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Hey, Johann Strauss II! That is an *excellent* mustache/beard/overgrowth combo you have going there. Serious hipster action! Welcome to the year 2012, where to this day, peeps rock out to your music at their New Years celebrations. Specifically, people in Austria. More specifically, people reveling at the Vienna Royal Orchestra’s New Year Concert extravaganza.

Johann Strauss II was the son of (you guessed it!) Johann Strauss I, who was the leader of the Strauss Orchestra. Young Strauss grew up listening to the waltzes performed by the orchestra, so it is no small wonder that he followed in his father’s footsteps and composed waltzes as an adult. Strauss II was known as “The Waltz King” and was a mean waltz-writing machine. He was so dedicated and awesome that he commemorated nearly all major events in Vienna that occurred during his adult life.

If the Austrians ring in the new year with Strauss II’s music, so can we! Here is the Vienna Blood Waltz:

Image courtesy of www.classical-composers.org

b. January 29, 1862 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England
d. June 10, 1934 Grez-sur-Loing, France

Born to German parents, Frederick Delius was born Fritz Albert Theodore Delius; he anglicized his name in the early 1900s.

Delius spent time apprenticing with his father, a wool distributor, before leaving for the United States to run an orange plantation in Florida. He spent a year-and-a-half there and was endlessly fascinated with the songs of the plantation workers he saw every day. While in Florida, he spent the majority of his time studying music theory and absorbing the local sounds and music. He went on to Virginia to teach music.

Delius later studied at the Leipzig Conservatory before moving to France, where he remained for the rest of his life.

This iconic composer drew his influences from many sources — the African American music he heard in the plantations, Nordic folk songs and Wagner were all included in the mix.

Delius managed to continue composing late into his years of being stricken with syphilis, largely due to the gracious help of young composer Eric Fenby, who agreed to work as a scribe for Delius.

And now for some awesome music by Frederick Delius!

The last movement of Florida Suite. So beautiful.

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.

image courtesy of last.fm

Franz Peter Schubert, a chamber music extraordinaire and one of the few truly Viennese composers, lived a short but very prolific life. He’s our Composer of the Week and he rocks!

b. January 31, 1797 in Vienna, Austria

d. November 19, 1828

Schubert was the youngest of five out of nine surviving children. He was taught to play the violin by his schoolmaster father and piano by his oldest brother.

It became apparent quite quickly that Schubert was musically talented, and soon after this realization he became a choir boy and was admitted to the Imperial and Royal City College. While at Royal City College he wrote his first compositions and also met the great Antonio Salieri.

At age 17, Schubert set Goethe’s Faust to create “Gretchen am Spinnrade”–his first lieder masterpiece. A year later he wrote symphonies, attempted 4 operas, chamber music and 150 songs. In 1819 he spent a summer in the countryside, which inspired the writing of the famed Trout Quintet.

Schubert was known to be slovenly in appearance–he often slept in his clothes and glasses. Despite this he was always very diligent about composing and wrote every morning. He was his most prolific while on composition retreats and wrote significantly less at times when he was teaching.

Though it is Symphony No. 8 that is referred to as the infamous “Unfinished Symphony” all but one of his symphonic projects were unfinished and Symphony No. 9 “The Great” was the only completed symphony he wrote.

A selection from Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished”:

Schubert’s Impromptu in b flat minor:

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Dmitri Shostakovich was a dynamic composer who delicately balanced performing in his preferred avant-garde fashion, writing commissioned communist-sympathetic works for films, plays and ballets, along with the overall requisite that he show Leninist support. How tiring it must have been! Shostakovich is our dynamo Composer of the Week.

b. September 25, 1906, St Petersburg
d. August 9, 1975, Moscow

Dmitri Shostakovich was regarded as the greatest symphonist of the 20th century and his musical talents were clear early on. Shostakovich had perfect pitch and was also well-acquainted with works by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov by approximately age 10.

The success of his first symphony made him internationally famous. Composed between 1924 and 1925, it was his graduation piece at the Leningrad Conservatory.

Shostakovich’s true calling was to compose in avant-garde forms, however, the need to earn money and support his mother led him to accept contracts to compose for film, ballets and plays in the late 20s. He wrote music for 10 films, 8 plays and 3 ballets, all of which were propagandist works denouncing capitalism.

Additionally in this time, Shostakovich placed a strong emphasis on performing as a pianist. He placed 8th in the Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.

His 1934 premiere of the opera Lady Macbeth was incredibly successful and well-regarded, until Stalin and some of his high-ranking officials attended a performance of the work and denounced it as leftist confusion. Shostakovich immediately lost his position of the leader in Soviet music. Throughout his life, Shostakovich endured the hypocracy of showing Leninist support. It is believed that he was only minimally supportive of this regime and instead showed support to avoid the ruin of his career. These difficulties took a toll on Shostakovich.

Though he managed to maintain his artistic voice while singing the praises of Lenin, he was also denounced several time for “formalism,” which means that he was accused of writing music that was too highly structured in lieu of providing simple uplifting music for the masses.

Against his will, Shostakovich was named First Secretary of the Soviet Composers Union and the many prizes he won included an honorary degree from Oxford and, ironically, the Lenin Prize.

A selection from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite:

The super fabulous Scherzo:

image courtesy of wikimedia.org

b. Oct. 24, 1929 in Charleston, West Virginia

George Crumb, American composer extraordinaire, engaged in quite an extensive musical education — he studied at the Mason College of Music in Charleston, the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the Berlin Conservatory. Crumb received a Rockefeller grant in 1964 and was a composer in residence at the Buffalo Center for the Creative and Performing Arts.

Most of Crumb’s music can be described as eerie and bone-chilling, and he is certainly one of the more avant-garde composers featured in our Composer of the Week segment. His compositions reference art-music, hymns, folk music and non-western music, and they also commonly employ various vocal techniques along with symbolic, mystical and theatrical components.

Crumb taught at the University of Pennsylvania for over 30 years. He was a Fullbright scholar and won the Pulitzer prize for his work “Echoes of Time and the River” in 1968. Crumb is also a 2001 GRAMMY award winner and was the 2004 Musical America “Composer of the Year.”

Ancient Voices of Children:

Vox Balaenae:

image courtesy of last.fm

b. June 29, 1911 in New York, NY
d. December 24, 1975 in Los Angeles, CA

Bernard Herrmann began studying composition and conducting at NYU while still in high school. He went on to Juilliard where he remained for two years, however, he found the school to be too conservative. In 1933, Herrmann formed the New Chamber Orchestra, which was comprised of unemployed musicians. He used this group to practice his conducting abilities as well as test his compositions. In 1934, Herrmann was hired as an assistant to Johnny Green, a conductor and composer with CBS. From 1936-40 he composed incidental music for episodes of “The Columbia Workshop” radio show, “The Mercury Theater on the Air” (directed by Orson Welles), and “The Campbell Playhouse” (also directed by Welles).

This work led to Wells commissioning Bernard Herrmann to write the score for Citizen Kane. Herrmann went on to compose for Fox studios for 12 years, and upon beginning to work with Alfred Hitchcock and MGM, his career became quite successful. He composed the score for Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and also TV’s Rawhide, The Twilight Zone, and The Alfred Hitchcock Half Hour.

Herrmann was one of the few Hollywood composers of his time who orchestrated his own works. He saw this aspect of music as the composer’s musical thumbprint. That said, his orchestration was often unusual. In The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) he used two theremins, an electric violin, bass, guitar, 4 harps, 4 pianos, percussion and brass. In Journey to the Center of the Earth he used 5 organs. Herrmann’s concert and operatic works did not receive nearly as much attention as his film compositions.

Socially, he was known to be egotistical and difficult to get along with. Herrmann would only compose for films in which he was at liberty to write what he wished. As such, when Hitchcock once asked him to write a score with more “pop” sound and did not like Herrmann’s result, Herrmann refused to change the composition and never worked with him again. He won the 1941 Academy Award for The Devil and Daniel Webster. He received a GRAMMY and Oscar nomination for his score to Martin Scorsese’s film, Taxi Driver.

And now for some listening! A couple of Bernard Herrmann’s best known works are below.

The theme from Psycho:

The theme from Vertigo:

image courtesy of bbc.co.uk

Antonin Dvorak was basically a rock star. So much so that some computer keyboards were named after him.

b. September 8, 1841 in Prague

d. May 1, 1904 in Prague

Dvorak was an early musical talent and made quick gains on the violin upon beginning his studies at age 5. He studied at the only organ school in Prague and later became accomplished on the violin and viola. He played in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra until 1871 when he began composing.

In 1871 he wrote the song cycle “Cypress Trees” to woo one of his students, Josefina Cermakova. He ended up marrying her sister Anna instead since Josefina married another man. Dvorak had 9 children.

Dvorak began being recognized as an important composer in the early 1870s. He received an honorary degree from Cambridge and directed the National Conservatory of Music in NY from 1892 to 1895. He wrote Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” in winter and spring of 1893 and returned to Europe in 1895. He later directed the Conservatory in Prague until he died in 1904.

He wrote 9 symphonies, a set of symphonic poems, concerti, several operas and was greatly influenced by composers such as Smetana, Wagner and Brahms, who was the most influential for him. Brahms and Dvorak became friends after Dvorak won a composing competition three years in a row. Brahms was a judge at the competition. After the two became friends, Brahms had tremendous influence on Dvorak’s work. Brahms contacted the European publisher Simrock on behalf of Dvorak, and the following year a few of Dvorak’s works were published and became very successful. These included the Serenade for Strings, 5th Symphony, String Quartet No. 2 and Piano Trio No. 1.

Most of the Dvorak photos I found were either incredibly pixelated, or were of Dvorak keyboards. Composers first, keyboards second. Okay? Additionally I came across some strange images:

Mozart ≠ Dvorak. Just sayin’.

image courtesy of www.chinaoilpainting.com

Czechoslovakia (prior to becoming the Czech Republic) released a Dvorak coin. Way to represent!

image courtesy of www.tady.cz

What???

image courtesy of 3.bp.blogspot.com

A couple great Dvorak pieces to listen to:

New World Symphony, 4th mvt. Who hears Jaws??

Serenade for Strings, tempo di valse:

image courtesy of wikimedia.org

Johannes Brahms was a star of the Romantic Era and was also really super cool. His emphatically expressive music is an absolute pleasure to listen to.

b. May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany
d. April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria

Brahms began studying piano at age six and also studied cello and horn. As a young person he enjoyed romantic German poetry and the music of Bach and Beethoven. He also collected manuscripts of European folk songs in his teen years.

In the 1860s Brahms spent much of his time in Vienna but also went on many concert tours to supplement his income.

Brahms was very close with fellow composers Robert and Clara Schumann. Upon Robert’s eventual institutionalization, Brahms fell in love with Clara and pursued her after Robert’s death. She declined to be involved in a romance with Brahms.

In addition to his love for Clara Schumann, Brahms also had deep infatuation for Julie Schumann, Robert and Clara Schumann’s daugther. He also nearly proposed to a young singer, and he quit teaching piano lessons to another young student because he was so deeply in love with her.

In 1872 Brahms became the music director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. He remained there for three years. In general, Brahms tried to avoid taking official positions so that he could remain dedicated to composing. Much of Brahms’ career was spent trying to master two genres dominated by Beethoven — the string quartet and the symphony. Over the course of his career, Brahms conducted concerts in major cities in Germany, Poland, The Netherlands and Switzerland. He later became known in England and the US.

As he became more well-known he began receiving honors which included the Bavarian Order of Maximilian for Science and Art (1873, with Wagner), the Gold Medal of the Philharmonic Society in London (1877), a knighthood in the Prussian Order ‘Pour le Mérite’ for Science and Art (1887), the Knight’s Cross of the Imperial Austrian Order of Leopold (1889), honorary membership of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn (1889), and the Austrian Order for Art and Science (1895). In 1876 he declined an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge because he was unwilling to travel to England.

Brahms became wealthy as a result of payment for compositions and performances and his habit of leading a modest lifestyle. He was very generous and supported scholarly projects, young musicians and family. Brahms had tons of friends, including musicians, writers, artists, scholars and music-loving members of the professional and wealthy business classes. He was good friends with composers Karl Goldmark and Johann Strauss, German poet Klaus Groth, Swiss poet and writer Josef Victor Widmann. German poet, novelist, and Nobel Prize winner Paul Heyse and Swiss writer Gottfried Keller were friends who also supplied Brahms with texts for his songs. Despite having a multitude of friends, Brahms became prickly with those who invaded his privacy or were not sincere in their associations with him.

Posthumously, Brahms’ music was very influential. Some composers had trouble developing past what Brahms created and other, mostly younger, composers such as Busoni, Hindemith, Schoenberg and Weill utilized Brahms’ idioms to pave the path for the beginning of modernism.

Where to start

Brahms has a brilliant collection of Romantic Era symphonic and chamber music. His symphonies are a great place to start. Symphony No. 2 is a personal favorite, but all are wonderful to listen to. You’ll also find a bit of comedic value in his Academic Festival Overture, as it was written as a thank you to the University of Breslau after he received an honorary doctorate from the institution and contains many college drinking songs, according to Brahms. Of course, his chamber music is great too. Check out his trios and string quartets and see what you think.

Academic Festival Overture:

Symphony No. 2:

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We’re squeezing in one last Fantasia salute before the month ends! Beethoven’s segment of the film truly rocks, so we couldn’t pass this one up. Yay Beethoven and yay Fantasia!

b. December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany

d. March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria

Ludwig van Beethoven was regarded as the most important composer in the transition between the Classical and Romantic period of music and is also thought to be the most important composer ever to live.

He came from a musical family — both his father and grandfather sang in choruses. After the death of his grandfather, Beethoven’s father declined into alcoholism and Beethoven became the breadwinner for the household.

Though his father tried to turn young Ludwig into a piano prodigy like Bach, the effort was unsuccessful. Obviously, Beethoven’s career did not lack success though, as we well know. He began working as an assistant court organist in 1782 and in 1783 became a continuo player for the opera in Bonn. He also studied in Vienna with Mozart, who was very impressed with Beethoven’s capabilities. In fact, Beethoven’s improvisation skills were so good that he surpassed the great Mozart with his abilities in this genre.

We owe gratitude to Beethoven for many things. Prior to his career, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Many of the amazing chamber works and orchestral works we’ve come to know and love may not have been written if it wasn’t for Beethoven’s great influence.

Beethoven is famous for many wonderful compositions, but today we focus on his Symphony No. 6, Pastoral. Here’s Beethoven’s clip from Disney’s Fantasia:

image courtesy of wikimedia.org

Paul Dukas wrote the iconic and amazing work The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. As we continue our salute to Disney’s Fantasia, he is our Composer of the Week!

b. Oct 1, 1865 in Paris

d. May 17, 1935 in Paris

Paul Dukas studied piano as a child but was not particularly talented. Upon falling ill at age 14, Dukas began composing. He subsequently began studying formally at a conservatory, where he learned about orchestration and conducting in addition to improving his composition skills.

Dukas led a dual career as a music critic and a composer. He composed symphonies, operas, overtures and chamber works. Over time, Dukas became enveloped in a growing self-criticism which impacted his ability to compose.

Though he only published 14 works (there are another couple dozen unpublished and destroyed pieces), he will never be forgotten for the famous and fabulous The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It’s also one of the most famous segments in Fantasia!

Disney’s rendition of Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: