Category: Music

Stamp of the Month: September 2021

Engelbert Humperdinck

The German composer Engelbert Humperdinck was born on September 1, 1854 in Siegburg. He died on September 27, 1921 in Neustrelitz. September 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of his death.

Germany 9.9.2004
 
Engelbert Humperdinck received piano lessons at a very early age and began to compose at the age of 12. From 1872 he studied with Ferdinand Hiller at the Cologne Conservatory. The Mozart Prize of the City of Frankfurt (1876) enabled him to study with Franz Lachner and Josef Rheinberger in Munich. On a trip to Italy he visited Richard Wagner, who offered him the opportunity to work on the world premiere of “Parsifal”. Humperdinck accepted the offer and worked closely with him until Wagner’s death in 1833. After a job as Kapellmeister in Cologne and teaching assignments in Barcelona and Frankfurt, he achieved an initially surprising but lasting success in 1893 with the opera “Hansel and Gretel”, which enabled him to devote himself entirely to composing in the following years. Unfortunately, however, none of his other five operas had the similar success of “Hansel and Gretel”. In December 1900, Humperdinck moved to Berlin, where he took a master class for composition at the Musikhochschule and, in close collaboration with Max Reinhardt, composed several pieces of drama for the German Theater.
 

The video shows the final scene of the opera “Hansel and Gretel” with Daniela Sindram (Hansel), Ileana Tonca (Gretel) and the children’s choir of the opera school of the Vienna State Opera. The recording is from a live broadcast by the 3Sat TV channel in 2016.

Stamp of the Month: August 2021

Rafael Kubelik

The Czech conductor and composer Jeroným Rafael Kubelík was born on June 29, 1914 at the Bohemian Castle of Horskyfeld in Býchory. He died on August 11, 1996 in Kastanienbaum in the Swiss canton of Lucerne. August 2021 will mark the 25th anniversary of his death.
 
As the son of the violinist Jan Kubelík, Rafael Kubelik’s musical talent was encouraged at an early age. He studied violin, conducting and composition at the Prague Conservatory and first appeared as a conductor in 1934. From 1936 to 1939 he conducted the concerts of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague.

Czech Republic 27.5.1998
From 1939 to 1941 he was chief conductor of the National Theater in Brno and, in 1941, succeeded Václav Talich as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. In 1946 he conducted the opening concert of the first “Prague Spring” festival. After the Communists came to power, he left Czechoslovakia in 1948. 1950 to 1953 he was conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and 1955 to 1958 musical director of the Covent Garden Opera in London. After a few concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, Rafael Kubelik was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1979, with whom he toured numerous times.
Kubelík was primarily regarded as a specialist in the works of Czech composers and set standards with his interpretations of the works of Dvořák and Janáček. He also stood up for the work of Gustav Mahler and began in the 1960s as the first with a complete recording of Mahler’s symphonies. In 1984 he retired from conducting, but conducted Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic poem “My Fatherland” again at the opening concert of the Prague Spring in 1990 at the request of the Czech President Václav Havel.
As a composer, Rafael Kubelik is assigned to neo-romanticism. He created a mass, stabat mater, 3 Requiem settings, 5 operas, 3 symphonies and a few other orchestral works. In addition, violin and cello concerts, chamber music and a number of songs.
 

The video shows Rafael Kubelik and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with Smetana’s “My Fatherland” (Ma vlast), recorded on May 3rd and 4th, 1984 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residence.

Stamp of the Month: July 2021

Louis Armstrong

The American jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Daniel “Satchmo” Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans. He died on July 6, 1971 in New York City. July 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of his death, and August 2021 will mark the 120th anniversary of his birthday.


USA 1.9.1995
Louis Armstrong came from a poor background and grew up partly in a home for homeless youth, where he learned the basics of playing the cornet. From 1918 he first played in a band on a Mississippi steamer. In 1922 he became a member of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. Oliver and Armstrong wrote music history with their two-part break improvisations. After a stopover in the Big Band of Fletcher Henderson, Armstrong founded his own formations in 1925, which became known as “Hot Five” and “Hot Seven”. From 1932, numerous tours took him to Europe and later to Asia and Africa. In the 1950s and 1960s he also became a world star as singer and entertainer. He achieved further increase in his popularity through his participation in Hollywood films, such as “The Glenn Miller Story”, “High Society” and “Hello, Dolly!”. Between 1926 and 1966 Armstrong was able to place 79 hits on the Billboard charts. His co-productions with numerous other world stars are also unforgettable.
Louis Armstrong played a key role in the development of New Orleans jazz. He founded the “star soloism” in jazz and, in the 1920s, set technical standards for jazz trumpeters. He is regarded as one of the most important instrumental soloists in jazz and, with his unmistakable voice, is one of the most famous jazz singers alongside Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
 

The video shows an excerpt from the “Johnny Cash Show” in October 1970. Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash perform “Blue Yodel No. 9 (Standin’ on the Corner)”. This is the only song that Louis Armstrong and Jimmie Rodgers recorded together: 40 years earlier, on July 16, 1930.
 
Here is the original:
 

Stamp of the Month: June 2021


USA 10.1.2007
Ella Fitzgerald

The American jazz singer Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1917 in Newport News, Virginia. She died on June 15, 1996 in Beverly Hills. June 2021 will mark the 25th anniversary of her death.
Ella Fitzgerald made her debut as a singer in 1934 at the age of seventeen at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where she won an amateur competition. The band leader and drummer Chick Webb hired her in 1935 as a singer in his big band. After first recordings in 1936, the two finally landed a number 1 hit with the title “A Tisket a Tasket” in 1938, which made Ella Fitzgerald a star.
After Chick Webb’s death, Ella Fitzgerald began her solo career in 1941 and became one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Her trademark was scat singing, which she introduced on the concert stage. Ella Fitzgerald’s repertoire ranged from swing to bebop, blues, bossa nova, samba, gospel and hip-hop to jazzed up Christmas carols and her records made it into the pop, R&B and country charts of the USA. Her outstanding recordings include the “Songbooks” with which Ella Fitzgerald memorialized the most important American composers, including Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern. Another important recording is Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess”, which she recorded with Louis Armstrong.
Ella Fitzgerald won a total of 13 Grammys and in 1967 was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; In 1987 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
 
The Video shows Ella Fitzgerald together with Count Basie performing the song „A Tisket a Tasket“ at the Montreux Jazz-Festival 1979.
 

Bulgaria 28.4.2017

Stamp of the Month: May 2021


Croatia 28.3.1996
 
Josip Štolcer-Slavenski

The Croatian composer Josip Slavenski was born on May 11, 1896 in Čakovec (then Austria-Hungary). He died in Belgrade on November 30, 1955. May 2021 will mark his 125th birthday.

After his first music lessons from his father, Slavenski studied from 1913 to 1916 at the Budapest Conservatory with Zoltán Kodály and
Béla Bartók, among others. After military service in World War I, he was a student in Vítězslav Novák’s master class at the Prague Conservatory. After completing his studies, he taught at various music schools in Zagreb and Belgrade and, from 1937, at the Belgrade Music Academy, where he was appointed professor for composition in 1945.

Slavenski first attracted attention as a composer in 1920 when his “Orchestra Notturno” op.1 was performed in Zagreb. His first string quartet was premiered at the Donaueschingen Festival in 1924 and Erich Kleiber conducted the world premiere of the symphony “Balkanophonia” in Berlin in 1927. Slavenski was the first composer from the former Yugoslavia to make a name for himself internationally.
His compositional work, in which he made


Yugoslavia 29.4.1985
extensive use of indigenous folk music from his homeland, includes three symphonies, a symphonic poem, a violin concerto, dances from the Balkans for string orchestra, chamber music, cantatas, choral works, songs and drama music.

The video shows the accordion orchestra of the “Josip Slavenski” music school in Novi Sad with a folk dance by Josip Slavenski. The concert took place on May 11th, 2009 on the occasion of a school anniversary in the synagogue of Novi Sad.
 

In Memoriam: Milva

On April 23, 2021, the Italian singer and actress Milva (actually Maria Ilva Biolcati)
died in Milan at the age of 81.

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In 1961, Milva won a competition organized by the Italian television company Rai and in the same year came third at the Sanremo Festival. Since then she has been a star in Italy. She took part in the Sanremo Festival fifteen times and released more than 50 albums between 1961 and 2010, including co-operations with Mikis Theodorakis and Astor Piazzolla. Mikis Theodorakis, Ennio Morricone and Klaus Doldinger composed songs for her. In addition, Milva was considered an excellent interpreter of the songs by Edith Piaf and Kurt Weill/Bert Brecht. Milva has been a frequent guest on TV music shows across Europe and sang her songs not only in Italian, but also in English, German, French, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese and Japanese. In addition to chanson and tango, her great passion was theater. Between 1962 and 1995 she also was seen in several films.

The video shows Milva with the song “Alexanderplatz” by Alfredo Cohen, Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio, which Milva released in 1982 on the album “Milva e dintorni” and which has since become one of the most striking pieces at her live concerts.



Stamp of the Month: April 2021


Australian Antarctic Territory 16.3.2021
 
Alice Giles

The Australian harpist Alice Giles was born in Adelaide in 1961. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first Australian Antarctic expedition in which her grandfather took part, she took part in an Antarctic expedition in spring 2011, during which she gave concerts at the Mawson and Davis research stations as part of the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship.
 
Since Alice Giles won the 8th International Harp Competition in Israel in 1982 at the age of 21, she has been considered one of the world’s leading harp soloists. She has given solo concerts around the world, worked with many large orchestras and was a guest artist at numerous festivals. In the course of her career she was a member of the jury and artistic director of several international harp competitions and has an international reputation as a teacher. Alice Giles has given masterclasses at the Salzburg Mozarteum, in The Hague, London, San Francisco, Milan, Toronto, Bayreuth and at the Juilliard School in New York. She currently teaches at the Sydney Conservatory of Music.
 
The video shows Alice Giles performing a live performance at the Davis Research Station during the Antarctic expedition in 2011. She plays the composition “Ice” by the Australian composer Mary Doumany.
 

Stamp of the Month: March 2021


Argentina 8.5.2018
 
Astor Piazzolla

The Argentine bandoneon player and composer Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was born on March 11, 1921 in Mar del Plata and died on July 4, 1992 in Buenos Aires. March 2021 will mark his 100th birthday.
 
From 1929 Piazzolla learned to play piano and bandoneon. Despite an encounter with the tango legend Carlos Gardel he was captivated above all by jazz and the music of J.S. Bach. Only ten years later he did perfect his bandoneon playing and joined an orchestra, for which he also made arrangements. The pianist Artur Rubinstein encouraged him to pursue further music studies. From 1940 he took composition lessons and in 1946 founded his first “Orquesta Tipica” with which he also made a few recordings. In the early 1950s Piazzolla wrote some orchestral and chamber music works, for which he won national critics’ awards in 1953 and 1954. He distanced himself from his early tangos of the 1940s, for he wished to be taken seriously as a composer, and he considered that impossible at the time as the tango was held in ill repute by the country’s upper class. The 1954 critics’ prize enabled him to travel to Europe. He went to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and conducting with Hermann Scherchen. Boulanger recognized in Piazzolla’s works the influences of Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók and Hindemith, but missed an individual style. She encouraged him to return to the tango. In 1955 Piazzolla returned to Argentina, founded the “Octeto Buenos Aires”, and with this ensemble made the transition from the traditional “Tango Argentino” to the “Tango Nuevo”. Initially his works were met with criticism and disapproval, but despite all the hostility he composed and performed with enormous productivity. Over the years Piazzolla composed more than 300 tangos, and music for some 50 films. Many of his tangos are not ‘danceable’ in the traditional sense, but first and foremost music for listening. He enlarged the harmony of the tango with stylistic elements of jazz, the baroque suite, opera and the popular music of the 1970s.
 
The video shows Astor Piazzolla and his band performing “Libertango” (composed in 1974). The recording was made during a European tour on May 18, 1977 on a Swiss television program.
 

Stamp of the Month: February 2021


Sweden 1.10.1983
Wilhelm Stenhammar

The Swedish composer, pianist and conductor Carl Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammar was born in Stockholm on February 7, 1871. He died on November 20, 1927 in his hometown. February 2021 will mark his 150th birthday.
 
Wilhelm Stenhammar studied piano, organ and composition in Stockholm from 1887 to 1892 and then continued piano studies in Berlin. From 1893 he worked as a concert pianist.
In 1897 he went public for the first time as a conductor. From 1900 to 1901 he was Kapellmeister at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, in 1907 he became chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. He held this office until 1922. From 1923 to 1925 he was again Kapellmeister at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. During his lifetime, Stenhammar was a highly respected figure in Scandinavian musical life and was friends with many well-known musicians. In 1916 the University of Gothenburg awarded him an honorary doctorate.
As a composer, Stenhammar was first stylistically influenced by the late romantic works of Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner. Influenced by his friends Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen, he tried from around 1910 to find a “Nordic” tone. From then on, his works were more and more characterized by folk melodies and the use of church modes.
Stenhammar is one of Sweden’s most important composers. His work, which includes 3 symphonies, 2 piano concertos, chamber and piano music, 2 operas, cantatas, several choirs and around 60 songs, is unfortunately largely unknown outside of Sweden.
 
The video shows “Göteborgs Symfoniker” conducted by Herbert Blomstedt with Wilhelm Stenhammar’s 2nd Symphony, recorded on December 20, 2013 in the Gothenburg Concert Hall.
 

Stamp of the Month: January 2021

Ramón Vinay

The Chilean opera singer Ramón Mario Francisco Vinay Sepúlveda was born on August 31, 1911 in Chillán. He died on January 4, 1996 in Puebla, Mexico. January 2021 will mark the 25th anniversary of his death.
 
During his vocal training he sang mainly bass parts from 1930, but then made his debut in 1931 with the baritone part of Don Alfonso in Donizetti’s opera “La favorita”. From 1931 to 1944 he sang mainly at the Teatro de las Bellas Artes in Mexico City and on Mexican radio.

Chile 15.10.1997
After switching to tenor, he made his debut in 1943 as Don José in Bizet’s opera “Carmen” and in 1944 for the first time in the title role in Verdi’s “Otello”. In 1946 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, in 1947 at La Scala, in 1950 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and in 1952 he appeared as Tristan for the first time at the Bayreuth Festival. After switching to the baritone again, Vinay sang numerous roles in Wagner operas as well as in Tosca, Otello, La Traviata, Aida, Carmen, Pagliacci and La Bohème.
Ramón Vinay is best known for four legendary interpretations: the title role in Verdi’s “Otello” under the direction of Arturo Toscanini (1947); Tristan in “Tristan und Isolde” under the direction of Herbert von Karajan (1951) as well as Siegmund in “Walküre” and the title role in “Parsifal” under the direction of Clemens Krauss (1953).
Ramón Vinay gave his farewell performance on September 22, 1969 at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago in Verdi’s Otello, where he took over the baritone role of Iago in the first two acts and was on stage in the third and fourth act in the tenor role of Otello.

The video shows Ramón Vinay with Pedro Vargas in the 1943 film “Fantasia Ranchera” under the musical direction of Manuel Esperón.