Category: Music Box
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The parallel paths of opera and medicine
Fête musicale. Oil on canvas by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, 1747. Louvre Museum. Via Wikimedia. In 1597 when Jacopo Peri composed Dafne, the first opera ever written, sporadic epidemics of bubonic plague were still striking his city of Florence. Venice was also suffering greatly. It had been visited by the plague twenty-two times, and some 50,000…
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And for unto us… Medicine, Messiah, and Christmas
Desmond O’NeillDublin, Ireland Although the very first performance of the Messiah took place in April 1742 in Dublin with the London première following in March 1743, the oratorio is closely associated with the Christmas season in the Anglophone world. The origin of this custom has been claimed by the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston…
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Franz Liszt and Lisztomania: “Le concert, c’est moi”
Elizabeth ColledgeJacksonville, Florida, United States Much has been written about the hysteria accompanying Beatlemania, and before that, the frenzies generated by Elvis, Sinatra, and similar artists, primarily musicians. But before the Beatles, before Elvis, before Frank, there was Franz Liszt, whose 1844 concert in Berlin shocked the musical world and generated the term and medical…
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Stay inside: A toast to the frontline
Tyler Beauchamp Rushay Amarath Andy Nguyen Augusta, Georgia, United States The thumbnail of “Stay Inside | A Toast to the Frontline.” The music video has reached about 30,000 views at the time of publication. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced us to a danger we knew little of how to protect ourselves from. I had spent…
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Nikolai Medtner: his forgotten melodies, music, and life
Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Nikolai Medtner recording for HMV, 1947. Photographer unknown, copyright controlled, courtesy of Warner Classics. The music of Nikolai Medtner (1880 -1951) is among the most enigmatic of the piano repertoire. Medtner was an opinionated composer who admired Rachmaninoff and rejected all attempts at modernism in music. Rachmaninoff met…
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Charles Valentin Alkan
Charles-Henri Valentin Morhange was a precocious child who played the piano at the age of five and gave his first public performance at seven. He was the second of six children of an old Ashkenazi family that for centuries had lived near the town of Metz in Alsace. Born in Paris in 1813, he later…
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Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Portrait of Joseph Haydn. by Thomas Hardy. 1791. Royal College of Music Museum of Instruments. Via Wikimedia. For nearly half of his life Joseph Haydn occupied the humble position of musician in the service of the Esterhazy princes, wearing livery and playing his wonderful compositions while the guests at dinner most likely only half- listened…