photo courtesy of myspace.com

John Adams is an incredibly awesome San Francisco Bay Area-based composer. You also may have noticed that many of my posts on Twitter are labeled with the #JohnAdamsFanClub hash tag.  I may be biased, but either way, his music is fantastic.

b. Feb. 15, 1947 in Worcester, MA

Adams began composing at age 10 and was still a teenager when he heard his own works performed.  Adams’ compositional style bridges minimalism, serialism, and romantic styles.

After moving to California in 1971, Adams taught and led ensembles at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for about 10 years. He was a composer in residence at the San Francisco Symphony from 1982-1985. Several of his major orchestral works were written for and performed by the Symphony in this time period, including Grand Pianola Music, Harmonielehre, and Harmonium.

Adams has also written six operas: Nixon in China (1987), The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), I Was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky (1995), El Nino (2000), Doctor Atomic (2005) and A Flowering Tree (2006). In 2003 Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for On the Transmigration of Souls which was a piece written for the New York Philharmonic to commemorate the first anniversary of the 2001 World Trade Center bombings. The work also won GRAMMY awards for “Best Classical Recording”, “Best Orchestral Performance”, and “Best Classical Contemporary Composition”.

Where to start:

-See a performance of one of John Adams’ operas or rent one on DVD. Doctor Atomic, The Death of Klinghoffer and El Nino are available on Netflix.

-listen to the emotion-evoking On the Transmigration of Souls.

Here’s a YouTube video of the first movement from John Adams’ Violin Concerto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmdLYGrtbBM

image courtesy of emmasmusic.com

b. November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, NY

d. December 2, 1990, North Tarrytown, NY

Aaron Copland was a famed American composer and an accomplished pianist. He was known as the “Dean of American Composers.”

His composition style was a unique hybrid of American folk idioms and modern classical music and is identified by his iconic use of percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms, polychords and tone rows. Many of Copland’s works incorporated slowly changing harmonies that aptly depicted open landscapes.

In addition to composing famous American classical works, Copland wrote books, taught and conducted his own works. Pretty magnificent!

As a result of his support of the Communist movement in the 1936 election, Copland was blacklisted and his work Lincoln Portrait was removed from the program for the 1953 inaugural concert. Despite his political troubles, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his famous composition Appalachian Spring. Additionally, his scores for “Of Mice and Men” (1939), “Our Town” (1940), and “The North Star” (1943) all received Academy Award nominations, while ”The Heiress” won Best Music in 1949.

Where to Start:

-listen to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Appalachian Spring

-listen to the iconic Fanfare for the Common Man

Remember the beef commercial? You’ll recognize the music here–it’s Copland’s “Hoedown” from the ballet Rodeo.

photo courtesy of www.keepaa.com

b. 1874   Danbury, Connecticut

d. 1954   New York, NY

Charles Ives was a super-cool, trail-blazing composer who also had a successful career as an insurance salesman. He’s our composer of the week!

Charles Ives grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, where his father, George Ives, worked as a music teacher and band leader. George Ives had a tremendous impact on young Charles’ musical development from the very beginning, teaching him to engage in inventive thought when playing music. At age five, Charles Ives began playing the piano with his fists. He never stopped.

Beginning at age 14, Ives worked as a church organist, which influenced many of his early works. He went on to study music at Yale while also playing on the varsity football team. As he grew older, his works became more dissonant. Ives was known for his use of polytonality, polyrhythms, tone clusters, and quarter tones.

Despite the general awesomeness of Ives’ music, he was relatively unknown as a composer until after his death. As such, he was a very successful insurance salesman who specialized in life insurance for the wealthy.

Charles Ives stopped composing in 1927 but continued revising his earlier works for many years.

Where to start:

-Charles Ives’ early music was fairly easy on the ear and also quite fabulous! I highly recommend his String Quartet No.1.

-A highly patriotic individual, Ives wrote much of his music as aural descriptions of places he visited. These works include Three Places in New England and A Symphony: New England Holidays.

Here’s a YouTube video containing a recording of Ives performing a portion of his Concord Sonata:

A selection from Three Places in New England (Pop-up Video-style commentary included!):

Yes! Today is the kickoff of Salon97’s American Composers Month. Our classical trivia text message today (sign up for free in the red box on the right-hand sidebar!) highlighted John Philip Sousa, so we thought it only appropriate to include a video of one of his marches.

“The Washington Post” was written as a tribute to the newspaper by the same name and gained worldwide popularity when listeners realized the piece had the perfect beat for dancing the two-step.

photo courtesy of wikipedia.org

b. May 15, 1908 in Akarp, Sweden

d. December 26, 1986 in Helsingborg, Sweden

Lars-Erik Larsson’s Nordic Romanticism awesomeness makes him our composer of the week!

Larsson worked as a music critic in addition to working as a conductor, composer, and producer for Swedish radio after studying at the Stockholm Conservatory. Holding these positions presented Larsson with an opportunity to greatly influence the musical tastes of his country.

Additionally, his studies with composer Alban Berg later inspired him to write his own 12-tone technique. Twelve-tone works by Larsson were the first ever to be written in Sweden.

Larsson’s compositional style, which is similar to that of Jean Sibelius, is referred to as Nordic Romanticism. Great music for a pensive day.

Lars-Erik Larsson’s Pastoral Suite:

The final movement to Larsson’s “A Winter’s Tale”:

image courtesy of www.klavier-noten.com

Felix Mendelssohn, a musical prodigy who is known as the Mozart of the 19th Century, is our Composer of the Week, and he was also featured at our recent Summer Music Soiree listening party!

b. February 3, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany

d. November 4, 1847 in Leipzig, Germany

Felix Mendelssohn began writing masterpieces at the tender age of 15 and wrote the amazing Opus 21, Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at age 17.

His childhood was unquestionably interesting. Though his grandfather was a rabbi, Mendelssohn’s father decided the family would convert to the Lutheran church. As a result, Mendelssohn was secretly baptized at age seven, and his name was changed to Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Whew! He never took a liking to his additional three names, however, and decided to stick with the name Felix Mendelssohn.

Many of Mendelssohn’s early works were influenced by Bach and Mozart. A few years after writing Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he conducted a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion which brought Bach’s music into the mainstream at a time when his works were mostly studied by scholars rather than enjoyed by the general public. (Bach’s works are, of course, still studied by scholars and music students everywhere.)

Felix Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1842 — the school still exists today. He also worked as a composer for King Frederick of Prussia, for whom he wrote many great works including Op. 61 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which included both the Op. 21 overture and newly written incidental music for the play.

Sadly, Mendelssohn died at age 38 as a result of overwork, the devastation of death of his beloved sister, and a series of strokes.

Where to start:

-listen to Op. 61 A Midsummer Night’s Dream

-listen to Symphony No. 4 “Italian Symphony”

Here’s a YouTube video of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture:

Here’s the first movement of his Symphony No. 4, conducted by Leonard Bernstein:

Yes, it’s true. This group of musicians made instruments out of fresh vegetables! So awesome.

photo courtesy of www.brightcecilia.net

Few people have heard of Quincy Porter or his fabulous compositions. His undeniable underdogness makes him our Composer of the Week.

b. February 7, 1897 in New Haven, Connecticut

d. November 12, 1966 in Bethany, Connecticut

Quincy Porter, who’s compositional style bridged Impressionism with chromaticism to create his own idiom, composed a catalog of music including two symphonies, a cycle of nine string quartets, and numerous other orchestral and chamber works. Among these are the seven pieces he wrote with the violist in mind—the largest of them being a concerto with orchestral accompaniment. Though he wrote for ensembles both large and small, Quincy Porter’s most sought-after and rewarded musical contributions were the pieces he wrote for chamber ensembles. He was awarded the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal for his “eminent service to chamber music” and the Pulitzer Prize, which he won for his Concerto concertante for two pianos and orchestra. Porter also earned an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Rochester.

As was typical of many of his contemporaries and predecessors, Porter did a great deal of teaching in addition to his composing.  He held a professorship at Vassar College and in 1938, left the position to take on the role of dean of faculty at the New England Conservatory in Boston. In 1942, Porter assumed the role of conservatory director. Porter returned to Yale as a professor of music in 1946, which also defined the time he spent writing the viola concerto. In 1958 he became master of Pierson College, one of Yale’s twelve residential colleges, in addition to teaching at Yale. Porter retired from teaching in 1965.

Where to start:

-listen to Eliesha Nelson’s album of Quincy Porter’s complete viola works.

-download Quincy Porter’s string quartets

Here’s Blues Lontains in the form of a music video by Eliesha Nelson and John McLaughlin Williams:

This introspective and honest article by Benjamin F. Carlson has been floating around the classical music community over the past week. For obvious reasons, classical people get really excited when someone from “the outside” gives us a nod and says our music is good, too. That aside, the article is a good read for anyone — no matter what your musical preferences may be.

A brief excerpt:

… I feel lucky to know the big secret: there’s no trick. It’s just music. It shreds, yearns, mourns, trills, rages, and smiles. The music is spine-tingling, angry, delicate, vulgar, snobby, bumptious, and transcendental. Anyone who loves music should feel comfortable pulling Messiaen into their mixes.

That’s right, people. Classical music is for everyone!

DYK? The band Phoenix wrote Lisztomania in honor of composer Franz Liszt’s studly awesomeness.

That was yesterday’s weekly classical trivia text message. I thought it only apropos to follow up and post the video on our site!

Here’s Lisztomania by Phoenix (yes, it was featured on Gossip Girl, too):

And that isn’t where “Lisztomania” ends, either! In 1975, a film called Lisztomania was released. I haven’t seen it yet, but when I do I’ll post about it.

Oh, and there’s also a Wikipedia page about Lisztomania aka Liszt Fever. Whoa! Talk about stud. People are still freaking out about Franz Liszt almost 170 years later!

Curious about Salon97’s weekly classical trivia text messages? Sign up on the right in the red box! It’s free. You can also text SALON97 to 41411.