safford Cape, American/Belgian conductor, composer and music historian
• 1909 ~ Arnold Shaw, Composer
• 1910 ~ Gustave Leon Huberti, Composer, died at the age of 67
• 1912 ~ Audrey Langford, Singing teacher
• 1912 ~ Sergiu Celibidache, conductor
• 1913 ~ George Walter Selwyn Lloyd, English Composer
• 1914 ~ Lester Flatt, Country music entertainer, guitar with Flatt and Scruggs
• 1917 ~ Willem “Wim” Sonneveld, Dutch singer and actor in My Fair Lady
• 1923 ~ Pete (Walter) Candoli, Musician, trumpeter
• 1936 ~ Giselher W Kleber, German opera composer
• 1925 ~ George Morgan, Singer
• 1930 ~ Nikolay Nikolayevich Karetnikov, Composer
• 1933 ~ Gunnar Reynir Sveinsson, Composer
• 1936 ~ Cathy Carr, Singer
• 1940 ~ As a summer replacement for blind, piano virtuoso Alec Templeton, the Quiz Kids was first heard on radio. The show continued on NBC until 1953.
• 1945 ~ Dave Knights, Musician, bass player with Procol Harum
• 1946 ~ Robert Xavier Rodriguez, Composer
• 1950 ~ Henry Balfour Gardiner, Composer, died at the age of 72
• 1957 ~ Ede Poldini, Composer, died at the age of 88
• 1979 ~ Paul Dessau, German Composer and conductor, died at the age of 84
• 1980 ~ José Iturbi, Spanish/American pianist, died at the age of 84
• 1980 ~ Yoshiro Irino, Composer, died at the age of 58
• 1981 ~ “Piaf” closed at Plymouth Theater New York City after 165 performances
• 1987 ~ “Dreamgirls” opened at Ambassador Theater New York City for 177 performances
• 1996 ~ Willard F. McMurry, Musician, died at the age of 89
• 1997 ~ “Master Class,” closed at Golden Theater New York City after 601 performances
• 1997 ~ “Steel Peer,” closed at Richard Rodgers Theater New York City after 76 performances
• 2001 ~ Rene Villanueva, a social activist who co-founded a pioneering Mexican folk music group, died at the age of 67. Villanueva was a co-founder of the group Los Folkloristas in 1966 and recorded more than 12 albums with the group, which helped spread and popularize the music of Mexico’s Indian and other traditional cultures. He left the group last year as his illness advanced, but he made a final recording last week with Indian musicians. Born in Oaxaca in 1933, Villanueva earned a degree in chemical engineering as well as studying painting and music. Once a member of the Mexican Communist Party, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Zapatista National Liberation Army in Chiapas and performed in concerts to support the rebel movement.
• 2001 ~ Scott Merrill, a Broadway star who also played Macheath in the 1954 production of “The Threepenny Opera”, died at the age of 82. Merrill received positive reviews for his performance in “The Threepenny Opera” by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, and performed at the Theater de Lys in Greenwich Village. His role as Macheath was his first nondancing part in New York, where he also attracted notice in shows such as “Bloomer Girl,” “Paint Your Wagon” and a revival of “Pal Joey.” His first role in New York was in “Lady in the Dark,” with Danny Kaye, Gertrude Lawrence and Victor Mature. Merrill was born in Baltimore, Md.
• 2002 ~ Author William F. Dufty, who co-wrote Billie Holiday’s autobiography and became Gloria Swanson’s last husband, died from complications from cancer. He was 86. Dufty was a playwright, musician, ghostwriter of about 40 books, head speechwriter to Hubert Humphrey and reporter and editor at the New York Post. Dufty, who became good friends with jazz singer Holiday, helped write her autobiography “Lady Sings the Blues”. In 1975, he also wrote “Sugar Blues”, a popular nutrition book about the dangers of sugar in the diet. He became friends with Yoko Ono and former Beatle John Lennon after translating a Japanese book that launched the macrobiotic food revolution, Georges Ohsawa’s “You Are All Sanpaku”. Dufty married Swanson, a silent screen star, in 1976, and the marriage lasted until her death in 1983.
• 2016 ~ Scotty Moore, American guitarist (for Elvis), died at the age of 84
Korobeiniki is a nineteenth-century Russian folk song that tells the story of a meeting between a peddler and a girl, describing their haggling over goods in a veiled metaphor for courtship.
Outside Russia, “Korobeiniki” is widely known as the Tetris theme.
Piano duet:
Orchestral version:
For Boomwhackers:
Vocal:
Ragtime:
Balalaika:
Two bassoons:
The Red Army Choir:
Korobeiniki/Tetris is available in Piano Maestro on the iPad and I have several levels of sheet music for anyone who is interested.
MaryO'Studio 