Category: Music

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.

In Memoriam: Tina Turner

On 24 May 2023, the American singer and actress Tina Turner died in Küssnacht, Switzerland, at the age of 83.
 
Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on 26 November 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee.
With her then husband, she landed several hits in the 1960s as the rhythm-and-blues duo “Ike & Tina Turner”. After her divorce, she started a solo career in the 1980s with several world hits and became the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” with over 180 million records sold. To this day, she has an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest concert performance by a female solo artist in 1988 at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in front of 188,000 spectators. In the course of her career, Tina Turner received eight Grammy Awards. In 1991, the duo “Ike & Tina Turner” was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2021, she was also granted this honour as a solo artist.
 

In Memoriam: Gordon Lightfoot

The Canadian folk and country singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot died in Toronto on 1 May 2023 at the age of 84.
 
Gordon Lightfoot was born on 17 November 1938 in Orillia, Ontario. Despite a few solo recordings in the 1960s, he first made a name for himself primarily as a songwriter. His songs were sung by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and the group Peter, Paul and Mary, among others. His first international hit was “If You Could Read My Mind” in 1970. During his career, he recorded 31 albums and had 15 singles in the US Top 50. In 1986 Gordon Lightfoot was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, with Bob Dylan giving the eulogy.
 

Stamp of the Month: May 2023

Frank Sinatra

The American singer, actor and entertainer Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey. He died in Los Angeles on May 14, 1998, at the age of 82. May 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of his death.
 
Frank Sinatra was already touring the bars of his hometown Hoboken as a teenager with his ukulele and a small music system. He made his first small radio appearances from 1932 and won a talent contest with the vocal quartet “The Hoboken Four” in 1935. In 1939 he was discovered by bandleader Harry James, who

USA 13.5.2008
signed him on as lead singer for his big band. His national breakthrough came a year later when, after joining Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra, he scored his first number one hit with “I’ll Never Smile Again”. For many years Frank Sinatra could be heard on the radio several times a week. He had several radio shows of his own and was also successful as an actor in musicals and comedies.

USA 13.5.2008
(Back side)
After numerous affairs, his star began to decline at the beginning of the 1950s and he even found himself without a recording contract in 1952. In 1957, he finally managed to return to the concert stage and to a weekly programme “The Frank Sinatra Show” on television via a diversion via film. In 1966, his song “Strangers in the Night” was the biggest commercial success of his musical career to date. In 1968 he recorded the version of the French chanson “Comme d’habitude”, written by Paul Anka, which was to become a world hit and his own signature tune under the title “My Way”.
Frank Sinatra was awarded numerous prizes in the course of his career, which lasted until the 1990s, and his albums sold more than 150 million copies.
 

Frank Sinatra live at Madison Square Garden, New York City (1974)

In Memoriam: Harry Belafonte

On 25 April 2023, the US singer, actor and entertainer Harry Belafonte died in New York City at the age of 96.
 
Harry Belafonte (real name: Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.) was born in New York City on 1 March 1927. After attending the American Negro Theatre, he decided to become an actor in 1940. From 1953 onwards he appeared in several feature films and in 1954 was given his own television show, in which he introduced musicians who were little known at the time, such as Miriam Makeba and Bob Dylan, among others.
As a musician, Harry Belafonte first performed Caribbean folk songs and calypso music. Later he developed into a versatile world musician and was one of the best-known black artists in the USA at the beginning of the 1960s. He succeeded in overcoming the barriers of racial segregation on American television with his music. In the course of his career, Harry Belafonte sold more than 150 million records. In 1965, he won two Grammy Awards.
In addition to his success as an artist, Harry Belafonte became a civil rights activist alongside Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. He campaigned against apartheid and the Vietnam War and made it possible for Africans to study in the USA through scholarships. At the beginning of the 1980s, Harry Belafonte approached Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones with the idea of recording a benefit single for the starving population in Africa. This became the “USA for Africa” project, which later became “We Are the World” with other musicians.
 

The video shows Harry Belafonte performing one of his greatest hits, “Islands in the Sun”, the theme song for the 1957 film of the same name.

Stamp of the Month: April 2023

Paul Robeson

The American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul LeRoy Robeson was born on 9 April 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey. He died in Philadelphia on 23 January 1976. April 2023 marks the 125th anniversary of his birth.

GDR 22.3.1983


USA 20.1.2004

The son of a former slave, Robeson studied at Rutgers University and Columbia University, where, in addition to musical and academic success, he made a name for himself as a football player. From 1927 to 1939 he lived in London, where he became a convinced socialist under the influence of George Bernard Shaw, among others, and later a protagonist of the African-American civil rights movement.
Paul Robeson received his first role in a silent film as early as 1924. On Broadway he played “Othello” and with his bass singing voice he also made his breakthrough as a singer in the
Broadway musical “Show Boat” in 1932. Because of his political views, Paul Robeson’s passport was revoked during the McCarthy era, his records disappeared from the shops and his name was blacklisted, which was tantamount to a ban on performing in the United States. International committees then demanded freedom of travel for Robeson and organised “transnational concerts” over the telephone between the US and Europe. It was not until 1958 that he was allowed to leave the country again. He was celebrated at his performances in England and in the GDR and received several awards as the “embodiment of the ‘other’ America”.

Mali 10.5.1986

One of Robeson’s most famous roles was the dock worker “Joe” in the musical “Show Boat”. He performed the role on stage and in the 1936 film version. Robeson’s rendition of the song “Ol’ Man River” is one of the most famous ever performed on Broadway.

50 Years ago …

50 years ago, on 24 March 1973, the British rock band Pink Floyd released the album “The Dark Side Of The Moon”. With more than 50 million copies sold, the concept album is one of the world’s best-selling music albums and became a long-running hit in the international album charts.
 



Great Britain 7.7.2016
 

 
Other anniversaries …

Stamp of the Month: March 2023

Max Reger


Germany 1.3.2023
The German composer, organist, pianist and conductor Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was born on 19 March 1873 in Brand in the Upper Palatinate. He died in Leipzig on 11 May 1916 at the age of 43. March 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Max Reger received music lessons at an early age and decided to become a musician in 1888 after attending the Bayreuth Festival. He studied in Sondershausen and Wiesbaden and obtained a position at the conservatory there as a teacher of piano and organ. In 1901 he moved to Munich, where he was very active as a composer and pianist and was appointed to the Royal Academy of Music in 1905. In 1907 he became university music director and professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig. In addition to teaching in Leipzig, he was court conductor at the famous Meininger Hofkapelle from 1911 to 1914.
As a composer, Max Reger made significant achievements in the fields of chamber music, lied, choral and orchestral music. However, he became most famous for his compositions for the organ. His organ works were described by himself as technically very difficult and often require the use of all the technical possibilities of an organ. However, he is also considered the perfector of “chromatic polyphony”, which was once cultivated by his role model Johann Sebastian Bach.
 
The video shows the Polish organist Agnieszka Tarnawska in 2013 at the Great Organ of the St. Jakobi Church in Lübeck with Max Reger’s Choral Fantasy Op. 27 on Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”.



GDR 23.1.1973

 

            Germany 2.5.1991

   
Niger 20.4.2016

Stamp of the Month: February 2023

Enrico Caruso


Italien 25.10.2021
The Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso was born in Naples on 25 February 1873. He died in his hometown on 2 August 1921 at the age of only 48. February 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.
 
Caruso, whose voice was already noticed as a boy in the church choir, made his opera debut at the age of 19. His breakthrough came five years later with the role of Federico in the world premiere of Francesco Cilea’s opera “L’Arlesiana” at the Teatro Lirico in Milan. Later he also took part in the world premieres of Umberto Giordano’s opera “Fedora”
and Giacomo Puccini’s “La fanciulla del West”. His repertoire comprised 67 roles including the most famous, Canio in Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” and “Radames” in Verdi’s “Aida”. He sang in Milan, Naples and London, but above all in New York City, where he still holds the record at the Metropolitan Opera with 863 appearances in 18 seasons.
In addition to his stage presence, Enrico Caruso’s work for the Victor Talking Machine Company was one of the decisive factors in the triumph of the record. Caruso recorded a total of 498 titles. These include opera arias as well as many popular songs such as Eduardo Di Capua’s song “O sole mio”, which he helped to make it world famous. The aria “Vesti la giubba” from the opera “Pagliacci”, recorded on 1 February 1904, was the recording industry’s first million-seller.
 

The video shows a shellac record with Enrico Caruso’s very first recording “E Lucevan Le Stelle” from Puccini’s opera “Tosca”. The recording was made on 11 April 1902 in Milan for G&T Records, a subsidiary of RCA Victor. At this first recording session, 10 titles were recorded, of which only one master each was made. Because of the unexpected success, the masters wore out very quickly, so that new masters had to be created from the records that were made. The record in the video is based on such a repressing, which was produced by G&T Records for the European market in the late 1940s.
Listen here to a digitally remastered version from 1904