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November 3
Vincenzo Bellini
Birth: November 3, 1801
Catania, Sicily, Italy
Death: September 23, 1835 in Puteaux, France
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was one
of the great composers of Italian opera in the early 19th century.
He was born to a family already immersed in music; his father and
grandfather were both career musicians. Vincenzo began composing
before receiving any formal music education. He developed a reputation
for fine craftsmanship, particularly in the way he fused music and
libretto. To perform his operas, singers required extremely agile
voices. His abilities and talent earned him the admiration of other
composers, including Berlioz, Chopin, and even Wagner, and his flowing,
exquisitely sculpted vocal lines represent the epitome of the bel
canto ideal. Bellini entered the Royal College of Music of San Sebastiano
in 1819. He soon developed into a teacher, becoming a primo maestrino
in 1824. Bellini's first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was chosen to
be performed by the conservatory's students. This particular work
was never performed outside of the conservatory, but it did serve
as a source of material for at least five other operas Bellini composed.
Shortly thereafter, Domenico Barbaja of the San Carlo Opera offered
Bellini his first commission for an opera, which resulted in Bianca
e Gernando (1826). That first commission was followed by a second
from Barbaja, Il Pirata (1827), and led to a long-term collaboration
between Bellini and librettist Felice Romani. The premiere of Il
Pirata, at La Scala, Milan, established Bellini as an internationally
acclaimed opera composer. The year 1831 proved most successful for
Bellini as two of his most famous operas, La Sonnambula and Norma,
were produced. He then moved to Paris, where he composed and produced
his last opera, I Puritani. Unlike Bellini's previous two operas,
I Puritani was enthusiastically received. At the height of his career
and only 33 years old, Bellini died of a chronic intestinal ailment
in a small town near Paris.
November 10
François Couperin
Birth: November 10, 1668
Paris, France
Death: September 11, 1733 in Paris, France
François Couperin was the most important member of the
illustrious Couperin family and was one of the leading composers
of the French Baroque era. He is best known for his harpsichord
works, all of which are found in the collection of more than 220
pieces entitled Pieces de Clavecin, comprising four books. His music
showed the influence of Lully and incorporated elements from the
Italian school. Many of his works were lost to posterity, as none
of his original manuscripts have survived. Couperin's father, Charles,
was an organist, and young François' early musical training probably
came from him. Couperin became the organist at Saint-Gervais at
age 17. In 1689, four years later, he married Marie-Anne Ansault,
daughter of a wine merchant who had many relatives in other business
endeavors. It was around this time that the composer came under
the influence of the Italian school. He would display this assimilation
in several chamber works he wrote in 1692 that he called sonades,
("sonatas)". On December 26, 1693, Couperin was appointed organist
at the Royal Chapel by King Louis XIV, sharing the post with other
composers. In the early part of the 18th century, Couperin began
composing his Pièces de Clavecin. In 1719, Couperin became harpsichordist
to King Louis XV, a position he most probably had held in all but
title for a number of years. By this time, he was recognized as
the leading composer in France and the greatest exponent of organ
and harpsichord teaching as well.
November 24
Scott Joplin
Birth: November 24, 1868
Bowie City, TX
Death: April 1, 1917 in New York, NY
Ragtime was jazz's direct predecessor and Scott Joplin
was ragtime's greatest composer. Joplin lived in St. Louis during
1885-93, playing in local bars and clubs. In 1894 he led a band
at the Chicago World's Fair and formed the Texas Medley Quartet
which played in vaudeville shows. He Relocated to Sedalia, MO, Joplin
and in 1899 his "Maple Leaf Rag" became ragtime's most popular work,
selling over 75,000 copies of sheet music during its first year.
Joplin soon had many other rags published that helped to make ragtime
the pop music of its day, but the tragedy of his life was that his
personal ambitions were loftier than ragtime. He staged a ballet
(The Ragtime Dance) and two ragtime operas (The Guest of Honor and
Treemonisha) but none were successful, a fact that continually frustrated
him. By 1910 Joplin was becoming ill with syphilis and at his death
in 1917, ragtime was in the process of being replaced by jazz. Ironically,
57 years after his death, Scott Joplin finally became a household
name because his music (most notably "The Entertainer") was used
for the popular film The Sting. Alfred Schnittke Birth: November
24, 1934 in Engels, Russia Death: August 3, 1998 in Hamburg, Germany
Schnittke was born in the Soviet Union to German parents. After
living for several years in Vienna, he returned to Moscow to attend
the Conservatory from 1953-58. He returned there to teach instrumentation
from 1962 through 1972. Thereafter, splitting his time between Moscow
and Hamburg, he supported himself as a film composer. Schnittke
wrote nine symphonies, six concerti grossi, four violin concertos,
two cello concertos, concertos for piano and a triple concerto for
violin, viola and cello, four string quartets, ballet scores, choral
and vocal works. In 1985, Schnittke suffered a series of strokes,
but nevertheless entered into the most creative period of his life.
His first opera, Life with an Idiot, was premiered in Amsterdam
in 1992. Two more operas, Gesualdo and Historia von D. Johann Fausten
were unveiled in 1995 in Vienna and Hamburg, respectively.
December 8
Jean Sibelius
Birth: December 8, 1865
Hämeenlinna, Finland
Death: September 20, 1957 in Järvenpää, Finland
Sibelius was born in Southern Finland, the second of
three children. His physician father left the family bankrupt, owing
to his financial extravagance, a trait, along with heavy drinking,
he would pass on to Jean. Jean showed talent on the violin and at
age nine composed his first work for it. In 1895 Sibelius entered
the University of Helsinki to study law, but after only a year found
himself drawn back to music. Though Sibelius auditioned for the
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, he would come to realize he was not
suited to a career as a violinist. In 1889 Sibelius traveled to
Berlin to study counterpoint, where he also was exposed to new music,
particularly that of Richard Strauss. In Vienna he studied with
Karl Goldmark and then Robert Fuchs. Sibelius returned to Finland
and in June 1892, married Aino Järnefelt, daughter of General Alexander
Järnefelt, head of one of the most influential families in Finland.
The premiere of Sibelius' nationalistic Kullervo in April 1893 created
a sensation, and established him as the foremost Finnish composer.
The Lemminkäinen Suite, premiered in 1896, has come to be regarded
as the most important music by Sibelius up to that time. In 1897
the Finnish Senate voted to pay Sibelius a short-term pension, which
some years later became a lifetime conferral. The year 1899 saw
the premiere of Sibelius' First Symphony, which was a tremendous
success. In the next decade Sibelius would become an international
figure in the concert world, with premieres of his next three symphonies
and Violin Concerto. In 1903 Sibelius built a villa outside of Helsinki,
named "Ainola" after his wife, where he would live for his remaining
53 years. Sibelius made frequent trips to England, having visited
first in 1905 at the urging of Granville Bantock. In 1914 he traveled
to Norfolk, CT, where he conducted his newest work, The Oceanides.
Sibelius spent the war years in Finland working on his Fifth Symphony.
His last work was the incidental music for The Tempest in 1925.
For his last 30 years Sibelius lived a mostly quiet, though not
always sober, life working only on revisions and being generally
regarded as the greatest living composer of symphonies. Sibelius
died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1957.
Bohuslav Martinu
Birth: December 8, 1890
Policka, Czechoslovakia
Death: August 28, 1959 in Liestal, Switzerland
Along with Leos Janacek, Martinu was one of the two giants
of Czech music in the 20th century, a composer with who excelled
in every medium from stage works to symphonies to string quartets.
Starting violin lessons at seven, he gave his first recital when
he was 15. By the age of ten he had written his first compositions.
In 1906, he entered Prague Conservatory, but reading and the theater
diverted Martinu from his studies, and he was finally expelled for
"incorrigible negligence" in 1910. However, he continued composing
and produced many works during the World War I. Returning to the
Conservatory, he studied composition with Josef Suk, later working
in Paris with Albert Roussel, whose muscular, rhythmically vigorous
music eventually influenced Martinu's own. Like many of his contemporaries,
Martinu absorbed the influence of jazz. In 1930, Martinu's constant
desire to learn more led him to the music of Corelli, Vivaldi, and
Bach, signaling a new concern with rhythmic continuity and contrapuntal
technique. Following the resounding success of his opera Julietta
in Prague in 1938, World War II forced Martinu to flee his adopted
home of Paris. After spending nine miserable months in the south
of France, the composer and his wife made their way to Spain, and
then to America, in 1941. For the duration of the war, the composer
lived in various cities in the Eastern United States, surviving
on commissions and producing five symphonies by 1946. Though Martinu
had planned to return to Czechoslovakia after the war, injuries
and health problems prevented him from traveling. He eventually
regained his health, however, producing such works as the Sixth
Symphony (1951-53), widely regarded as a masterpiece, two of operas
for television, and many chamber compositions.
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December 22
Giacomo Puccini
Birth: December 22, 1858
Lucca, Italy
Death: November 29, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium
After Verdi, Giacomo Puccini was the most important composer
of Italian opera. He wrote in the verismo style, a counterpart to
the movement of Realism in literature and a trend that favored subjects
and characters from everyday life. On his often commonplace settings
Puccini lavished memorable melodies and lush orchestration. Young
Giacomo took organ lessons early on from his uncle, and later from
Carlo Angeloni. At ten, he sang in local church choirs and by age
14 was freelancing as an organist at religious services. His first
compositions were for organ, often incorporating operatic and folk
elements. By age 18, under the spell of Verdi's Aida, he decided
he would study composition with an emphasis on opera. At around
this time, he composed his first large-scale work, Preludio Sinfonico,
for an 1877 competition. In 1880, Puccini entered the Milan Conservatory,
where he studied for three years under Ponchielli and Bazzini. While
there, he wrote his first opera, Le Villi, which he once more entered
in a competition. Though he lost, Arrigo Boito and, more importantly,
the publisher Giulio Ricordi helped arrange a premiere in Milan
on May 31, 1884. The work was enthusiastically received, and Puccini
was on his way to great fame. Around this time Puccini met Elvira
Gemignani, wife of a merchant in Lucca. They carried on an illicit
affair, and she gave birth to his son in 1886. When her husband
died in 1904, the two were married. Puccini's next opera, Edgar,
was poorly received at its 1889 premiere. His next effort, however,
Manon Lescaut, was a sensational success at its 1893 Turin premiere.
Puccini's next three operas confirmed his preeminence in Italian
opera. La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904)
were not immediately as successful as Manon Lescaut, but in time
achieved greater acclaim. By the middle of the 20th century, they
had become - and remain today - his most often performed and recorded
works. Puccini was unable to finish another opera until the moderately
successful La Fanciulla del West (1910), which premiered in New
York with Toscanini conducting and Caruso singing the role of Johnson.
His sluggishness of inspiration owed much to charges by his wife
he was having an affair with a servant girl, charges that drove
the hapless, and as it turned out, innocent young girl to suicide
in 1909. In 1913, Puccini accepted a lucrative commission from Vienna
interests, which resulted in La Rondine. Received warmly at its
1917 Monte Carlo premiere, it faded under the judgment it was the
least of his operatic efforts. Puccini followed this disappointment
with his trilogy of one-act operas, Il Trittico - comprised of Il
Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi - all premiered at the
Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1918. While Puccini was working
on his last opera, Turandot, he was diagnosed with throat cancer.
During radiation treatment in Brussels, he suffered a heart attack
and died on November 29, 1924.
Franz Schmidt
Birth: December 22, 1874
Pressburg, Hungary
Death: February 11, 1939 in Perchtoldsdorf, Austria
Born to a German father and Slovakian mother in what was
then Hungary, Schmidt was hailed as a "musical miracle child" by
the priest with whom he took organ lessons in Pressburg (Bratislava
today). This encouraged his poor but hopeful parents to move to
Vienna in 1888. Schmidt became a piano pupil of Theodor Leschetizky
at the Vienna Conservatorium, where he studied composition with
Bruckner, theory with Robert Fuchs, and cello with Ferdinand Hellmesberger.
Chronic privation forced Schmidt to play in dance hall orchestras
after graduation until he was chosen in 1896 to be a cellist in
the Vienna Hofoper Orchestra and the Philharmonic. From 1901 to
1908, Schmidt taught piano and cello at the Conservatorium in addition
to his duties in the opera house. He resigned from the Philharmonic
in 1911, but continued to play with the opera until 1914, when the
Staatsakademie appointed him professor of piano. He became professor
of counterpoint and composition in 1922, director in 1925, and head
of the Musikhochschule from 1927 to 1931. Although Schmidt's financial
and professional fortunes stabilized, his marriages were ill-fated.
His first wife went insane, was institutionalized in 1919, and was
murdered by the Nazis in 1940. Their only child, Emma, died after
the birth of Schmidt's grandchild. A second marriage to a much younger
piano pupil was plagued by Schmidt's ill-health, which worsened
progressively until his death. After the deaths of Berg and Schreker,
and the flight of Schoenberg and Zemlinsky to the U.S., Schmidt
was proclaimed Austria's most important composer of the time.
~ Back to the Top ~
WWUH: Program Guide 2005
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