Tag: Music Box
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Sufjan Stevens’s “Casimir Pulaski Day”
Róisín ConlonDublin, Ireland Music has been a powerful medium for expressing grief throughout the ages.1 A modern and touching example from the American singer Sufjan Stevens, “Casimir Pulaski Day,”2 explores complex narratives of grief and loss. An upbeat instrumental mix of banjo and trumpet contrasts with the sobering reality of the lyrics, which narrate the illness…
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Shostakovich and the simian serenade
Desmond O’NeillDublin, Ireland One of the fascinations of medical humanities is the two-way traffic between artists and scientists with cutting-edge aspects of science, technology, and medicine. A signal example is the heady ferment of scientific experimentation in the Soviet Union. One of the more exotic experiments was the effort by Professor Ilya Ivanov to hybridize…
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Composing incoordination: The stumbling passages in J.S. Bach’s Flute Partita
Stephen MartinThailand Program music is composed to give a sense of a scene or story. While Mozart in the late 1700s occasionally played tricks for laughs, such as suddenly missing bars and expected rhythms, he stuck to writing straight musical beauty for instrumental works. His Strasbourg Violin Concerto includes a folk tune of the same…
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Sir Edward Elgar, pioneer of English music
Sir Edward Elgar raised English music to prominence at a time when it was dominated by continental composers. Renowned for his The Dream of Gerontius oratorio (1900), Enigma Variations (1899), the Pomp and Circumstance marches (1901–1930), a Violin Concerto (1910), a Cello Concerto (1919), two symphonies, and many other compositions, he became one of the…
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Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
Ralph Vaughan Williams is regarded as one of the most influential and beloved English musical composers, active at a time when his country’s music was heavily influenced by German and French traditions. He was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, into a well-connected and intellectual family. His father was a barrister and vicar, while his mother…
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Antonín Dvořák of the New World Symphony
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904), the celebrated musical composer, brilliantly combined Czech folk traditions with sophisticated Western classical music. Born in the small village of Nelahozeves near Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic, he was the son of an innkeeper and butcher who also played the zither. At age six, Dvořák began violin lessons, then…
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Enrico Caruso, the greatest tenor of all time
Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) possessed a voice so remarkable for its power, range, and emotional expressiveness that its distinctive timbre was instantly recognizable. His versatility is illustrated by an incident in Philadelphia when the baritone about to sing the “Coat Song” in La Boheme suddenly lost his voice. Caruso stepped in and sang the aria with…
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Antonio Vivaldi, the “Red Priest” composer
By the middle of the 17th century, Venice no longer reigned as the naval superpower of the Mediterranean. But with a population of about 150,000, it was still the most elegant and refined city in Europe. Born there in 1676 was one of the greatest composers of all time, Antonio Vivaldi. Ordained as a Catholic…
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Johannes Brahms: His life and health
The musical world remembers Johannes Brahms as one of the leading composers of the Romantic era. His musical output included four symphonies, concertos, a Requiem, folk songs, Lieder, chamber music, and choral works. Born in 1833 in Hamburg, he lived with his family under poor circumstances, began music lessons as a child, and played the…