Jan 27th:
Today's mvc (most valuable composer?) birthday-boy is obvious. Question is, do I bother posting anything in his honor? I simply *love* the Requiem and the Clarinet Concerto, among some others..but I'm sure that if one searches most other blogs there's likely 100+ posts dedicated to 'Wolfie' on each one..
I just might have to watch "Amadeus" after work tonight at least; what a magnificent film! The superb Tom Hulce plays the composer as a fiery, passionate and somewhat eccentric person..not to mention likely the goofiest portrayal of any artistic genius in the history of cinema. Mozart was not quite that boyish and impetuous in reality, from what I know anyway; but that's part of the charm and great fun of it all! Oh, and Salieri didn't actually poison the maestro folks, nor did he in any way have anything to do with helping the ailing composer with his last score: the Requiem (although Franz Xaver Süssmayr 'tinkered' with portions of it as it remained unfinished at the time of Mozart's death). But damn.. F. Murray Abraham gives such a knock-out performance!
1592 - Pierre de La Barre1715 - Vaclav Kalous
1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1775 - Manuel del Popolo Vicente Rodriguez Garcia, Spanish tenor/composer1784 - Martin-Joseph Mengal
1806 - Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (I believe Arriaga would have been one of the -greatest- composers of his time had his life not been cut so tragically short. Something perhaps of the "Basque Mozart", he died at the age of 19. Check out his three string quartets if you haven't already. Or his only Symphony, or better yet everything that is recorded (he wrote I think 30 or so works, yet I don't think all of them are commercially available.
1823 - Edouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo
1828 - Louis Schubert
1830 - Georg Hellmesberger
1867 - Claude Antoine Terrasse
1868 - Cato Engelen-Sewing, Dutch soprano prima donna
1869 - Will Marion Cook
1885 - Jerome Kern, Broadway composer
1885 - Eduard Künneke
1892 - Mitya Stillman
1895 - Claudio Carneyro
1895 - Joseph Rosenstock, Kraków Poland, conductor
1895 - Harry Ruby
1899 - Granville English
1906 - Radames Gnattali
1913 - Milton Adolphus
1913 - Valery Viktorovich Zhelobinsky
1918 - Skitch Henderson, orchestra leader
1919 - Nina Milkina, pianist
1920 - Helmut Zacharias, German violinist
1924 - Alexander Georgiyevich Chugayev
1928 - Jean-Michel Damase, composer
1937 - John Ogdon, Manchester England, pianist/composer
1939 - Tigran Yegiayi Mansuryan (Mansurian)
1942 - Petr Kotik
1948 - Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballet dancer
1952 - Peter Garland
Events:
1778 - Piccinni's opera "Roland" premieres in Paris
7 comments:
Tzadik,
Could I ask for a favor? For those of us with contrast sensitivity loss, or presbyopia, or both, dark red lettering on a dark grey field is miserably difficult to read (the white on grey is fine). Could one of the two be tweaked, perhaps?
Thanks for an enjoyable blog.
Look at this coincidence: both Mozart and Arriaga had been named Johannes Chrisostomos, and Arriaga was born exactly 50 years after Mozart.
@Anonymous:
while you wait for a solution, press Ctrl+A for a more relaxing white-on-blue
That's my view of the movie too, Tzadik: exaggeration for dramatic effect. And it was good to get away from previous notions of Mozart's supposed aloof divinity, so they take it to the other extreme and the truth of his character is in between. A wonderful movie.
It is observed that Germans have a scatological sense of humour. I've experienced how they laugh when I say, 'arschloch!'. I've always loved Mozart. I used to watch Ingmar Bergman's film of The Magic Flute over and over.
Hello Anon, sorry for the late reply (and the troublesome red font..). I hadn't considered that clearly, but as you will see I have changed it back to the regular white on black. I think perhaps a soft blue might be better, a long list in white is not too comfortable either, not to me anyhow.
TZ
Hello Wolfgang, interesting observation! I have to admit I never thought of it. And initially Mozart was "Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart" which I now remember - thanks to wikipedia ;)
Kind Regards,
TZ
Hi Bruce, it's nice to hear from you. "Amadeus" is one of my favorite films (and as far as other classical in the "movies" goes, I enjoy several documentaries about Shostakovich, a couple on Prokofiev( although a definitive and thorough doc. is yet to be made), a great RVW doc, one on Stravinsky (last two mentioned are by Tony Palmer, who has done many composer documentaries..) a highly interesting doc called "Beethoven's Hair" and so on.. There are some decent 'proper' films of course, although most of all I go to Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky"...epic cinema, and could the score be any better? ;) "Hilary and Jackie" is pretty well done, as is the not-for-everyone "32 short films about Glenn Gould". I should post a whole list of films actually!
One I was disappointed with was "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky", although many would surely disagree with me. It's full of inaccuracies...then again, it's entertainment.
Ha, good point about the German sense of humor; and some of them truly *LOVE* a good arschloch :-o
Oh I used to watch Bergman's Magic Flute all the time too! Bergman is my fav director, his is absolute art, it doesn't get any closer to perfection. One of my absolute favorites is "Hour of the Wolf", which has a haunting scene where Max von Sydow is visiting the run-down estate nearby belonging to a rather crazy family (his "demons", if you have seen it..) and there is a brief puppet show, an excerpt from The Magic Flute. Max's character also mentions that the most horrid "monster" that keeps appearing to him (hallucinations, or something else??) reminds him of Papageno...
TZ
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