Today's Birthdays

Francesco Durante (1684-1755)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Serge Diaghliev (1872-1929)
Clemens Krauss (1893-1954)
John Mitchinson (1932)
Herb Alpert (1935)
Nelly Miricioiu (1952)
Robert Gambill (1955)
Jake Heggie (1961)


and

René Descartes (1596-1650)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)
Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
Marge Piercy (1936)

Today's Birthdays

Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
Ted Heath (1900-1969)
Sandor Szokolay (1931-2013)
John Eaton (1935-2015)
Gordon Muma (1935) Eric Clapton (1945)
Maggie Cole (1952)
Margaret Fingerhut (1955)
Sabine Meyer (1959)

and

Francisco Jose de Goya (1746-1828)
Anna Sewell (1820-1878)
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Sean O'Casey (1880-1964)

Today's Birthdays

Henri Lutz (1864-1928)
Rosina Lhévinne (1880-1976)
Sir William Walton (1902-1983)
E Power Biggs (1906-1977)
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
Guher Pekinel (1953)
Suher Pekinel (1953)

and

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000) 
Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Judith Guest (1936)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1871, Royal Albert Hall is formally opened in London by Queen Victoria.

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Weigl (1766-1846)
Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951)
Paul Whiteman (1890-1967)
Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991)
Jacob Avshalomov (1919-2013)
Robert Ashley (1930-2014)
Martin Neary (1940)
Samuel Ramey (1942)
Richard Stilgoe (1942)

and

Raphael (1483-1520)
Nelson Algren (1909-1981)
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936)
Russell Banks (1940)
Iris Chang (1968-2004)
Lauren Weisberger (1977)

And from the Composers Datebook:
On this day in 1842, the Vienna Philharmonic plays its first concert (as the "Vienna Court Orchestra") in the Redoutensaale under the director of composer Otto Nicolai, the director of the Vienna Court Opera. The program included Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, his concert aria "Ah, Perfido," and the "Leonore" No. 3 and "Consercration of the House" Overtures, along with other vocal selections by Mozart and Cherubini.

Today's Birthdays

Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931)
Patty Smith Hill (1868-1946)
Ferde Grofé (1892-1972)
Anne Ziegler (1910-2003)
Sarah Vaughn (1924-1990)
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007)
Paul Ruders (1949)
Maria Ewing (1950)
Bernard Labadie (1963)

and

Henri Murger (1822-1861)
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950)
Edward Steichen (1879-1973)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
Budd Schulberg (1914-2009)
Louis Simpson (1923-2012)
Julia Alvarez (1950)
John O'Farrell (1962)


And from the Composers Datebook:
On this date in 1808, Franz Joseph Haydn makes his last public appearance at a performance of his oratorio "The Creation" in Vienna in honor of the composer's approaching 76th birthday. Beethoven and Salieri attend the performance and greet Haydn.

Brahms Violin Concerto, folkloric goblins, and lovely requiem fulfilled in Oregon Symphony concert

I have not heard the music used in the Oscar-winning film “The Shape of Water” yet, but I wonder if the composer might have been influenced by Antonín Dvořák’s “The Water Goblin.” Probably not, because that gem of a piece has fall by the wayside over the years after Dvorak uncorked it 1896. Perhaps that is understandable, given the gruesomeness of the folktale that the music describes. But what the heck, Bartok’s “Bluebeards Castle” is pretty gruesome and misogynistic and it is played quite a bit. Well, in any case, I heard the Oregon Symphony’s performance of “The Water Goblin” on March 17th and it was awesome.

The piece, based on a story by Karel Erben, opened with a dancelike theme that bubbled brightly, perhaps conveying the goblin in his watery abode. That faded deftly to an idyllic section that depicted a girl from the village who goes to the lake where the goblin lives. Brooding, ominous sounds followed by a silky passage from the strings suggested conflict, and sure enough, a percussive wham and descending lines gave me the feeling that the girl fell and was dragged to the bottom of the lake by the goblin. A lyrical passage conveyed a lullaby for the baby (offspring of the girl and the goblin), and a myriad of sonic textures made the rest of the story easy to imagine right down to the end with tuba and bass trombone decaying mournfully at the sight of the dead baby and the goblin returning to his lair.

Of course, after a death, there must be a requiem. So the orchestra performed Howard Hanson’s Symphony No.4, subtitled “Requiem,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1944. The orchestra performed the four-movement work exquisitely. The plaintive bassoon, the passacaglia-like passage for the trumpets, and the brass chorale highlighted the first two movements (“Kyrie” and “Requiescat”). The third (“Dies irae”) delivered a wakeup call and kept a punchy, pulsating rhythm that led to a glowing and glorious fourth movement (“Lux aeterna”) with the violins piling lovely, falling tones over and over until they decrescendo away. It was a stunningly beautiful interpretation that may end up in a CD, because the evening’s performances were recorded by engineers from the Pentatone label.

After intermission came a flawless performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto with guest artist Vadim Gluzman. His impeccable playing cut through the orchestra perfectly – never too much, never too little – and he made the entire piece look like a walk in the park. His chose to do the cadenza that Joseph Joachim wrote, and played it with fire and brilliance that just lit up the stage. The lovely duet that Gluzman did with principal oboist Martin Hébert in the “Adagio” could not have been sweeter.

Thunderous applause and cheering followed the rousing final movement, which brought Gluzman back to the stage several times. He and the strings of the orchestra responded with an immaculate performance of “The Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from Christoph Willibald Guck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice.” It was the perfect, delicious desert to top off the evening.

Today's Birthdays

Josef Slavík (1806-1833)
Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969)
André Cluytens (1905-1967)
Harry Rabinowitz (1916-2016)
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)
Kyung Wha Chung (1948)

and

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898)
A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987)
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
Gregory Corso (1930-2001)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783)
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Haydn Wood (1882-1959)
Magda Olivero (1910-2014)
Cecil Taylor (1929)
Sir Elton John (1947)

and

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
Gloria Steinem (1934)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1949, Shostakovich (accompanied by KGB "handlers") arrives in New York for his first visit to America, for the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. His anti-Western statements and criticism of Igor Stravinsky embarrassed his American sponsors, including Aaron Copland, and later provided political fodder for the notorious Red-hunter, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Today's Birthdays

John Antes (1740-1811)
Maria Malibran (1808-1836)
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)
Christiane Eda-Pierre (1932)
Benjamin Luxon (1937)

and

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982)
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919)
Dario Fo (1926-2016)
Ian Hamilton (1938-2001)
Martin Walser (1927)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1721, J.S. Bach dedicates his six "Brandenburg" Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, whose orchestra apparently never performed them.

Today's Birthdays

Léon Minkus (1826-1917)
Eugène Gigout (1844-1925)
Franz Schreker (1878-1934)
Josef Locke (1917-1999)
Norman Bailey (1933)
Boris Tishchenko (1939-2010)
Michael Nyman (1944)
David Grisman (1945)

and

Roger Martin du Gard (1881-1958)
Louis Adamic (1898-1951)
Erich Fromm (1900-1980)
Kim Stanley Robinson (1952)
Gary Joseph Whitehead (1965)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Rosa (1842-1889)
Hamisch MacCunn (1868-1916)
Joseph Samson (1888-1957)
Martha Mödl (1912-2001)
Fanny Waterman (1920)
Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986)
Stephen Sondheim (1930)
Joseph Schwantner (1943)
George Benson (1943)
Alan Opie (1945)
Rivka Golani (1946)
Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948)
Edmund Barham (1950-2008)

and

Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988)
Edith Grossman (1936)
James Patterson (1940)
Billy Collins (1941)
James McManus (1951)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1687, Italian-born French composer Jean Baptiste Lully, age 54, in Paris, following an inadvertent self-inflicted injury to his foot (by a staff with which he would beat time for his musicians) which developed gangrene.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Modeste Moussorgsky (1839-1881)
Eddie James "Son" House (1902-1988)
Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949)
Paul Tortelier (1914-1990)
Nigel Rogers (1935)
Owain Arwel Hughes (1942)
Elena Firsova (1950)
Ann MacKay (1956)

and

Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998)
Ved Mehta (1934)

From the New Music Box:

On March 21, 1771, the Massachusetts Gazette published an announcement for a musical program including "select pieces on the forte piano and guitar." It is the earliest known reference to the piano in America.

Today's Birthdays

Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957)
Lauritz Melchoir (1890-1973)
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997)
Dame Vera Lynn (1917)
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970)
Marian McPartland (1918-2013)
Henry Mollicone (1946)

and

Ovid (43 BC - AD 17)
Ned Buntline (1823-1886)
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1928, the New York Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Society united to form the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York - now known as simply "The New York Philharmonic."

Today's Birthdays

Max Reger (1873-1916)
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994)
Nancy Evans (1915-2000)
Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950)
Robert Muczynski (1929-2010)
Ornette Coleman (1930-2015)
Myung-Wha Chung (1944)
Carolyn Watkinson (1949)
Mathew Rosenblum (1954)

and

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771)
Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852)
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)
Philip Roth (1933)

Fantastic performance of Verdi's "Requiem" by Oregon Symphony, soloists, and choirs

Verdi’s “Requiem” received a stellar performance by the Oregon Symphony and forces at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Saturday, March 10. The combined effort of soloists, choirs, and orchestra under the baton of Music Director Carlos Kalmar unleashed a tremendously emotional experience that superbly embodied the meaning and power of the music. Even though the projected titles did not appear and no printed text was available in the program, the nearly packed house relished the committed and thoroughly engrossing performance that will remain etched in the memories of listeners.

Soprano Amber Wagner, mezzo-soprano Dana Beth Miller, tenor Dimitri Pittas, and bass Raymond Aceto went above and beyond with voices that soared – even over and beyond the triple fortissimos of the combined forces layered behind them. Yet they maintained a beautiful sound throughout with vibratos that stayed inbounds, and they added to the dramatic effect by stepping forward and singing a number of arias from memory.

Each soloist excelled individually but also in ensemble numbers, which was quite remarkable with the resonant yet emotive qualities of Wagner, Miller, Pittas, and Aceto balancing consistently throughout the evening. Considering the Schnitzer’s acoustical challenges for voices in the lower range, Miller, in particular poured out enough tonal beauty and volume to equal her colleagues, creating stunning moments, such as in the “Liber scriptus proferetur” (A written book will be brought forth”). Wagner, it should be noted, held a note so long, during the Offertoiro, that one began to worry that she might never inhale again. Yet, she made it look easy peasy. Pittas exuded a marvelous tenor line and Aceto laid out a resonating bass that could be felt in the last row of the upper balcony.

The Portland Symphonic Choir and University of Puget sound Adelphian Concert Choir, expertly prepared by Steven Zopfi, delivered an awesome performance. The diction and balance of the combined choruses was impressive right from the start with the words “Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine” (“Grant them eternal rest, O Lord”) and especially crystal clear in the a cappella passages, such as the “Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion” (“A hymn in Zion befits you, O God”). The singers also left everyone on the stage floor with a devastatingly volcanic “Dies irae” (“Day of wrath”) and “Rex tremendae majestatis” (“King of dreadful majesty”) that could have been heard in Clackamas County. And, wow, the “Sanctus” sparkled like angles flying about.

The orchestra, urged on by Kalmar, accompanied the vocal forces expertly, giving everyone goosebumps with the passages that spiraled downward or upward, evoking flames, judgement on the last day, angels, devils, triumph, and agony in unrelenting sonic waves. The trumpets on stage and in the balcony, along with the magnificent brass, including the exotic-looking cimbasso played by JáTik Clark, threatened to shake the rafters. During the most demonstrative moments the bass drum in the percussion battery was pummeled so hard that it looked as if it would bounce onto the stage. Yet there were quiet moments, such as during the “Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?” (“What can a wretch like me say?”) when the bassoon of Evan Kuhlmann created a plaintive lament.

Kalmar usually wields a conducting style that is animated and inspired, but in the performance, he seemed take things to a higher level. It was as if he were conducting as if his life depended on it, and that got everyone to perform as if their lives depended on the outcome as well. The cutoffs that he signaled were breathtakingly effective. No one in the hall coughed or dared to breathe after a cutoff took place. It was as if the entire hall was transfixed in a mind meld. That might sound frightening, but at the conclusion of the concert, it became a life-enhancing experience.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Vogel (1756-1788)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Paul Le Flem (1881-1984)
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Willem van Hoogstraten (1884-1964)
Nobuko Imai (1943)
James Conlon (1950)
Jan-Hendrik Rootering (1950)
Courtney Pine (1964)

and

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Manly Hall (1901-1990)
George Plimpton (1927-2003)
Christa Wolf (1929-2011)
John Updike (1932-2009) 
Franz Wright (1953-2015)

Today's Birthdays

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
Manuel García II (1805-1906)
Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901)
Giuseppe Borgatti (1871-1950)
Brian Boydell (1917-2000)
Nat "King" Cole (1917-1965)
John LaMontaine (1920-2013)
Stephen Dodgson (1924-2013)
Betty Allen (1927-2009)
John Lill (1944)
Michael Finnissy (1946)
Patrick Burgan (1960)

and

Edmund Kean (1787-1833)
Frank B. Gilbreth (1911-2001)
Penelope Lively (1933)

Preview of Vancouver USA Singers concert in The Columbian

Today's edition of The Columbian newspaper featured by preview of Brahms' German Requiem,which the Vancouver USA Singers will perform with orchestra this weekend.  You can read the article here.

After the preview appeared in the paper this morning, I was notified (by the editor) of a nice letter from a reader:

Dear Mr. Bash,

As a 36 year member of the Vancouver USA Singers ( I was a member under the direction of the founder, Bill Slocum) I want to thank you for your excellent article in the Life section of today's Columbian. Your summary and primer of the work, the composer's motivation and his understanding of the universality of what he had written, were outstanding. I think the Columbian is fortunate to have you writing for them.

Thank you for your contributions to Vancouver, to the arts, and for highlighting our rapidly evolving choir and it's place in the Portland area performing arts community. As regards the choir, I think the best is yet to come.

Warm regards,

Russ Freeland
Baritone

Today's Birthdays

Enrico Tamberlik (1820-1889)
Henny Youngman (1906-1998)
Christa Ludwig (1928)
Sir Roger Norrington (1934)
Teresa Berganza (1935)
David Del Tredici (1937)
Claus Peter Flor (1953)

and

James Madison (1751-1836)
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)
César Vallejo (1892-1938)
Sid Fleischman (1920-2010)
Alice Hoffman (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Eduard Strauss (1835-1916)
Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935)
Colin McPhee (1900-1964)
Lightnin' Hopkins (1912-1982)
Ben Johnston (1926)
Nicolas Flagello (1928-1994)
Jean Rudolphe Kars (1947)
Isabel Buchanan (1954)

and

Richard Ellmann (1918-1987)
Ben Okri (1959)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1985, Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, age 22, makes his operatic debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, singing the lead tenor role in Domenico Morelli's comic opera "L'Amico Francesco."