Category: Music

In memoriam: Aretha Franklin – The Queen of Soul



Guinea 10.5.2010





On August 16, 2018, the American soul singer, songwriter and pianist Aretha Louise Franklin died at the age of 76. The musical spectrum of the “Queen of Soul” submitted by Rhythm & blues, gospel and jazz as well as pop and dance. Throughout her more than 60-year career, she has won numerous awards. Her number-one hit “Respect” from 1965 became the anthem of the African-American liberation and the Women’s Movement. In 1987, Aretha Franklin became the first woman in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 2010 she was named “best female singer of all time” by the music magazine “Rolling Stone” and she was one of the performers with the most records sold worldwide.
 

Mozambique 28.2.2012


Tanzania 1.12.1995


Grenada/Grenadines 19.11.1992

Stamp of the Month: August 2018


Leonard Bernstein

The American conductor, composer and pianist Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 1918th He died on 14 October 1990 in New York. In August 2018, his birthday will mark the 100th time. Bernstein began playing the piano at the age of 10 years. He studied piano and composition at Harvard University and became famous overnight in 1943 when he short notice for the ailing Bruno Walter took over the management of a broadcast concert with the New York Philharmonic. Amber is one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century and led throughout his career including the New York City Center Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna


Austria 6.7.2018
Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. As a guest conductor, he has worked with numerous orchestras and at all major opera houses around the world. As a composer, Bernstein created next to the famous musical “West Side Story” several orchestral works, stage works, chamber, piano and film music, as well as some vocal works.
 

In addition, Leonard Bernstein was an important music teacher. Take some time for the video: Leonard Bernstein answers the question “What is a Melody?” during one of his legendary “Young People’s Concerts” with the New York Philharmonic, recorded December 21.12.1962.

Gambia 12.10.1998



Guinea 10.5.2010

Guinea-Bissau 5.8.2008

San Marino 12.2.1999

Grenada Grenadines 19.11.1992

Grenada Grenadines 26.8.1998

Hungary 2.3.2018

Israel 7.2.1995

Stamp of the Month: July 2018


Jón Leifs

The Icelandic composer and conductor Leif Jón was born on May 1, 1899 on the island Sólheimar. He died on July 30, 1968 in Reykjavik. July 2018 marks his 50th memorial anniversary.
From 1916 to 1921, Jón Leifs studied music at the conservatory in Leipzig and was then very successful in Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Nordic countries as a conductor. In 1926 he first conducted a symphony orchestra on the Faroe Islands and Iceland. In addition to his concert career, he collected the folk songs of his native for the Phonogram Archive of the Berlin Academy of Music, wrote numerous concert reviews as well as articles about


Island 22.1.1999
Nordic folk music for various newspapers. From 1935, he was musical director of the National Icelandic Radio for several years. He later founded the Icelandic Association of Composers and the Icelandic copyright society. As a composer, he saw it as his mission to give Iceland a unique musical identity. Basis of his vocal works are the poems of Icelandic poets and his orchestral works depict Icelandic natural forces as geysers, drift ice and volcanic eruptions.
 

The video shows the New Era Orchestra conducted by Tetiana Kalinichenko with Jón Leif’s last composition “Consolations – Intermezzo for Strings, Op 66”. The recording was taken during the Gogol Festival 2010 in Kiev.

In memoriam: Jim Caine (“Jim the Jazz”)



Isle of Man 1.10.2014






On 11 April 2018, the British jazz pianist and radio presenter Jim Caine died at the age of 91 years. Jim Caine was born in Douglas, Isle of Man on 11 June 1926. He played as a jazz pianist in the band of Hugh Gibb, whose children Barry, Maurice and Robin (The Bee Gees) often sat on his lap. Caine’s radio career at Manx Radio began in the ’60s, where he first presented light classics – which he often played live on the piano. Over the years he developed such popular radio shows like “Music Miscellany”, “Jim’s Jazz Hour” and “Sweet & Swing” which he partly supervised until 2016. Jim Caine was also known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the artists and bands of the swing and big band era, which he was able to present in a very entertaining manner.

In memoriam: Avicii (Tim Bergling)



Sweden 15.1.2015




On 28 April 2018, the Swedish disc jockey, composer and music producer Avicii (actually Tim Bergling) died at the age of only 28 years. Born in Stockholm on 8 September 1989, the musician became known in 2010 through the songs “My Feelings for You”, “Seek Bromance”, and “Blessed”. He has worked with Coldplay, Robbie Williams, David Guetta and Madonna. 2013 he composed with former ABBA members Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the song “We Write the Story”, which was used as the theme song for the Eurovision Song Contest. The song “We will find a Way”, produced along with Carlos Santana and Wyclef Jean, was chosen by FIFA as the official song of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Avicii composed together with the Australian singer-songwriter Conrad Sewell the song “Taste the Feeling” that probably each of us has in the ear as the promotional song for Coca-Cola.
By end of 2016 Tim Bergling, who’s stage name derived from “Avici”, the deepest Buddhist hell, retired from the public for health reasons.

Stamp of the Month: June 2018


Edvard Grieg

The Norwegian pianist and composer Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in Bergen on 15 June 1843. He died on 4 September 1907 in his hometown. In June 2018 the musical world celebrates his 175th birth anniversary.
From the age of six Grieg received regular piano lessons from his mother and began to design his first compositions at the age of nine. On the recommendation of the famous violinist Ole Bull, he studied from 1858 to 1862 at the conservatory in Leipzig. After graduation, he worked as a pianist. Together with other composers he co-founded a Concert Society for new Scandinavian music in Copenhagen. On his numerous trips as a pianist and conductor, he met, among others, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch, Clara Schumann and Peter Tchaikovsky.


Monaco 10.11.1993
Similar to the Mighty Handful in Russia, Grieg merged elements of folk music of his homeland with compositional achievements of late romanticism. His greatest significance lies in the piano and chamber music. Of his orchestral works, the two “Peer Gynt Suites”, the suite “From Holberg’s Time” and the piano concerto are still very popular.
 

The video shows the both Peer-Gynt Suites performed by the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra (RTVE) under the baton of Guillermo García Calvo.


Norway 15.6.1943

Soviet Union 24.12.1957

Albania 26.1.1995

Norway 3.5.1983

Norway 23.4.1993

Norway 23.4.1993

Belgium 24.3.2007

Stamp of the Month: May 2018



Austria 14.11.1972

Carl Michael Ziehrer

The Austrian composer Carl Michael Ziehrer was born in Vienna on May 2, 1843 and died in his native city on November 14, 1922. In May 2018, his birthday marks the 175th time.
Ziehrer, who played piano and wrote small own compositions as a teenager, was discovered by Carl Haslinger, the publisher of Johann Strauss (son). Haslinger promoted the young talent by engaging him teachers for conducting and composing activities. Many compositions of his early work were created in collaboration with his teacher Johann Emanuel Hasel. 1865 Ziehrer received a first engagement as a conductor in Vienna. Later he became conductor of the Reichshallen orchestra in Berlin. In 1885, Ziehrer became conductor of the famous k.u.k. Infantry Regiment Hoch- und Deutschmeister No. 4 and gave concerts throughout Europe, and in 1893 for the World
Fair in Chicago. The peak in his career was, when he was appointed music director of the Imperial Royal Court Balls in 1907. As a composer Carl Michael Ziehrer created about 600 dances and marches, as well as 23 operettas.
 

 
 
The video shows a performance of the “Waltz of Viennese Citizen” by Carl Michael Ziehrer during a ball in the Vienna Hofburg. The Vienna Philharmonic are performing under the direction of Willi Boskovsky.

Stamp of the Month: April 2018


Marian Anderson

The American opera singer Marian Elina-Blanche Anderson was born in Philadelphia on February 27th, 1897. She died on April 8, 1993 in Portland, Oregon. In April 2018, her death will mark the 25th time.
When Marian Anderson was six years old, she started to sing in a church choir. She received a proper musical education when she was 17 and won the first prize in a singing competition with 300 applicants in 1925. Then, the previously unknown singer was allowed to perform with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and wowed the audience. In the early 1930s, she went on a European tour and sang, among others, concerts conducted by Jean Sibelius, Arturo Toscanini and Bruno Walter. On January 7, 1955 Marian Anderson performed as the first ever African-American singer as a soloist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.


USA 25.1.2005


The video shows a historical document of the times: The Conservative Women’s Association “Daughters of the American Revolution” prevented in 1939 a planned appearance of Marian Anderson in Constitution Hall in Washington because of her skin color. In protest against this racial discrimination, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the then President, ended her membership in the assoxiation and organized on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939 an open-air concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which was attended by around 75,000 people.

Stamp of the Month: March 2018


Sergei Rachmaninoff

The Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachma-
ninoff was born in Oneg on April 1, 1873. He died on March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills. In March 2018, his death marks the 75th time.
Rachmaninoff studied piano and composition in Moscow. With the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he moved to Paris, from where he started numerous concert tours through Europe and


Moldova 22.2.1997
America. As a pianist, he became world-famous. In 1935 he moved to the USA. Rachmaninoff’s compo-
sitions include piano concerts, operas, symphonies, symphonic dances and symphonic poems. His Piano Concertos No. 2 and 3 are world-renowned and regularly played by many orchestras.
 

The video shows the Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova (* 1990) and the Northwest German Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Martin Panteleev (* 1976) with the Piano Concerto no. 2 op. 18 by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Stamp of the Month: January 2018


Mariss Jansons

The Latvian conductor Mariss Jansons was born in Riga on January 14, 1943. In January 2018 he will be 75 years old.
Jansons studied violin, piano and conducting at the conservatory in Leningrad and went to Austria in 1969, where he continued his education among others under Herbert von Karajan. In 1973 he became assistant conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic. From 1979 to 2000 he was director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1997 he was appointed chief conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Since autumn 2003 he has been chief conductor of the choir and Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, since September 2004 also chief conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.


Österreich 1.1.2006

The milestones in cooperation with the orchestra of the Bavarian Radio include the performances of the Requiems of Verdi, Mozart, Brahms and Dvorak; of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. In autumn 2012, Jansons led the choir and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, performing all nine Beethoven symphonies.
 



2006, 2012 and 2016 Mariss Jansons conducted the Vienna New Year’s Concert, which took place on 1 January 2018 the 78th time. In a close match with the stamp, the video shows an excerpt from the New Year’s Concert of 2006.