"Es tönen die Lieder",
a German round
about greeting spring with songs,
first appeared in 1869
in a collection of works by Adolf Spieß,
who developed a series of school-gymnastics steps to it.
(from User:Gerda Arendt/Stories)
This is the 2024 archive of my daily stories which began in January 2023, with an overview at User:Gerda Arendt/Story list that also features example stories. This archive has daily entries up to the day of the year while those following may be overwritten by new ones. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
Bach composed
Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht,
BWV 134a,
as a congratulatory cantata
for the court of Köthen,
first performed
on New Year's Day 1719.
"Lobpreiset all zu dieser Zeit",
(Praise all at this time)
for New Year
in the German Catholic hymnal
Gotteslob, takes two stanzas
from a 1851 song by Heinrich Bone,
a third stanza and refrain from 1969,
and a 1529 popular melody by Luther.
Bass-baritone
Johann-Werner Prein
(born 3 January 1954)
took part in the 1994 premiere
of Erwin Schulhoff's only opera, Flammen,
which the Nazis had suppressed.
Josef Suk
(4 January 1874 – 29 May 1935)
dedicated his
Asrael Symphony
"to the exalted memory of Dvořák and Otilie",
his father-in-law for whose memory he began the work,
and his daughter, the composer's wife.
The new
Catalogue of Works of Carl Friedrich Abel,
listing 420 compositions,
was introduced
at a festival
celebrating Abel's tercentenary
in Köthen
Hermann Baumann,
a pioneer of the natural horn in the revival
of both Baroque and Classical period music,
recorded Mozart's Horn Concertos
with Nikolaus Harnoncourt
and premiered Ligeti's Horn Trio.
Dmitri Shostakovich's
Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141,
his final symphony,
intended to be a cheerful work
to mark his 65th birthday,
was premiered on
8 January 1972,
conducted by his son,
Maxim Shostakovich.
A 1974 recording of
Mozart's Così fan tutte with
Ryland Davies
as Ferrando was used in a 1995 film
by the Salzburg Marionette Theatre.
The Advent song
"Macht hoch die Tür"
is number 1 in the German Protestant hymnal.
Chris Karrer
was a pioneer of experimental krautrock
with the band Amon Düül II (pictured),
founded in the spirit
of the 1960s student movement,
and later played world music with Embryo
and flamenco guitar.
Bright Angel,
composed by Graham Waterhouse
for three bassoons and contrabassoon,
relates to the Bright Angel Trail of the Grand Canyon
which the composer hiked
with his father
at the age of nine.
Kihwan Sim
from South Korea
appeared as Mozart's Figaro
at the Oper Frankfurt
in the first production with the new music director,
acting with a hint at the French Revolution.
Guido Dessauer
(7 November 1915 – 13 January 2012),
a German executive and art collector,
registered more than 30 patents
in paper technology
and started the career of Horst Janssen
as a lithographer.
In
Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, BWV 3
(Oh God, how much heartache),
a chorale cantata first performed
on 14 January 1725
at the Thomaskirche,
based on Moller's hymn in 18 stanzas,
the first cantus firmus is sung
by the bass supported by a trombone.
Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst
(How Deserted Lies the City),
a motet composed by Rudolf Mauersberger
after the bombing of Dresden,
was first performed
in the destroyed Kreuzkirche.
Thomas Fritzsch,
a viol player
who rediscovered compositions
by Carl Friedrich Abel,
established a festival dedicated to him
in Köthen
where he was born 300 years before.
The youthful Handel
composed four operas
for the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg
where they were performed
between 1705 and 1708,
but the music of three of them is lost,
of Nero, Florindo and Daphne.
(article by Brian Boulton)
Tamara Milashkina,
the first Soviet Russian soprano trained at La Scala,
portrayed Russian characters
with emotion and authenticity
touring with the Bolshoi Theatre
as Tchaikovsky's Tatiana at the Vienna State Opera
and as Lisa at the Metropolitan Opera.
Romuald Twardowski,
a prolific Polish composer
who studied in Vilnius, Warsaw and Paris,
composed operas such as Maria Stuart,
a Violin Concerto,
and sacred music for both Catholic use
and the Orthodox Church including the
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
St. Joseph,
a 1909 Catholic church
in the Romanesque Revival style
in Berlin-Wedding,
has served as an interim cathedral
since 2018.
Vivi Vassileva,
a percussionist who was the youngest member
of the German national youth orchestra,
has played Gregor Mayrhofer's Recycling Concerto
on instruments derived from garbage.
listen
(from User:Gerda Arendt/Stories)
Henri Dutilleux
(22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013)
composed his
Symphony No. 2 Le Double
in 1959 as
a concerto for twelve soloists from the orchestra
in a semi-circle around the conductor
as a mirror of the larger group.
Maria, Königin des Friedens,
a Brutalist pilgrimage church
in Neviges, Germany,
has become the signature building
of architect
Gottfried Böhm
(23 January 1920 – 9 June 2021).
Ewa Podleś
was a Polish coloratura contralto,
performing Rossini's Rosina,
La Cenerentola, Isabella and Tancredi,
and Handel's Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare
on leading stages of the world.
The Late Gothic appearance
of the church of
St. Martin in Oestrich
was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War
and restored only in 1894.
"Shalom chaverim"
('Peace, friends'),
a Hebrew traditional folk song,
has been sung at events
commemorating the Holocaust
and victims of anti-Semitic violence.
Before the age of thirty,
Anna Nekhames
performed the dual role
of Venus and Chief of the Gepopo
in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre,
one of opera's most demanding coloratura soprano roles.
Franz Fink conducted
Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine,
dedicated to the pope
on 1 September 1610,
at St. Martin, Idstein
on 1 September 2019.
Gerd Uecker
was artistic director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich,
and from 2003 to 2010 of the Semperoper in Dresden
where he staged operas related to Dresden.
Gertrude Pitzinger,
who toured Europe and the United States,
where she became known as
"the German Lieder singer",
recorded the alto part of Mozart's Requiem,
conducted by Ferenc Fricsay.
A clinic in Mopti, Mali,
is named after
Werner Bardenhewer,
born 90 years ago today,
who was for decades
priest of St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden,
and then founded
a charity group.
Max van Egmond
(born 1 February 1936)
recorded the bass arias
of Bach's St Matthew Passion
with Claudio Abbado
and the words of Jesus with Gustav Leonhardt.
Bishop of Limburg
Franz Kamphaus
(born 2 February 1932)
opposed the pope,
"convinced that our way of counselling women
would save the lives
of many more children".
In her opera
Inferno,
premiered in 2021 at the Oper Frankfurt,
Lucia Ronchetti
(born 3 February 1963)
gave the main character Dante
a speaking voice and
an inner voice of four male singers.
Michael Herrmann
(born 4 February 1944)
is founder-director
of the Rheingau Musik Festival,
which holds about 150 concerts every season
in vineyards and historical buildings.
Josef Protschka
(born 5 February 1944),
who sang as a soloist
in Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge at age 12,
later appeared in leading tenor roles
in the Mozart cycles staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
at the Cologne Opera and the Zürich Opera House.
Magna Lykseth
appeared as Isolde
when Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
was first performed
at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1909.
Stephen Gould,
an American heldentenor,
performed three roles
at the 2022 Bayreuth Festival:
Tannhäuser, Siegfried and Tristan,
earning him nicknames such as "Iron Man".
Oskar Negt
(1 August 1934 – 2 February 2024),
assistant of Jürgen Habermas in Frankfurt,
mentor of the APO and
professor of sociology in Hanover,
believed that democracy was
a form of government
that had to be learned.
Baritone
Wolfgang Schöne
(born 9 February 1940)
created the role of the tomcat
"Tom, Minette's lover"
in the opera Die englische Katze by Hans Werner Henze
at the Schwetzingen Festival.
Alfred Grosser
(1 February 1925 – 7 February 2024),
whose Jewish family had to move
from Frankfurt to France in 1933,
was instrumental to Franco-German cooperation,
paving the way for the 1963 Élysée Treaty,
and writing books towards better understanding
between the Germans and the French.
Bach composed his cantata
Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22,
for the last Sunday before Lent
as an audition piece
for the post of Thomaskantor in Leipzig,
displaying a
"sheer range of forms
and musical expression".
Seiji Ozawa
(September 1, 1935 – February 6, 2024),
the first star conductor from Japan,
studied in Tanglewood from 1960
with Charles Munch
from the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
became artistic director there in 1970
and was the orchestra's music director
from 1973 for 29 years.
Helga Paris
photographed people and streetscapes in East Germany,
Garbage Collectors, Berliner Kneipen,
Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, self portraits,
and houses and faces from Halle over three years,
and then the exhibition was cancelled.
Voltaire's tragedy Olimpie
premiered in 1762
and Henze's opera
Elegie für junge Liebende
(Elegy for Young Lovers)
in 1961 at the
Schlosstheater Schwetzingen.
Felix Mendelssohn subtitled
Sechs Lieder, Op. 59,
six songs for four voices
setting poems by Eichendorff and others,
"Im Freien zu singen"
("To be sung outdoors").
Hans-Dieter Bader
(16 February 1938 - 18 June 2022)
performed the title role
of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's opera Sly,
recorded live at the Staatsoper Hannover,
"as written", while Plácido Domingo
had to cut and change the part.
Bassoonist William Waterhouse
(18 February 1931 – 5 November 2007)
considered the rapport
between violist Cecil Aronowitz and cellist Terence Weil
the special distinction of the Melos Ensemble,
playing in the premiere of Britten's War Requiem.
Johanna von Koczian
had a breakthrough in the 1959 film Wir Wunderkinder,
landed the schlager hit "Das bißchen Haushalt",
and portrayed Florence Foster Jenkins on stage at age 77.
Ladislav Burlas,
a composer and musicologist
at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava
from 1951 to 1990,
studied the music history of Slovakia
with a focus on the 20th century.
Rudolf Jansen,
a pianist who taught at the Sweelinck Conservatory,
focused on accompanying singers
Elly Ameling, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and many more,
"unravelling all the intricacies
of the often independent piano parts".
For his ordination
at the Altrossgarten Church,
Georg Weissel wrote the text of the hymn
"Such, wer da will, ein ander Ziel"
(Search, whoever wants, for a different goal),
often sung for funerals,
to his friend's melody
for a wedding song.
Max Beckschäfer
(born 23 February 1952)
composed an organ version of
Max Reger's Hebbel-Requiem
and played in the 1985 premiere
at the Marktkirche, Wiesbaden
by a choir formed for the occasion
conducted by Gabriel Dessauer.
Gabriele Schnaut
(24 February 1951 – 19 June 2023)
recorded alto parts in Bach cantatas in the 1970s,
and appeared as Waltraute and Second Norne
in the Jahrhundertring film in 1980,
as Isolde in 1985,
and as Widow Begbick
in Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny in 2014.
Raymund Weber wrote
the penitential song
"Zeige uns, Herr, deine Allmacht und Güte"
(Show us, Lord, your power and mercy)"
to be sung with a modern melody,
but it appears in the German Catholic hymnal
with a Baroque cruciform melody.
The art of Ruth-Margret Pütz
(26 February 1930 – 1 April 2019)
a leading coloratura soprano of the 1960s,
was published in a 2018 Recital,
including excerpts as Konstanze and Zerbinetta.
Russian Jewish painter
Marc Chagall
created the windows
of the church of
St Stephan in Mainz
as a sign of
Jewish-German reconciliation.
Elisabeth Waterhouse
(born 28 February 1933)
founded the
National Chamber Music Course
summer school
in 1974
and has managed it since.
String Sextet (Waterhouse)
listen as she did on 5 November 2022
Gioachino Rossini
(born 29 February 1792)
scored the last of his "sins of old age",
the Petite messe solennelle,
for twelve singers, two pianos, and harmonium.
listen
When Heather Phillips
made her European debut
in Rossini's Bianca e Falliero,
her nuanced coloraturas served
to portray Bianca's development.
Soprano
Rotraud Hansmann
(born 1 March 1940)
performed six roles in three Monteverdi operas
conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
including Euridice in L'Orfeo.
Erna Berger sang the title role
of The Bartered Bride by
Bedřich Smetana
(2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884)
in a 1955 recording with Wilhelm Schüchter
and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.
Kurt Honolka's mid–20th century German translation
of Smetana's Dalibor
was still being performed in 2019
in a new Oper Frankfurt production.
Gabriela Grillo
(19 August 1952 – 25 February 2024),
who won a gold medal in team dressage
at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal,
later worked as a journalist,
managed the family business
and served the community voluntarily.
Benjamin Britten
composed many viola parts for
Cecil Aronowitz,
(4 March 1916 – 7 September 1978)
a co-founder of the Melos Ensemble.
The early
Sonata for horn, trumpet and trombone
by Francis Poulenc
was described as offering a
"variety of tone colors, striking rhythms,
delicious dissonances, and elegant wit".
Dutch soprano
Jo Vincent
(6 March 1898 – 28 November 1989)
appeared in Willem Mengelberg's 1939 recording
of Bach's St Matthew Passion,
and, with Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears,
in the world premiere
of Britten's Spring Symphony in 1949.
Hans-Karl von Kupsch
(7 March 1937 – 26 April 2020),
who was instrumental in the unification
of the East and West German booksellers' associations,
ran a gallery of contemporary art together with his wife,
offering works by Walter Stöhrer
and Karlheinz Oswald.
Catherine Rückwardt,
who was Generalmusikdirektorin
at the Staatstheater Mainz for a decade
and one of only four women in such a position in Germany,
conducted a recording of the First Symphony by Hans Rott.
When Friedrich Spitta revised
"Im Frieden dein, o Herre mein",
(In your peace, o my Lord)
a 1530 German Lutheran communion hymn
based on the biblical Nunc dimittis,
he completely changed the meaning.
German stage director
Tobias Kratzer
nominated two versions of
Verdi's Rigoletto
(premiered 11 March 1851)
for an international competition,
pretending to be an American woman
in the first instance,
and a Bulgarian in the second.
Odile Pierre
(12 March 1932 – 29 February 2020),
who became interested in the organ
at a recital by Marcel Dupré at the age of seven,
later served as the organist of La Madeleine in Paris
and played around 2,000 recitals herself.
Frank Beermann
(born 13 March 1965)
conducted the first recording
of Bruno Maderna's Requiem,
the German premiere
of Péter Eötvös's opera Love and Other Demons
at the Chemnitz Opera,
and Der Ring in Minden.
Gioachino Rossini
scored the last of his
"sins of old age", the
Petite messe solennelle
(premiered 14 March 1864)
for twelve singers, two pianos,
and harmonium.
Françoise Garner,
first a coloratura soprano at the Opéra-Comique,
brought French singing tradition to Europe,
portraying Gounod's Marguerite at La Scala
and his Juliette at the Verona Arena.
Guy Touvron,
a French classical trumpet player
for whom 25 concertos were composed,
wrote a biography
of his teacher Maurice André
published in 2003.
Arvo Pärt
composed the motet
The Deer's Cry
on a commission from Louth, Ireland,
setting the conclusion
of Saint Patrick's Breastplate,
"Christ with me".
Christa Wolf
(18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011)
wrote Der geteilte Himmel
in a "quest for personal integrity within a flawed system",
published in East Germany in 1963
and called a "socialist bestseller".
Requiem
by Max Reger
(19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916)
is a musical setting
not of the Latin Requiem,
but of a poem "Requiem"
written by the dramatist Friedrich Hebbel
Aribert Reimann
composed
Medea
for a 2010 premiere
at the Vienna State Opera,
based on the drama by Franz Grillparzer.
Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen
(lit. 'I will gladly carry the cross-staff'), BWV 56,
a church cantata composed
by Johann Sebastian Bach
(born 21 March 1685)
is one of few works that
he referred to as a cantata.
Mezzo-soprano
Pamela Dellal,
who recorded music by Hildegard von Bingen
and Fanny Mendelssohn,
translated all texted works by Bach.
Wolfgang Fortner
composed the chamber opera
In seinem Garten liebt Don Perlimplin Belisa
after Lorca
for the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen,
where it opened the Festival in 1962.
Cecelia Hall
has portrayed title roles,
of women such as
Dido, La Cenerentola, and María de Buenos Aires,
and of men including
Serse, Ascanio in Alba and Hänsel.
Comet Hale-Bopp
inspired Graham Waterhouse
to compose
Celtic Voices and Hale Bopp
for string orchestra,
which ends with a boy soprano singing
"How Brightly Shines the Morning Star".
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1,
Bach's chorale cantata
on "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern"
for the Feast of the Annunciation,
was first performed on Palm Sunday
in 1725.
When Kelsey Lauritano
portrayed Mozart's Cherubino in 2023,
a reviewer from the FAZ noted her
"almost metallic-brittle approach that spreads androgynous infatuation".
As music director of the Oper Hagen,
Florian Ludwig
promoted a wide repertoire that included
contemporary operas such as Barber's Vanessa and crossover projects.
... sofferte onde serene ...
(serene waves suffered)
is a composition for piano and tape
written by Luigi Nono
in collaboration with pianist
Maurizio Pollini
(pictured).
In a motet for Maundy Thursday
attributed to Johann Kuhnau,
Tristis est anima mea,
Jesus says in Gethsemane
"Sad is my soul even unto death".
... that on Good Friday 2020,
Benedikt Kristjánsson
sang all roles in a chamber arrangement of
Bach's St John Passion,
composed for Good Friday 1724,
broadcast live from the composer's burial place.
In his opera
Tri sestry
(Three Sisters),
composer Péter Eötvös
wanted the three sisters from Chekhov's play
to be sung by countertenors.
For Easter 1724,
his first as Thomaskantor in Leipzig,
Johann Sebastian Bach revived
Christ lag in Todes Banden,
(Christ lay in death's bonds)
BWV 4,
a chorale cantata
he had composed in his twenties,
using in all seven movements
the words and tune
of Luther's 1524 Easter chorale.
The opening chorus of
Bach's cantata
for the Second Day of Easter,
Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, BWV 66,
first performed in 1724
has been termed
"one of the longest and
most exhilarating of Bach's early works".
At age 22,
Judith Hemmendinger
helped rehabilitate
nearly 100 child survivors
of the Buchenwald concentration camp,
among them Elie Wiesel.
Ladislav Burlas,
a musicologist at the Slovak Academy of Sciences
for almost 40 years,
wrote more than 150 works during his career.
Karsten Januschke's
conducting of Offenbach's Die Banditen
was described as producing
a "lean, dry, delicate" sound
with an ensemble of 22 soloists, including 11 tenors.
Tilmann Köhler
directed Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in 2023
as playful "serious games"
in which the women win by "wit, cleverness and presence of mind".
Appalachian Spring,
a 1944 ballet by
choreographer Martha Graham,
and composer Aaron Copland,
follows Bride and Husbandman
in 19th-century Pennsylvania,
with themes of war present
throughout the story,
and the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts".
Bach created an "operatic scene"
in his cantata
Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, BWV 67
(Keep Jesus Christ in mind),
for the Sunday after Easter in 1724,
with Jesus serenely repeating
"Peace be with you"
against the raging of the enemies.
Notker Wolf OSB,
abbot of St. Ottilien Archabbey in Bavaria
and from 2000 to 2016
Abbot Primate of the international
Benedictine Confederation,
played and recorded
with the rock band Feedback.
After being denied the use
of Constitution Hall in Washington, DC,
contralto
Marian Anderson
gave an open-air concert
at the Lincoln Memorial
on 9 April 1939.
Gerhard Lohfink
was professor of the New Testament
at the University of Tübingen until 1986
when he moved to a Catholic Integrated Community,
following thoughts from his book
Jesus and Community. The Social Dimension of Christian faith.
The Finnish concert organist and improvisor
Kalevi Kiviniemi,
the first to record the complete organ works by Jean Sibelius,
recorded works from different eras
on organs of the world to match,
such as French organ music
on the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Church of St. Ouen, Rouen.
listen
11 April 2024
Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras,
und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen
wie des Grases Blumen.
Das Gras ist verdorret und die Blume abgefallen.
The first performance of Handel's celebrated oratorio
Messiah
took place in Dublin on 13 April 1742.
Part II contains the famous Hallelujah Chorus
and the oratorio's longest movement, the air for alto
He was despised.
Johann Sebastian Bach
set the theme of the Good Shepherd
in his cantata for the second Sunday after Easter,
Du Hirte Israel, höre, BWV 104,
as a pastorale,
a trio of oboes playing triplets to pedal points.
Michael Boder
conducted many world premieres of operas,
Reimann's Medea at the Vienna State Opera ,
Haas' Morgen und Abend at the Royal Opera House,
and operas by composers including
Friedrich Cerha, Pascal Dusapin, Hans Werner Henze,
Luca Lombardi, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Manfred Trojahn.
Dieter Rexroth,
responsible for the concert programs
of Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 1996,
shaped the festivals
Frankfurter Feste at the Alte Oper and Young Euro Classic.
The second of
Henry Purcell's two settings of
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts
was composed in an earlier style
for the funeral
of Queen Mary II of England.
Lorenzo Palomo,
conductor of the Valencia Orchestra
and pianist of the Deutsche Oper Berlin,
composed a song cycle Canciones españolas,
premiered by Montserrat Caballé
at Carnegie Hall in 1987.
Diego Fasolis
(born 19 April 1958)
conducted L'incoronazione di Poppea
at the reopened Staatsoper Unter den Linden,
adding music by other composers
of Monteverdi's time.
John Eliot Gardiner
(born 20 April 1943)
conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage
and described Bach
as the "best writer of dramatic declamation ... since Monteverdi"
for the dialogue
in Selig ist der Mann, BWV 57.
The first choral section
from the 1714 Bach cantata for Jubilate Sunday,
Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12
(Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing),
described as a "deeply affecting" tombeau,
became the Crucifixus of the Mass in B minor.
Kathleen Ferrier CBE
(22 April 1912 – 8 October 1953),
an English contralto singer
of international reputation,
chose to perform only two operatic roles on stage,
Britten's Lucretia and Gluck's Orfeo.
Andrew Davis,
longtime chief conductor
of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, among others,
brought The Makropulos Case and Lulu
to the Glyndebourne Festival
and conducted Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
The opera
The Devil in Love
by Alexander Vustin
(born 24 April 1943)
took 15 years to be completed
and 30 more years to be premiered,
debuting at the centenary of the
Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre.
Felix Mendelssohn first composed the motet
Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen
(For He shall give His angels charge)
for an eight-part choir,
and then included it with orchestra
in his oratorio Elijah.
Contralto Marga Höffgen
(26 April 1921 – 7 July 1995),
known as a Bach singer for Karajan
and as Erda in Bayreuth,
recorded Max Reger's Requiem compositions.
Adalbert Kraus
(born 27 April 1937)
portrayed Tom in Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers
at the Staatsoper Hannover
and the tenor part of Peter the Apostle
in Bach's Easter Oratorio.
In Patrick Süskind's play
Der Kontrabaß,
the double bass in the title role
is a "constant handicap" to its player,
"humanly, socially, sexually, musically".
Samuel Kummer
chose for his first recital
as the organist of
the restored Frauenkirche in Dresden
music by Bach, Brahms, Max Reger,
Louis Vierne and his own.
Oksana Lyniv
founded the
Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
in 2016 and conducted them
in thirty concerts across ten music festivals
in 2022.
The choir
Groningse Bachvereniging
sang Bach's Magnificat
with Harnoncourts' Concentus Musicus Wien
in the orchestra's first appearance
in the Netherlands in 1970.
The baritone
Johannes Hill
was the voice of Jesus and Pilate
in Bach's Passions,
and of Pope Francis in the premiere
of Peter Reulein's Laudato si'.
Hans Stadlmair
(3 May 1929 – 13 February 2019),
conductor of the Münchener Kammerorchester for almost four decades,
in 1971 premiered
Wilhelm Killmayer's Fin al punto,
of which the composer said,
"The calm already contains the catastrophe".
Bach's cantata for Easter Monday,
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6,
is based on the Road to Emmaus narration
A prize for contemporary art of Styria
is named after
Viktor Fogarassy
(6 May 1911 – 24 March 1989),
the managing director of a department store.
Peter Demetz,
born in Prague in 1922,
persecuted under the Nazis,
escaped the Communist regime in 1949,
taught German literature at Yale University
from 1956 to 1991,
and wrote the book
Prague in Black and Gold:
Scenes from the Life of a European City.
"Es tönen die Lieder",
a German round
about greeting spring with songs,
first appeared in 1869
in a collection of works by Adolf Spieß,
who developed a series of school-gymnastics steps to it.
The prolific composer
and Westminster Cathedral conductor
Colin Mawby
(9 May 1936 – 24 November 2019)
said,
"I cannot write choral music
unless I work with choirs
... I have to write for particular people".
He wrote the Bonifatiusmess for the 150th anniversary of Chor von St. Bonifatius in Wiesbaden in 2012, then conducted by Gabriel Dessauer.
In one concert, bassoonist Lyndon Watts
premiered Bernd Redmann's Migrant,
and played Jörg Duda's first Finnish Quartet,
which he had commissioned,
and the Bassoon Quintet of Graham Waterhouse,
which he had premiered.
The late-Gothic church
St. Lamberti in Hildesheim
was rebuilt after destruction in World War II,
but a southern annex was kept in ruins
as a memorial?
Raimund Hoghe
(12 May 1949 – 14 May 2021),
who was awarded the German Dance Prize in 2020,
made a self-portrait documentary film Der Buckel (The Hunchback).
Kari Løvaas
(born 13 May 1939)
appeared in the premiere of Orff's De temporum fine comoedia
at the Salzburg Festival?
Bach began his cantata,
Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch, BWV 86
(first performed on 14 May 1724),
with a quotation from the Farewell discourse,
sung by the bass as the vox Christi.
The Polish soprano
Zofia Kilanowicz
(born 15 May 1963)
appeared as Roxana in Szymanowski's King Roger in Paris,
and recorded Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Faustas Latėnas
(16 May 1956 – 3 November 2020),
vice-minister of Lithuania's Ministry of Culture,
composed incidental music, film scores,
and a string quartet subtitled "In loving memory".
Günter Wewel
(29 November 1934 – 9 May 2023),
for around 30 years operatic bass
at the Opernhaus Dortmund,
presented the television series Kein schöner Land,
portraying regions in Europe filmed at the locations.
Poetess
Christiana Mariana von Ziegler
ended her text for Bach's cantata
Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BWV 68,
for Pentecost Monday
with a quotation from the Gospel?
The art of
Irma Blank,
of "drawing languages without words"
and including sounds,
was recognised in the 1970s
but fell into obscurity until a rediscovery in the 2010s.
Maria Mies
(6 February 1931 – 15 May 2023)
from a small village in the Vulkaneifel
studied the position of women first in India
and cofounded
the first women's shelter in Germany.
Johann Sebastian Bach reworked music
from more than three decades earlier
for the central piece Crucifixus
in the symmetrical structure of his
Mass in B minor.
Franz Schubert dedicated compositions to
Cathinka Buchwieser
(24 May 1789 – 9 July 1828),
a soprano who appeared in Vienna
as Mozart's Sesto and Elvira,
and as Ferdinando Paer's Achille and Leonora.
Jubilate and Te Deum
from the
Morning, Evening and Communion Service in B-flat
by Charles Villiers Stanford
were first performed in Cambridge
on 25 May 1879.
The text for Bach's last cantata
in his second year in Leipzig,
Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding, BWV 176,
reflects the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus.
The Easter composition
Surrexit a mortuis
(He rose from the dead)
was scored for choir and two organs
by Charles-Marie Widor,
the organist at Saint-Sulpice in Paris?
Johann Sebastian Bach
marked to repeat the opening chorus
of the cantata for Pentecost,
Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!
BWV 172,
after the final chorale.
Poetess
Christiana Mariana von Ziegler
ended her text for Bach's cantata
Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, BWV 68,
for Pentecost Monday
with a quotation from the Gospel.
On 30 May 1723,
Johann Sebastian Bach
assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig,
presenting his first new cantata,
Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75,
in the St. Nicholas Church
on the first Sunday after Trinity.
Mezzo-soprano
Eva Randová
was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award
for her performance as the Kostelnička Buryjovka
in Janáček's Jenůfa at the Royal Opera House.
Javier Álvarez
(8 May 1956 – 23 May 2023)
composed his first electroacoustic music,
Temazcal,
in 1984 while studying in London,
using a pair of maracas
against a complex electroacoustic backdrop.
The Kölner Domchor
from the Cologne Cathedral
sang Palmeri's Misa a Buenos Aires
at a 2013 festival in Rome dedicated to Pope Francis,
with the composer at the piano.
Michael Hampe
(3 June 1935 – 18 November 2022),
who directed the Cologne Opera for 20 years,
was the stage director for the world premiere
of Henze's adaptation of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
at the Salzburg Festival
Erasmus Schöfer
(4 June 1931 – 7 June 2022)
chronicled the resistance in Germany,
from the protests of 1968
to German reunification,
in a tetralogy of novels.
In Strauss' Elektra,
Aile Asszonyi
was said to be convincing
as a woman close to madness?
Bach has
a trumpet tell God's glory in cantata
Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, BWV 76,
first performed in the Thomaskirche
on 6 June 1723,
but oboe d'amore and viola da gamba
express "brotherly devotion".
Kurt Widmer
(28 December 1940 – 31 May 2023),
a baritone and influential professor in Basel,
sang as a soloist with Gemischter Chor Zürich between 1967 and 1992,
from Bach's Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild, BWV 79,
to Suter's Le Laudi,
and recorded new song cycles by György Kurtág.
Mozart composed his motet
Ave verum corpus
for the church choir of
St. Stephan in Baden
on 17 June 1791,
for the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories,
an opera by Charles Wuorinen
(9 June 1938 – 11 March 2020),
is based on a children's novel
by Salman Rushdie
about free imagination in battle with thought control.
Hanns-Martin Schneidt
became head of an academy of church music in 1955 at age 25,
of the Münchener Bach-Chor in 1984,
and of a symphony orchestra in Japan in 2007.
Jesu, meine Freude
(Jesus, my joy),
a motet by Bach,
has a complex symmetrical structure
in which six hymn stanzas
alternate with five Bible verses.
"Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud",
written by Paul Gerhardt
after the Thirty Years War,
was translated as
"Go forth, my heart, and seek delight".
Tenor Kurt Equiluz
(13 June 1929 – 20 June 2022)
was the Evangelist
in the first recording of Bach's St John Passion
on period instruments with the Concentus Musicus Wien, Vienna.
Mezzo-soprano Hedwig Fassbender,
who also appeared in soprano roles such as Wagner's Isolde,
has been an influential voice teacher in Frankfurt.
The oboist and composer
Rolf Riehm
(born 15 June 1937)
taught music theory in Frankfurt from 1974 to 2000
and wrote an opera, Sirenen, for a 2014 premiere at the Oper Frankfurt.
In 2016 Pascal Rophé
conducted works by Henri Dutilleux
to celebrate the composer's centenary,
including Tout un monde lointain... and Le temps l'horloge.
The bass-baritone Albert Dohmen
(born 17 June 1956)
appeared as Berg's Wozzeck at the Salzburg Festival in 1997,
and as Wagner's Pogner at La Scala in 2017.
Jörg Faerber
(18 June 1929 – 13 September 2022)
was the artistic director of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn
for more than four decades
and recorded piano concertos by Shostakovich and Haydn with Martha Argerich.
With compositions such as Con brio
and Babylon,
clarinetist Jörg Widmann
(born 19 June 1973)
was ranked the third-most-performed
contemporary composer in 2018?
In his Viola Sonata
entitled Sonata ebraica (Hebrew Sonata),
Graham Waterhouse quotes the Yiddish song
"Oyfn Pripetshik".
Gabriele Schnaut
(24 February 1951 – 19 June 2023)
recorded alto parts in Bach cantatas in the 1970s,
and appeared as Waltraute and Second Norne
in the Jahrhundertring film in 1980,
as Isolde in 1985,
and as Turandot in 2002.
Cornel Țăranu
(20 June 1934 – 18 June 2023),
a Romanian composer, musicologist and
conductor of a chamber orchestra for contemporary music,
completed unfinished scores by George Enescu.
Josef Protschka, who sang as a soloist
in Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge
at age 12, later appeared in leading tenor roles
in the Mozart cycle staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle at the Cologne Opera.
The concert venues of the
Rheingau Musik Festival
have included Eberbach Abbey,
Schloss Johannisberg and St. Martin, Lorch,
from the beginning.
The Company of Heaven,
Benjamin Britten's 1937 composition
about angels
for speakers, soloists, choir and orchestra,
contains "metrical spoken (shouted) male chorus".
Alte Liebe (Old Love)
is a novel about a couple married for 40 years,
told by a couple married longer but separated,
with chapters written alternately
by Elke Heidenreich and
Bernd Schroeder
(6 June 1944 – 18 June 2023).
Karlheinz Stockhausen dedicated several compositions to
Doris Stockhausen
(28 February 1924 – 20 June 2023)
beginning with Chöre für Doris in 1950
before they married.
Johann Sebastian Bach
reworked music from
more than three decades earlier
for the central piece
Crucifixus
in the symmetrical structure of his
Mass in B minor.
International opera singer
Soňa Červená
won the Alfréd Radok Award for Best Actress
when she was 83 years old.
The 1968 album Machine Gun by
Peter Brötzmann
(6 March 1941 – 22 June 2023),
titled after his nickname, became
"one of the landmark albums
of 20th-century free jazz".
30 June 2023
Benjamin Britten wrote out the Latin text for
Cantata academica,
commissioned by Paul Sacher for the quincentenary of the University of Basel
and premiered 1 July 1960,
in one of his old German exercise books.
The Missa brevis in B-flat,
a mass for mixed choir, trumpets, trombones, tubular bells and organ
by Christopher Tambling,
was premiered by 1,400 singers
at St. Maria in Landau in 2014.
Rachel Yakar
(3 March 1936 – 24 June 2023),
a French soprano based for decades at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein,
appeared in the title role of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea
in the Oper Zürich production and film
conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Countertenor Christopher Lowrey
took part in the world premiere of Brett Dean's Hamlet
in Glyndebourne in 2017,
and moved with the production to Australia
and the Metropolitan Opera.
Diana Tishchenko,
a violinist from Ukraine,
played Skoryk's Melody
on a tour of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra to Germany
in April 2022.
In 2016, Edition Güntersberg
published 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba
by Telemann
that had been lost.
Wolkentanz,
a leading Hanoverian stallion at the Celle State Stud,
sired 21 licensed stallions?
The Twelve Fantasias for Viola da Gamba solo,
published by the composer
Georg Philipp Telemann in 1735, were believed lost
but published again in 2016.
Leonore von Zadow-Reichling and Günter von Zadow
received the first biennial Abel Prize of Köthen
for their efforts to retrieve and publish
compositions by Carl Friedrich Abel.
The a cappella
ensemble amarcord,
five former members of the Thomanerchor,
won the CARA award "Best classical album"
again in 2010,
for Rastlose Liebe (Restless Love).
In Bio's Bahnhof,
a German live music talk show
presented by
Alfred Biolek
(10 July 1934 – 23 July 2021)
in a former train depot,
Kate Bush made her first television appearance.
Frank Beermann
conducted the first recording
of Bruno Maderna's Requiem,
the German premiere
of Péter Eötvös's opera Love and Other Demons
at the Chemnitz Opera,
and Beethoven's Fidelio in 2021.
Director Frank Stähle
(12 July 1942 – 10 December 2015)
revived the choir and orchestra
of Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium
and conducted them in Mozart's Requiem
for the centenary of the Lutherkirche
in Wiesbaden.
The string quintet Haven of Mysteries
by Anthony Gilbert
(26 July 1934 – 5 July 2023),
who taught composition both
at the Royal Northern College of Music and in Australia,
was premiered with the Arditti Quartet in Wigmore Hall in 2015.
Graham Clark
(10 November 1941 – 6 July 2023)
appeared at the Bayreuth Festival in 16 seasons,
in 1988 as Loge and Mime in the Ring cycle conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
Violeta Hemsy de Gainza
(25 January 1929 – 7 July 2023),
president of the
Latin American Forum of Musical Education
from its foundation in 1995,
taught generations of students, and said:
"Learning music is a human right".
The title role of Boris Blacher's last opera,
Yvonne, Prinzessin von Burgund,
is performed by a mute dancer.
Johann Sebastian Bach
may have reused earlier music
for his cantata
Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz,
BWV 136,
for the eighth Sunday after Trinity
on 18 July 1723.
Martin Janus
wrote the original lyrics of "Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne",
which Bach used in
Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147,
in a setting known as Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.
When Heide Simonis
(4 July 1943 – 12 July 2023),
minister of finance in Schleswig-Holstein from 1988,
became minister-president there,
she was the first woman to serve
as head of a state government in Germany.
The walls of the Kronberg Academy's
Casals Forum,
opened in 2022,
are curved and covered with wood in a manner
reminiscent of a string instrument.
The Empress Elisabeth Bridge ,
a 1855 chain bridge over the Elbe
connecting Tetschen
to the railroad to Dresden,
was named in honor of the newly married
Elisabeth of Austria.
Valentin Gheorghiu
(21 March 1928 – 17 July 2023),
later pianist and composer,
won the prize for the best performance
of Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3
at the first
George Enescu International Competition
in 1958, with his brother Ștefan as the violinist.
Singers Anne Sofie von Otter and
Christian Gerhaher
(born 24 July 1969)
recorded music written in
the concentration camp of Terezín
by artists such as
Ilse Weber, Hans Krása,
Pavel Haas and Viktor Ullmann.
After
Tenebrae
received the Rheingau Musikpreis
during a concert at Eberbach Abbey,
they performed Talbot's Path of Miracles,
a 2005 one-hour work for choir a cappella
inspired by the Camino de Santiago.
Romanian musicologist
Cornel Țăranu
(20 June 1934 – 18 June 2023)
completed unfinished scores by George Enescu
that Enescu did not wish to publish.
In 1973
Luten Petrowsky
played the saxophone in a quartet
that made the first record
with jazz musicians from
both East and West Germany?
Silvana Lattmann,
biologist, poet and author,
published the memoir
Nata il 1918
in 2019.
Rhythm Is It!
is a 2004 documentary film
about 250 public school students
trained by Royston Maldoom to dance
Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps
with the Berlin Philharmonic.
Paul Gerhardt's song
of thanks and praise
"Nun danket all und bringet Ehr"
was first published
along with 17 of his other hymns
in 1647,
during the Thirty Years' War?
A French team,
with Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez,
created the
Jahrhundertring
of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle
at the centenary Bayreuth Festival in 1976,
causing "a near-riot".
Martin Walser's
Ein fliehendes Pferd
(Runaway Horse),
his most successful book with readers and critics,
was adapted for the screen
in 1986 by Peter Beauvais,
and again in 2007 by Rainer Kaufmann.
Andris Nelsons conducted
Bartok's Viola Concerto
and Mahler's Fifth Symphony
in the final concert with his
Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.
pictured:
Jonathon Heyward announcing on 3 March 2022
at the Stadttheater Minden that the concert
(which included Stavinsky's The Firebird)
was dedicated to
the victims of the Russian invasion into Ukraine
Kaiser Wilhelm II
called the
Kurhaus in Wiesbaden
"the most beautiful spa in the world"
at the opening ceremony.
Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Felix Mendelssohn
first composed the motet
Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen
(For He shall give His angels charge)
for an eight-part choir,
then included it with orchestra
in Elijah.
Nancy Van de Vate's opera
Quiet at the Western Front
was performed at the
New York City Opera.
After the Ukrainian soprano
Olga Bezsmertna
(born 6 August 1983)
won the Neue Stimmen competition in 2011,
she was engaged at the Vienna State Opera.
Igor Stravinsky
said of his cousin and first wife,
Yekaterina "Katya",
that they were
"closer than lovers sometimes are".
Mariana Sîrbu,
who played first violin in a string quartet
that she founded as a student in Bucharest in 1967
and moved to Ireland,
was concertmaster of I Musici from 1993 to 2003.
The conductor of the
Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7
on 9 August 1942 while the city was under siege,
performed by the surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra
supplemented with military performers, concluded:
"we triumphed over the soulless Nazi war machine".
Klesie Kelly,
soprano and academic voice teacher in Cologne,
recorded love songs for voices and instrumental soloists
with tenor Ian Partridge.
Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy,
who has given over 200 performances at the Metropolitan Opera,
said that becoming a singer
"takes work on your psyche, your innermost being".
The Überwasserkirche,
a Gothic hall church in Münster,
was the location
of the second of three sermons held in 1941
by Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen
in defiance of the Nazi regime.
The "extreme lightness and luminous agility" of
Michael McCown's voice
in the roles of
Britten's Tempter and Nebuchadnezzar
has been likened to that of Peter Pears.
Countertenor David Erler
was one of five singers invited by amarcord
for the performance of Monteverdi's Vespers
as the annual Marienvesper
of the Rheingau Musik Festival in Eberbach Abbey.
After an absence of four years,
the Inkpot Madonna,
holding a naked Baby Jesus with quill in hand,
returns to the Hildesheim Cathedral today.
Countertenor David Erler
was one of five singers invited by amarcord
for the performance of Monteverdi's Vespers
as the annual Marienvesper
of the Rheingau Musik Festival in Eberbach Abbey.
Hans-Jochen Jaschke,
who was responsible
for ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue
as an auxiliary bishop of Hamburg,
represented the Catholic Church
in the media.
Marie Lehmann,
one of the Rhinemaidens
at the first Bayreuth Festival
(13–17 August 1876),
sang the soprano solo
in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
for the groundbreaking
of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre.
Soprano Rosa Lamoreaux,
who recorded Bach's Mass in B minor
with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and at the Carmel Bach Festival,
won the 2009 Washington Area Music Award as classical vocal soloist.
Mahler: Second Symphony
Vilde Frang
(born 19 August 1986)
played Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy,
with Mariss Jansons
conducting the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra,
at age 13.
Mahler: Fourth Symphony
Renata Scotto
made her opera debut as La traviata in Milan,
portrayed Madama Butterfly
for her debut at the Met,
and was Mimi
in the first Live from the Met telecast
in 1977, alongside Luciano Pavarotti.
Hans Stadlmair, conductor of the Münchener Kammerorchester
for almost four decades, in 1971 premiered
Wilhelm Killmayer's Fin al punto,
of which the composer said,
"The calm already contains the catastrophe".
Claude Debussy
(22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918)
described his
Cello Sonata,
composed within a few weeks
in July 1915 at a Normandy seaside town,
in a letter to his publisher Durand
as of "almost classical form".
Vera Nemirova
staged Lulu at the Salzburg Festival
and The Ring for the Oper Frankfurt.
Conductor Roland Bader
(born 24 August 1938)
recorded late choral works by Max Reger,
including his Hebbel Requiem,
and the First Symphony by Richard Wetz.
Thomas Gabriel
(born 25 August 1957)
composed the Missa mundi
for the 2005 World Youth Day,
representing the continents
in style and instrumentation
with pan flute, sitar,
drums and didgeridoo.
Soon after starting her career at the Metropolitan Opera,
Gwendolyn Killebrew
(August 26, 1941 – December 24, 2021)
appeared as a valkyrie in Wagner's Die Walküre
in a live broadcast
alongside Birgit Nilsson in the title role.
Mahler: Ninth Symphony
The First Symphony "Music on Open Strings"
by Gloria Coates
was the first composition by a woman
in the Musica Viva series of Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Rehearsing
Dvořák's Eighth Symphony,
conductor Rafael Kubelík said:
"Gentlemen,
in Bohemia
the trumpets never call to battle –
they always call to the dance!".
heard 2013
When Berit Lindholm
(18 October 1934 – 12 August 2023),
a dramatic soprano of the Royal Swedish Opera,
appeared as Chrysothemis
at the Royal Opera House,
a reviewer described her as
"tall, and remarkably slim for so epic a voice".
Berit Lindholm
performed as Wagner's Isolde
at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow
in a pioneering tour of the Vienna State Opera
in 1971.
Beethoven's
Third Cello Sonata,
first performed in 1809,
has been described
as the first sonata for piano and cello
to treat the instruments as equal partners.
16 December 2020
(quirky in the all-Beethoven set)
Of thrice-married composer
Alma Mahler
(31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964)
Tom Lehrer crooned,
"Alma, tell us!
All modern women are jealous
Which of your magical wands
got you Gustav and Walter and Franz".
Le Vin herbé,
a 1942 composition by Frank Martin
of the Tristan and Iseult story
for twelve vocalists,
seven strings and piano,
was staged at the 1948 Salzburg Festival.
The concert venues of the
Rheingau Musik Festival
have included Eberbach Abbey
from the beginning,
where the final concert of 2023
is Bruckner's Seventh Symphony
played by the Gewandhausorchester
conducted by Herbert Blomstedt
(born 1927).
Giuseppe Verdi's
secular cantata
Inno delle nazioni,
his first collaboration with Arrigo Boito,
contains three national anthems.
In her 2021 composition with string orchestra
This too shall pass
Raminta Šerkšnytė used
a vibraphone for the flow of time,
a violin for the transience of humans,
and a "heavenly" cello.
When Robert Hale
appeared as Wagner's Wotan at the Kennedy Center in 1989,
a reviewer noted that he captured "the spirit,
from tragic grandeur to ironic detachment,
from flooding tenderness to grim rage".
Nerotalanlagen,
a park along a creek in Wiesbaden,
was built in the late 19th century
to enhance the town's spa quality?
Milka Stojanović,
prima donna at the National Theatre in Belgrade from 1960 to 1993,
performed the Verdian repertoire worldwide,
including Leonora, Amelia and Aida
at the Metropolitan Opera.
Concerts of the
Spannungen
festival of chamber music,
founded by pianist Lars Vogt
(8 September 1970 – 5 September 2022)
in 1998, are played in a power plant.
The dramatic soprano
Ute Vinzing
(born 9 September 1936)
made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Elektra,
and appeared as Brünnhilde in Wagner's Ring cycle in Seattle.
Dramatic soprano
Ursula Schröder-Feinen
appeared at the Bayreuth Festival
as Senta, Brünnhilde, Ortrud and,
with "intensity, ... freshness and spontaneity", as Kundry in Parsifal.
Walter Arlen
(July 31, 1920 – September 2, 2023),
who escaped the Nazi regime in Vienna
for the United States in 1939,
enjoyed the first recording of his compositions, for voice and piano, at age 92.
Anatol Ugorski
(28 September 1942 – 5 September 2023),
who had played piano music by controversial Western composers
such as Pierre Boulez in the Soviet Union,
made his first recording, of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, in 1991?
12 September 2023
The pianist
Clara Schumann,
(13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896)
who toured Europe for decades,
taught 68 students at Dr. Hoch's,
including those from Britain and the U.S..
Margherita Rinaldi
(12 January 1935 – 7 September 2023)
made her debut as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 1958,
prompting a career at La Scala in Milan where she appeared
as Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi
alongside Luciano Pavarotti.
14 September 2023
Soprano Jessye Norman
(15 September 1945 – 30 September 2019),
whose voice was described
as a "grand mansion of sound",
performed at U.S. presidential inaugurations
and sang La Marseillaise
at the French Revolution's bicentennial.
Wolfgang J. Fuchs
(16 September 1945 – 20 January 2020),
an early German comics scholar
who co-wrote a 1971 standard work on the topic,
translated Garfield
and Mom's Cancer.
The tenor Graham Clark
appeared at the Bayreuth Festival in 16 seasons,
portraying the characters Loge and Mime
in the 1988 Ring cycle.
Grischa Huber
(18 September 1944 – 6 April 2021)
played Grischa in
Under the Pavement Lies the Strand,
regarded as
"a cult film in the feminist movement".
After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
shared the Nobel Peace Prize, contributing author
Raymond Arritt
(September 19, 1957 – November 14, 2018)
said, "It's kind of neat:
I have, like, .002 percent of a Nobel prize now".
Georg Christoph Biller (r.)
(20 September 1955 – 27 January 2022)
was the Thomaskantor,
the conductor of the Thomanerchor in Leipzig,
the 16th successor of Johann Sebastian Bach
in this position.
Elisabeth Rethberg
(22 September 1894 – 6 June 1976)
a soprano
whose career began in Saxony,
became Aida
at La Scala in Milan,
conducted by Toscanini.
With the growth of the
Werl pilgrimage
to a statue of Mary,
a large Romanesque Revival basilica
was built adjacent to
the former Baroque church (pictured).
For the morning song
"Die güldne Sonne
voll Freud und Wonne",
the poet found a new metre,
and the composer a new melody,
to reflect the many meanings of "rising".
Stephen Gould,
an American heldentenor,
performed around 100 times at the Bayreuth Festival,
especially as Tannhäuser, Siegfried, and Tristan,
all three even in one year in 2022.
A loop from the anthem
O clap your hands,
a setting of verses from Psalm 47
by Ralph Vaughan Williams
for choir, brass, organ and percussion,
was used by the Beatles for "Revolution 9".
Kloster Gnadenthal
(buildings pictured)
was a Cistercian nunnery from 1235,
a Protestant women's Stift from 1564,
and became an ecumenical community
in 1969.
François Glorieux
(27 August 1932 – 22 September 2023)
was a Belgian pianist and improvisor, touring with André Cluytens,
conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra, the Stan Kenton band,
and four ensembles that he founded,
composer, and arranger for Michael Jackson.
The Company of Heaven,
about angels, composed by Benjamin Britten
for speakers, soloists, choir and orchestra,
and first aired by the BBC on Michaelmas,
29 September 1937,
contains "metrical spoken (shouted) male chorus".
The Kreuzkapelle
above Bad Camberg,
a pilgrimage chapel
dedicated to the Holy Cross,
has a floor plan of a Greek cross.
"Wir pflügen und wir streuen"
('We plow and sow'),
with words by Matthias Claudius,
began as a song of a fictional harvest festival,
and is now a Protestant hymn
for Erntedankfest.
Dona nobis pacem
is a cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams,
first performed on 2 October 1936,
a plea for peace with texts taken
from the Mass, poems by Walt Whitman,
a political speech, and sections of the Bible.
Haydn's oratorio
The Creation
is structured in three parts,
the first two about
the creation as narrated in Genesis,
and the third about
Adam and Eve in Paradise.
Swiss composer Hermann Suter's
symphonic oratorio
Le Laudi
(The Praises)
is a setting of St. Francis of Assisi's
Italian Canticle of the Sun
for choir, soloists, voci di ragazzi,
organ and orchestra.
Tenor Daniel Behle
had a single day to learn rarely performed romantic duets
when he stepped in at short notice
for a 2018 Rheingau Musik Festival concert with Annette Dasch.
Claus Wisser
founded the services company Wisag,
and co-founded the Rheingau Musik Festival
which staged a concert of Orff's Carmina Burana for his 60th birthday.
Russell Sherman, a classical pianist
who taught at the New England Conservatory for more than half a century,
wrote about music by Franz Liszt:
"The poetic idea is central, and the virtuoso elements
become so many layers to orchestrate the poetic content".
Tabea Zimmermann
(born 8 October 1966)
prepared her own version of Bartók's Viola Concerto
from the composer's sketches,
and played it at the Casals Forum,
with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony
conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.
Alain Altinoglu
(born 9 October 1975)
conducted the opening concert of the
2023 Rheingau Musik Festival
at Eberbach Abbey,
featuring Poulenc's Stabat Mater
with the MDR Rundfunkchor
and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony.
The baritone Björn Bürger
(born 10 October 1985),
who won the
Bundeswettbewerb Gesang Berlin in 2012,
performed the title role
in Arnulf Herrmann's Der Mieter
in its 2017 world premiere
at the Oper Frankfurt.
Jacqueline Dark,
a mezzo-soprano with Opera Australia for a while,
won awards for portraying Mozart's Donna Elvira and Strauss's Herodias,
and toured Australia and New Zealand
as Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music,
with "a stunning rendition of 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain'".
Reiner Goldberg,
a heldentenor who performed Wagner-roles worldwide,
was a member of the Berlin State Opera from 1972,
appeared as Aron in the iconic production
of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron
of the Dresden State Opera in 1975,
and sang Parsifal in the 1982 Syberberg film
"with a youthful radiance
that is precisely that of the chaste madman".
Maurice Bourgue.
principal oboist with the Orchestre de Paris from its foundation in 1967,
and professor of chamber music at the Conservatoire de Paris,
played in world premieres such as Les Citations by Henri Dutilleux,
and Poulenc's Oboe Sonata with friends.
When Robert Hale
performed as Wagner's Wotan in Washington,
a reviewer noted that he commanded
"the spirit, from tragic grandeur to ironic detachment,
from flooding tenderness to grim rage".
Jorge Lavelli
introduced the French audience to the Polish playwright Witold Gombrowicz,
directing his The Marriage in 1963 for a competition,
and his 1975 staging of Gounod's Faust for the Paris Opera,
set during World War I, was played until 2003.
"Glauben können wie du"
(Believing like you),
a hymn by Helmut Schlegel,
is addressed to Mary,
and relates to her exemplary
faith, hope and love.
Tenor Thomas Mohr,
who sang the roles
of Loge, Siegmund, and Siegfried
in Der Ring in Minden,
and Florestan in Fidelio in Hamm,
hosts concerts in his cowshed?
Walls and the ceiling of the
Unionskirche
(Union Church)
in Idstein are covered
with 38 oil paintings
from the Dutch Golden Age school
of Rubens.
To include the popular Marian hymn
"Maria zu lieben, ist allzeit mein Sinn"
(To love Mary is always on my mind)
in the first common Catholic hymnal in German,
Friedrich Dörr retained only its first line.
In 2023,
a sculpture garden in Praunheim
displayed abstract works by
Hans Steinbrenner
from different periods of his life,
and corresponding works
by his friends and students.
"'"
("Call it causelessly merry")
was one of about 40 poems
by Mascha Kaléko
set to music on a 2011 album.
"Ich freu mich, daß am Himmel Wolken ziehen"
The opening chorus
of Bach's cantata
Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 180,
has been regarded as
"perfectly tailored to the idea of the soul
dressing itself up in all its wedding finery".
Hatto Beyerle,
the founding violist of the Alban Berg Quartet,
taught chamber music in Vienna, Hannover and Basel,
and initiated and directed the European Chamber Music Academy in 2004.
Carmen Petra Basacopol
a musicologist who taught
at the National University of Music Bucharest
between 1962 and 2003,
and at the Rabat Conservatoire,
composed operas for children
and chamber music for flute and harp.
Elsa Reger
(25 October 1870 – 3 May 1951),
who had first rejected Max Reger's courting,
titled her autobiography
Mein Leben mit und für Max Reger
(My life with and for Max Reger).
Pianist
Miku Nishimoto-Neubert,
a prize winner
of the Leipzig Bach Competition,
has been described as
"moving between capricious high spirits
and a meditative inwardness"
Alkan: Cello Sonata
Michael Schneider
conducted an oratorio by Alessandro Stradella,
performed by students and teachers of the Frankfurt University of Music
at Eberbach Abbey for the Rheingau Musik Festival.
Isabelle Cals,
who turned to singing after a degree in Chinese,
appeared as Wagner's Kundry
in a production of Parsifal
at the Stadttheater Minden
In Der Ring in Minden,
the orchestra played at the back of the stage,
and the singers all turned towards it
to listen to the music at the end.
Percy Grainger,
who left Australia at the age of 13
to attend Hoch's Conservatorium,
played a prominent role in the revival
of interest in British folk music
in the course of a long and innovative career.
István Láng,
an Hungarian composer,
teacher of chamber music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music
and member of the bord of ISCM,
wrote theatrical music even in concert pieces.
John Eliot Gardiner performed
Bach's cantatas for Reformation Day
in the Schloßkirche, Wittenberg,
including
Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild, BWV 79.
Herr, unser Herr, wie bist du zugegen,
a "song of God's presence"
written in 1965 in Dutch
by Huub Oosterhuis
(1 November 1933 – 9 April 2023),
became part of the first
common German Catholic hymnal,
and was retained in the second
by popular demand.
After signing the Camp David Accords in 1978,
Prime Minister Menachem Begin ended a speech
with a desire to sing the peace song
"Hevenu shalom aleichem"
with the people of Israel.
Zdeněk Mácal,
a promising Czech conductor,
left his home country in 1968
and was chief conductor of orchestras
in Germany, Australia and the United States,
returning to Prague to lead
the Czech Philharmonic from 2003.
Jesu, meine Freude
(Jesus, my joy),
a motet by Bach,
has a complex symmetrical structure
in which six hymn stanzas
alternate with five Bible verses.
The hymn
"Jesu, meine Freude"
by Johann Franck and Johann Crüger
mentions singing in defiance
of the "old dragon", death, and fear.
On 6 November 2016
Peter Reulein conducted
the premiere of his oratorio
Laudato si',
described as a Franciscan Magnificat,
with more than 250 performers
at the Limburg Cathedral.
Bach composed four dialogues
for his cantata
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60,
first performed 7 November 1723,
three between Fear and Hope,
and one between Fear and the Voice of Christ.
Eric Sams remarked
"what bride ever had a finer wedding gift?"
of the song collection
Myrthen (Myrtles),
which Robert Schumann dedicated to Clara.
Astrid Schirmer
(born 8 November 1942)
appeared in roles by Richard Wagner,
both Venus and Elisabeth in his Tannhäuser,
and in the Bayreuth Jahrhundertring as both Ortlinde and Sieglinde.
In the fairy-tale opera
Der Schuhu und die fliegende Prinzessin
by Udo Zimmermann,
two orchestras play on stage,
representing two empires in conflict.
The first stanza of the hymn
"Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist",
asking the Holy Spirit
for the right faith most of all,
is documented in German
in the 13th century,
and the later three,
by Martin Luther
(10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546),
relate to faith, love and hope.
11 November - St. Martin's Day
Two conductors
shared performances
of Verdi's Messa da Requiem
in St. Martin, Idstein.
Mozart: Lacrymosa
Harald Heckmann
(6 December 1924 – 5 November 2023),
a German musicologist focused on source documentation,
established the German Archive for the History of Music
and promoted international exchange in leading positions
of Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM)
and many other organisations.
12 November 2023
"Mir nach, spricht Christus, unser Held"
(Follow me, says Christ, our hero)
is a Christian hymn in German
with a text by Angelus Silesius
that uses sayings of Jesus in direct speech.
In 2016,
Edition Güntersberg
published
Twelve Fantasias for Viola da Gamba solo
by Georg Philipp Telemann
that had been lost.
Leonore von Zadow-Reichling and Günter von Zadow (r.)
received the first biennial Abel Prize of Köthen
for their efforts to retrieve and publish
compositions by Carl Friedrich Abel.
Kurdish civil engineer and politician
Hevrin Khalaf
(15 November 1984 – 12 October 2019) ,
who worked for tolerance
among Christians, Arabs, and Kurds,
was killed in the
2019 Turkish offensive into Syria.
The 1964 church
for the new parish
Zu den heiligen Engeln
(To the Holy Angels)
in Hannover
was designed by Josef Bieling
to symbolize the tent of God among men.
Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist
Nun danket all und bringet Ehr
Soprano
Rachel Yakar,
who received international attention in 1977
as Poppea with Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
was also described as an "ideal" Mélisande
and "a Mozartian at heart and in style".
Andris Nelsons
(born 18 November 1978)
conducted
Bartok's Viola Concerto
and Mahler's Fifth Symphony
in the final concert with his
Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.
In 2008
Naji Hakim composed
variations for oboe and organ
on Philipp Nicolai's chorale
"Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern",
published in 1599.
Claude Kahn
(9 November 1935 – 17 November 2023),
who won the Franz Liszt Competition at age 15,
founded and directed
a piano competition in his name in 1970,
and the conservatoire of Antibes in 1971.
Two conductors
shared performances
of Verdi's Messa da Requiem
in St. Martin, Idstein.
Palmeri: Misatango
Reulein: Te Deum
look and listen to us
Benjamin Britten
(22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976),
composed
Canticle I: My beloved is mine and I am his
for the tenor voice of
Peter Pears,
using poetry from
A Divine Rapture by Francis Quarles.
Thanksgiving
Lea Ackermann,
a German nun of the
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa,
fought against
forced prostitution and sex tourism
in East Africa.
Colette Maze,
the last pianist who studied with Alfred Cortot,
recorded music by Claude Debussy,
who was still alive when she was born in 1914,
in 2023.
Burgenland Croat sculptor
Thomas Resetarits
(25 November 1939 – 18 May 2022)
created Stations of the Cross.
Director Frank Stähle revived
the choir and orchestra of Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium
and conducted them in
Mozart's Requiem
for the centenary of the Lutherkirche in Wiesbaden.
Jerome Kohl
(November 27, 1946 – August 4, 2020),
a music theorist of the University of Washington,
was recognized internationally
as an authority on the composer
Karlheinz Stockhausen,
publishing a book on his Zeitmaße in 2017.
François Glorieux
was a Belgian pianist and improvisor,
conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra and Stan Kenton's band,
and arranger for Michael Jackson.
Contralto
Sonia Prina
(born 30 November 1975)
performed the title role
of Antonio Vivaldi's 1727 opera Orlando furioso
at the Oper Frankfurt,
staged as a rocker.
American lyric tenor
Douglas Ahlstedt,
who appeared as a child as Miles
in the U.S. premiere of Britten's The Turn of the Screw,
performed at the Met 191 times,
before and after he was a member
of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
Bernard Ładysz,
a bass-baritone who performed in world premieres
of Krzysztof Penderecki's music
in Hamburg and in Salzburg,
was the only Polish singer to appear with
Maria Callas
(2 December 1923 – 16 September 1977).
Andréa Guiot appeared internationally
in French soprano roles
such as Mireille, Marguerite, Manon,
and Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen,
which she recorded alongside
Maria Callas
in the title role.
The Advent song
"Macht hoch die Tür"
(Fling wide the door),
with text by Georg Weissel written for the inauguration of the church
where he would be ordained pastor a week later,
is number 1 in the German Protestant hymnal.
Conductor Dessauer and composer Mawby (r.), 2012 |
Gabriel Dessauer
(born 4 December 1955)
conducted the premiere of Reger's Hebbel Requiem
in the organ version of Max Beckschäfer
with a project choir at the Marktkirche in Wiesbaden.
The prolific composer and Westminster Cathedral conductor
Colin Mawby
said, "I cannot write choral music unless I work with choirs ...
I have to write for particular people".
Christof Loy
(born 5 December 1962)
received the 2008 Der Faust award as best opera director
for staging Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Oper Frankfurt?
Wilhelm II,
German Emperor,
called the
Kurhaus in Wiesbaden
"the most beautiful spa in the world"
at the opening ceremony.
Ignace Michiels
(born 7 December 1963)
of the St. Salvator's Cathedral in Bruges
has been the organist
for the German-Flemish Reger-Chor
in works such as Reger's Requiem.
Reger: Der 100. Psalm
Max Reger
composed "in new simplicity"
Unser lieben Frauen Traum,
a motet suitable for Advent,
about a dream of Mary
of a tree growing in her.
Medea Amiranashvili,
a Georgian operatic soprano and academic teacher,
portrayed characters such as Revaz Lagidze's Lela,
Verdi's Leonora in Il trovatore and Puccini's Madama Butterfly,
with "fierce inner expression".
In 1973
Luten Petrowsky
(10 December 1933 – 10 July 2023)
played the saxophone in a quartet
that made the first record
with jazz musicians
from both East and West Germany.
The lawyer
Wolfgang Wieland,
a co-founder of the Berlin Greens
and their speaker in the city parliament,
represented the joint plaintiff
in the Mykonos restaurant assassinations.
The Advent hymn
"O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf"
(O Saviour, tear open the heavens)
was written against a backdrop
of the Thirty Years' War, the plague,
and witch trials.
Rabbi
Michael Robinson
(December 13, 1924 – July 20, 2006)
and 15 other Reform rabbis
were arrested and jailed after answering Martin Luther King's
call to stand with him for civil rights in St. Augustine, Florida.
Wolfgang Rennert
conducted the world premieres
of Louise Talma's Die Alkestiade at the Oper Frankfurt
and Rainer Kunad's Sabellicus at the Staatsoper Berlin.
Erna Berger sang the title role
of Smetana's The Bartered Bride
in a 1955 recording with
Wilhelm Schüchter
(15 December 1911 – 27 May 1974)
and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.
Prince Nikolaus Esterházy,
who commissioned
Beethoven's Mass in C major
for his wife's name day,
found it "unbearably ridiculous and detestable".
In 2018
Lydia Steier,
born in Hartford, Connecticut,
became the first woman
to stage Mozart's Die Zauberflöte
at the Salzburg Festival.
Martin Luther's hymn
"Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin",
a reflection of the canticle of Simeon,
is the base of funeral music
by Schütz, Buxtehude and Bach.
"Mit Ernst, o Menschenkinder",
a 1642 Advent hymn,
includes a call to penitence
that John the Baptist took
from the prophet Isaiah.
The German Advent song
"Tochter Zion, freue dich"
has words by Friedrich Heinrich Ranke
set to music used
for triumphant entrances
in two of Handel's oratorios.
Soprano
Nadine Secunde
(born 21 December 1953)
was praised for "formidable acting skills"
in the title role of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Der neue
Catalogue of Works of Carl Friedrich Abel
wurde 2023 in Köthen vorgestellt,
wo der Gambist
vor 300 Jahren geboren wurde.
The new
Catalogue of Works of Carl Friedrich Abel
(AbelWV)
was introduced in Köthen,
where the viol virtuoso was born
on 22 December 1723.
Gunther Emmerlich,
bass singer and television presenter,
appeared as Kuno
in the performance of Weber's Der Freischütz
to open the restored Semperoper.
On Christmas Eve in 1818,
the Christmas carol
"Stille Nacht"
("Silent Night")
was first performed in the
Nikolauskirche
in Oberndorf, Austria.
"Verbum caro factum est",
a Christmas motet for six voices
by Hans Leo Hassler
in the Venetian polychoral style,
has been arranged
for brass ensembles.
Bach's cantata for the second day of Christmas,
Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes
("For this the Son of God appeared"),
BWV 40,
is his first Christmas cantata
composed for Leipzig.
Bach has
a choir of trombones double
the choir in his cantata
Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget, BWV 64,
for the Third Day of Christmas,
dedicated to John the Evangelist
and first performed on 27 December 1723.
Diethard Hellmann
(28 December 1928 – 14 October 1999),
the director of church music at the Christuskirche in Mainz,
reconstructed the music
of the lost Bach cantata for the Third Sunday in Advent,
Ärgre dich, o Seele, nicht, BWV 186a.
Rebekka Habermas,
a German historian
at the University of Göttingen,
who also taught
in Paris, Montreal and New York,
focused on people
in the social and cultural conditions
of 19th-century Germany.
29 December 2023
Heike Matthiesen
recorded a 2016 album
Guitar Ladies
of compositions for guitar solo by women
including Sidney Pratten (1821–1895),
María Luisa Anido, Ida Presti,
Sofia Gubaidulina, Sylvie Bodorová,
Annette Kruisbrink, and Maria Linnemann
who had dedicated her work to the player.
A German theologian wrote
"Vertraut den neuen Wegen"
(Trust the new ways)
to the melody of
Lob Gott getrost mit Singen
(Praise God confidently with singing)
to be sung at a wedding in Eisenach
shortly before the fall of the Wall.