Category: Music

Stamp of the Month: November 2019

Hans Sachs

The Nuremberg shoemaker, poet and master singer Hans Sachs was born on 5 November 1494 in Nuremberg. He died on January 19, 1576 in his native city. In November 2019 we commemorate his 525th birthday.
 
Hans Sachs made a shoemaker apprenticeship after attending a Latin school. During his five-year journeyman journey, he served temporarily at the court of Emperor Maximilian I in Innsbruck, where he decided to study the Masters’ Song. He took lessons from Master Lienhard in Munich and settled in Nuremberg in 1516. In 1520 he became a master shoemaker and active guild member of the Meistersinger.
Hans Sachs soon sided with the Reformation and spread the teachings of Martin Luther in his poems. With these popular representations, he achieved first fame. As a result, Hans Sachs wrote more than 6,000 works, many of them in doggerel. Already during his lifetime Hans Sachs was a well-read author and became one of the most famous poets of the 16th century.

Germany 13.10.1994
 
Of the compositions of Hans Sachs only a few remained. Above all, the “Silberweise” is known, which has also found its way into the Lutheran chorales “Awake, the voice is calling us” and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”. The strict rules and the almost artisanal production of poetry in the master song did not find much favor with later generations.
That Hans Sachs today is the best known Meistersinger, he owes partly to the work of Richard Wagner, who set him a memorial in the “Meistersinger of Nuremberg”.
 

 
The video shows the finale of the opera “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”. James Morris sings the role of Hans Sachs in a 2001 performance of the Metropolitan Opera New York.




In memoriam: Jessye Norman


St. Vincent & The Grenadines 5.11.1997

On September 30, 2019, the American opera singer Jessye Norman died at the age of 74 years. She studied music at Howard University in Washington D.C, which she graduated in 1967 with a bachelor. In 1968 she won the first prize in the international music competition of the ARD in Munich and then debuted in 1969 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Elisabeth in Richard Wagner Tannhäuser. After four years in Berlin, she appeared with various ensembles and has performed at the Milan Scala and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. Mid-1970s, she focused mainly on the classical song repertoire and gave recitals, including at the Salzburg Festival. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was heard at all major opera houses and concert halls. Although operas and songs of romance formed a focal point of her repertoire, Jessye Norman also made a name for herself as an interpreter of spirituals and jazz. She has received numerous international awards, including five Grammys.
 

The video shows Jessye Norman with the last of the “Five Rückert Songs” by Gustav Mahler: “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (I am lost to the world). Recorded with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Zubun Mehta 1989.

Stamp of the Month: October 2019

Johan Helmich Roman


Sweden 26.8.1994
 
The Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman was born on October 26, 1694 in Stockholm. He died on November 20, 1758 near Kalmar. In October 2019, his birthday marks the 325th anniversary.
 
Johan Helmich Roman was 15 years old when he became a member of the Royal Swedish Court Orchestra. His father also played in this orchestra. Johan Helmich Roman was a virtuoso violinist and oboist. During a study trip to England, he met among others George Frideric Handel. In 1721 he became vice-Kapellmeister and from 1727 First Court Kapellmeister of the Swedish Court Orchestra. He did a great service on musical junior education and arranged the first public concerts in Stockholm.
As a composer, Roman preferred the style of light Italian Baroque music. His work includes suites, solo concerts, symphonies as well as chamber and church music. His most famous work is the “Drottningholmsmusic”, a suite in 24 movements, which he composed in 1744 on the occasion of the marriage of the Swedish Crownprince Adolf Fredrik with the Louise Ulrike, the sister of Frederick II of Prussia.
 
The video shows the movement 20 (Allegro) of the “Drottningholmsmusic”. It is performed by the Swedish “Nationalmusei Kammarorkester” under the direction of Claude Génetay in the Rikssalen of Drottningholm Palace.


Stamp of the Month: September 2019


Germany 5.9.2019
 
Clara Schumann

The German pianist and composer Clara Schumann (nee Wieck) was born on September 13, 1819 in Leipzig. She died on May 20, 1896 in Frankfurt am Main. In September 2019, her birthday marks the 200th time.
 
Music pedagogue Friedrich Wieck spent all his energy training his daughter to become a pianist. He also provided improvisation and composition lessons, which was a rarity for women at the time. Clara was not only talked about as an ingenious pianist, but also as a composer. Traveling through Europe consolidated her fame.
Clara’s father was appalled by her decision to marry the unstable, financially unsecured composer Robert Schumann, so she had to win the marriage in court. Within 13 years she gave birth to nine children. In between she gave concerts as often as possible. In 1854, after the first symptoms of illness, her husband came in a mental institution, where he died in 1856. Clara Schumann was a close friend with Johannes Brahms and often gave concerts with him and the violinist Joseph Joachim. In later years she taught at the Conservatory in Frankfurt.
Clara Schumann’s compositions initially served primarily for her own performances and show the progressing virtuoso possibilities of the pianist. She composed 23 works with opus numbers as well as numerous songs, romances, overtures and piano pieces. In addition, she co-worked on several compositions of her husband Robert Schumann. The highlight of her work is the Piano Trio op.17. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor op. 7, written at the age of 14, which does not formally conform to any of the piano concertos known to her, still elicits admiration today.
 
The video shows a live recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1, op. 7 by Clara Schumann. It is performed by the orchestra Collegia-Musica-Chiemgau under the direction of Elke Burkert. Soloists: Christoph Declara (piano) and Martin Weikert (cello); recorded on 31.1.2015 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.





50 Years ago …

On August 14, 1969, the movie “Once Upon a Time in the West” started in German cinemas,
to which Ennio Moriccone has composed one of the most famous film scores.


Italy 6.9.2018


The music is an essential part of Italo-Western “Once Upon a Time in the West” (Original title: C’era una volta il West) directed by Sergio Leone in 1968. The music was completed by Ennio Moricone before the filming began. Sergio Leone then staged entire passages of the film to the rhythm of the music. The almost operatic music was at that time completely uncommon for a film music and especially for the Western genre. Each main character has its own musical theme, which is repeatedly taken up as a leitmotif. The plaintive harmonica (originally played by Franco de Gemini) is the key to understand the story, but it is only presented at the end of the movie. Especially convincing are the wordless vocals of the Italian singer Edda Dell’Orso for the female lead role.

Stamp of the Month: August 2019


Paraguay 5.8.1994
 
Agustín Pío Barrios

The Paraguayan composer Agustín Pío Barrios was born on 5 May 1885 in San Juan Bautista de las Misiones. He died on August 7, 1944 in San Salvador. August 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of his death.
Barrios was trained at the Instituto Paraguayo in Asunción. Already as a teenager he appeared as a guitarist and wrote piano pieces by Bach and Beethoven for guitar. In 1910 he undertook a concert tour to Argentina, which became such a great success that in the next two decades he toured almost all the countries of South and Central America and gave concerts there. In the 1920s, he turned increasingly to the culture of his homeland and played in his concerts transcriptions for guitar by Bach and other European composers as well as own compositions with Native American influences.
Agustín Pío Barrios is considered one of the first guitar virtuosos in South America. He was probably the first classical guitarist to record his own records and the first guitarist to play a complete Bach lute suite with the guitar at a public concert. Barrios composed around 300 own works. They are considered innovative in terms of their expressiveness and their romantic harmony and exploit the full potential of the guitar. Among guitarists, the works of Barrios have a similar meaning as the works of Chopin for the pianists.
 
The video shows the Croatian guitarist Ana Vidović (* 1980) with a movement from the composition “La Catedral” by Agustín Pío Barrios.


Stamp of the Month: July 2019


Israel 1.5.2019
 

 
Hava Nagila (English: “Let us be happy”) is an Israeli folk song that is sung to Jewish festivals. The melody is based on a Hasidic Nigun, a religious melody sung mostly without lyrics. When Hebrew was revived as a spoken language in Palestine in 1915, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn (1882-1938), professor at the Hebrew University, began cataloging all known Jewish compositions. The melody is attributed to the Sadigurer Khasidim, who lived in present-day Ukraine. The later cantor Moshe Nathanson (1899-1981), a student of Professor Idelsohn, was commissioned to write a text for the melody to make a modern Hebrew song. The song is mostly danced as circle dance (hora) with any number of people.

Stamp of the Month: June 2019


Monaco 20.6.2019
 
Jacques Offenbach

The German-French composer Jakob “Jacques” Offenbach was born on 20 June 1819 in Cologne. He died on October 5, 1880 in Paris. In June 2019, his birthday marks the 200th anniversary.
Offenbach received his first cello and violin lessons from his father. From 1830 he appeared in Cologne together with two of his siblings as a trio to earn money for music lessons. In 1833 he enrolled in the cello class of Olive-Charlier Vaslin at the Paris Conservatoire national de Musique. In 1835 he began as a cellist at the Opéra-Comique and received composition lessons with Jacques Fromental Halévy from 1837.
Offenbach initially composed smaller romances, waltzes and salon pieces. In 1849 he got a job as Kapellmeister at the Paris Théâtre-Français. Incidentally, he made a name for himself as an outstanding cello virtuoso and played among others with Anton Rubinstein, Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. On the occasion of the World Exhibition in Paris 1855, Offenbach opened his own theater where he premiered several of his operettas.
Offenbach composed 75 pieces for violoncello and 102 stage works. His most famous operettas include “The Beautiful Helen”, “Bluebeard”, “Parisian Life” and “Orpheus in the Underworld” with the famous “Cancan”. In his works, he combined lively, catchy music with a satirical-profound plot with allusions to the customs, people and events of his time.
From 1877 he concentrated on the composition of his last work “The Tales of Hoffmann”, whose premiere on February 10, 1881 in the Opéra-Comique, he unfortunately could not live.
 
The video shows Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča with the “Barcarole” from Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann”. Emmanuel Villaume conducts the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
 


France 14.2.1981


Benin 15.12.1980

Benin 15.12.1980

Benin 2000

Congo 5.7.1980

Monaco 12.11.1979

Chad 2000

Gabon 14.4.1980

In memoriam: Doris Day





On May 13, 2019, the American actress and singer Doris Day died at the age of 97 years. Born on April 3, 1922 in Cincinnati, she first appeared as a singer of various big bands. Her breakthrough came in 1944 with the number one hit “Sentimental Journey”. In 1947 she made the leap to Hollywood, where she was seen in a series of musicals and music films in the 1950s and early 1960s. Over the course of her career, Doris Day has placed more than 50 hits in the charts, including such well-known songs as “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” and “Fly Me to the Moon”. Several times she worked as a singer with Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Harry James and Frankie Lee.
 

Stamp of the Month: May 2019


Romania 28.3.1985
 
Stanisław Moniuszko

The Polish composer, conductor and music educator Stanislaw Moniuszko was born on May 5, 1819 in Ubiel near Minsk (now Belarus). He died on June 4, 1872 in Warsaw. May 2019 marks his 200th birth anniversary.
 
Moniuszko’s family belonged to impoverished Polish gentry and lived in Warsaw from 1827. From 1937 he studied in Berlin for three years and then earned for living as an organist and piano teacher in Vilnius.

In 1847, the first version of his opera “Halka” was listed on the Warsaw State Opera, but was banned immediately after the premiere because of their sharp social criticism. Only 11 years later, on 1 January 1858 it was followed by the second performance, which was a resounding success and is considered the birth of the Polish National Opera. On two trips through Europe, Moniuszko made contact with Liszt, Smetana, Gounod and Rossini. After his return, he was offered the Head of the Warsaw Opera, which he held until his death.
Except of 24 operas and operettas, Moniuszko’s work covers about 300 songs. In its simplicity they document his common touch and his ability to musical poetry.

Poland 15.11.1972


The video shows the orchestra of the State Music School in Żagań under the direction of Ivan Moroz with the Mzurka from Stanislaw Moniuszko’s opera “Halka”.