Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

2.3 Who is, or was the foundling, whose amorous adventures finally led him to Wisdom?

2.10 Who is, or was the composer who wrote an opera eponymously featuring one of the above (2.1-2.9), but made himself ineligible to appear here?

3.8 In which year did a seven-part wartime composition become incomplete.

7.9 Which ninth was for Victoire?

8.1 Who saw the light?

Mr. Geck, a professor at the University of Dortmund in Germany who has written extensively about Bach, is a committed and erudite scholar, and his “Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work” — published in German in 2000, the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, and now translated into English by John Hargraves — is a consummation of much of his own life and work. It adds original scholarship to an exhaustive survey of other studies of Bach. And although it is often dense with information, it is just as often entertaining: rich in anecdotes and scintillating in its conjectures. . . .

Throughout, Mr. Geck is intent on disposing of the standard mythology. “Insisting that Bach was unappreciated during his lifetime has become part of the Bach hagiography,” he writes, “mostly thanks to self-important commentators.”

Those who have followed the recent wars over the size of Bach’s chorus — was it a chorus as we know it or simply the sum of the soloists on hand for a given performance? — will be interested to know that Mr. Geck leans toward the minimalists. “Lean staffing may be the rule rather than the exception,” he writes, while allowing that “perhaps there is no such thing as the Bach choir; perhaps he conducted performances with choirs of varying sizes.”

This Chansonnier which has been characterized as the perhaps most interesting and valuable medieval manuscript of music in the Royal Library, occupies a place apart among the relatively few manuscripts which hand down the French-Burgundian repertory of chansons from the late 15th century.

The manuscript contains texts and notes of 33 three-voiced songs.

The number of commercial classical stations in the US has dropped from 40 to 28 since 1998, according to this PlaybillArts story. Looking at the regional data on the Arbitron site, I notice a pattern: figures hold steady over time, then suddenly go down. For example, in the Mountain region, there's a drastic plunge from a share of 5.4 to 0.5 in 1999. In the Mid Atlantic region, the share held steady at around 1.9 until this year, when there was a decline. I doubt that these staggered drops are related to overall trends in classical listening. Rather, I'd guess that most of them could be correlated to abrupt closures of classical stations by profit-hungry conglomerates.

The term 'prima donna' can be used to mean two things: in everyday parlance, it is a woman inclined towards hubris; in the world of opera, it simply describes a performance's leading lady. But the everyday term was derived from the operatic one, and sometimes they entwine - as in the person of Angela Gheorghiu, the Romanian soprano who sings with the power of a hurricane, and who has withdrawn in a huff from a production of Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos at Covent Garden.

The same applies to her husband: opera does not deploy the term 'primo uomo', nor do we use it to describe a male who cannot exist unless he is the centre of attention (and there is no shortage of those). But well we might, as might the temple of opera, La Scala in Milan, when describing Ms Gheorghiu's spouse, tenor Roberto Alagna. Last week, soon after his wife's pull-out from London, Alagna became the first singer ever to storm off stage while the music was still playing, having been booed for his rendering of Verdi's aria 'Celeste Aida'. Two tantrums within a few months, by the couple who have become known as the 'Bonnie and Clyde' and the 'Ceausescus' of opera.

Beethoven had heard of me when I introduced myself, and received me with unusual friendliness. But it was an unpleasant task to make him hear me. I was obliged to speak so loud as to be heard in the third room off.

Beethoven's rough and even repulsive manners arose partly from his deafness and partly from his pecuniary circumstances. I asked him after he had absented himself for some days, "You were not ill, I hope?" - "My boot was, and as I have only one pair, I had house arrest" was his reply.

Beethoven had allowed himself to be persuaded to write a new overture for Fidelio (in E). For the first time I saw him direct [conduct]. It surprised me to a high degree. Seyfried [sic] related to me a tragi-comical circumstance at Beethoven's last concert.

Beethoven was playing a new piano forte concerto of his, but forgot that he was a solo player. At the first sforzando he threw his arms so wide asunder that he knocked both lights off the piano. The audience laughed and Beethoven was so incensed that he made the orchestra begin anew.

Seyfried bade two boys of the chorus place themselves on either side and hold the lights. One of the boys approached innocently nearer. When the fatal sforzando came, he received from Beethoven's right hand so smart a blow on the mouth that the poor boy let fall the light from terror.

I was recently approached by award winning advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to do a composition for their client, Specialized. Specialized is a bike manufacturer and they needed some Christmas music, but with a twist: They wanted me to create the music from only bike sounds. They didn’t even know if it was possible, so they left the song choice up to me to see what I could come up with. Since Jingle Bells is a little overdone this time of year, I thought Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” would be a great alternative. At first I didn’t think it could be done, but as I recorded sounds from my road bike and mountain bike it started to take shape. Here’s the instrumentation and score:

Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Glockenspiel & Clarinet melody = spokes.
Cello & Violin pizzicatos = plucked derailleur cables.
Triangle = disc brake hit.
Percussion = shifting, coasting, finger over turning spokes, chain pulls, braking, clipping into pedals, back-spinning, air out of tires.

Under its dynamic new leader, former Sony Classical head Peter Gelb, the Met has announced an initiative to send live telecasts of its productions to movie theaters around the country via satellite-based digital high-definition projection systems.

“Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD” begins at 12:30 p.m. Dec. 30, with a live broadcast of the Met’s 100-minute, English-language version of “The Magic Flute.”

It will play locally at Cinemark 20 in Merriam, 5500 Antioch; Regal Kansas City Stadium 18, 3200 Ameristar Drive; and AMC Studio 30 in Olathe, 12075 S. Strang Line Road.

The second, and even greater, cause for the rise of the castrato was the coming of opera to the Italian musical scene early in the 17th century. Opera arose from the festive musical entertainments of the Renaissance Florentine court, and the first opera of importance, Orfeo (1607), resulted from the genius of Monteverdi in Mantua. The new musical drama spread rapidly to the main cities of Italy, where the opening of public opera houses, the first being in Venice in 1637, provided centres of entertainment, not just for the upper classes but for the general population. Initially, the most professional singers were found in church choirs so that it was natural that their castrati took operatic as well as religious roles. Later, when, outside the Papal States, women did take to the stage, many people still preferred the better-trained voice of the castrato in female roles. . .

Since the mutilating operation was illegal (despite the Church's employment of eunuchs in their choirs), the identity of the surgeons and where they came from were deliberately kept vague. All kinds of euphemisms were used to justify the existence of a particular castrato, such as disease of the testes or accidental injury--being gored by a wild boar was a common reason. During his tour through Italy in 1770 the English musicologist Charles Burney made extensive inquiries about the operation in Milan, Bologna, Venice, Naples, and Rome and received a complete denial in every place.

• Famous castrati
  
• The Age of the Castrato Voice (from NATS Bulletin)
  
• Superstars of Centuries Gone By
  
• Countertenor jokes

While tab is officially published in books, to be bought, from which a royalty goes to the songwriter, the selection is limited - most songs are never formally transcribed.

But online, just about any artist, from Boyzone to Big Bill Broonzy, has had their work written into tab - free to view, no registration required.

Most sites, however, claim their tabs are not ripped off from official sources - rather they represent the "interpretation" of a song. Skilled musicians can transcribe a guitar riff, chord sequence or solo after just a few listens.

But that doesn't wash with the music industry, which says even adaptations of songs are covered by copyright law.