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.
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.
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,
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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
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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
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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.
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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)
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.
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.
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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”.
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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, 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.
