Birthdays on the Tube: 3-9 January | reviews, news & interviews
Birthdays on the Tube: 3-9 January
Birthdays on the Tube: 3-9 January
This week's Birthdays include Poulenc, Scriabin, Pergolesi, Medtner and David Bowie
Sunday, 03 January 2010
An ongoing series celebrating musicians' birthdays.
7 January 1907: This week, by cosmic or other coincidence, has the birthdays of four composers who wrote some of the most interesting 20th-century music for the piano. Francis Poulenc here plays his Piano Concerto for Two Pianos with Jacques Fevrier.
7 January 1907: This week, by cosmic or other coincidence, has the birthdays of four composers who wrote some of the most interesting 20th-century music for the piano. Francis Poulenc here plays his Piano Concerto for Two Pianos with Jacques Fevrier.
The piece was been dismissed by Klemperer, among others, as little more than a mere divertissement - the tunes, including a section inspired by Balinese gamelan, waft in and out "like the models on a Paris Fashion show" as one critic put it, never to be seen again. It was played to great effect at the first night of the Proms last summer by the Labeque Sisters.
6 January 1872: Alexander Scriabin's 9th Piano Sonata, here played by Yevgevy Sudbin, nicknamed the "Black Mass" is a complex and mysterious work based on unstable minor 9th intervals. Known for his synesthesia, where colours and sounds are fused, when he died he was planning a megalomaniacal piece called Mysterium, which was to last seven days and nights and would bring about the end of the world, to be performed in the Himalayas. His coloured keyboard (illustration of keyboard and the colours Scriabin associated with notes, right) is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow, now a museum.
5 January 1880: As pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin suggests in this video, you have to give Nicolai Medtner a few listens before he gets under your skin. Here, he plays the Scherzo from the Sonata Romantica.
4 January 1874: Josef Suk's Le Desir, played by Lucas Vondracek. "Lush" and "tidy" In the words of TV's Gavin and Stacey.
4 January 1710: A couple of centuries earlier, Giovanni Pergolesi's Stabat Mater was the most printed piece of music of the 18th century here sung by the sublime Andreas Scholl and Barbara Bonney to a slide show of images of the Virgin Mary. The song is about the misery of Mary at the crucifixion.
8 January 1947: From the sublime to the desperately publicity-seeking. The earliest manifestation of David Bowie, then Davy Jones, on YouTube is his appearance aged 17 in November 1964 as the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.
6 January 1872: Alexander Scriabin's 9th Piano Sonata, here played by Yevgevy Sudbin, nicknamed the "Black Mass" is a complex and mysterious work based on unstable minor 9th intervals. Known for his synesthesia, where colours and sounds are fused, when he died he was planning a megalomaniacal piece called Mysterium, which was to last seven days and nights and would bring about the end of the world, to be performed in the Himalayas. His coloured keyboard (illustration of keyboard and the colours Scriabin associated with notes, right) is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow, now a museum.
5 January 1880: As pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin suggests in this video, you have to give Nicolai Medtner a few listens before he gets under your skin. Here, he plays the Scherzo from the Sonata Romantica.
4 January 1874: Josef Suk's Le Desir, played by Lucas Vondracek. "Lush" and "tidy" In the words of TV's Gavin and Stacey.
4 January 1710: A couple of centuries earlier, Giovanni Pergolesi's Stabat Mater was the most printed piece of music of the 18th century here sung by the sublime Andreas Scholl and Barbara Bonney to a slide show of images of the Virgin Mary. The song is about the misery of Mary at the crucifixion.
8 January 1947: From the sublime to the desperately publicity-seeking. The earliest manifestation of David Bowie, then Davy Jones, on YouTube is his appearance aged 17 in November 1964 as the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more Classical music
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Sousa, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - Beethoven, younger than springtime
An exuberant cobweb-clearing symphony cycle
Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - fun with abandon
Approaching the final goal of ‘Mozart, made in Manchester’
Dunedin Consort, Mulroy, Wigmore Hall review - songs of love old and new
First-rate chamber choir explore contemporary and Renaissance approaches to amour
Coote, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - the triumph of life
A great, ailing conductor rises to Mahler's mightiest challenge
Britten Sinfonia, The Marian Consort, Milton Court review - a journey around turbulent spirit Gesualdo
Contemporary homages among the works in this celebration of the Renaissance 'badass'
Classical CDs: Coffee, peppercorns and puppets
A prolific conductor's centenary celebrated, plus Hungarian ballet music and baroque keyboard concertos
Sansara, Manchester Collective, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sense of a unique experience
Three world premieres all respond to Feldman’s 'Rothko Chapel'
Gomyo, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - painful brilliance around a heart of darkness
A violinist for all facets of a towering Shostakovich masterpiece
Remembering conductor Andrew Davis (1944-2024)
Fellow conductors, singers, instrumentalists and administrators recall a true Mensch
Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - meeting a musical communicator
Drama and emotional power from a new principal conductor
Guildhall School Gold Medal 2024, Barbican review - quirky-wonderful programme ending in an award
Ginastera spolights the harp, Nino Rota the double bass in dazzling performances
Queyras, Philharmonia, Suzuki, RFH review - Romantic journeys
Japan's Bach maestro flourishes in fresh fields
Add comment