Category: Stamps

Stamp of the Month: December 2023

Maria Callas


Griechenland 12.10.2023
The Greek soprano Maria Callas (real name Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulou) was born on December 2, 1923 in New York. She died on September 16, 1977 in Paris.
December 2023 will be the 100th anniversary of her birthday.
 
Read an article from our bulletin “Der Musikus”
 
Maria Callas – There can only be one
 
And listen to a historical recording with Maria Callas as Violetta and Enrico Caruso as Alfredo singing the aria “Libiam ne’ lieti calici” from the first act of the opera “La Traviata” by Giuseppe Verdi.

 

Stamp of the Month: November 2023

Lou Koster


Luxembourg 18.2.2003
The Luxembourgish composer Marie Louise “Lou” Koster was born on May 7, 1889 in Luxembourg and died on November 17, 1973 in her hometown. November 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of her death.
 
Lou Koster received music lessons from her grandfather Franz Ferdinand Hoebich (1813–1900), the very first bandmaster of the Luxembourg military band. During the last years of the silent film era, Lou played piano and violin with
her sisters Lina and Laure in Luxembourg cinemas to accompany the films. In 1906, Lou Koster became one of the first students at the newly founded conservatory in Luxembourg. In 1908, just 19 years old, she became a lecturer in violin and piano at this university.
Lou Koster created an extensive oeuvre of 322 compositions. At first she mainly composed waltzes and marches, which were played by the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra from 1933 and broadcast on the radio. Chamber music, piano and orchestral works, works for children’s choir, fairy tale plays, as well as operas and operettas followed later. After her retirement, from 1954 onwards, she devoted herself primarily to composing songs in the three languages spoken in the country. Her greatest success was the choral ballad “Der Geiger von Echternach” (The violinist from Echternach), which she worked on until shortly before her death.
 

The video shows the Luxembourgish soprano Noémie Sunnen (*1978), who suffers from ALS, accompanied by Annie Kraus, with the song “Akaziebléi” (Acacia Blossom) by Lou Koster. The recording was made on July 5, 2017 at a benefit concert at the Luxembourg Conservatory for patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

Stamp of the Month: October 2023

Pablo Casals


Spain 29.12.1976
The Spanish cellist Pablo Casals was born on December 29, 1876 in El Vendrell. He died on October 22, 1973 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. October 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of his death.
 
As a child, Casals was taught singing, piano, organ and composition by his father, and his mother recognized his talent for the cello. He attended the conservatory in Barcelona and in 1895 planned to study with François-Auguste Gevaert in Brussels on a scholarship from the Queen of Spain.
However, Gevaert refused to accept new students. After a brief stint as a cellist in a theater orchestra in Paris, Casals returned to Barcelona and began teaching. In 1897 he received a professorship in cello at the Barcelona Conservatory and became principal cellist in the orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. His concert performances were celebrated by the press and audience. From 1901 he undertook numerous concert tours, especially to the United States and Russia, where he got to know all the well-known Russian composers. His career as a conductor began with the founding of the “Orquesta Pau Casals” in 1919. With the start of the Spanish Civil War, Casals went into exile in Prades, France, in 1936, where he founded a chamber music festival in 1950. In 1956, Casals moved to Puerto Rico, where he also started a festival. In 1958 he helped to found the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and he is a co-founder of the San Juan Conservatory.
As a composer, Pablo Casals created sacred music and orchestral works. His best-known work is the oratorio “El Pessebre”. As a cellist, Casals received particular attention with his interpretation of the suites for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach, which until then had been virtually unknown to the audience. At the age of 93, Casals was still practicing the cello for four to five hours every day. When asked “Why?” he once replied: “I feel like I’m making progress.”

Mexico 29.12.1976

The video shows Pablo Casals with the Bourrées from Suite No. 3
by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1009).

Stamp of the Month: September 2023

Hank Williams


USA 9.6.1993
American country musician and songwriter Hiram “Hank” King Williams Sr. was born on September 17, 1923 in Mount Olive, Alabama. He died on January 1, 1953 in Oak Hill, West Virginia. September 2023 will be his 100th birthday.
 
Hank Williams performed with the band The Drifting Cowboys as a teenager. In 1939 he began working for the local radio
station WSFA and soon had his own show there. The influential songwriter and producer Fred Rose enabled Williams to record a first single in 1946, the success of which earned him a record deal with MGM Records. In the same year he became a permanent member of the radio show Louisiana Hayride, which was broadcast throughout the southern United States. In 1949, Hank Williams made his debut on the most famous country show, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He was the first artist to give six encores during his appearance on this live broadcast.
However, as early as the early 1940s, Hank Williams showed the first signs of alcohol addiction. The expulsion from the broadcaster WSFA was followed in 1952 by the exclusion from the Grand Ole Opry.
 
Despite these problems, Hank Williams is still considered one of the finest singer-songwriters and one of the most influential figures in country music history. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame recognize his work.

Antigua & Barbuda 18.8.1994

The video shows Hank Williams performing one of his most famous songs “Cold, cold Heart” from 1951 on a television show in 1952.

Stamp of the Month: August 2023

Oscar Lorenzo Fernández


Brazil 7.10.1997
The Brazilian composer Oscar Lorenzo Fernández was born in Rio de Janeiro on 4 November 1897. He died in his hometown on 27 August 1948. August 2023 will be the 75th anniversary of his death.
 
The Spanish-born composer entered the
National Music Institute at the age of 20 years old and soon won numerous composition prizes. He became an active member of the Society for Musical Culture and founded the Brazilian Conservatory of Music in 1936 with five other professors. Lorenzo Fernández’s works are rooted in musical nationalism. Most of his songs are based on native music and his opera “Malazarte” is considered the first successful Brazilian national opera. Oscar Lorenzo Fernández composed important chamber and piano music and some of his orchestral works are now an integral part of the Brazilian orchestral repertoire. The stamp shows the opening notes of his last piano piece, “Sonata Breve” from 1947.
 

The video shows the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB) conducted by Roberto Minczuk performing the piece “Batuque – Dança de Negros” by Oscar Lorenzo Fernández, recorded on 17 March 2014 at the Cidade das Artes in Rio de Janeiro. “Batuque”, based on an Afro-Brazilian folk dance, is the last movement from the suite “Reisado do Pastoreio”, composed in 1930.

In Memoriam: Sinéad O’Connor

On July 26, 2023, Irish musician and singer Sinéad O’Connor died at the age of 56.
 
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor was born in Dublin on December 8, 1966. She grew up in difficult family circumstances
and lived for several years in a children’s home, which later made headlines due to scandals of violence and child abuse. Throughout her career, her childhood experiences led to controversial performances and publications. At 16, Sinéad O’Connor left the children’s home to study singing and piano. With her first band she got a record deal in 1983 and released her first album in 1987. Her international breakthrough came in 1990 with the album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” and the cover version of the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U”, with which she reached the top of the charts in several countries.
Sinéad O’Connor, who belongs to the Irish alternative rock scene, released 10 studio albums and another eight albums of live recordings, 49 singles and 34 music videos. She has also collaborated with numerous well-known musicians, including Peter Gabriel, U2, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristoffersen, Elaine Paige, Willie Nelson and The Chieftains.
 

In Memoriam: Jane Birkin

On 16 July 2023, the British-French singer and actress Jane Birkin died in Paris at the age of 76.
 
Jane Mallory Birkin, who was born in London on 14 December 1946, celebrated an international success in 1969 with the song “Je t’aime … moi non plus”, composed by Serge Gainsbourg. The song, originally written for Brigitte
Bardot, was considered offensive in parts and was blacklisted by numerous radio stations. This is probably why it sold more than a million copies in just a few months. Birkin and Gainsbourg, who were married from 1969 to 1980, worked together musically for many years, releasing 10 albums together. After Gainsbourg’s death in 1991, Jane Birkin released 12 more albums, some in collaboration with other artists. In addition to her career as a singer, Jane Birkin played initially light, but from 1980 increasingly character roles in 54 films between 1965 and 2016.
 

8 … 9 … 10 … ready !



There are so many topics and stories hidden in our stamp albums that never come to the public eye …
… because there is too little material to create an exhibit,
… because far too many collectors shy away from the effort of assembling an exhibit or
… because collectors don’t want to accept the strict rules of a jury.

We’ll put an end to that and show, …
… that you can tell a story with just 10 stamps.
… that no great effort is required to do this and
… that you can show what’s in our albums even without rules!

And the best thing about it: it’s fun and you really want more!
Join in …   8 …  9 …  10 …  ready!
The next place on this website is reserved for your story.





A Century of Musicians

Yme Woensdregt 

Les Ballets Suédois

Manfred Gorol 

Visit to the Opera

Jörg Kiefer 



St. Cecilia

Yme Woensdregt 

Women Writing Music

Yme Woensdregt 



Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel

Louis Op t’Eynde 

Zaha Hadid and Music

Manfred Gorol 

De Stemvork

Louis Op t’Eynde  




Stamp of the Month: July 2023

Otto Klemperer

The German conductor Otto Klemperer is considered one of the great conductors of the 20th century. He was born in Breslau on 14 May 1885 and died in Zurich on 6 July 1973 at the age of 88. July 2023 will be the 50th anniversary of his death.
Otto Klemperer studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and with Hans Pfitzner at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. There he met Gustav Mahler,

Germany / Berlin 7.5.1985
with whom he became close friends. After a position at the German Opera in Prague and the City Theatre in Hamburg, he was Kapellmeister in Barmen, Strasbourg and Cologne, where he was appointed General Music Director in 1923. This was followed by the opera in Wiesbaden, the Kroll Opera in Berlin and finally the State Opera in Berlin in 1931. His commitment to contemporary music attracted international attention, but led to a performance ban by the Nazis in 1933. Otto Klemperer emigrated to the USA and took over the direction of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. After the war, he was appointed music director of the Budapest Opera, went to the USA again in 1951, and from 1955 was principal conductor of the London Philharmonia Orchestra for life. After an operation on a brain tumour (1939), Klemperer was partially paralysed and from the 1950s could only conduct sitting down. From 1961 he also conducted operas again and staged some operas himself at Covent Garden (Fidelio 1961; Zauberflöte 1962; Lohengrin 1963).
In the 1930s Otto Klemperer had studied composition with Arnold Schönberg and left behind as a composer an opera, six symphonies, a mass, chamber music and a number of song compositions.
 

Otto Klemperer conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra in 1970 at the Royal Festival Hall London: Beethoven Symphony No. 6 in F (Pastoral) Op.68

Stamp of the Month: June 2023

Victor Maurel

The French baritone Victor Maurel was born in Marseille on 17.6.1848. He died on 22.10.1923 in New York City. June 2023 marks the 175th anniversary of his birth.
Victor Maurel studied singing at the Paris Conservatoire. He made his debut in Marseille in 1867 as “William Tell” in the Rossini opera of the same name. In 1868 he came to the Grand Opéra in Paris and after guest performances in St. Petersburg, Cairo and Venice, he sang at La Scala in Milan in March 1870 in the world premiere of the opera “Il Guarany” by Carlos Gomes.

Monaco 17.3.2022
Victor Maurel became famous above all as a Verdi interpreter. Verdi himself gave him the role of “Posa” in the Italian premiere of the opera “Don Carlos” in 1871. He also took part in the world premieres of Verdi’s operas “Simon Boccanegra” (1881), “Otello” (1887) and “Falstaff” (1893). Victor Maurel also celebrated great successes in London, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1894-1899) as well as in Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Berlin and at the Vienna Court Opera. After the end of his stage career, he founded an opera school in New York in 1908 and gave private lessons to leading film actors.
 

Victor Maurel sang the role of Iago at the premiere of Verdi’s opera “Otello” at La Scala in Milan on 5 February 1887. In 1904, 17 years after the premiere, he recorded the aria “Era la Notte” from this opera for a record of the “International Record Collectors’ Club” of the Columbia Records company.