Stamps & Music

   “The Magic Flute” is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s best known opera and at the same time one of the musical works most often depicted on stamps. The video is a collage of stamps and music by our member Frederic Grosz from Israel.

   The American composer Leroy Anderson (1908-1975) mainly created light classical music with a special inclination to new orchestral effects and unconventional instruments. In 1950 he composed the piece “The Typewriter” for typewriter and orchestra. It is likely that the designer had this piece in mind when he designed the Belgian stamp. The video shows a scene from the movie “Who’s Minding the Store?” with Jerry Lewis and the music of Leroy Anderson.

   The American stamp depicts a poster for the film “Caldonia”. This 18-minute short film with the American singer, saxophonist and bandleader Louis Thomas Jordan (1908-1975) and his no. 1 hit “Caldonia Boogie” from 1945 can be considered as a forerunner to today’s music video. The poster shown on the stamp plays with the name of the musician to another successful film of the year 1945: The title “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” is here changes to “Here Comes Mr. Louis Jordan”. The video shows an excerpt from the short film “Caldonia” with Louis Jordan and his band.

   In 1959, the song “Tintarella Di Luna” (Text: Franco Migliacci / Music: Bruno De Filippi) was one of the first great hits for the Italian singer Mina (Mina Anna Mazzini / * 25.3.1940).

   The stamp features a portrait of the composer Frédéric Chopin (* 22.2.1810 / + 17.10.1849) in front of a facsimile of the notes from his “Ballade No. 2 in F Major”. The video shows Ivo Pogorelich performing this “Ballade” during the X International Chopin Competition in 1980.

   The Tinikling is one of the oldest dances of the Philippines. The name refers to a bird which is called “Tikling” and has a very distinctive gait, when moving between grass, tree branches and obstacles.