May 2013
31 posts
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Leopold Hofmann - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
There isn’t that much about him on wikipedia. Except for this really great anecdote.
Leopold Hofmann was a Kapellmeister. Mozart requested to become assistant-Kapellmeister to Hofmann. It was an unpaid position, but considering the poor health and age of Hofmann, Mozart figured that Leo would drop dead at any point, and then he would become the Kapellmeister, getting paid to work on that...
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Who is this Leopold Hofmann? I must find out.
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This is the record, “The World of the 18th...
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This is a movement from Christian Cannabich that...
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This is the third movement of Christian...
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Christian Cannabich - Wikipedia, the free... →
So, I tried, a little bit against my will, to listen to other Mannheim school composers. Unfortunately there isn’t that much recorded of the other ones.
I finally found one symphony and one movement by Christian Cannabich.
Christian Cannabich was a lucky, lucky man. His father was the flute teacher to the Elector of Patine. This made it possible for Christian to go to Italy, all expenses...
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Emma Bardac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
Emma Bardac, girlfriend of Faure and eventual wife of Debussy. She sang very well, and she was a great conversationalist. There is a documentary on her called, The Loves of Emma Bardac
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Debussy's daugther
Claude and Emma’s daughter was humbly named after the two most important people in the world. Her name was Claude-Emma. But because Claude couldn’t endure hearing his name used for anyone else, he called her “Chouchou’” instead. The wikipedia article says how Chouchou was probably the only person who Claude actually loved. She was his musical inspiration in later...
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Debussy's antics turns all of his friends against...
Debussy dumping sweet Lily and coldly ignoring her suicide attempt was the last straw. Debussy had been shedding friends due to his shenanigans for decades now, but the nasty behavior toward Lily and his stealing another man’s wife was too much. It got so difficult to be in Paris, that Debussy and his new pregnant girlfriend, Emma, had to leave to England until things settled a bit. They...
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Debussy dumps hot model who then attempts suicide
So Debussy marries Lily Texier after he threatens suicide. At first it was all great since Debussy was showing off his model girlfriend. This didn’t last though. For there is only so much bragging you can do about your wife before everyone knows what a stud you are, and then you actually have to live with her. And Lily. bless her heart, was a kind, a nice woman, but an intellectual she...
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Debussy. Le Mer.
You know how adorable guys will...
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Debussy. Le Mer.
In our last post we left Debussy...
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Debussy, Le Mer.
This was the music that was...
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Debussy. Le Mer. Debussy was quite a character....
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One of the big influences in Debussy’s...
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classicalnewb, one year -- no longer a newb?
So, after a year, can I stop being a newb? God, I wish I could say that. But fortunately classical music is so vast, so complex, so filled with cool anecdotes, and I can’t bring myself to claim that I am no longer a newb.
There is too much to know. After I year, I haven’t found the time to dive deep into romantic music the way I did with 20th century music or I am currently doing with...
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One year of classical newb -- comments on the...
So how well did wikipedia and spotify worked?
Pretty well, in fact, since I started by knowing next to nothing. Most of the music can be found in Spotify, and if that didn’t work I would use youtube.com The basic introductory articles tend to be good, except for the one on 20th century classical music. That one was disorganized the last time I saw it, so it may be a bit confusing, but it...
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A year of classical newb
So what did I learn? In terms of classical music education, I achieved the following
* Basic knowledge of the common classical repertoire
* A basic framework on who are the most important composers of classical music
* A basic understanding of what the differences between the different classical styles are
* I had a good survey on 20th century classical music. At this point I consider it one...
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A year of classicalnewb
I just realized that I have been working on this project for a full year. To give a quick recap, I started this blog as part of a persona project to learn more about classical music. I knew very little about classical music a year ago, but I kept meaning to learn more about it. So I decided to use Spotify to listen to music and Wikipedia as my textbook, listening to pieces as they were described...
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Metastasio has a patron in Marianna Bugerilli
After his initial patron died and he spent his inheritance of his, Metatasio became friends with an opera singer, Marianna Bulgerilli, who supported his work through her contacts and supported him financially. She even had his nuclear family come and live with her. Thanks to her he got a major job in Vienna. After he was placed, she asked him to get him a job. But by that time he was ashamed of...
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Nadezhda von Meck - Wikipedia, the free... →
Guess what? Nadezhda von Meck, the patron that had the weird relationship with Tchaikovsky, was also supporting of Debussy. She was an interesting person. More of her later.
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Debussy, L’Enfant Prodigue. It is a cantata...
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Johann Stamitz, flute concert in D major. The...
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Carl Stamitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
He was the son of Johann Stamitz. He spent a lot of his life as a traveling virtuoso, and settled for a little time here and there. He eventually moved to a university town, where some people say that he was somehow associated with the university. However these links are hard to prove. He became increasingly poor. When he died, they found many tracks and books on alchemy. He was probably trying...
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The top spotify piece for Johann Stamitz.
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Johann Stamitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
Johann Stamitz, considered the father of the Mannheim school, was an important figure in the transition between baroque and classical music. It was he who added a wind section to the orchestra. Johann Stamitz also was responsible for the development of the four movement symphonies with a structure of fast-slow- minuet and trio- and dashing presto. As part of the above, he also helped in developing...
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Mannheim school - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia →
Franz Ignaz Beck belonged to the Mannheim school, which was a musical style that was developed in Mannheim under the court of Elector Charles III Philip. Their major contribution to music was to enhance the role of wind instruments, sudden crescendos.
Some of their musical innovations have the names of hokey dances: the Mannheim Rocket, the Mannheim Roller, the Mannheim sigh, the Mannheim birds,...
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Franz Ignaz Beck - Wikipedia, the free... →
He is another classical/late baroque composer who made his fortune in France. It appears that his early symphonies were considered to be innovative and original. There is a good anecdote on his life. The first one is that he was a musician in the court of Mannheim, and he was provoked to engage in a duel. In the duel he fatally wounded a member of the court. Thinking that he had killed him, he...
hugoestr:
Gossec. the wikipedia article is very...
April 2013
51 posts
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Gossec. I believe that they have played this...
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How did I end up listening studying about...
I made a resolution to try to avoid the classical era. The main reason for this is that the local classical station, WETA, plays way too much classical. I will be fair and say that they do play more than just Mozart and Hayden. Still, it is strange that I have ended up here. It is confirming what I suspected: that most composers from the classical era are ignored due to the giants that Hayden and...
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Franz Ignaz Beck - Wikipedia, the free... →
And here is another 18th century composer. He came to my attention because one of the few recordings in Spotify that has symphonies by Gossec includes symphonies by Franz Ignaz Beck. In fact the record is titled “Beck”, but in reality half of the symphonies are by Gossec.
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Joseph Gossec - Wikipedia →
A French composer. You probably have heard at least one of his pieces through the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons. His main contribution was the revival of instrumental music in France. He also survived the Revolution. I wouldn’t even mention this is it wasn’t that case that when reading about people from this era, it often ends with decapitation of self-exile from France.
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Numbers FM -- experimental modern music →
and other weird stuff. Pretty cool.
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Gluck, another dance from Orfeo ed Euridice.
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Henk Badings →
This article describes Henk Badings’ collaboration with the Nazi government. Yet it is not that clear cut about what was his reasoning behind the collaboration. He refused to take a high music organization position, and when he replaced a Jewish administrator at a music organization, he made sure that the administrator wouldn’t be deported and gave a job to his wife to make sure that...
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France in the 18th century, royalty, intellectual...
I am learning about French history and intellectual life thanks to my learning about French classical music. So far the big themes that I have teased out from the century is the importance of the king patronage, the existing of intellectual tribes, and the revolution. Of these three the intellectual tribes was the one institution to survive to this day. I call them “tribes” because...
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Metastasio, early rapper
Metastasio was an important figure of opera seria in 18th century France. He was a precocious boy who delighted in on-the-spot poetry competitions. The U.S. still has these kinds of competition. We call it rapping. Yes, I know about slam poetry, but my understanding is that you prepare those in advance. So Metastasio’s poetry would always have this quickness and looseness associated with...
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Gluck's Armide →
Armide was considered to be the opera masterpiece of Lully and one of the best pieces of opera seria. So when Gluck decides that he is going to take the same libretto as Lully used but essentially rewrite the score using his opera reform ideas, he was making a bold statement. This ended up in yet another French intellectual tribal dispute. Although it wasn’t popular, many composers, such as...
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Metastasio (Wikipedia) →
I should start a series called, “the greatest X you have never heard of.” Metastasio is one of them. He was the greatest opera librettist from the 18th century you have never heard of.
How important was he? He was the symbolic leader for opera seria. Many famous classical composers wrote operas from his libretti. When Gluck spearheaded the reform of opera, it was the name of...
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Gluck, Ballet from Iphigenie en Tauride French...
The Octatonic scale →
This is a scale that, according to wikipedia, was used often by Henk Baddings. It was also used in “Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky.
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Iphigenie en Tauris (Gluck) →
This is considered to be the most important work by Gluck. It is also the one that incorporates most of his reforms to French opera.
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Gluck. I have no information on his trio sonatas...