Podcasts about hindemith

I've already done a Lententide episode devoted to contraltos singing the music of Bach, but it seemed to me that in the upheaval of today's vengeful and war-hungry world, we could use another contemplative episode to provide us with meditative (and even tuneful!) music to calm our spirits. The tunefulness comes especially from recordings of favorite religious music by Gounod, Franck, and other 19th-century French composers sung by Camille Maurane, Marcel Journet, Richard Verreau, and Françoise Pollet. Also included are a live excerpt from Parsifal with Jon Vickers and Hans Knappertsbusch; the miraculous yet voiceless Hugues Cuénod performing an excerpt from the first of Couperin's Leçons de Ténèbres; the unsung German-British soprano Ilse Wolf in a live performance of the Bach Johannes-Passion conducted by Pablo Casals; Gundula Janowitz in a searing but brief aria from Mendelssohn's Paulus; excerpts from settings of the Stabat Maters of Haydn and Dvorák, sung by Alfreda Hodgson, Sena Jurinac, and Heinz Hoppe; the original version of Hendrik Andriessen's exquisite Miroir de Peine cycle for voice and organ featuring our beloved Elly Ameling; and Jennie Tourel in an excerpt from her ultra-rare recording of Hindemith's Das Marienleben preceded by Lotte Lehmanns's recitation of the same Rilke poem. The episode begins and ends with realizations by Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett of Baroque masters Henry Purcell and Pelham Humfrey sung, respectively, by Peter Pears and John Shirley-Quirk. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

To celebrate the fact that 24 hours of Lines and Dots are now available for download, Maurice and Chris embark on a terrifying le mans (mainly because Maurice doesn't drive) of culture.   From the extraordinary compositional power of Hindemith and Herodotus' account of the battle of Marathon through to Carol Ann Duffy's 'The Christmas Truce' and that wonderful psychotropic work 'A Day in the Life' by the beatles, we explore the impact of this unit of time on music and words throughout history...   First recorded on 30th January 2025.

Wie klingt sie, die neue Sachlichkeit? Ein Kammer-Ensemble des Nationaltheaters Mannheim versetzt sein Publikum musikalisch zurück in die 1920er_Jahre mit Hindemith, Schreker und Schulhoff.

A final offering of Christmas music on Countermelody this year, but far be it from me to rehash the usual Christmas carols! Absolutely not! In this episode I offer a follow-up to an episode posted years ago featuring Christmas-themed art song. Expect the unexpected (including a big helping of 20th Century selections by Britten, Hindemith, Martinů, Rorem, and Corigliano), alongside selections from our favorite Romantic and post-Romantic composers (Brahms, Schumann, Reger, Grieg, and Strauss). Singers include Gundula Janowitz, Hermann Prey, Maureen Forrester, Edith Mathis, Karl Erb, Janet Baker, Peter Schreier, Tom Krause, and Nicolai Gedda, among many, many others. Happy Holidays to all my fans and supporters! Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

In this conversation, Petru Iuga, a renowned Romanian double bassist, discusses his experiences during the pandemic, his contributions to the ToneBase platform, and the development of the ErgoBass, a product designed to enhance bass playing ergonomics. He reflects on his musical journey, incorporating elements of martial arts into his musical practice, and the impact of physics and mindfulness in bass playing. Petru also shares insights about his recently released album, which features a mix of familiar and less-known compositions, including works by Weinberg, Hindemith, and Schubert, emphasizing the music's emotional and artistic depth. Enjoy, and check out this video covering Petru's innovative invention ErgoBass! Subscribe to the podcast to get these interviews delivered to you automatically!   Connect with us: all things double bass double bass merch double bass sheet music   Thank you to our sponsors! Carnegie Mellon University Double Bass Studio is a valued part of an innovative fine arts community in a top research university. Students receive weekly private lessons and solo classes with Micah Howard, and Peter Guild teaches weekly Orchestral Literature and Repertoire. They encourage students to seek lessons and guidance from local bassists. Members of the Symphony, the Opera, and the Ballet provide annual classes and individual attention. Visit Micah's website to sign up for a free online trial lesson here. theme music by Eric Hochberg

In this conversation with WGTE's Mary Claire Murphy, Stathis Karapanos speaks on the often-misunderstood musical language of Paul Hindemith and introduces his album of complete Hindemith flute works.

 *in englischer Sprache* *in English language*  Der Lehrer von dem Lehrer von dem Lehrer – und alle legendär. Der Weltklasse-Geiger Pinchas Zukerman über seine Ausbildung und das Rezept für einen Turbo-Sound. Man muss als Musiker schon sehr die Ruhe weg haben, wenn man sich im kleinen Zeitfenster zwischen Anspielprobe und Konzert noch eben ins 20. Stockwerk der Elbphilharmonie entführen lässt, um dort einen Podcast aufzunehmen. Pinchas Zukerman, eine der Weltgrößen unter den Geigern seit über 50 Jahren, ist ein solch seltenes Exemplar. Ehe er in der Tripelfunktion als Geiger, Bratscher und Dirigent im Großen Saal vor das English Chamber Orchestra trat, um Musik von Hindemith, Mozart und Telemann aufzuführen, gab er leutselig, entspannt und zugleich sehr engagiert Auskunft über sich und darüber, wie er die Welt und die Musik sieht. 

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, in which I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.For this episode, I interviewed flautist Stathis Karapanos, who has new music out now - both Hindemith's Complete Works for Flute and also Michael Shapiro's sublime 'In the Light of the Sun' concerto for flute and orchestra, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road studios earlier this year.Thanks to Stathis for allowing me to share clips from his recordings of 'Echo' for Flute and Piano, 'Enthusiasm' for Flute and Viola and 'Abundskonzert Nr2' alongside our conversation.Get in touch to let me know what you think!Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."Support the showRead my reviews of albums, gigs and books as well as a little personal stuff on my blogFollow me on instagram.com/hilseabrookFollow me on facebook.com/HilarySeabrookFreelanceWriterFollow me on twitter.com/hilaryrwriter

Es gilt als schwieriges Solowerk für Bratsche: Hinter Hindemiths Kammermusik Nr. 5 versteckt sich ein Bratschenkonzert von höchster Virtuosität. Mehr dazu erfahren Sie von Yaltah Worlitzsch in dieser Folge Klassik to Go. Erleben Sie Hindemiths Kammermusik Nr. 5 am 19. September 2024 und am 22. September 2024 im Großen Saal der Elbphilharmonie Hamburg! https://www.ndr.de/orchester_chor/gilbert790.html Oder besuchen Sie uns beim Konzert am 21. September 2024 in der Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck: https://www.ndr.de/orchester_chor/gilbert792.html Schon gewusst? Zahlreiche Konzerte der NDR Ensembles finden Sie auf YouTube im Channel "NDR Klassik" oder in der ARD Mediathek. https://www.youtube.com/@NDRKlassik https://www.ardmediathek.de/kultur_klassik Abonnieren Sie "Klassik to Go" und finden Sie weitere spannende Angebote des NDR in der ARD Audiothek!

Christoph Vratz stellt das neue Album von Anna Gourari vor.

„Meine Aufgabe sehe ich nicht darin, Musik auszudenken, sondern zu hören. Es geht darum, mein Ohr nicht zu stören beim Hören dessen, was außerhalb von mir passiert.“ Sagt der Komponist Alfred Schnittke. Diese Aussage gilt auch für sein Konzert für Klavier und Streicher von 1979. Anna Gourari hat das Werk aufgenommen und – an der Seite des Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana und Markus Poschner – mit Musik von Paul Hindemith verknüpft. SWR-Kritiker Christoph Vratz über ein ungewöhnlich zusammengestelltes, kontrastreiches Album, das er nicht zum Nebenbei-Hören empfiehlt.

Called "one of the biggest talents of his generation," Elias David Moncado, at a very young age, has already had an exceptional career. After winning his first competition at the age of 6, then his first international competition at the age of 8, he went on to win four major competitions after that (the Sendai Violin Competition in 2019, the International Karol Lipinski Violin Competition in 2019 (first grand prize and ten special prizes), the Valesia Musica Competition in 2021, and the Vladimir Spivakov Competition in 2021). His debut album was released in 2022 with works by Hindemith, Poulenc, and Bartok. Equally involved in different types of chamber music, he is a well-established international artist who is still just at the beginning of his career.We begin with my asking Elias about his very early beginnings as a violinist, his early studies with Professor Latica Honda-Rosenberg, and then his phenomenal success at international competitions. I asked about his mental outlook during those competitions, and his answer was both a surprise and revealing to me. We then speak about interpretation and memorization (and how he is able to memorize so many major concerti), and his thoughts about concentration.(Part 2 for Subscribers): During Covid, when he had no in-person performance opportunities, Elias learned the fiendishly difficult Bartok solo sonata as a way of using his free time to challenge himself. In 2022 he released his first solo album, and we talk about why he didn't record standard repertoire for his first recording. Because Elias is also deeply involved in playing chamber music, we talk about time management, and managing a career... "you need to create a full package as an artist." I then ask about the two 18th-century violins he plays, and we end with Elias talking about his special musical relationship with Anne Sophie Mutter.Would you like more inspirational stories, suggestions, insights, and a place to continue the conversations with other listeners? Visit anthonyplog-on-music.supercast.com to learn more! As a Contributing Listener of "Anthony Plog on Music," you'll have access to extra premium content and benefits including: Extra Audio Content: Only available to Contributing Listeners. Podcast Reflections: Tony's written recaps and thoughts on past interviews, including valuable tips and suggestions for students. Ask Me Anything: Both as written messages and occasional member-only Zoom sessions. The Show's Discord Server: Where conversations about interviews, show suggestions, and questions happen. It's a great place to meet other listeners and chat about all things music! Can I just donate instead of subscribing? Absolutely! Cancel at anytime and easily resubscribe when you want all that extra content again. Learn more about becoming a Contributing Listener @ anthonyplog-on-music.supercast.com!

durée : 00:05:13 - 125. Le Ragtime (wohltemperiert) de Paul Hindemith (1921) -

Women of Substance with Dr. Scarlett Horton⁣ Episode 71 - Dr. Scarlett Horton interviews Jennifer Larmore __________⁣ Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano, a Grammy winner with over 100 recordings to her name, a Chevalier of the French government, Richard Tucker winner, Hall of Famer and an author! Add straight actress to the list with her appearance in a new Netflix series entitled *King the Land.* She has a wide-ranging repertoire, having begun with coloratura roles from the Baroque and bel canto then adding music from the Romantic and Contemporary periods. She began her career at Opera de Nice in 1986 with Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito and went on to sing at virtually every major opera house in the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Paris Opera, Tokyo, Berlin Deutsche Oper, and London Covent Garden. She is a two-time Grammy Award winner who has recorded widely for the Teldec, RCA, Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Grammophon, Arabesque, Opera Rara, Bayer, Naive, Chandos, VAI and Cedille labels in over one hundred CDs to date as well as DVDs of “Countess Geschwitz” in Lulu, Jennifer Larmore in Performance for VAI, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Netherlands Opera), L’Italiana in Algeri (Opera de Paris), La Belle Hélène (Hamburg State Opera), Orlando Furioso (Opera de Paris) and Jenufa (Deutsche Oper Berlin). She has recorded three charming books on tape for Atlantic Crossing Records with stories by Kim Maerkl entitled Mozart’s Magical Night with Hélène Grimaud and the Bavarian State Orchestra, Puccini’s Enchanted Journey with story by Kim Maerkl, and The King’s Daughter with story and music for flute and string orchestra by Kim Maerkl with the flute player Natalie Schwaabe. With the pianist Antoine Palloc, she has made many International recital tours, including appearances in Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Vietnam, Vienna, London, San Juan, Prague, Melbourne, Brussels, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Sao Paolo, Athens and Copenhagen, as well as all the major American venues. Symphonic repertoire has played a large role in this mezzo’s career with the works of Mahler, Schoenberg, Mozart, de Falla, Debussy, Berlioz and Barber featuring prominently. Miss Larmore has enjoyed great collaborations with world orchestras under the direction of Muti, Lopez-Cobos, Bernstein, Runnicles, Sinopoli, Masur, von Dochnanyi, Jacobs, Mackerras, Nelson, Spinosi, Abbado, Barenboim, Bonynge, Maazel, Osawa and Guidarini. Jennifer’s repertoire has expanded to include roles such as “Marie” in Berg’s masterpiece Wozzeck, which she sang to great success at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Berg is now a specialty of Miss Larmore, with her having sung “Countess Geschwitz” in Berg’s Lulu at Covent Garden in the Christof Loy production with Antony Pappano, then again in Madrid. At Paris Opera Bastille she sang in the Willy Decker production and she reprised the role yet again in a new production of William Kentridge with Lothar Zagrosek conducting for the Nederlandse Opera, and at the Rome Opera. She has also become well known for “Kostelnička Buryjovka” in Janacek’s Jenůfa which she performed with Donald Runnicles at Berlin Deutsche Oper. The DVD of this production was nominated for a Grammy. She reprised her “Kostelnička” in this same production for the New National Theater in Tokyo. ”Lady Macbeth” in Verdi’s opera Macbeth is a role she debuted in a striking new production of Christof Loy at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, then in the Bob Wilson production in Bologna and Reggio Emilia. Her first “Eboli” was in the French version of Don Carlos at the Caramoor Music Festival in New York, with Will Crutchfield conducting, and she sang “Jocasta” in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at the Bard Festival. Adding to her growing list of new repertoire, Miss Larmore debuted the role of ”Mère Marie” in Les dialogues des carmélites at the Caramoor Festival, New York. She went back to her roots with “Ottavia” in Monteverdi’s l’Incoronazione di Poppea at the Theater an der Wien in October 2015 and returned there in December 2016 for her debut in the role of “Elvira” in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Debuts for more new roles came in 2017 with the title role of La Belle Hélène at Hamburg State Opera, and then “Anna 1” in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins for the Atlanta Opera. In 2018 she debuted the role of “La Dama” in Hindemith’s Cardillac for the Maggio Musicale in Firenze, “Fidalma” In Il Matrimonio Segreto for Opera Köln, and “Marcellina” In Le Nozze di Figaro in Tokyo. Engagements in 2019 included concerts in Grenoble, Olten and Magève with OpusFive, “Marcellina” in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and she returned to Opera Köln in the title role of a new production in her on-going collaboration with Doucet/Barbe of La Grand Duchesse de Gérolstein. 2020 was an interesting year, but also because she debuted “Herodias” in Salome for the Atlanta Opera before going into lockdown. Continuing with their collaboration, in 2021, Jennifer sang ”Genevieve” in their new production of Pelleas et Melisande in Parma. Miss Larmore, in collaboration with the double bass player Davide Vittone, created an ensemble called Jennifer Larmore and OpusFive. This a string quintet offering programs that are entertaining and varied with Songs and Arias, Cabaret/Operetta and Movies and Broadway. They have given concerts in Seville, Pamplona, Valencia, Las Palmas, Venice, Amiens, Olten, Aix en Provence, Dublin, and Paris. At the Magève Festival in August, 2018 they presented a World Premiere work by composer Scott Eyerly, called Creatures Great and Small on the theme of animals. In July of 2022, Jennifer and OpusFive performed at the Liestal Stimmen zu Gast Festival in a program entitled America! Throughout her career Jennifer Larmore has garnered awards and recognition. In 1994 Jennifer won the prestigious Richard Tucker Award. In 1996 she sang the Olympic Hymn at the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics in Atlanta. In 2002, “Madame” Larmore was awarded the Chevalier des arts et des lettres from the French government in recognition of her contributions to the world of music. In 2010 she was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in her home state of Georgia. In addition, to her many activities, travels, performances and causes, author Jennifer Larmore is working on books that will bring a wider public to the love of opera. Her book “Una Voce” explores the world and psychology of the performer. Miss Larmore is widely known for teaching and giving master classes and in 2018, she went to New York’s Manhattan School of Music, Santiago, Chile, Luxembourg, Atlanta, and to the new Teatro Nuovo at Suny Purchase College, New York. She began the New Year 2019 with master classes for the Atlanta Opera and Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA. In March, 2019 Miss Larmore gave master classes and workshops at the École Normale and for the Philippe Jaroussky Academy in Paris. In 2020 she gave classes at the École Normale, Atlanta Opera, Kennesaw State University, Luxembourg, and on ZOOM for the Kiefersfelden Master Classes and Utah Valley University. In 2022 classes were in Malta, Tirol, Lausanne, Sion, Martina Franca and Valencia! In 2023 she began the year with a master class at the Eva Lind Akademie in Achenkirch, Austria! Miss Larmore lives in Paris with her husband and little Opera dog Buffy. “Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent]...” Proverbs 22:6a (AMPC) In this episode, Scarlett and David interview Jennifer about how her love for the arts was nurtured and encouraged at a very young age, which opened doors for her gift in great places. Your faith will be inspired as you watch. __________ https://JenniferLarmore.info https://ScarlettHorton.com __________ TO SUPPORT THIS PODCAST: https://gvly.org/s/NNHT.5REoBw OR TEXT Proverbs31 to 844-544-7171

Women of Substance with Dr. Scarlett Horton⁣ Episode 71 - Dr. Scarlett Horton interviews Jennifer Larmore __________⁣ Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano, a Grammy winner with over 100 recordings to her name, a Chevalier of the French government, Richard Tucker winner, Hall of Famer and an author! Add straight actress to the list with her appearance in a new Netflix series entitled *King the Land.* She has a wide-ranging repertoire, having begun with coloratura roles from the Baroque and bel canto then adding music from the Romantic and Contemporary periods. She began her career at Opera de Nice in 1986 with Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito and went on to sing at virtually every major opera house in the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Paris Opera, Tokyo, Berlin Deutsche Oper, and London Covent Garden. She is a two-time Grammy Award winner who has recorded widely for the Teldec, RCA, Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Grammophon, Arabesque, Opera Rara, Bayer, Naive, Chandos, VAI and Cedille labels in over one hundred CDs to date as well as DVDs of “Countess Geschwitz” in Lulu, Jennifer Larmore in Performance for VAI, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Netherlands Opera), L’Italiana in Algeri (Opera de Paris), La Belle Hélène (Hamburg State Opera), Orlando Furioso (Opera de Paris) and Jenufa (Deutsche Oper Berlin). She has recorded three charming books on tape for Atlantic Crossing Records with stories by Kim Maerkl entitled Mozart’s Magical Night with Hélène Grimaud and the Bavarian State Orchestra, Puccini’s Enchanted Journey with story by Kim Maerkl, and The King’s Daughter with story and music for flute and string orchestra by Kim Maerkl with the flute player Natalie Schwaabe. With the pianist Antoine Palloc, she has made many International recital tours, including appearances in Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Vietnam, Vienna, London, San Juan, Prague, Melbourne, Brussels, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Sao Paolo, Athens and Copenhagen, as well as all the major American venues. Symphonic repertoire has played a large role in this mezzo’s career with the works of Mahler, Schoenberg, Mozart, de Falla, Debussy, Berlioz and Barber featuring prominently. Miss Larmore has enjoyed great collaborations with world orchestras under the direction of Muti, Lopez-Cobos, Bernstein, Runnicles, Sinopoli, Masur, von Dochnanyi, Jacobs, Mackerras, Nelson, Spinosi, Abbado, Barenboim, Bonynge, Maazel, Osawa and Guidarini. Jennifer’s repertoire has expanded to include roles such as “Marie” in Berg’s masterpiece Wozzeck, which she sang to great success at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Berg is now a specialty of Miss Larmore, with her having sung “Countess Geschwitz” in Berg’s Lulu at Covent Garden in the Christof Loy production with Antony Pappano, then again in Madrid. At Paris Opera Bastille she sang in the Willy Decker production and she reprised the role yet again in a new production of William Kentridge with Lothar Zagrosek conducting for the Nederlandse Opera, and at the Rome Opera. She has also become well known for “Kostelnička Buryjovka” in Janacek’s Jenůfa which she performed with Donald Runnicles at Berlin Deutsche Oper. The DVD of this production was nominated for a Grammy. She reprised her “Kostelnička” in this same production for the New National Theater in Tokyo. ”Lady Macbeth” in Verdi’s opera Macbeth is a role she debuted in a striking new production of Christof Loy at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, then in the Bob Wilson production in Bologna and Reggio Emilia. Her first “Eboli” was in the French version of Don Carlos at the Caramoor Music Festival in New York, with Will Crutchfield conducting, and she sang “Jocasta” in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at the Bard Festival. Adding to her growing list of new repertoire, Miss Larmore debuted the role of ”Mère Marie” in Les dialogues des carmélites at the Caramoor Festival, New York. She went back to her roots with “Ottavia” in Monteverdi’s l’Incoronazione di Poppea at the Theater an der Wien in October 2015 and returned there in December 2016 for her debut in the role of “Elvira” in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Debuts for more new roles came in 2017 with the title role of La Belle Hélène at Hamburg State Opera, and then “Anna 1” in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins for the Atlanta Opera. In 2018 she debuted the role of “La Dama” in Hindemith’s Cardillac for the Maggio Musicale in Firenze, “Fidalma” In Il Matrimonio Segreto for Opera Köln, and “Marcellina” In Le Nozze di Figaro in Tokyo. Engagements in 2019 included concerts in Grenoble, Olten and Magève with OpusFive, “Marcellina” in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and she returned to Opera Köln in the title role of a new production in her on-going collaboration with Doucet/Barbe of La Grand Duchesse de Gérolstein. 2020 was an interesting year, but also because she debuted “Herodias” in Salome for the Atlanta Opera before going into lockdown. Continuing with their collaboration, in 2021, Jennifer sang ”Genevieve” in their new production of Pelleas et Melisande in Parma. Miss Larmore, in collaboration with the double bass player Davide Vittone, created an ensemble called Jennifer Larmore and OpusFive. This a string quintet offering programs that are entertaining and varied with Songs and Arias, Cabaret/Operetta and Movies and Broadway. They have given concerts in Seville, Pamplona, Valencia, Las Palmas, Venice, Amiens, Olten, Aix en Provence, Dublin, and Paris. At the Magève Festival in August, 2018 they presented a World Premiere work by composer Scott Eyerly, called Creatures Great and Small on the theme of animals. In July of 2022, Jennifer and OpusFive performed at the Liestal Stimmen zu Gast Festival in a program entitled America! Throughout her career Jennifer Larmore has garnered awards and recognition. In 1994 Jennifer won the prestigious Richard Tucker Award. In 1996 she sang the Olympic Hymn at the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics in Atlanta. In 2002, “Madame” Larmore was awarded the Chevalier des arts et des lettres from the French government in recognition of her contributions to the world of music. In 2010 she was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in her home state of Georgia. In addition, to her many activities, travels, performances and causes, author Jennifer Larmore is working on books that will bring a wider public to the love of opera. Her book “Una Voce” explores the world and psychology of the performer. Miss Larmore is widely known for teaching and giving master classes and in 2018, she went to New York’s Manhattan School of Music, Santiago, Chile, Luxembourg, Atlanta, and to the new Teatro Nuovo at Suny Purchase College, New York. She began the New Year 2019 with master classes for the Atlanta Opera and Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA. In March, 2019 Miss Larmore gave master classes and workshops at the École Normale and for the Philippe Jaroussky Academy in Paris. In 2020 she gave classes at the École Normale, Atlanta Opera, Kennesaw State University, Luxembourg, and on ZOOM for the Kiefersfelden Master Classes and Utah Valley University. In 2022 classes were in Malta, Tirol, Lausanne, Sion, Martina Franca and Valencia! In 2023 she began the year with a master class at the Eva Lind Akademie in Achenkirch, Austria! Miss Larmore lives in Paris with her husband and little Opera dog Buffy. “Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent]...” Proverbs 22:6a (AMPC) In this episode, Scarlett and David interview Jennifer about how her love for the arts was nurtured and encouraged at a very young age, which opened doors for her gift in great places. Your faith will be inspired as you watch. __________ https://JenniferLarmore.info https://ScarlettHorton.com __________ TO SUPPORT THIS PODCAST: https://gvly.org/s/NNHT.5REoBw OR TEXT Proverbs31 to 844-544-7171

Nachhaltig unterwegs mit dem Aufzug im Holzschacht – von Konzeption bis Ausführung. Mit Stephan Hindemith, Team Lead Customer Solutions Engineering bei KONE #388 Mit Holz geht es immer höher hinaus – auch im Aufzugsbau! Ein Holzschacht ist im Vergleich zu seinem Pendant aus Beton nicht nur nachhaltiger, sondern durch das hohe Mass an Vorfertigung auch sauberer und schneller im Einbau. Zudem besitzt der Aufzugsschacht aus Holz gerade bei Aufstockungen einen weiteren grossen Vorteil, über den du in diesem Podcast ebenfalls mehr erfährst. Unser Gast Stephan Hindemith, Team Lead Customer Solutions Engineering bei KONE, erklärt ausserdem: …weshalb der Aufzugsschacht aus Holz im Trend liegt, …worauf du beim Brandschutz achten musst, …wie man zusätzlich Kosten spart und …was die gängigsten Vorurteile gegenüber dem Holzschacht sind.   Mehr Infos und Kontakt: https://www.kone.ch/de/  Vernetze dich mit Kone auf LinkedIn   Weitere Podcastfolgen und Blogartikel findest du unter: www.marcofehr.ch/mehr   

Er dirigierte vor allen Nazi-Größen - und verweigerte ihnen dennoch den Hitler-Gruß, er ließ sich als musikalischer Botschafter des Dritten Reichs missbrauchen - und verhalf jüdischen Musikern zur Flucht. Wilhelm Furtwängler, einer der größten Maestri des 20. Jahrhunderts, war er Opfer oder Täter, feiger Opportunist oder ein Symbol der inneren Emigration? Unser ZOOM blickt zurück in ein finsteres Kapitel deutscher Musikgeschichte und fragt nach der Verantwortung von Kunst in totalitären Zeiten.

SynopsisOn today's date in 1941, Greek-born conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos led the Minneapolis Symphony in the premiere performance of a new symphony by German composer Paul Hindemith, who came to Minnesota for the performance.Mitropoulos was an ardent promoter of new music, but few of the contemporary works he programmed were welcomed by audiences or the critics with much enthusiasm. Hindemith's reputation as an atonal composer had preceded him, but, surprisingly, his new piece for Minneapolis was billed as a “Symphony in E-flat Major” and, much to the delight of all concerned, featured recognizable tunes.By chance, another famous composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, was in Minneapolis that day, and was invited by Mitropoulos to attend the Hindemith premiere backstage, where he wouldn't be annoyed by autograph seekers. Rachmaninoff had a pessimistic view of modern music, but Mitropoulos was sure the famously dour Russian would like Hindemith's resolutely tonal new symphony. Rachmaninoff was positioned just off stage, and after the end of the symphony, which was received with great applause, Mitropoulos passed him as he left the stage. “Well?” Mitropoulos asked. “No goooood,” was Rachmaninoff's lugubrious response.Music Played in Today's ProgramPaul Hindemith (1895-1963) Symphony in E-flat; BBC Philharmonic; Yan Pascal Tortelier, cond. Chandos 9060

Pianist Käbi Laretei sooloplaat "Exil: Home - Elsewhere" on ilmunud aastal 1995. Kavas Pärt, Chopin, Bartok, Rahmaninov, Hindemith, Field, Martinu, Almqvist ja Sumera.

New Classical Tracks - Georgina Rossi and Silvie Cheng by Georgina Rossi (viola) and Silvie Cheng (piano) – Chorinho (Navona Records)“This music, it's so personal to us and I think you can really hear that in the recording,” says pianist Silvie Cheng. “It tugs on your heartstrings because we've poured in every ounce of soul and our love into it. Both our love for the music but also our love for each other.”Cheng is a Tokyo-born Chinese Canadian pianist. She and Chilean American violist Georgina Rossi met while they were attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York. That's where they shared an apartment and discovered their love of Latin American music. Their second recording together, titled Chorinho, celebrates the sounds of Brazil.Cheng: “One of the pieces that we recorded by Souza Lima is called Chorinho, and so we just thought it was a nice way to not only enter into this world, but also pay homage to the traditions of music in Brazil.”Rossi: “The choro can roughly be translated into the idea of a lament or cry. But I also felt like it was the right title for the album because the viola tends to get assigned all of these melancholic and elegiac types of music. And so, to me, it felt perfect that everywhere in the world the choro or the lament is perfectly suited to the voice of the viola. It's a way of saying that this is an album of viola music from Brazil.”Let's talk about the other world premieres on this recording. One is a piece for solo viola. Georgina, I'm wondering, what does that mean to you to be able to include a solo work like this on this recording?Rossi: “Well, Ernani Aguiar is the only living composer on the record. I was so happy to get to communicate with him directly and share the CD with him when it came out. He was very happy about it. I think he liked it.”The largest work on this recording is the Sonata for Viola and Piano by Breno Blauth. Could you tell us what we're hearing in the piece and what you enjoy the most about playing it?Cheng: “There's actually many moments that reminded us of perhaps Shostakovich or even Hindemith because of the harmonic language. I think it's for sure one of the pieces on the album that treats the two instruments as equal partners, and it covers such a wide spectrum of human emotions. There's intimate, tender moments. There's exuberant, almost feisty moments. It's a wonderful journey for our two instruments to have this dialog together.”There's another fascinating composer who closes out this recording, and the piece you feature is is only a couple of minutes long. Her story, though, is so fascinating. I would love for you to tell us more about Chiquinha Gonzaga.Rossi: “She was a pianist and composer, and she was Brazil's first woman conductor. She was a descendant of nobility on one side and slavery on the other, and she was in an arranged marriage where she was pressured by her father and her husband to quit music. And instead of doing that, she abandoned that marriage.”Cheng: “And I think speaking to contemporary women musicians, we really felt it important to include a woman composer on this album, especially given the challenges that she faced in order to have her work be appreciated and heard. She wrote over 2000 songs and one of which, of course, is Lua Branca, which is featured on the album. It's kind of the perfect way to close out this narrative that we've created.” Watch on YouTubeResourcesGeorgina Rossi and Silvie Cheng – Chorinho (Amazon)Georgina Rossi and Silvie Cheng – Chorinho (Navona Records)Georgina Rossi (official site)Silvie Cheng (official site)

Episode 108 The Distinctive Electronic Music of Oskar Sala and the Mixtur-Trautonium, part 1 Playlist Oskar Sala, “Demonstration” from My Fascinating Instrument (1990 Erdenklang). Demonstration of the Mixtur-Trautonium by Sala, providing a sampling of the many various effects that he could create in real-time without magnetic tape tricks. In addition to the audio track, here is a terrific video from 1993 showing Sala playing the newer, fully transistorized version of the Mixtur-Trautonium in his home studio. Note the dexterity needed to press the little “tongues” of the instrument and press them from side to side to enable note expression. If you were only listening, you would assume that he was playing a keyboard. This view reveals why playing the instrument was quite different than any other. There are, of course, many other videos available showing Sala and his instrument over the years. But I thought this one illustrated the performance aspects of the Mixtur-Trautonium that make it a remarkable, and unique, electronic music instrument. 7:14. Paul Hindemith, Oskar Sala, “7 Triostücke Für 3 Trautonien (1930) (part 1) from Elektronische Impressionen (1980 Telefunken). Recording made in 1977 with Oskar Sala of one of the very first concert pieces composed for the original Trautonium. This later performance from 1977 used the Mixtur-Trautonium and multi-tracking of Sala as he performed all three parts of this trio. In 1930, the other two players on the three Trautoniums were Paul Hindemith and Rudolph Schmidt. This recording was made in the Bavarian Radio studios with the Munich Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Stadlmair. 1:21. Paul Hindemith, Oskar Sala, “Konzertstück Für Trautonium Mit Begleitung Des Streichorchesters (1931) (part 1) from Elektronische Impressionen (1980 Telefunken). Recording made in 1977 with Sala at the Mixtur-Trautonium. This recording was made in the Bavarian Radio studios with the Munich Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Stadlmair. 3:02. Harald Genzmer with Oskar Sala, “Konzert Für Trautonium Und Orchester” (1938-39) (excerpt) (1942 DGG). Early performance of this work for the Concert Trautonium, performed by Sala and composed by Genzmer. Performed by the Städtisches Orchester Berlin under the direction Helmuth Thierfelder. The complete work was in the vicinity of 30 minutes long. 7:00. Paul Hindemith, Oskar Sala, “Langsames Stück Und Rondo Für Trautonium” (1935) from Subharmonic Mixtures (1997 Erdenklang). A newer performance by Sala of this early work by Hindemith. Originally written for the Radio Trautonium, this version was performed on the Mixtur-Trautonium. This was recorded in 1985. 5:29. Oskar Sala, Großes Tanzorchester, Frank Fux, “Bezaubernde Melodien” (1941 Telefunken). This German popular music disc features an early solo by Sala using the Concert Trautonium. You can hear its distinctive melodies, reminiscent of a flute or clarinet, but clearly different. 2:56. Oskar Sala, “Poor Hansi” (1943). This animated short film included a singing canary, the voice of which was provided by Oskar Sala using the Concert Trautonium. The instrument also provided some miscellaneous sound effects such as the squeaking cage door. 3:04. Fritz Kreisler, Oskar Sala, “Scherzo im Stile von Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf” (1946) from Das Konzertrautonium Wandlungen (2011 Der Trautonist). Concert Trautonium, Oskar Sala; piano, Gerhard Schael. This recent recording (not Sala) was made in 2011 using the third incarnation of the Trautonium, the Concert Trautonium (1938). 3:29. Oskar Sala, “A Fleur D´eau ( In wechselndem Gefälle)” from Elektronische Filmmusik (1963 Metronome). Music and sound effects from a film, composed, performed, produced, electronics, Mixtur-Trautonium, Oskar Sala. 6:22. Oskar Sala, “Der Fluch Der Gelben Schlange” from Elektronische Filmmusik (1963 Metronome). Music and sound effects from a film, composed, performed, produced, electronics, Mixtur-Trautonium, Oskar Sala. 6:39. Oskar Sala, “Intro, The Birds” from Alfred Hitchcock – The Classic Soundtrack Collection (2021 Enlightenment). This UK collection features the electronic sounds created for the film by Oskar Sala on the Mixtur-Trautonium. Occationally, you may hear some ambient bird sounds in the soundtrack mix, but the truly eerie, intimidating bird sounds are those produced by Sala. An original “soundtrack” was never released at the time primarily because, despite the popularity of the movie, no music was orchestrated for the movie other than the eerie electronic music sounds of birds created by Oskar Sala. 1:33. Oskar Sala, “Bird's Attack/After Explosion” from Alfred Hitchcock – The Classic Soundtrack Collection (2021 Enlightenment). Electronic sounds created for the Hitchcock film The Birds by Oskar Sala on the Mixtur-Trautonium. 2:01. Oskar Sala, “The Crows Again/Annie Is Dead” from Alfred Hitchcock – The Classic Soundtrack Collection (2021 Enlightenment). Electronic sounds created for the Hitchcock film The Birds by Oskar Sala on the Mixtur-Trautonium. 0:35. Oskar Sala, “The End” from Alfred Hitchcock – The Classic Soundtrack Collection (2021 Enlightenment). Electronic sounds created for the Hitchcock film The Birds by Oskar Sala on the Mixtur-Trautonium. 4:26. Henrich Heine, Oskar Sala, excerpts from “Denk Ich An Deutschland - Eine Politische Reportage Über "Deutschland - Ein Wintermärchen" (1966 Electrola). Sala contributed music and sound effects made on the Mixtur-Trautonium for this drama production. 4:41. Oskar Sala, “Rede Des Toten Christus Vom Weltgebäude Herab, Dass Kein Gott Sei” (1986) from My Fascinating Instrument (1990 Erdenklang). Mixtur-Trautonium, Oskar Sala; narrator, Friedrich Schönfelder; words, Jean Paul (1797). 12:52. Opening background music: Oskar Sala, “Fantasie-Suite In Drei Sätzen Für Mixturtrautonium Solo” from My Fascinating Instrument (1990 Erdenklang). Composed, Performed on the Mixtur-Trautonium and produced by Oskar Sala. 10:38. Timeline of the Trautonium This timeline shows the evolution of the Trautonium and Mixtur-Trautonium, all played by Oskar Sala (1910-2002). 1929-30: Trautonium (Friedriech Trautwein). One manual. 1935: Radio-Trautonium. Two manuals, two pedals. 1938: Konzerttrautonium (Concert Trautonium, a portable model. Two manuals, two pedals. 1952: Mixturtrautonium (Mixtur-Trautonium). Two manuals, two pedals. 1988: Micro-Electronic Mixtur-Trautonium (transistorized model). Two manuals, two pedals. Opening and closing sequences voiced by Anne Benkovitz. Additional opening, closing, and other incidental music by Thom Holmes. See my companion blog that I write for the Bob Moog Foundation. For additional notes, please see my blog, Noise and Notations.  

Wenn man ins Jahr 1923 zurückblickt, dann erinnert einiges frappierend an die Gegenwart. Auch die Musik, die 1923 entstand, verrät die allgemeine Verunsicherung – und trumpft doch mit vielen neuen Ideen auf. Das 2007 gegründete Schumann Quartett spielt auf seinem neuen, bei Berlin Classics erschienenen Album Musik von Schulhoff, Copland, Hindemith und Janáček, die auch ein politisches Statement abgibt. Für SWR2-Musikkritikerin Susanne Stähr „eine hellsichtige und brandaktuelle CD, die tiefen Ernst und bissigen Scherz gekonnt vereint“.

Die russische Pianistin Maria Judina gehörte zu den besten Pianisten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Nur durfte sie nie im Westen konzertieren - und war und ist daher hierzulande nahezu unbekannt. Maria Judina wiederum tat alles Mögliche, um den russischen Zuhörern das Schaffen der verbotenen westlichen Komponisten vorzustellen: Sie war die erste russische Interpretin der Werke von Berg, Hindemith, Webern und Messiaen. Maria Judina war eine ehrliche und kompromisslose Künstlerin - die dem großen Diktator Josef Stalin die Stirn geboten hat.

SynopsisIn London on today's date in 1938, the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo presented a brand-new work by the German composer Paul Hindemith based on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi entitled Nobilissima Visione. The idea may have been suggested by Hindemith's wife, who had recently converted to Catholicism. The Hindemiths had visited the Church of Santa Croce in Florence were deeply impressed by its frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St. Francis.  Hindemith originally intended to incorporate melodies by the 14th century French composer Machaut into his ballet but ended up writing original themes in an archaic style. As a staged ballet or as a concert suite,  Nobilissima Visione proved to be one of Hindemith's most popular works.“My ballet is not an eye-catcher in the old style,” wrote Hindemith in 1938, “It is not exactly full of sparkling wit, but all the same it makes a fine impression, with all the trappings of success that a composer greedy for recognition could wish. Even the earthshaking impresario Sol Hurok was so impressed that he pressed me to his smart businessman's heart and is insisting on my conducting the piece myself in New York and surrounding villages.”Music Played in Today's ProgramPaul Hindemith (1895 - 1963) Nobilissima Visione San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor. London 433 809On This DayBirths1896 - French composer Jean Rivier, in VillemombleDeaths1838 - German inventor of the metronome, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, age 65, on board the brig Otis in the harbour of La Guiara, Venezuela, en route to Philadelphia; Beethoven's orchestral battle-symphony, "Wellington's Victory," was originally written for one of Maelzel's mechanical music-machinesPremieres1733 - Handel: oratorio "Athalia," in Oxford (Julian date: July 10)1938 - Hindemith: ballet, "St. Francis," at Covent Garden in London, with composer conducting (the suite titled "Nobilissima Visone" is drawn from this score)1971 - William Bolcom: “Frescoes” in Montreal, with Bruce Mather (piano and harmonium) and Pierrette LePage (piano and harpsichord);1983 - Thomas Oboe Lee: "Morango …almost a tango" for string quartet, at the Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass., by the Composers in Red Sneakers ensemble Links and Resources On Paul Hindemith

‘Spel voor mij en andere kinderen' Begin jaren tachtig kocht ik een cassette in Duitsland met een versie van Hindemiths Wir Bauen Eine Stadt. Wat een speelse, grappige en inspirerende muziek! Sindsdien verzamel ik de diverse uitvoeringen   Paul Hindemith Wir Bauen Eine Stadt (versie voor piano) Siefried Mauser, piano (album: Hindemith, Das Klavierwerk, vol.III)   Paul Hindemith Wir Bauen Eine Stadt (versie voor electronica) Holger Hiller & Thomas Feldman   Paul Hindemith Wir Bauen Eine Stadt, I t/m V (originele versie) Rundfunk-Kinderchor Leipzig & Instrumentalgruppe olv Hans Sandig

Synopsis On today's date in 1938, Matthias the Painter, an opera by the German composer Paul Hindemith, had its premiere performance in Zurich, Switzerland. This work had been scheduled to be premiered in 1934 at the Berlin Opera by the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, but the newly-installed Nazi regime canceled the performance. In protest, Furtwangler performed a concert suite from Hindemith's opera at a Berlin Philharmonic concert, resulting in a loud pro-Hindemith demonstration on the part of the audience. The Nazi press responded with attacks on both Hindemith and Furtwangler. By the end of 1934 it was clear to all in Germany that the Nazis would brook no opposition when it came to cultural matters. So how had the quintessentially German Hindemith offended the new regime? In 1929 Hitler had attended the premiere of another Hindemith opera, titled News of the Day, and hated it – labeling it “degenerate.” Furthermore, Hindemith's wife and many of his closest musician friends were Jewish. Hindemith became persona non grata in Nazi Germany, and, shortly after the Zurich premiere of his new opera, he and his wife emigrated to the U.S., where he taught at Tanglewood and Yale, becoming an American citizen in 1946. Music Played in Today's Program Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963) Mathis der Maler Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor. EMI 55237

This week on Beethoven Walks into a Bar, Mike and Stephanie are joined by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke who is town to sing Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd with the Kansas City Symphony and Chorus. We talk about Sasha's work with former podcast guests Caroline Shaw, Gabe Kahane, Nico Muhly and Joel Thompson on her Grammy award winning album "How do I Find you?" and discuss exploring "new music" vs. "new to you" music. Sasha also shares how finding a good coffee shop can make her feel at home no matter where she is in the world. We also reveal our Top 5 works for solo voice and orchestra. Listen now for all of this and more, this week on Beethoven Walks into a Bar.Episode 705 PlaylistALBUM: Sasha Cooke: "How Do I Find You?"

Welcome to all listeners both old and new to the podcast! This week I am focusing on music related to the Christian observation of Holy Week: oratorios, motets, cantatas, songs and song cycles, even operas from Renaissance to contemporary, performed by a wide range of singers. Alongside podcast favorites Jennie Tourel, Roberta Alexander, Eugene Holmes, Hugues Cuénod, Mitsuko Shirai, Muriel Smith, and others, I also feature performances by recently departed vocal giants Virginia Zeani and James Bowman (both of whom will be foregrounded in next week's episode), as well as the sublime British mezzo-soprano Diana Montague, who celebrates her birthday this week. We also hear her husband, the magnificent tenor David Rendall, as well as their extraordinarily gifted son, baritone Huw Montague Rendall, whom I was privileged to meet in Berlin this past week. We also hear a variety of settings of the 13th century Stabat Mater text from Giovanni Felice Sances in the 17th century to the more thorny twentieth-century idiom of the Swiss Frank Martin and the African American Julia Perry. Contemplative art songs by Schubert, Wolf, Hindemith, Finzi, and Andriessen round out the episode. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Con Isabel Juarez | En este episodio de Antiguallas descubre como la música antigua, sus géneros e instrumentos han inspirado a los compositores y compositoras de los siglos XX y XXI. Con música de Falla, Poulanc, Shaw, Hindemith, Berio, y muchos más.

Episode 164 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "White Light/White Heat" and the career of the Velvet Underground. This is a long one, lasting three hours and twenty minutes. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-three minute bonus episode available, on "Why Don't You Smile Now?" by the Downliners Sect. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata I say the Velvet Underground didn't play New York for the rest of the sixties after 1966. They played at least one gig there in 1967, but did generally avoid the city. Also, I refer to Cale and Conrad as the other surviving members of the Theater of Eternal Music. Sadly Conrad died in 2016. Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Velvet Underground, and some of the avant-garde pieces excerpted run to six hours or more. I used a lot of resources for this one. Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga is the best book on the group as a group. I also used Joe Harvard's 33 1/3 book on The Velvet Underground and Nico. Bockris also wrote one of the two biographies of Reed I referred to, Transformer. The other was Lou Reed by Anthony DeCurtis. Information on Cale mostly came from Sedition and Alchemy by Tim Mitchell. Information on Nico came from Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon by Richard Witts. I used Draw a Straight Line and Follow it by Jeremy Grimshaw as my main source for La Monte Young, The Roaring Silence by David Revill for John Cage, and Warhol: A Life as Art by Blake Gopnik for Warhol. I also referred to the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of the 2021 documentary The Velvet Underground.  The definitive collection of the Velvet Underground's music is the sadly out-of-print box set Peel Slowly and See, which contains the four albums the group made with Reed in full, plus demos, outtakes, and live recordings. Note that the digital version of the album as sold by Amazon for some reason doesn't include the last disc -- if you want the full box set you have to buy a physical copy. All four studio albums have also been released and rereleased many times over in different configurations with different numbers of CDs at different price points -- I have used the "45th Anniversary Super-Deluxe" versions for this episode, but for most people the standard CD versions will be fine. Sadly there are no good shorter compilation overviews of the group -- they tend to emphasise either the group's "pop" mode or its "avant-garde" mode to the exclusion of the other. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I begin this episode, there are a few things to say. This introductory section is going to be longer than normal because, as you will hear, this episode is also going to be longer than normal. Firstly, I try to warn people about potentially upsetting material in these episodes. But this is the first episode for 1968, and as you will see there is a *profound* increase in the amount of upsetting and disturbing material covered as we go through 1968 and 1969. The story is going to be in a much darker place for the next twenty or thirty episodes. And this episode is no exception. As always, I try to deal with everything as sensitively as possible, but you should be aware that the list of warnings for this one is so long I am very likely to have missed some. Among the topics touched on in this episode are mental illness, drug addiction, gun violence, racism, societal and medical homophobia, medical mistreatment of mental illness, domestic abuse, rape, and more. If you find discussion of any of those subjects upsetting, you might want to read the transcript. Also, I use the term "queer" freely in this episode. In the past I have received some pushback for this, because of a belief among some that "queer" is a slur. The following explanation will seem redundant to many of my listeners, but as with many of the things I discuss in the podcast I am dealing with multiple different audiences with different levels of awareness and understanding of issues, so I'd like to beg those people's indulgence a moment. The term "queer" has certainly been used as a slur in the past, but so have terms like "lesbian", "gay", "homosexual" and others. In all those cases, the term has gone from a term used as a self-identifier, to a slur, to a reclaimed slur, and back again many times. The reason for using that word, specifically, here is because the vast majority of people in this story have sexualities or genders that don't match the societal norms of their times, but used labels for themselves that have shifted in meaning over the years. There are at least two men in the story, for example, who are now dead and referred to themselves as "homosexual", but were in multiple long-term sexually-active relationships with women. Would those men now refer to themselves as "bisexual" or "pansexual" -- terms not in widespread use at the time -- or would they, in the relatively more tolerant society we live in now, only have been in same-gender relationships? We can't know. But in our current context using the word "homosexual" for those men would lead to incorrect assumptions about their behaviour. The labels people use change over time, and the definitions of them blur and shift. I have discussed this issue with many, many, friends who fall under the queer umbrella, and while not all of them are comfortable with "queer" as a personal label because of how it's been used against them in the past, there is near-unanimity from them that it's the correct word to use in this situation. Anyway, now that that rather lengthy set of disclaimers is over, let's get into the story proper, as we look at "White Light, White Heat" by the Velvet Underground: [Excerpt: The Velvet Underground, "White Light, White Heat"] And that look will start with... a disclaimer about length. This episode is going to be a long one. Not as long as episode one hundred and fifty, but almost certainly the longest episode I'll do this year, by some way. And there's a reason for that. One of the questions I've been asked repeatedly over the years about the podcast is why almost all the acts I've covered have been extremely commercially successful ones. "Where are the underground bands? The alternative bands? The little niche acts?" The answer to that is simple. Until the mid-sixties, the idea of an underground or alternative band made no sense at all in rock, pop, rock and roll, R&B, or soul. The idea would have been completely counterintuitive to the vast majority of the people we've discussed in the podcast. Those musics were commercial musics, made by people who wanted to make money and to  get the largest audiences possible. That doesn't mean that they had no artistic merit, or that there was no artistic intent behind them, but the artists making that music were *commercial* artists. They knew if they wanted to make another record, they had to sell enough copies of the last record for the record company to make another, and that if they wanted to keep eating, they had to draw enough of an audience to their gigs for promoters to keep booking them. There was no space in this worldview for what we might think of as cult success. If your record only sold a thousand copies, then you had failed in your goal, even if the thousand people who bought your record really loved it. Even less commercially successful artists we've covered to this point, like the Mothers of Invention or Love, were *trying* for commercial success, even if they made the decision not to compromise as much as others do. This started to change a tiny bit in the mid-sixties as the influence of jazz and folk in the US, and the British blues scene, started to be felt in rock music. But this influence, at first, was a one-way thing -- people who had been in the folk and jazz worlds deciding to modify their music to be more commercial. And that was followed by already massively commercial musicians, like the Beatles, taking on some of those influences and bringing their audience with them. But that started to change around the time that "rock" started to differentiate itself from "rock and roll" and "pop", in mid 1967. So in this episode and the next, we're going to look at two bands who in different ways provided a model for how to be an alternative band. Both of them still *wanted* commercial success, but neither achieved it, at least not at first and not in the conventional way. And both, when they started out, went by the name The Warlocks. But we have to take a rather circuitous route to get to this week's band, because we're now properly introducing a strand of music that has been there in the background for a while -- avant-garde art music. So before we go any further, let's have a listen to a thirty-second clip of the most famous piece of avant-garde music ever, and I'll be performing it myself: [Excerpt, Andrew Hickey "4'33 (Cage)"] Obviously that won't give the full effect, you have to listen to the whole piece to get that. That is of course a section of "4'33" by John Cage, a piece of music that is often incorrectly described as being four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. As I've mentioned before, though, in the episode on "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", it isn't that at all. The whole point of the piece is that there is no such thing as silence, and it's intended to make the listener appreciate all the normal ambient sounds as music, every bit as much as any piece by Bach or Beethoven. John Cage, the composer of "4'33", is possibly the single most influential avant-garde artist of the mid twentieth century, so as we're properly introducing the ideas of avant-garde music into the story here, we need to talk about him a little. Cage was, from an early age, torn between three great vocations, all of which in some fashion would shape his work for decades to come. One of these was architecture, and for a time he intended to become an architect. Another was the religious ministry, and he very seriously considered becoming a minister as a young man, and religion -- though not the religious faith of his youth -- was to be a massive factor in his work as he grew older. He started studying music from an early age, though he never had any facility as a performer -- though he did, when he discovered the work of Grieg, think that might change. He later said “For a while I played nothing else. I even imagined devoting my life to the performance of his works alone, for they did not seem to me to be too difficult, and I loved them.” [Excerpt: Grieg piano concerto in A minor] But he soon realised that he didn't have some of the basic skills that would be required to be a performer -- he never actually thought of himself as very musical -- and so he decided to move into composition, and he later talked about putting his musical limits to good use in being more inventive. From his very first pieces, Cage was trying to expand the definition of what a performance of a piece of music actually was. One of his friends, Harry Hay, who took part in the first documented performance of a piece by Cage, described how Cage's father, an inventor, had "devised a fluorescent light source over which Sample" -- Don Sample, Cage's boyfriend at the time -- "laid a piece of vellum painted with designs in oils. The blankets I was wearing were white, and a sort of lampshade shone coloured patterns onto me. It looked very good. The thing got so hot the designs began to run, but that only made it better.” Apparently the audience for this light show -- one that predated the light shows used by rock bands by a good thirty years -- were not impressed, though that may be more because the Santa Monica Women's Club in the early 1930s was not the vanguard of the avant-garde. Or maybe it was. Certainly the housewives of Santa Monica seemed more willing than one might expect to sign up for another of Cage's ideas. In 1933 he went door to door asking women if they would be interested in signing up to a lecture course from him on modern art and music. He told them that if they signed up for $2.50, he would give them ten lectures, and somewhere between twenty and forty of them signed up, even though, as he said later, “I explained to the housewives that I didn't know anything about either subject but that I was enthusiastic about both of them. I promised to learn faithfully enough about each subject so as to be able to give a talk an hour long each week.” And he did just that, going to the library every day and spending all week preparing an hour-long talk for them. History does not relate whether he ended these lectures by telling the housewives to tell just one friend about them. He said later “I came out of these lectures, with a devotion to the painting of Mondrian, on the one hand, and the music of Schoenberg on the other.” [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte"] Schoenberg was one of the two most widely-respected composers in the world at that point, the other being Stravinsky, but the two had very different attitudes to composition. Schoenberg's great innovation was the creation and popularisation of the twelve-tone technique, and I should probably explain that a little before I go any further. Most Western music is based on an eight-note scale -- do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do -- with the eighth note being an octave up from the first. So in the key of C major that would be C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C: [demonstrates] And when you hear notes from that scale, if your ears are accustomed to basically any Western music written before about 1920, or any Western popular music written since then, you expect the melody to lead back to C, and you know to expect that because it only uses those notes -- there are differing intervals between them, some having a tone between them and some having a semitone, and you recognise the pattern. But of course there are other notes between the notes of that scale. There are actually an infinite number of these, but in conventional Western music we only look at a few more -- C# (or D flat), D# (or E flat), F# (or G flat), G# (or A flat) and A# (or B flat). If you add in all those notes you get this: [demonstrates] There's no clear beginning or end, no do for it to come back to. And Schoenberg's great innovation, which he was only starting to promote widely around this time, was to insist that all twelve notes should be equal -- his melodies would use all twelve of the notes the exact same number of times, and so if he used say a B flat, he would have to use all eleven other notes before he used B flat again in the piece. This was a radical new idea, but Schoenberg had only started advancing it after first winning great acclaim for earlier pieces, like his "Three Pieces for Piano", a work which wasn't properly twelve-tone, but did try to do without the idea of having any one note be more important than any other: [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Three Pieces for Piano"] At this point, that work had only been performed in the US by one performer, Richard Buhlig, and hadn't been released as a recording yet. Cage was so eager to hear it that he'd found Buhlig's phone number and called him, asking him to play the piece, but Buhlig put the phone down on him. Now he was doing these lectures, though, he had to do one on Schoenberg, and he wasn't a competent enough pianist to play Schoenberg's pieces himself, and there were still no recordings of them. Cage hitch-hiked from Santa Monica to LA, where Buhlig lived, to try to get him to come and visit his class and play some of Schoenberg's pieces for them. Buhlig wasn't in, and Cage hung around in his garden hoping for him to come back -- he pulled the leaves off a bough from one of Buhlig's trees, going "He'll come back, he won't come back, he'll come back..." and the leaves said he'd be back. Buhlig arrived back at midnight, and quite understandably told the strange twenty-one-year-old who'd spent twelve hours in his garden pulling the leaves off his trees that no, he would not come to Santa Monica and give a free performance. But he did agree that if Cage brought some of his own compositions he'd give them a look over. Buhlig started giving Cage some proper lessons in composition, although he stressed that he was a performer, not a composer. Around this time Cage wrote his Sonata for Clarinet: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Sonata For Clarinet"] Buhlig suggested that Cage send that to Henry Cowell, the composer we heard about in the episode on "Good Vibrations" who was friends with Lev Termen and who created music by playing the strings inside a piano: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] Cowell offered to take Cage on as an assistant, in return for which Cowell would teach him for a semester, as would Adolph Weiss, a pupil of Schoenberg's. But the goal, which Cowell suggested, was always to have Cage study with Schoenberg himself. Schoenberg at first refused, saying that Cage couldn't afford his price, but eventually took Cage on as a student having been assured that he would devote his entire life to music -- a promise Cage kept. Cage started writing pieces for percussion, something that had been very rare up to that point -- only a handful of composers, most notably Edgard Varese, had written pieces for percussion alone, but Cage was: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Trio"] This is often portrayed as a break from the ideals of his teacher Schoenberg, but in fact there's a clear continuity there, once you see what Cage was taking from Schoenberg. Schoenberg's work is, in some senses, about equality, about all notes being equal. Or to put it another way, it's about fairness. About erasing arbitrary distinctions. What Cage was doing was erasing the arbitrary distinction between the more and less prominent instruments. Why should there be pieces for solo violin or string quartet, but not for multiple percussion players? That said, Schoenberg was not exactly the most encouraging of teachers. When Cage invited Schoenberg to go to a concert of Cage's percussion work, Schoenberg told him he was busy that night. When Cage offered to arrange another concert for a date Schoenberg wasn't busy, the reply came "No, I will not be free at any time". Despite this, Cage later said “Schoenberg was a magnificent teacher, who always gave the impression that he was putting us in touch with musical principles,” and said "I literally worshipped him" -- a strong statement from someone who took religious matters as seriously as Cage. Cage was so devoted to Schoenberg's music that when a concert of music by Stravinsky was promoted as "music of the world's greatest living composer", Cage stormed into the promoter's office angrily, confronting the promoter and making it very clear that such things should not be said in the city where Schoenberg lived. Schoenberg clearly didn't think much of Cage's attempts at composition, thinking -- correctly -- that Cage had no ear for harmony. And his reportedly aggressive and confrontational teaching style didn't sit well with Cage -- though it seems very similar to a lot of the teaching techniques of the Zen masters he would later go on to respect. The two eventually parted ways, although Cage always spoke highly of Schoenberg. Schoenberg later gave Cage a compliment of sorts, when asked if any of his students had gone on to do anything interesting. At first he replied that none had, but then he mentioned Cage and said “Of course he's not a composer, but an inventor—of genius.” Cage was at this point very worried if there was any point to being a composer at all. He said later “I'd read Cowell's New Musical Resources and . . . The Theory of Rhythm. I had also read Chavez's Towards a New Music. Both works gave me the feeling that everything that was possible in music had already happened. So I thought I could never compose socially important music. Only if I could invent something new, then would I be useful to society. But that seemed unlikely then.” [Excerpt: John Cage, "Totem Ancestor"] Part of the solution came when he was asked to compose music for an abstract animation by the filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, and also to work as Fischinger's assistant when making the film. He was fascinated by the stop-motion process, and by the results of the film, which he described as "a beautiful film in which these squares, triangles and circles and other things moved and changed colour.” But more than that he was overwhelmed by a comment by Fischinger, who told him “Everything in the world has its own spirit, and this spirit becomes audible by setting it into vibration.” Cage later said “That set me on fire. He started me on a path of exploration of the world around me which has never stopped—of hitting and stretching and scraping and rubbing everything.” Cage now took his ideas further. His compositions for percussion had been about, if you like, giving the underdog a chance -- percussion was always in the background, why should it not be in the spotlight? Now he realised that there were other things getting excluded in conventional music -- the sounds that we characterise as noise. Why should composers work to exclude those sounds, but work to *include* other sounds? Surely that was... well, a little unfair? Eventually this would lead to pieces like his 1952 piece "Water Music", later expanded and retitled "Water Walk", which can be heard here in his 1959 appearance on the TV show "I've Got a Secret".  It's a piece for, amongst other things, a flowerpot full of flowers, a bathtub, a watering can, a pipe, a duck call, a blender full of ice cubes, and five unplugged radios: [Excerpt: John Cage "Water Walk"] As he was now avoiding pitch and harmony as organising principles for his music, he turned to time. But note -- not to rhythm. He said “There's none of this boom, boom, boom, business in my music . . . a measure is taken as a strict measure of time—not a one two three four—which I fill with various sounds.” He came up with a system he referred to as “micro-macrocosmic rhythmic structure,” what we would now call fractals, though that word hadn't yet been invented, where the structure of the whole piece was reflected in the smallest part of it. For a time he started moving away from the term music, preferring to refer to the "art of noise" or to "organised sound" -- though he later received a telegram from Edgard Varese, one of his musical heroes and one of the few other people writing works purely for percussion, asking him not to use that phrase, which Varese used for his own work. After meeting with Varese and his wife, he later became convinced that it was Varese's wife who had initiated the telegram, as she explained to Cage's wife "we didn't want your husband's work confused with my husband's work, any more than you'd want some . . . any artist's work confused with that of a cartoonist.” While there is a humour to Cage's work, I don't really hear much qualitative difference between a Cage piece like the one we just heard and a Varese piece like Ionisation: [Excerpt: Edgard Varese, "Ionisation"] But it was in 1952, the year of "Water Music" that John Cage made his two biggest impacts on the cultural world, though the full force of those impacts wasn't felt for some years. To understand Cage's 1952 work, you first have to understand that he had become heavily influenced by Zen, which at that time was very little known in the Western world. Indeed he had studied with Daisetsu Suzuki, who is credited with introducing Zen to the West, and said later “I didn't study music with just anybody; I studied with Schoenberg, I didn't study Zen with just anybody; I studied with Suzuki. I've always gone, insofar as I could, to the president of the company.” Cage's whole worldview was profoundly affected by Zen, but he was also naturally sympathetic to it, and his work after learning about Zen is mostly a continuation of trends we can already see. In particular, he became convinced that the point of music isn't to communicate anything between two people, rather its point is merely to be experienced. I'm far from an expert on Buddhism, but one way of thinking about its central lessons is that one should experience things as they are, experiencing the thing itself rather than one's thoughts or preconceptions about it. And so at Black Mountain college came Theatre Piece Number 1: [Excerpt: Edith Piaf, "La Vie En Rose" ] In this piece, Cage had set the audience on all sides, so they'd be facing each other. He stood on a stepladder, as colleagues danced in and around the audience, another colleague played the piano, two more took turns to stand on another stepladder to recite poetry, different films and slides were projected, seemingly at random, onto the walls, and the painter Robert Rauschenberg played scratchy Edith Piaf records on a wind-up gramophone. The audience were included in the performance, and it was meant to be experienced as a gestalt, as a whole, to be what we would now call an immersive experience. One of Cage's students around this time was the artist Allan Kaprow, and he would be inspired by Theatre Piece Number 1 to put on several similar events in the late fifties. Those events he called "happenings", because the point of them was that you were meant to experience an event as it was happening rather than bring preconceptions of form and structure to them. Those happenings were the inspiration for events like The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, and the term "happening" became such an integral part of the counterculture that by 1967 there were comedy films being released about them, including one just called The Happening with a title track by the Supremes that made number one: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "The Happening"] Theatre Piece Number 1 was retrospectively considered the first happening, and as such its influence is incalculable. But one part I didn't mention about Theatre Piece Number 1 is that as well as Rauschenberg playing Edith Piaf's records, he also displayed some of his paintings. These paintings were totally white -- at a glance, they looked like blank canvases, but as one inspected them more clearly, it became apparent that Rauschenberg had painted them with white paint, with visible brushstrokes. These paintings, along with a visit to an anechoic chamber in which Cage discovered that even in total silence one can still hear one's own blood and nervous system, so will never experience total silence, were the final key to something Cage had been working towards -- if music had minimised percussion, and excluded noise, how much more had it excluded silence? As Cage said in 1958 “Curiously enough, the twelve-tone system has no zero in it.” And so came 4'33, the piece that we heard an excerpt of near the start of this episode. That piece was the something new he'd been looking for that could be useful to society. It took the sounds the audience could already hear, and without changing them even slightly gave them a new context and made the audience hear them as they were. Simply by saying "this is music", it caused the ambient noise to be perceived as music. This idea, of recontextualising existing material, was one that had already been done in the art world -- Marcel Duchamp, in 1917, had exhibited a urinal as a sculpture titled "Fountain" -- but even Duchamp had talked about his work as "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice". The artist was *raising* the object to art. What Cage was saying was "the object is already art". This was all massively influential to a young painter who had seen Cage give lectures many times, and while at art school had with friends prepared a piano in the same way Cage did for his own experimental compositions, dampening the strings with different objects. [Excerpt: Dana Gillespie, "Andy Warhol (live)"] Duchamp and Rauschenberg were both big influences on Andy Warhol, but he would say in the early sixties "John Cage is really so responsible for so much that's going on," and would for the rest of his life cite Cage as one of the two or three prime influences of his career. Warhol is a difficult figure to discuss, because his work is very intellectual but he was not very articulate -- which is one reason I've led up to him by discussing Cage in such detail, because Cage was always eager to talk at great length about the theoretical basis of his work, while Warhol would say very few words about anything at all. Probably the person who knew him best was his business partner and collaborator Paul Morrissey, and Morrissey's descriptions of Warhol have shaped my own view of his life, but it's very worth noting that Morrissey is an extremely right-wing moralist who wishes to see a Catholic theocracy imposed to do away with the scourges of sexual immorality, drug use, hedonism, and liberalism, so his view of Warhol, a queer drug using progressive whose worldview seems to have been totally opposed to Morrissey's in every way, might be a little distorted. Warhol came from an impoverished background, and so, as many people who grew up poor do, he was, throughout his life, very eager to make money. He studied art at university, and got decent but not exceptional grades -- he was a competent draughtsman, but not a great one, and most importantly as far as success in the art world goes he didn't have what is known as his own "line" -- with most successful artists, you can look at a handful of lines they've drawn and see something of their own personality in it. You couldn't with Warhol. His drawings looked like mediocre imitations of other people's work. Perfectly competent, but nothing that stood out. So Warhol came up with a technique to make his drawings stand out -- blotting. He would do a normal drawing, then go over it with a lot of wet ink. He'd lower a piece of paper on to the wet drawing, and the new paper would soak up the ink, and that second piece of paper would become the finished work. The lines would be fractured and smeared, broken in places where the ink didn't get picked up, and thick in others where it had pooled. With this mechanical process, Warhol had managed to create an individual style, and he became an extremely successful commercial artist. In the early 1950s photography was still seen as a somewhat low-class way of advertising things. If you wanted to sell to a rich audience, you needed to use drawings or paintings. By 1955 Warhol was making about twelve thousand dollars a year -- somewhere close to a hundred and thirty thousand a year in today's money -- drawing shoes for advertisements. He also had a sideline in doing record covers for people like Count Basie: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Seventh Avenue Express"] For most of the 1950s he also tried to put on shows of his more serious artistic work -- often with homoerotic themes -- but to little success. The dominant art style of the time was the abstract expressionism of people like Jackson Pollock, whose art was visceral, emotional, and macho. The term "action paintings" which was coined for the work of people like Pollock, sums it up. This was manly art for manly men having manly emotions and expressing them loudly. It was very male and very straight, and even the gay artists who were prominent at the time tended to be very conformist and look down on anything they considered flamboyant or effeminate. Warhol was a rather effeminate, very reserved man, who strongly disliked showing his emotions, and whose tastes ran firmly to the camp. Camp as an aesthetic of finding joy in the flamboyant or trashy, as opposed to merely a descriptive term for men who behaved in a way considered effeminate, was only just starting to be codified at this time -- it wouldn't really become a fully-formed recognisable thing until Susan Sontag's essay "Notes on Camp" in 1964 -- but of course just because something hasn't been recognised doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and Warhol's aesthetic was always very camp, and in the 1950s in the US that was frowned upon even in gay culture, where the mainstream opinion was that the best way to acceptance was through assimilation. Abstract expressionism was all about expressing the self, and that was something Warhol never wanted to do -- in fact he made some pronouncements at times which suggested he didn't think of himself as *having* a self in the conventional sense. The combination of not wanting to express himself and of wanting to work more efficiently as a commercial artist led to some interesting results. For example, he was commissioned in 1957 to do a cover for an album by Moondog, the blind street musician whose name Alan Freed had once stolen: [Excerpt: Moondog, "Gloving It"] For that cover, Warhol got his mother, Julia Warhola, to just write out the liner notes for the album in her rather ornamental cursive script, and that became the front cover, leading to an award for graphic design going that year to "Andy Warhol's mother". (Incidentally, my copy of the current CD issue of that album, complete with Julia Warhola's cover, is put out by Pickwick Records...) But towards the end of the fifties, the work for commercial artists started to dry up. If you wanted to advertise shoes, now, you just took a photo of the shoes rather than get Andy Warhol to draw a picture of them. The money started to disappear, and Warhol started to panic. If there was no room for him in graphic design any more, he had to make his living in the fine arts, which he'd been totally unsuccessful in. But luckily for Warhol, there was a new movement that was starting to form -- Pop Art. Pop Art started in England, and had originally been intended, at least in part, as a critique of American consumerist capitalism. Pieces like "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" by Richard Hamilton (who went on to design the Beatles' White Album cover) are collages of found images, almost all from American sources, recontextualised and juxtaposed in interesting ways, so a bodybuilder poses in a room that's taken from an advert in Ladies' Home Journal, while on the wall, instead of a painting, hangs a blown-up cover of a Jack Kirby romance comic. Pop Art changed slightly when it got taken up in America, and there it became something rather different, something closer to Duchamp, taking those found images and displaying them as art with no juxtaposition. Where Richard Hamilton created collage art which *showed* a comic cover by Jack Kirby as a painting in the background, Roy Lichtenstein would take a panel of comic art by Kirby, or Russ Heath or Irv Novick or a dozen other comic artists, and redraw it at the size of a normal painting. So Warhol took Cage's idea that the object is already art, and brought that into painting, starting by doing paintings of Campbell's soup cans, in which he tried as far as possible to make the cans look exactly like actual soup cans. The paintings were controversial, inciting fury in some and laughter in others and causing almost everyone to question whether they were art. Warhol would embrace an aesthetic in which things considered unimportant or trash or pop culture detritus were the greatest art of all. For example pretty much every profile of him written in the mid sixties talks about him obsessively playing "Sally Go Round the Roses", a girl-group single by the one-hit wonders the Jaynettes: [Excerpt: The Jaynettes, "Sally Go Round the Roses"] After his paintings of Campbell's soup cans, and some rather controversial but less commercially successful paintings of photographs of horrors and catastrophes taken from newspapers, Warhol abandoned painting in the conventional sense altogether, instead creating brightly coloured screen prints -- a form of stencilling -- based on photographs of celebrities like Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and, most famously, Marilyn Monroe. That way he could produce images which could be mass-produced, without his active involvement, and which supposedly had none of his personality in them, though of course his personality pervades the work anyway. He put on exhibitions of wooden boxes, silk-screen printed to look exactly like shipping cartons of Brillo pads. Images we see everywhere -- in newspapers, in supermarkets -- were art. And Warhol even briefly formed a band. The Druds were a garage band formed to play at a show at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, the opening night of an exhibition that featured a silkscreen by Warhol of 210 identical bottles of Coca-Cola, as well as paintings by Rauschenberg and others. That opening night featured a happening by Claes Oldenburg, and a performance by Cage -- Cage gave a live lecture while three recordings of his own voice also played. The Druds were also meant to perform, but they fell apart after only a few rehearsals. Some recordings apparently exist, but they don't seem to circulate, but they'd be fascinating to hear as almost the entire band were non-musician artists like Warhol, Jasper Johns, and the sculptor Walter de Maria. Warhol said of the group “It didn't go too well, but if we had just stayed on it it would have been great.” On the other hand, the one actual musician in the group said “It was kind of ridiculous, so I quit after the second rehearsal". That musician was La Monte Young: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] That's an excerpt from what is generally considered Young's masterwork, "The Well-Tuned Piano". It's six and a half hours long. If Warhol is a difficult figure to write about, Young is almost impossible. He's a musician with a career stretching sixty years, who is arguably the most influential musician from the classical tradition in that time period. He's generally considered the father of minimalism, and he's also been called by Brian Eno "the daddy of us all" -- without Young you simply *do not* get art rock at all. Without Young there is no Velvet Underground, no David Bowie, no Eno, no New York punk scene, no Yoko Ono. Anywhere that the fine arts or conceptual art have intersected with popular music in the last fifty or more years has been influenced in one way or another by Young's work. BUT... he only rarely publishes his scores. He very, very rarely allows recordings of his work to be released -- there are four recordings on his bandcamp, plus a handful of recordings of his older, published, pieces, and very little else. He doesn't allow his music to be performed live without his supervision. There *are* bootleg recordings of his music, but even those are not easily obtainable -- Young is vigorous in enforcing his copyrights and issues takedown notices against anywhere that hosts them. So other than that handful of legitimately available recordings -- plus a recording by Young's Theater of Eternal Music, the legality of which is still disputed, and an off-air recording of a 1971 radio programme I've managed to track down, the only way to experience Young's music unless you're willing to travel to one of his rare live performances or installations is second-hand, by reading about it. Except that the one book that deals solely with Young and his music is not only a dense and difficult book to read, it's also one that Young vehemently disagreed with and considered extremely inaccurate, to the point he refused to allow permissions to quote his work in the book. Young did apparently prepare a list of corrections for the book, but he wouldn't tell the author what they were without payment. So please assume that anything I say about Young is wrong, but also accept that the short section of this episode about Young has required more work to *try* to get it right than pretty much anything else this year. Young's musical career actually started out in a relatively straightforward manner. He didn't grow up in the most loving of homes -- he's talked about his father beating him as a child because he had been told that young La Monte was clever -- but his father did buy him a saxophone and teach him the rudiments of the instrument, and as a child he was most influenced by the music of the big band saxophone player Jimmy Dorsey: [Excerpt: Jimmy Dorsey, “It's the Dreamer in Me”] The family, who were Mormon farmers, relocated several times in Young's childhood, from Idaho first to California and then to Utah, but everywhere they went La Monte seemed to find musical inspiration, whether from an uncle who had been part of the Kansas City jazz scene, a classmate who was a musical prodigy who had played with Perez Prado in his early teens, or a teacher who took the class to see a performance of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra: [Excerpt: Bartok, "Concerto for Orchestra"] After leaving high school, Young went to Los Angeles City College to study music under Leonard Stein, who had been Schoenberg's assistant when Schoenberg had taught at UCLA, and there he became part of the thriving jazz scene based around Central Avenue, studying and performing with musicians like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Eric Dolphy -- Young once beat Dolphy in an audition for a place in the City College dance band, and the two would apparently substitute for each other on their regular gigs when one couldn't make it. During this time, Young's musical tastes became much more adventurous. He was a particular fan of the work of John Coltrane, and also got inspired by City of Glass, an album by Stan Kenton that attempted to combine jazz and modern classical music: [Excerpt: Stan Kenton's Innovations Orchestra, "City of Glass: The Structures"] His other major musical discovery in the mid-fifties was one we've talked about on several previous occasions -- the album Music of India, Morning and Evening Ragas by Ali Akhbar Khan: [Excerpt: Ali Akhbar Khan, "Rag Sindhi Bhairavi"] Young's music at this point was becoming increasingly modal, and equally influenced by the blues and Indian music. But he was also becoming interested in serialism. Serialism is an extension and generalisation of twelve-tone music, inspired by mathematical set theory. In serialism, you choose a set of musical elements -- in twelve-tone music that's the twelve notes in the twelve-tone scale, but it can also be a set of tonal relations, a chord, or any other set of elements. You then define all the possible ways you can permute those elements, a defined set of operations you can perform on them -- so you could play a scale forwards, play it backwards, play all the notes in the scale simultaneously, and so on. You then go through all the possible permutations, exactly once, and that's your piece of music. Young was particularly influenced by the works of Anton Webern, one of the earliest serialists: [Excerpt: Anton Webern, "Cantata number 1 for Soprano, Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra"] That piece we just heard, Webern's "Cantata number 1", was the subject of some of the earliest theoretical discussion of serialism, and in particular led to some discussion of the next step on from serialism. If serialism was all about going through every single permutation of a set, what if you *didn't* permute every element? There was a lot of discussion in the late fifties in music-theoretical circles about the idea of invariance. Normally in music, the interesting thing is what gets changed. To use a very simple example, you might change a melody from a major key to a minor one to make it sound sadder. What theorists at this point were starting to discuss is what happens if you leave something the same, but change the surrounding context, so the thing you *don't* vary sounds different because of the changed context. And going further, what if you don't change the context at all, and merely *imply* a changed context? These ideas were some of those which inspired Young's first major work, his Trio For Strings from 1958, a complex, palindromic, serial piece which is now credited as the first work of minimalism, because the notes in it change so infrequently: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Trio for Strings"] Though I should point out that Young never considers his works truly finished, and constantly rewrites them, and what we just heard is an excerpt from the only recording of the trio ever officially released, which is of the 2015 version. So I can't state for certain how close what we just heard is to the piece he wrote in 1958, except that it sounds very like the written descriptions of it I've read. After writing the Trio For Strings, Young moved to Germany to study with the modernist composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. While studying with Stockhausen, he became interested in the work of John Cage, and started up a correspondence with Cage. On his return to New York he studied with Cage and started writing pieces inspired by Cage, of which the most musical is probably Composition 1960 #7: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Composition 1960 #7"] The score for that piece is a stave on which is drawn a treble clef, the notes B and F#, and the words "To be held for a long Time". Other of his compositions from 1960 -- which are among the few of his compositions which have been published -- include composition 1960 #10 ("To Bob Morris"), the score for which is just the instruction "Draw a straight line and follow it.", and Piano Piece for David  Tudor #1, the score for which reads "Bring a bale of hay and a bucket of water onto the stage for the piano to eat and drink. The performer may then feed the piano or leave it to eat by itself. If the former, the piece is over after the piano has been fed. If the latter, it is over after the piano eats or decides not to". Most of these compositions were performed as part of a loose New York art collective called Fluxus, all of whom were influenced by Cage and the Dadaists. This collective, led by George Maciunas, sometimes involved Cage himself, but also involved people like Henry Flynt, the inventor of conceptual art, who later became a campaigner against art itself, and who also much to Young's bemusement abandoned abstract music in the mid-sixties to form a garage band with Walter de Maria (who had played drums with the Druds): [Excerpt: Henry Flynt and the Insurrections, "I Don't Wanna"] Much of Young's work was performed at Fluxus concerts given in a New York loft belonging to another member of the collective, Yoko Ono, who co-curated the concerts with Young. One of Ono's mid-sixties pieces, her "Four Pieces for Orchestra" is dedicated to Young, and consists of such instructions as "Count all the stars of that night by heart. The piece ends when all the orchestra members finish counting the stars, or when it dawns. This can be done with windows instead of stars." But while these conceptual ideas remained a huge part of Young's thinking, he soon became interested in two other ideas. The first was the idea of just intonation -- tuning instruments and voices to perfect harmonics, rather than using the subtly-off tuning that is used in Western music. I'm sure I've explained that before in a previous episode, but to put it simply when you're tuning an instrument with fixed pitches like a piano, you have a choice -- you can either tune it so that the notes in one key are perfectly in tune with each other, but then when you change key things go very out of tune, or you can choose to make *everything* a tiny bit, almost unnoticeably, out of tune, but equally so. For the last several hundred years, musicians as a community have chosen the latter course, which was among other things promoted by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of compositions which shows how the different keys work together: [Excerpt: Bach (Glenn Gould), "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Fugue in F-sharp minor, BWV 883"] Young, by contrast, has his own esoteric tuning system, which he uses in his own work The Well-Tuned Piano: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] The other idea that Young took on was from Indian music, the idea of the drone. One of the four recordings of Young's music that is available from his Bandcamp, a 1982 recording titled The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath, consists of one hour, thirteen minutes, and fifty-eight seconds of this: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath"] Yes, I have listened to the whole piece. No, nothing else happens. The minimalist composer Terry Riley describes the recording as "a singularly rare contribution that far outshines any other attempts to capture this instrument in recorded media". In 1962, Young started writing pieces based on what he called the "dream chord", a chord consisting of a root, fourth, sharpened fourth, and fifth: [dream chord] That chord had already appeared in his Trio for Strings, but now it would become the focus of much of his work, in pieces like his 1962 piece The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, heard here in a 1982 revision: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer"] That was part of a series of works titled The Four Dreams of China, and Young began to plan an installation work titled Dream House, which would eventually be created, and which currently exists in Tribeca, New York, where it's been in continuous "performance" for thirty years -- and which consists of thirty-two different pure sine wave tones all played continuously, plus purple lighting by Young's wife Marian Zazeela. But as an initial step towards creating this, Young formed a collective called Theatre of Eternal Music, which some of the members -- though never Young himself -- always claim also went by the alternative name The Dream Syndicate. According to John Cale, a member of the group, that name came about because the group tuned their instruments to the 60hz hum of the fridge in Young's apartment, which Cale called "the key of Western civilisation". According to Cale, that meant the fundamental of the chords they played was 10hz, the frequency of alpha waves when dreaming -- hence the name. The group initially consisted of Young, Zazeela, the photographer Billy Name, and percussionist Angus MacLise, but by this recording in 1964 the lineup was Young, Zazeela, MacLise, Tony Conrad and John Cale: [Excerpt: "Cale, Conrad, Maclise, Young, Zazeela - The Dream Syndicate 2 IV 64-4"] That recording, like any others that have leaked by the 1960s version of the Theatre of Eternal Music or Dream Syndicate, is of disputed legality, because Young and Zazeela claim to this day that what the group performed were La Monte Young's compositions, while the other two surviving members, Cale and Conrad, claim that their performances were improvisational collaborations and should be equally credited to all the members, and so there have been lawsuits and countersuits any time anyone has released the recordings. John Cale, the youngest member of the group, was also the only one who wasn't American. He'd been born in Wales in 1942, and had had the kind of childhood that, in retrospect, seems guaranteed to lead to eccentricity. He was the product of a mixed-language marriage -- his father, William, was an English speaker while his mother, Margaret, spoke Welsh, but the couple had moved in on their marriage with Margaret's mother, who insisted that only Welsh could be spoken in her house. William didn't speak Welsh, and while he eventually picked up the basics from spending all his life surrounded by Welsh-speakers, he refused on principle to capitulate to his mother-in-law, and so remained silent in the house. John, meanwhile, grew up a monolingual Welsh speaker, and didn't start to learn English until he went to school when he was seven, and so couldn't speak to his father until then even though they lived together. Young John was extremely unwell for most of his childhood, both physically -- he had bronchial problems for which he had to take a cough mixture that was largely opium to help him sleep at night -- and mentally. He was hospitalised when he was sixteen with what was at first thought to be meningitis, but turned out to be a psychosomatic condition, the result of what he has described as a nervous breakdown. That breakdown is probably connected to the fact that during his teenage years he was sexually assaulted by two adults in positions of authority -- a vicar and a music teacher -- and felt unable to talk to anyone about this. He was, though, a child prodigy and was playing viola with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from the age of thirteen, and listening to music by Schoenberg, Webern, and Stravinsky. He was so talented a multi-instrumentalist that at school he was the only person other than one of the music teachers and the headmaster who was allowed to use the piano -- which led to a prank on his very last day at school. The headmaster would, on the last day, hit a low G on the piano to cue the assembly to stand up, and Cale had placed a comb on the string, muting it and stopping the note from sounding -- in much the same way that his near-namesake John Cage was "preparing" pianos for his own compositions in the USA. Cale went on to Goldsmith's College to study music and composition, under Humphrey Searle, one of Britain's greatest proponents of serialism who had himself studied under Webern. Cale's main instrument was the viola, but he insisted on also playing pieces written for the violin, because they required more technical skill. For his final exam he chose to play Hindemith's notoriously difficult Viola Sonata: [Excerpt: Hindemith Viola Sonata] While at Goldsmith's, Cale became friendly with Cornelius Cardew, a composer and cellist who had studied with Stockhausen and at the time was a great admirer of and advocate for the works of Cage and Young (though by the mid-seventies Cardew rejected their work as counter-revolutionary bourgeois imperialism). Through Cardew, Cale started to correspond with Cage, and with George Maciunas and other members of Fluxus. In July 1963, just after he'd finished his studies at Goldsmith's, Cale presented a festival there consisting of an afternoon and an evening show. These shows included the first British performances of several works including Cardew's Autumn '60 for Orchestra -- a piece in which the musicians were given blank staves on which to write whatever part they wanted to play, but a separate set of instructions in *how* to play the parts they'd written. Another piece Cale presented in its British premiere at that show was Cage's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra": [Excerpt: John Cage, "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"] In the evening show, they performed Two Pieces For String Quartet by George Brecht (in which the musicians polish their instruments with dusters, making scraping sounds as they clean them),  and two new pieces by Cale, one of which involved a plant being put on the stage, and then the performer, Robin Page, screaming from the balcony at the plant that it would die, then running down, through the audience, and onto the stage, screaming abuse and threats at the plant. The final piece in the show was a performance by Cale (the first one in Britain) of La Monte Young's "X For Henry Flynt". For this piece, Cale put his hands together and then smashed both his arms onto the keyboard as hard as he could, over and over. After five minutes some of the audience stormed the stage and tried to drag the piano away from him. Cale followed the piano on his knees, continuing to bang the keys, and eventually the audience gave up in defeat and Cale the performer won. After this Cale moved to the USA, to further study composition, this time with Iannis Xenakis, the modernist composer who had also taught Mickey Baker orchestration after Baker left Mickey and Sylvia, and who composed such works as "Orient Occident": [Excerpt: Iannis Xenakis, "Orient Occident"] Cale had been recommended to Xenakis as a student by Aaron Copland, who thought the young man was probably a genius. But Cale's musical ambitions were rather too great for Tanglewood, Massachusetts -- he discovered that the institute had eighty-eight pianos, the same number as there are keys on a piano keyboard, and thought it would be great if for a piece he could take all eighty-eight pianos, put them all on different boats, sail the boats out onto a lake, and have eighty-eight different musicians each play one note on each piano, while the boats sank with the pianos on board. For some reason, Cale wasn't allowed to perform this composition, and instead had to make do with one where he pulled an axe out of a single piano and slammed it down on a table. Hardly the same, I'm sure you'll agree. From Tanglewood, Cale moved on to New York, where he soon became part of the artistic circles surrounding John Cage and La Monte Young. It was at this time that he joined Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, and also took part in a performance with Cage that would get Cale his first television exposure: [Excerpt: John Cale playing Erik Satie's "Vexations" on "I've Got a Secret"] That's Cale playing through "Vexations", a piece by Erik Satie that wasn't published until after Satie's death, and that remained in obscurity until Cage popularised -- if that's the word -- the piece. The piece, which Cage had found while studying Satie's notes, seems to be written as an exercise and has the inscription (in French) "In order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." Cage interpreted that, possibly correctly, as an instruction that the piece should be played eight hundred and forty times straight through, and so he put together a performance of the piece, the first one ever, by a group he called the Pocket Theatre Piano Relay Team, which included Cage himself, Cale, Joshua Rifkin, and several other notable musical figures, who took it in turns playing the piece. For that performance, which ended up lasting eighteen hours, there was an entry fee of five dollars, and there was a time-clock in the lobby. Audience members punched in and punched out, and got a refund of five cents for every twenty minutes they'd spent listening to the music. Supposedly, at the end, one audience member yelled "Encore!" A week later, Cale appeared on "I've Got a Secret", a popular game-show in which celebrities tried to guess people's secrets (and which is where that performance of Cage's "Water Walk" we heard earlier comes from): [Excerpt: John Cale on I've Got a Secret] For a while, Cale lived with a friend of La Monte Young's, Terry Jennings, before moving in to a flat with Tony Conrad, one of the other members of the Theatre of Eternal Music. Angus MacLise lived in another flat in the same building. As there was not much money to be made in avant-garde music, Cale also worked in a bookshop -- a job Cage had found him -- and had a sideline in dealing drugs. But rents were so cheap at this time that Cale and Conrad only had to work part-time, and could spend much of their time working on the music they were making with Young. Both were string players -- Conrad violin, Cale viola -- and they soon modified their instruments. Conrad merely attached pickups to his so it could be amplified, but Cale went much further. He filed down the viola's bridge so he could play three strings at once, and he replaced the normal viola strings with thicker, heavier, guitar and mandolin strings. This created a sound so loud that it sounded like a distorted electric guitar -- though in late 1963 and early 1964 there were very few people who even knew what a distorted guitar sounded like. Cale and Conrad were also starting to become interested in rock and roll music, to which neither of them had previously paid much attention, because John Cage's music had taught them to listen for music in sounds they previously dismissed. In particular, Cale became fascinated with the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, hearing in them the same just intonation that Young advocated for: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "All I Have to Do is Dream"] And it was with this newfound interest in rock and roll that Cale and Conrad suddenly found themselves members of a manufactured pop band. The two men had been invited to a party on the Lower East Side, and there they'd been introduced to Terry Phillips of Pickwick Records. Phillips had seen their long hair and asked if they were musicians, so they'd answered "yes". He asked if they were in a band, and they said yes. He asked if that band had a drummer, and again they said yes. By this point they realised that he had assumed they were rock guitarists, rather than experimental avant-garde string players, but they decided to play along and see where this was going. Phillips told them that if they brought along their drummer to Pickwick's studios the next day, he had a job for them. The two of them went along with Walter de Maria, who did play the drums a little in between his conceptual art work, and there they were played a record: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] It was explained to them that Pickwick made knock-off records -- soundalikes of big hits, and their own records in the style of those hits, all played by a bunch of session musicians and put out under different band names. This one, by "the Primitives", they thought had a shot at being an actual hit, even though it was a dance-craze song about a dance where one partner lays on the floor and the other stamps on their head. But if it was going to be a hit, they needed an actual band to go out and perform it, backing the singer. How would Cale, Conrad, and de Maria like to be three quarters of the Primitives? It sounded fun, but of course they weren't actually guitarists. But as it turned out, that wasn't going to be a problem. They were told that the guitars on the track had all been tuned to one note -- not even to an open chord, like we talked about Steve Cropper doing last episode, but all the strings to one note. Cale and Conrad were astonished -- that was exactly the kind of thing they'd been doing in their drone experiments with La Monte Young. Who was this person who was independently inventing the most advanced ideas in experimental music but applying them to pop songs? And that was how they met Lou Reed: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] Where Cale and Conrad were avant-gardeists who had only just started paying attention to rock and roll music, rock and roll was in Lou Reed's blood, but there were a few striking similarities between him and Cale, even though at a glance their backgrounds could not have seemed more different. Reed had been brought up in a comfortably middle-class home in Long Island, but despised the suburban conformity that surrounded him from a very early age, and by his teens was starting to rebel against it very strongly. According to one classmate “Lou was always more advanced than the rest of us. The drinking age was eighteen back then, so we all started drinking at around sixteen. We were drinking quarts of beer, but Lou was smoking joints. He didn't do that in front of many people, but I knew he was doing it. While we were looking at girls in Playboy, Lou was reading Story of O. He was reading the Marquis de Sade, stuff that I wouldn't even have thought about or known how to find.” But one way in which Reed was a typical teenager of the period was his love for rock and roll, especially doo-wop. He'd got himself a guitar, but only had one lesson -- according to the story he would tell on numerous occasions, he turned up with a copy of "Blue Suede Shoes" and told the teacher he only wanted to know how to play the chords for that, and he'd work out the rest himself. Reed and two schoolfriends, Alan Walters and Phil Harris, put together a doo-wop trio they called The Shades, because they wore sunglasses, and a neighbour introduced them to Bob Shad, who had been an A&R man for Mercury Records and was starting his own new label. He renamed them the Jades and took them into the studio with some of the best New York session players, and at fourteen years old Lou Reed was writing songs and singing them backed by Mickey Baker and King Curtis: [Excerpt: The Jades, "Leave Her For Me"] Sadly the Jades' single was a flop -- the closest it came to success was being played on Murray the K's radio show, but on a day when Murray the K was off ill and someone else was filling in for him, much to Reed's disappointment. Phil Harris, the lead singer of the group, got to record some solo sessions after that, but the Jades split up and it would be several years before Reed made any more records. Partly this was because of Reed's mental health, and here's where things get disputed and rather messy. What we know is that in his late teens, just after he'd gone off to New

A casual discussion about Shostakovich by two Bruckner enthusiasts (Jason and Sébastien). A graduate from the Royal Conservatory of Liège in Belgium (1st prize organ, 1st prize harmony, 1st prize history of music, 1st prize musical analysis); Sébastien Letocart is a self-taught composer, who has built his musical equally by studying ancient music (i.e. Josquin Desprez, William Byrd, Tomas Luis Vitoria, Roland de Lassus, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Claudio Monteverdi, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach), practicing it (organ, harpsichord and singing) as well as analyzing the great scores of the Classical Symphony (Haydn, Mozart), the Romantic (Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, Bruckner), the Post-romantic (Debussy, Roussel, R.Strauss, Mahler, Sibelius, Nielsen) and the symphonic repertoire of the first half of the 20th century (Bartók, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Bax, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Walton, Honegger, Martinu, Varèse). He is also highly interested in the music of the last sixty years, his preferences are going from György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis or Esa-Pekka Salonen to Einar Englund, Aulis Sallinen, Emil Tabakov, Kalevi Aho, Vagn Holmboe, John Adams, Sir Malcolm Arnold or Sir Andrzej Panufnik. He is also greatly attracted by chamber music, especially by the refined writing that the string quartet demands and by Béla Bartók's six String Quartets which are the nec plus ultra of the genre. More info about Letocart here: https://www.sites.google.com/site/letocartsebastien/Home-english Lecture/Rehearsal of Shostakovich 8 that Letocart brought up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snpK0q47YgA First music excerpt is Shostakovich 4, last moments of the finale, conducted by Myung-Whun Chung with the Philadelphia Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXiB0Lce5g Second music excerpt is the ending of the finale of Shostakovich 5, conducted by Mariss Jansons at the Wiener Philharmoniker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKeFOij6J7A&t=2641s Third music excerpt is the most popular movement of Shostakovich 8, conducted by Gergiev at the Mariinsky Orchestra and Chorus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jFesZ-jxRw Fourth music excerpt is the Scherzo from Shostakovich 10, conducted by Haitink at the London Philharmonic Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRH22KRsU0 Final music at the end of the episode is Shostakovich's 5th string quartet performed by Dudok Kwartet in Zuiderkerk in Amsterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsWTDiPixcU

Synopsis On today's date in 1948, Leonard Bernstein, age 29, conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere of a new orchestral work by Harold Shapero, age 27. This was Shapero's “Symphony for Classical Orchestra,” a work modeled on Beethoven but sounding very much like one of the Neo-Classical scores of Igor Stravinsky. This was exactly what Shapero intended, but some found the music perplexing. Aaron Copland, for one, wrote: “Harold Shapero, it is safe to say, is at the same time the most gifted and baffling composer of his generation.” That comment by Copland, one should remember, came at a time when Shapero's generation included the likes of Barber, Bernstein, Menotti and Rorem. But Copland continued, “Stylistically, Shapero seems to feel a compulsion to fashion his music after some great model. He seems to be suffering from a hero-worship complex – or perhaps it is a freakish attack of false modesty.” “Copland was so original,” Shapero responded, “that he just couldn't understand anyone who wasn't.” Even so, Shapero's superbly crafted orchestral imitations suffered many decades of neglect. In the 1980s, however, conductor and composer Andre Previn fell in love with Shapero's Symphony, performing and recording it with the LA Philharmonic, and declared its Adagietto movement the most beautiful slow movement of any American symphony. Music Played in Today's Program Harold Shapero (b. 1920) Symphony for Classical Orchestra Los Angeles Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor New World 373 On This Day Births 1697 - German composer and flutist Johann Joachim Quantz, in Oberscheden, Hannover; 1861 - French-born American composer Charles Martin Loeffler, in Alsace; 1862 - German-born American composer and conductor, Walter Damrosch, in Breslau; Deaths 1963 - French composer Francis Poulenc, age 64, in Paris; Premieres 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 81 ("Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?") performed on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24); 1735 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 14 ("Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit") performed in Leipzig on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany; 1892 - Rachmaninoff: “Trio élégiaque” No. 1 in G minor (Gregorian date: Feb. 11); 1893 - Brahms: Fantasies for piano Nos. 1-3, from Op. 117 and Intermezzo No. 2, from Op. 117, in Vienna; 1917 - Zemlinsky: opera "A Floretine Tragedy," in Stuttgart at the Hoftheater; 1920 - Frederick Converse: Symphony in c, by the Boston Symphony, Pierre Monteux conducting; 1942 - Copland: Orchestral Suite from "Billy the Kid" ballet, by the Boston Symphony; 1948 - Harold Shapero: "Symphony for Classical Orchestra," by the Boston Symphony conducted by Leonard Bernstein; 1958 - Walton: "Partita" for orchestra, in Cleveland; 1959 - Hindemith: "Pittsburgh Symphony," by the Pittsburgh Symphony, conducted by the composer; 1970 - William Schuman: "In Praise of Shahn," in New York; 1985 - Libby Larsen: Symphony ("Water Music"), by the Minnesota Orchestra, Sir Neville Marriner conducting. Links and Resources On Harold Shapero

Synopsis If the late 18th century is the “Classical Age,” and the 19th “The Romantic,” then perhaps we should dub our time “The Eclectic Age” of music. These days, composers can—and do—pick and choose from a wide variety of styles. The American composer William Bolcom was loath to rule anything out when he approached the task of setting William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience to music. Bolcom calls for a large orchestra, multiple choruses, and more than a dozen vocal soloists versed in classical, pop, folk, country, and operatic styles. There are echoes of jazz, reggae, gospel, ragtime, country and rock idioms as well. As Bolcom put it: "At every point Blake used his whole culture, past and present, high-flown and vernacular, as sources for his many poetic styles. All I did was use the same stylistic point of departure Blake did in my musical settings.” The massive work received its premiere performance in Stuttgart, Germany, on today's date in 1984. Most of the work was completed between 1973 and 1982, after Bolcom joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and it was there that the work received its American premiere a few months following its world premiere in Germany. Music Played in Today's Program William Bolcom (b. 1938) Songs of Innocence and of Experience Soloists; Choirs; University of Michigan School of Music Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor. Naxos 8.559216/18 On This Day Births 1792 - American composer and educator Lowell Mason, in Medford, Massachusetts; 1812 - Swiss composer and pianist Sigismond Thalberg, in Pâquis, near Geneva; 1896 - Czech composer Jaromir Weinberger, in Prague; 1899 - Russian-born American composer Alexander Tcherepnin (Gregorian date: Jan. 21); 1905 - Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, in La Spezia; 1924 - Russian-American composer Benjamin Lees (née Lysniansky), in Harbin, Manchuria; 1924 - Austrian-born American composer Robert Starer, in Vienna; 1935 - The charismatic rock 'n' roll performer Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Miss.; 1937 - American composer Robert Moran, in Denver; Deaths 1713 - Italian composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli, age 59, in Rome; 1831 - Moravian-born composer and violinist Franz Krommer, age 71, in Vienna; 1998 - British composer Sir Michael Tippett, age 93, in London; Premieres 1705 - Handel: opera "Almira" in Hamburg; This was Handel's first opera (see also Dec. 5 & 30 for related contemporary incidents); 1720 - Handel: opera "Radamisto" (2nd version), in London (Julian date: Dec. 28, 1720); 1735 - Handel: opera "Ariodante" in London at the Covent Garden Theater (Gregorian date: Jan. 19); 1843 - Schumann: Piano Quintet in Eb, Op. 44, at Leipzig Gewandhaus with pianist Clara Schumann; 1895 - Brahms: Clarinet Sonata, Op. 120, no. 1 (first public performance), in Vienna, by clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, with the composer at the piano, as part of the Rosé Quartet's chamber music series; The first performance ever of this work occurred on September 19, 1894, at a private performance in the home of the sister of the Duke of Meiningen at Berchtesgaden, with the same performers; Brahms and Mühlfeld also gave private performances of both sonatas in Frankfurt (for Clara Schumann and others) on November 10-13, 1894; at Castle Altenstein (for the Duke of Meiningen) on Nov. 14, 1894; and on Jan. 7, 1895 (for members of the Vienna Tonkünstler Society); 1911 - Florent Schmitt: "La tragédie de Salomé" for orchestra, in Paris; 1927 - Berg: "Lyric Suite" for string quartet, in Vienna, by the Kolisch Quartet; 1928 - Hindemith: "Kammermusik" No. 7, Op. 46, no. 2, in Frankfurt, with Ludwig Rottenberg conducting and Reinhold Merten the organist; 1940 - Roger Sessions: Violin Concerto, by the Illinois Symphony conducted by Izler Solomon, with Robert Gross as soloist; The work was to have been premiered by Albert Spalding with the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky in January of 1937, but did not take place); 1963 - Shostakovich: opera "Katerina Izmailova" (2nd version of "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"), in Moscow at the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich-Dachenko Music Theater; 1971 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15, in Moscow, by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony, with the composer's son, Maxim, conducting; 1987 - Christopher Rouse: "Phaethon" for orchestra, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti conducting; 1988 - Schwantner: "From Afar . . . " (A Fantasy for Guitar and Orchestra), by guitarist Sharon Isbin with the St. Louis Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting; Others 1923 - First broadcast in England of an opera direct from a concert hall, Mozart's "The Magic Flute" via the BBC from London; Links and Resources More on Wiiliam Bolcom More on William Blake

Als Langweiler gilt der Komponist Paul Hindemith. Das Image könnte falscher nicht sein. Das beweist der Musiksalon mit einer abwechslungsreichen halben Stunde Musik aus Anlaß der Wiederaufnahme von „Cardillac“ an der Wiener Staatsoper.

This concert was recorded for AFRTS on August 6, 1946. Leopold Stokowski conducts The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra. Compositions heard composed by Berlioz, Debussy, Hindemith, R. Strauss, Copland and Wagner.

Bill, Bryan, and Joey take a deep dive on the Hindemith Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. Also- The Voting Game.

Two prize-winning string quartets perform Haydn, Hindemith, Puccini, Ravel, and Bartók. The post Omaggio String Quartet & Peresson String Quartet appeared first on WFMT.

Music By Bach, Mendelsshon, Beethoven, Hindemith, Strauss and Debussy. Performers include William Primrose, Jesus Maria Sanroma, Bruno Walter, Toscha Sidel & Walter Giesking.

Synopsis It was on this day in 1929 that the first performance was given of a radio cantata – not on the radio, oddly enough, but in a concert hall in Baden-Baden, Germany. It was entitled “Lindbergh's Flight,” with a text by Bertolt Brecht, and music by both Kurt Weill AND Paul Hindemith. This cantata was intended for a later radio broadcast and meant to illustrate both the literal and philosophical aspects of Charles A. Lindbergh's first-ever solo flight across the Atlantic two years earlier in 1927. Today, when planes whiz back and forth across the Atlantic every day, carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers, we have to remember that in 1927, the number of people flying to Europe nonstop was just ONE, namely Lindbergh, and the feat made headline news around the world. Three decades after Lindbergh's flight, composer Franz Waxman would write the film score for “The Spirit of St. Louis,” a 1957 Hollywood version of the Atlantic crossing starring Jimmy Stewart. And speaking of Atlantic crossings, Waxman, Weill and Hindemith – all German-born composers – would emigrate to the U.S. in the 1930s, their flight a result of the racial laws and artistic repression that followed the rise of Nazi ideology in Europe. Music Played in Today's Program Kurt Weill (1900-1950) – Lindbergh's Flight (Cologne Radio Orchestra; Hermann Scherchen, cond.) Capriccio 60012 Franz Waxman (1906-1962) – The Spirit of St. Louis (studio orchestra; Franz Waxman, cond.) BMG/RCA 2283

Oskar SalaPiece Played - Diagram - Five Short Pieces for TrautoniumGerman inventor/composer Oskar Sala is best known for his role in developing the Trautonium: one of the earliest electronic instruments and a contemporary of the French Ondes Martenot and Russian theremin. While the Trautonium would eventually be viewed as a relic of electronic music's past, the instrument's tonal quality and expressive capabilities remain sadly unparalleled in the technology that followed. Nearly 70 years after its creation, its legacy seemed highly uncertain, as Sala was the only one capable of playing it.Born in Berlin in 1910, Oskar Sala was introduced to the Trautonium in 1929. That year, while studying under composer Paul Hindemith, Sala attended a demonstration of the instrument given by its inventor, Friedrich Trautwein. The student soon began working alongside Trautwein, undergoing a crash course in electronics to develop the prototype into an acceptable model. The new instrument was unveiled at a christening performance of Hindemith's "Trio Pieces for Three Trautonia" at the music academy in Berlin. Resembling a simultaneously archaic/futuristic version of the piano, the Trautonium replaces keys with two wires that run the length of the keyboard. These wires, hovering above metal rails, are what the musician plays, altering the subsequent tones via a multitude of dials and switches. The initial, overwhelming success of the instrument is rather surprising given the political environment of the time. Nazi Germany had begun the ethnic and cultural cleansing that would drive many artists (including Hindemith) out of the country. Not only did Sala's Trautonium escape being squelched, the government actually provided funding for additional models including the Radio Trautonium (showcased across German airwaves on a weekly program), the Volks-Trautonium (a failed attempt at a household model), and the portable Concert-Trautonium, which Sala took on tour.Following the Second World War, with Trautwein having all but relinquished control of the instrument, Sala developed the Mixture-Trautonium, a revised model which gave the musician the ability to produce musical undertones. The 1950s found Sala busy composing, producing works for television ads and feature films, and performing with fellow Hindemith student Harald Genzmer on the new model. Yet Sala's general failure to collaborate with his electronic music contemporaries probably contributed to his relative obscurity. He did, however, receive his 15 minutes of fame. In 1961, unsatisfied with the effects sound technicians turned up for his film The Birds, director Alfred Hitchcock enlisted Sala's help. Pleased with the results, Hitchcock turned over the film's score (a non-musical construction) to the composer. In the electronic boom that followed in the 1970s, the Trautonium attracted attention from Krautrock acts Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk. In 1987 Sala was honored with the Filmband in Gold for his soundtrack work. As the century drew to a close, Sala (approaching his 90th birthday) spent his days diligently practicing, composing, and experimenting on the Mixture-Trautonium from a studio near his home. A staggering 600-plus reels of tape are said to exist in the composer's personal vault. In the late 1990s, Germany's Fax label issued two collections of Sala performances: My Fascinating Instrument (1995) and Subharmonic Mixtures (1997). ~ Nathan BushTrautoniumhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzc3d_qcNYsRick Estrin awards2013 Blues Music Award best instrumentalist harmonica 1994 Blues Muisc AwardSong of the year My Next Ex-wife2020 Blues Music Award Instrumentalist harmonicaRick Estrin and the NightcatsMembersRick Estrin Harmonica,...

Synopsis In 1926, the German composer Paul Hindemith was the director of that year's Donaueschingen Music Festival, which, since its inception in 1921, had quickly established itself as an important showcase for new and progressive music. For the 1926 Festival, Hindemith decided to spotlight a genre of music overlooked by many composers, namely music for wind bands, and contributed a work of his own, entitled “Concert Piece for Wind Orchestra,” which premiered on today's date in 1926 and was published as his Opus 41. The critics of the day opined that the music was interesting, but lamented that such talented composers would waste their time writing for bands. In his book “Winds of Change,” a history of band music and its reception, Dr. Frank Battisti explains: “In 1926, serious works for band were of no interest to German and Austrian band directors, who preferred to continue performing the standard repertory of transcriptions, arrangements, and marches. Critics, after hearing these works, remained convinced that the wind band would never become a medium of artistic musical expression.” With the passage of time, and a dramatic change in the attitudes of band director and critics alike towards concert music for bands, Hindemith's 1926 concert programming seems downright prophetic. Music Played in Today's Program Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) – Concert Music for Winds, Op. 41 (Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, cond.) CBS MK-44916

Die Begleitumstände rund um Paul Hindemiths «Mathis der Maler» sind eine eigene, längere Geschichte, bekannt geworden unter dem Schlagwort «Der Fall Hindemith».  1933, die Nationalsozialisten sind gerade in Deutschland an die Macht gekommen, ist Paul Hindemith mit dem Stoff zu «Mathis der Maler» beschäftigt, woraus eine Oper entstehen soll.  Schon ganz früh ist Hindemith mit seiner modernen Musiksprache eine Zielscheibe der Nazis, gebrandmarkt als sogenannter «Kulturbolschewist». Wilhelm Furtwängler setzt sich für Hindemith ein, bestellt beim Komponisten eine Sinfonie. Und Hindemith schreibt sie ihm aus Material der Oper, wie die Oper genannt «Mathis der Maler». Aus der politischen Verstrickung entsteht «Der Fall Hindemith» (der dann auch zu einem «Fall Furtwängler» wird). Doch neben den politischen Implikationen ist diese Sinfonie vor allem auch eine wunderbare Musik. Sehr sinnlich im Klang, wie man das bei Hindemith nicht unbedingt erwarten würde, vielleicht ja auch wegen der Wahl des Sujets. Denn mit «Mathis der Maler» ist Matthias Grünewald gemeint, den Erschaffer des bekannten Isenheimer Altars, den man heute im Museum in Colmar bestaunen kann. Ungewöhnlich ausdrucksstark mit kräftigen Farben werden hier drei Szenen gezeigt, die Hindemith auch die Anregung gegeben haben für die drei Sätze der Sinfonie: Ein Konzert gespielt von Engeln, die Grablegung Christi und die Versuchungen des heiligen Antonius. In der Sendung kommen fünf bzw. sechs Interpretationen dieses gewichtigen Werkes von Paul Hindemith zur Sprache. Erstausstrahlung: 22.06.20

For Christians, this week is probably the most central to the theology of their faith, focusing as it does on the story of the Passion of the Christ. My dear friend, the choral conductor and singer Kristina Boerger posted a fascinating meditation this week about her “complicated” relationship with this theology, and how the performance of music for Holy Week over the years has given her insight into some universal tenets about human nature and behavior. She very kindly agreed to read her essay for me to use as the basis of this week's podcast, which features music written for, and associated with, the Passion. Composers featured include, from the Baroque era, Couperin, Schütz, Handel, and Bach (with Pergolesi right on the cusp); from the 19th century, Beethoven, Schubert, and Wolf; and from the 20th century, Hindemith, Szymanowski, Poulenc, Penderecki, Frank Martin, and Arvo Pärt. Featured singers include Régine Crespin, Irmgard Seefried, Peter Schreier, Gundula Janowitz, Richard Lewis, Florence Quivar, Andrzej Hiolski, Judith Raskin, Jorma Hynninen, Margaret Marshall, Benjamin Luxon, Muriel Smith, Walter Berry, Edda Moser, and Adele Addison, plus further encounters with several of the Swiss singers we explored last week (Hugues Cuénod, Maria Stader, Eric Tappy, Pierre Mollet, and Ernst Haefliger). Whether you are Christian, agnostic, atheist, Muslim, Jew, or fall into a different category altogether, there will be something here for you of value in this episode. The Countermelody podcast is devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Synopsis On today's date in the year 2000, the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen gave the premiere of a new opera entitled “The Handmaid's Tale,” based on the dystopian novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. The book and opera tell of a nightmarish future: following a nuclear disaster in the United States, infertility rates have soared, and a religious sect has staged a military coup, enslaving the few fertile women who remain as breeders, or “handmaids,” for the military and religious commanders of their sect. Says Atwood, "There is nothing new about the society I depicted in The Handmaid's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about have been done before – more than once, in fact." Despite its grim subject matter, Danish composer Poul Ruders says he saw "huge operatic potential" when he first read the book back in 1992. The original production in Copenhagen was sung in Danish, but Ruders says he conceived the work in English. The opera was staged in that language first in London at the English National Opera, and subsequently, at the opera's American premiere, in St. Paul by The Minnesota Opera, to great critical acclaim. Music Played in Today's Program Poul Ruders (b. 1949) — The Handmaid's Tale (Royal Danish Orchestra; Michael Schonwandt, cond.) DaCapo 9.224165-66 On This Day Births 1844 - Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Gregorian date: Mar. 18); 1870 - Austrian operetta composer Oscar Straus, in Vienna; Deaths 1932 - American composer and bandleader John Philip Sousa, age 77, in Reading, Pa.; 1967 - Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, age 84, in Budapest; Premieres 1791 - Beethoven: "Ritterballett" (Knightly Ballet), in Bonn; 1825 - Beethoven: String Quartet in Eb, Op. 127, in Vienna, the Schuppanzigh Quartet; This premiere was under-rehearsed and poorly performed (the Quartet had only received the music two weeks earlier), and Beethoven arranged for a second performance by a quartet led by violinist Joseph Boehm on March 26, which was better rehearsed and better received; 1831 - Bellini: opera "La Sonnambula" (The Sleepwalker), in Milan at the Teatro Carcano; 1853 - Verdi: opera "La Traviata" (The Lost One), in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice; 1896 - Arthur Foote: Suite in d, by the Boston Symphony, Emil Paur conducting; 1917 - Rachmaninoff: "Etudes-tableaux," Op. 39 (first complete performance of the set of nine), in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), by the composer (Julian date: Feb. 21); 1926 - Hindemith: "Concerto for Orchestra," by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting; 1927 - Prokofiev: Quintet for winds and strings, Op. 39, in Moscow; 1933 - Varèse: "Ionisation," in New York City, with Nicholas Slonimsky conducting; 1934 - Piston: "Concerto for Orchestra," in Cambridge, Mass.; 1947 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 25, at the Moscow Conservatory by the USSR State Symphony, Alexander Gauk conducting; 1984 - John Harbison: "Ulysses' Raft," by the New Haven Symphony, Murray Sidlin conducting; 2000 - Poul Ruders: opera "The Handmaid's Tale," in Copenhagen, by the Royal Danish Theater, Mark Schönwandt conducting; 2003 - John Harbison: "Requiem," by vocal soloists Christine Brewer, Margaret Lattimore, Paul Groves, and Jonathan Lemalu, with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the Boston Symphony conducted by Bernard Haitink. Links and Resources On Poul Ruders More on "The Handmaid's Tale"

Jag älskar två saker, musik och människor, sa dirigenten och tonsättaren Leonard Bernstein, som med sin unika förmåga att dela med sig av musiken och sin kunskap var så mycket mer än en musiker. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. För den stora allmänheten blev Leonard Bernstein på många sätt själva sinnebilden av en klassisk musiker när han på 50- och 60-talet stod på pulten framför de stora orkestrarna i direktsänd tv. Han kommunicerade musiken till en miljonpublik, berättade om hur musiken är uppbyggd och om kompositörer som Mahler, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Hindemith och Aaron Copland. Leonard Bernstein läraren var välsignad med en enastående pedagogisk förmåga. Många musiker har genom åren vittnat om hur betydelsefull Bernsteins gärning varit för dem i att välja en bana inom musikens värld. Johan Korssell reser till New York för att besöka platser som var centrala i Bernsteins liv. Han träffar dottern Jamie Bernstein i The Bernstein Family Apartment på Manhattan, beger sig till New York-filharmonikernas arkiv, möter musikkritikern och Bernstein-beundraren David Hurwitz och tar sig slutligen till Leonard Bernsteins grav i Green-Wood Cemetery i Brooklyn. En dokumentär från 2021 av Johan Korssell.

Karen Painter is a professor of music who has spent her academic career studying classical music. Her work concerning the use of music as a tool of political propaganda in Nazi Germany is interesting and relevant today, as is her more recent study of the poetry of German women. Take a listen! Karen is on the faculty at the University of Minnesota, as an associate professor in the School of Music and a faculty associate in Jewish Studies and at the Center for European Studies. She writes on the history of musical listening, especially in the context of German ideology and social history. The framework for her research has involved early bourgeois musical culture, fin-de-siècle cultural debates, World War I, Austro-German socialism, and Nazism, addressing reactions to Mahler and Mozart, but also Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, Hindemith and Orff. Painter holds a BA in music and philosophy (Yale University, 1987) and PhD in music (Columbia University, 1996). Her previous faculty appointments were at Dartmouth College (1995-1997) and Harvard University (1997-2007), and she was Director of the Office of Research and Analysis for the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005-2006. She served as Maître de conférences invitée, at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, in 2010. Author of Symphonic Aspirations: German Music and Politics, 1900-1945, Painter has also edited Late Thoughts: Reflections on Artists and Composers at Work (with Thomas Crow) and Mahler and His World. In 1999-2000 she was recipient of Humboldt fellowship as well as the Berlin Prize of the American Academy. For more about Karen, visit: https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/kpainter

This question was sent by Jeremy. He's our member of Total Organist Community, and helps us with fingering and pedaling scores. And he writes, Today I did a variety of different things on the organ. The past couple of weeks I have been working through the New Oxford Organ Method just to see what it did (I really am enjoying it). It acts kind of like an organ teacher for those who have basic piano skills. It walks you through how to break the piece down into technical and musical bits. So I recorded the last piece in the "ordinary touch" section of the book today--Rising Passacaglia by Frederick Stocken, and practiced the next piece in the book (which is evading my memory at the moment). I began week three of the Pedal Virtuoso course and was inspired by Vidas to start the first Trio of J.S. Bach (learned four measures of the notes). Then I started working on Walther's Komm Der Heilige Geist and made sure Buxtehude's Lobt Gott ihr Christen Allzugleich was still in my fingers. Practiced BWV 536 (which is Prelude and Fugue in A Major) for Sunday's service and worked on Hindemith second sonata, first movement. Here's the Stocken: https://youtu.be/eJYeQ-BJh_k

In this long awaited return, Chris and Sridhar discuss the ways in which classical music institutions might launch successful digital ventures, the pay what you can model, Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake of West Side Story, realism in musicals, and how La La Land is, surprisingly, a breath of fresh air. If you enjoy the show, consider following us on social media. We appreciate your support! Email us your questions/comments/concerns: impolitetolisten@gmail.com Tweet us your feedback @impolitelisten Episode clips on Instagram @impolitelisten Useful Links: Philip Daniel, composer - YouTube Paul Hindemith - wikipedia Leonard Bernstein conducts Hindemith - Symphonie Mathis de Maler Glenn Gould & Raymond Crisara play Hindemith's Trumpet Sonata Heinrich Schütz - wikipedia Brandon Patrick George plays the Bach Flute Partita Orchestra of St. Luke's West Side Story (2021) - Trailer Screenwriter Tony Kushner on the West Side Story remake Steven Spielberg on his West Side Story Why Jurassic Park Looks Better Than Its Sequels Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy Leonard Bernstein - The Making of West Side Story Sideways - Why the Music in Les Misérables (2021) is Worse than you Thought Ansel Elgort - Thief (Meet the new Tony!) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Officer Krupke

A conversation with a cellist and doctor Paul van Houtte from New Zealand. I met Paul in 2019 when I did my Erasmus exchange in Vienna. He came to Vienna from New Zealand for his medical internship in one of the hospitals. Just minutes after we met, I was soon to find out that medical studies is not the first degree Paul has. He is also a professional cellist who has played in concert halls such as Zurich Opera House and Vienna Musikverein, where back in 2019 spring, Paul attended almost every single concert. In this episode we will talk about Paul's transition from musical studies to medical studies, reasons for the change and how does Paul approach culture, music and arts now. Tune in to find out what is more important than any technological or economical goal according to Paul. Paul van Houtte has made beautiful music in some of the world's most prestigious concert halls, such as the Vienna Musikverein and the Zürich Opera House. He has performed in top orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Auckland Grammar School Orchestra, where he was principal cello in 2002. Episode music:J. Haydn - The C-major Trio, Hob. XV: 27 performed by Michelle Dierx, Shannon Merciel and M.MašanauskaitėP. Hindemith  - Cello Sonata, Op.25 No.3Thanks for listening and if you know anyone who would benefit from this talk, please share it with them. If you have any comments or enquiries, drop me a line at openartedpodcast@gmail.comSupport openARTed on Patreonwww.monikapianiste.comFollow me on Facebook or Instagram

Eric is joined by friend of the cast Dr. Jeremiah Cawley to discuss what in the world musicians (students, teachers, and professionals) can do to continue growing during the silence of isolation.  Many musicians are thrust into awkward living situations where traditional practice regimens are not feasible or even possible.  What types of things can we do or practice instead to make a "musical deposit" towards the future when collaboration may begin again in earnest.  Are there are things that could be done, whether in isolation or normal times?Some resources mentioned in podcast:- Edlund, L. (1963). MODUS NOVUS Larobok I Fritonal Melodilasning Lehrbuch in Freitonaler Melodielesung, Studies in Reading Atonal Melodies. AB Nordiska Musikforlaget/Edition Wilhelm Hansen Stockholm.- Hall, A. C. (2005). Studying rhythm. New Jersey: Pearson Education. - Hindemith, P. (n.d.). Elementary training for musicians. London: Schott & Co. Ltd . - Rogers, N., & Ottman, R. W. (2019). Music for sight singing. New York: Pearson.