Showing posts with label Classical Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classical Music. Show all posts
Florence Beatrice Price (April 9, 1887 – June 3, 1953) was an American classical composer. She was the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra
Florence Beatrice Price was born to Florence Gulliver and James H. Smith on April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community. Her father was a dentist and her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training. She had her first piano performance at the age of four and went on to have her first composition published at the age of 11.
By the time she was 14, Florence had graduated from Capitol High School at the top of her class and was enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music with a major in piano and organ. Initially, she pretended to be Mexican to avoid the prejudice people had toward African Americans at the time. At the Conservatory, she was able to study composition and counterpoint with composers George Chadwick and Frederick Converse Also while there, she wrote her first string trio and symphony. She graduated in 1906 with honors and both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.
From Wikipedia
Biography
Born in Montreal, Nézet-Séguin is the son of two specialists in education, Serge P. Séguin, Ph.D., a university professor, and Claudine Nézet, M.A., a university lecturer and coordinator. He began to study piano at age five, with Jeanne-d'Arc Lebrun-Lussier and decided to become an orchestraconductor at age ten.
Nézet-Séguin studied successively at St-Isaac-Jogues Primary School, at Mont-St-Louis Secondary School and at Bois-de-Boulogne College. In the meantime, he was admitted to Anisia Campos' piano class, at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec where he earned five first prizes in piano and in four related musical subjects. He also studied choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey and did many master classes with renowned conductors. At nineteen, he met and was invited to follow Carlo Maria Giulini in rehearsals and concerts for more than a year. He became the musical director of the Chœur polyphonique de Montréal in 1994 and obtained the same post at Choeur de Laval in 1995. In 1995, he founded his own professional orchestral and vocal ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, with whom he performed 2 to 4 concerts a year until 2002. He considers Charles Dutoit as his first inspiration as a child and Carlo Maria Giulini as his master.
From 1998 to 2002, Nézet-Séguin was chorus master, assistant conductor and music adviser of the Opéra de Montréal. He became music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain in 2000, and principal guest conductor of the Victoria Symphony Orchestrain 2003. His most recent contract with the Orchestre Métropolitain, through 2010, has since been extended through 2015. He has conducted commercial recordings of symphonies of Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler with the Orchestre Métropolitain.
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra[edit]
In 2005, Nézet-Séguin guest-conducted the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (RPhO) for the first time, and returned in 2006. In December 2006, the RPhO announced the appointment of Nézet-Séguin as their 11th Principal Conductor, by a unanimous vote, starting with the 2008–09 concert season, with an initial contract of 4 years. In April 2010, the RPhO announced the extension of his contract through 2015. With the RPhO, Nézet-Séguin has recorded commercially for Virgin Classics and for EMI.
Nézet-Séguin made his UK conducting debut with the Northern Sinfonia in the 2005–06 season. He debuted with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) in March 2007, and with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in April 2007. In November 2007, the LPO appointed Nézet-Séguin as their principal guest conductor, starting with the 2008–09 season. In May 2010, the LPO announced the extension of his contract as principal guest conductor through the 2013–14 season, at which time he is scheduled to relinquish the post. He made his Royal Opera House debut with Rusalka, the first stagings of the opera atCovent Garden, in 2012.
Philadelphia Orchestra
In December 2008, Nézet-Séguin made his first appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra, at the invitation of Charles Dutoit. He returned for a second guest-conducting engagement in December 2009. In June 2010, he was named the eighth Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, starting with the 2012–13 season. He served as Music Director Designate from 2010 to 2012. His initial contract as music director is for 5 seasons, with 7 weeks of scheduled concerts in the 2012–13 season, 15 weeks in the next 2 seasons, and 16 weeks in the subsequent 2 seasons of his Philadelphia contract.
Other work in the United States included his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, on 31 December 2009, conducting a new production of Carmen,[19] followed by Don Carlo in 2010, Faust in 2011 and La traviata in 2013.
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B flat major (Yannick Nézet-Séguin,
Bruckner: Symphony No.3 - Nézet-Séguin/SKD(2008Live)
Philadelphia Orchestra - Yannick Nézet-Séguin - Rehearsal 10 27 10
Don Giovanni with a truly remarkable cast conducted by Yannick Nézet-
Tchaikovsky: Fantasy-Overture 'Romeo and Juliet' (Yannick Nézet-Ség
Information for Bio taken from:gayinfluence and wikipedia
Aaron Copland (/ˌærən ˈkoʊplənd/; November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, in his later years he was often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers" and is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as Populist and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style.[1] Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man andThird Symphony. The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are archetypical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.
After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland traveled to Paris, where he studied at first with Isidor Philipp and Paul Vidal, then with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste in that area. Determined upon his return to the U.S. to make his way as a full-time composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission and did some teaching and writing. He found composing orchestral music in the "modernist" style he had adapted abroad a financially contradictory approach, particularly in light of the Great Depression. He shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik("music for use"), music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, and Mexico, formed an important friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chávez and began composing his signature works.
During the late 1940s Copland felt a need to compose works of greater emotional substance than his utilitarian scores of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was aware that Stravinsky, as well as many fellow composers, had begun to study Arnold Schoenberg's use of twelve-tone (serial) techniques. In his personal style, Copland began to make use of twelve-tone rows in several compositions. He incorporated serial techniques in some of his later works.[clarification needed] Among them, his Piano Quartet (1951), Piano Fantasy (1957), Inscape for orchestra (1961) and Connotations for orchestra (1967). From the 1960s onward, Copland's activities turned more from composing to conducting. He became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U.S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records.
Personal life
Deciding not to follow the example of his father, a solid Democrat, Copland never enrolled as a member of any political party, but he espoused a general progressive view and had strong ties with numerous colleagues and friends in the Popular Front, including Odets.[75] Copland supported the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1936 presidential election, at the height of his involvement with The Group Theater, and remained a committed opponent of militarism and the Cold War, which he regarded as having been instigated by the United States. He condemned it as "almost worse for art than the real thing". Throw the artist "into a mood of suspicion, ill-will, and dread that typifies the cold war attitude and he'll create nothing". In keeping with these attitudes, Copland was a strong supporter of the Presidential candidacy of Henry A. Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. As a result, he was later investigated by the FBI during the Red scare of the 1950s and found himself blacklisted.
Copland was included on an FBI list of 151 artists thought to have Communist associations. Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn questioned Copland about his lecturing abroad, neglecting completely Copland's works which made a virtue of American values. Outraged by the accusations, many members of the musical community held up Copland's music as a banner of his patriotism. The investigations ceased in 1955 and were closed in 1975. Though taxing of his time, energy, and emotional state, the McCarthy probes did not seriously affect Copland's career and international artistic reputation. In any case, beginning in 1950, Copland, who had been appalled at Stalin's persecution of Shostakovich and other artists, began resigning from participation in leftist groups. He decried the lack of artistic freedom in the Soviet Union, and in his 1954 Norton lecture he asserted that loss of freedom under Soviet Communism deprived artists of "the immemorial right of the artist to be wrong." He began to vote Democratic, first for Stevenson and then for Kennedy.
On Copland's religious views, he was an agnostic.
Copland is documented as a gay man in author Howard Pollack's biography, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man. Like many of his contemporaries he guarded his privacy, especially in regard to his homosexuality, providing very few written details about his private life. However, he was one of the few composers of his stature to live openly and travel with his lovers, most of whom were talented, much younger men. Among Copland's love affairs, most of which lasted for only a few years yet became enduring friendships, were ones with photographer Victor Kraft, artist Alvin Ross, pianist Paul Moor, dancer Erik Johns, and composer John Brodbin Kennedy.
The talented boy from Brooklyn started piano lessons at age seven and began composing music by age eight. When he turned twenty-one his musical gifts were deemed so extraordinary that he moved to Paris to study with legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger. She was so impressed that she arranged for his works to be performed by symphony orchestras in Boston and New York. Audiences and critics hated what they heard. When they weren’t booing and hissing, they were spreading the word that his music was dull, derivative, unimaginative and ineffective.
Although Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is now considered a major figure in American classical music, he had to develop a thick skin for the first eight years of his professional career. Obviously Boulanger heard something in his music that was not shared by others. His personal life was a major disappointment, as well. He was not a social butterfly, nor was he handsome. To be honest, he wasn’t even attractive. He was tall, rail thin, careless about his clothes, had protruding teeth and an enormous nose. He wore glasses and his hair had thinned prematurely.
Although most other American expats lived a wild, Bohemian lifestyle while in Europe, Copland was geeky, reserved and a model of propriety. During the three years he lived and studied in Paris he was not sexually involved with anyone. It didn’t help that he liked his men handsome and very young. His first major man crush was with 16-year-old musician Israel Citkowitz; Copland was 26, and his feelings were not reciprocated. Next up was 19-year-oldPaul Bowles, another musician; Copland was 29, and the result was the same. Then along came the stunningly handsome, muscular 17-year-old violinist Victor Kraft. Copland was 32, and it turns out the third time was the charm.
But Copland, thrilled at finally having his attentions returned, had already accepted an invitation from a fellow composer to travel to Mexico City for two months, so he called ahead to inform his host that he’d be bringing along a 17-year-old pupil for the entire time, saying, “Im sure you’ll like him.” Copland had intended to compose the full duration of his stay, but young Victor (photo at left) had other ideas, and he was quite persuasive. Victor insisted that Aaron take a real holiday, and the two spent many days at the beach while Copland happily photographed Kraft in the nude.
Copland had to keep up with Kraft’s youthful enthusiasm, and the pair frequently went clubbing until dawn. This was a 180-degree turn-around in Copland’s life, and he was so happy that he willingly agreed to Kraft’s desire to extend the stay to a full five months. The two acted like honeymooners, trekking off to Acapulco, Cuernavaca and Xochimilco.
A fortuitous side effect of this young love was Copland’s rebirth as a composer. He dropped his complicated, dense European style of writing and began filling scores with a fresh, simple kind of music, a reflection of the lifestyle he and Kraft had shared in Mexico. The first of these, El Salón México, resulted in something that Copland had never heard before – rave reviews and enthusiastic audience reception. In gratitude for his young lover’s inspiration and influence, Copland dedicated El Salón México to Victor Kraft (see top of title page below).
This piece was based on sheet music Copland obtained for four Mexican folk songs. “El Salón México” was a real place, an actual popular dance hall. Copland elaborated:
A sign on the wall of the dance hall read: “Please don’t throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies won’t burn their feet.” A guard, stationed at the bottom of the steps leading to the three halls, would nonchalantly frisk you as you started up the stairs to be sure you had checked all your “artillery” at the door and to collect the 1 peso charged for admittance. When the dance hall closed at 5:00 a.m., it hardly seemed worthwhile to some of the patrons to travel all the way home, so they curled themselves up on chairs around the walls for a quick two hour snooze before going to their seven o’clock job in the morning.
.jpg)
Copland then set about writing a string of hits, such as music for the ballet Billy the Kid and numerous film scores. Before he knew it, he found his soundtrack for the movie Of Mice and Men nominated for an Academy Award. Kraft had moved into Copland’s Manhattan apartment and took over the household, playing the role of charming host by planning and cooking for casual dinner parties. Kraft gave up his own career as a violinist to work in the field of photojournalism, going on to achieve great success in this endeavor. Kraft also insisted that Copland clear his schedule several times a year so that they could enjoy felicitous getaways as a couple.
At this time Fanfare for the Common Man, perhaps now the most recognizable 2-minute composition in history, came about as a commission from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1942. It has since been used in advertising, films, rock anthems, and even as the wake-up call for astronauts. President Obama chose it to kick-off his inaugural celebrations in 2009. Success built upon success, and the cup that held Copland’s musical inspiration was suddenly filled to overflowing.
As Copland’s fame grew, Kraft saw to it that the composer had a stress-free home life. Victor planned vacations – local getaways as well as major treks to Cuba, South America and a return visit to Mexico. Kraft even found a cottage retreat for the pair when they needed a break from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. Copland bought it, and they enjoyed their first stay in rural New Jersey in 1944. That summer Copland’s Appalachian Spring won the Pulitzer Prize. Two more film scores were nominated for an Academy Award, and his soundtrack for the film adaption of the Henry James novel The Heiress (1940) won the Academy Award for best musical score.
Film work meant that Copland was spending more and more time in California, while Victor had to stay behind in NYC, where he was working full time as a photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. Copland’s penchant for young male flesh began to breed trouble into their relationship, as his fame meant he had no difficulty attracting men 20-30 years his junior into the bedroom. In an attempt at making Copland jealous, Victor Kraft entered into an affair with Leonard Bernstein. When that ploy failed, Kraft delivered a bolt of lightning by marrying a female writer, Pearl Kazin, in 1951. The marriage went up in flames, however, lasting only a few months, and Kraft went back to Copland.
Victor had to accept that Copland would forever pursue young flesh, but took comfort that he remained the focus of Copland’s life. They continued to enjoy sexual relations, and Victor took on secretarial and managerial duties for the composer. While they lived a surprisingly open life as a couple, Copland never provided details of their relationship to the public. His stock comment was, “I’m married to my music.”
Hardly. Copland blazed a trail through relationships with many younger, talented young men – artist Alvin Ross, pianist Paul Moor, dancer Erik Johns (librettist for Copland's opera The Tender Land) and composer John Brodbin Kennedy, for starters. By the late 1950s, however, the strain of Copland’s philandering took its toll on Victor. He quit his job, got into fights with Copland’s younger lovers and suffered crying fits. Unable to deal with the emotional strain, Kraft married once more, settling into a house only a few miles from Copland’s residence. They had a son named Jeremy Aaron, who was born with brain damage. At this, Victor’s mind snapped. His handsome appearance lapsed into that of a sloppily dressed long-haired hippie. He sank into a ruinous drug culture. He begged Copland to reenter into a relationship with him, and upon his refusal kidnapped his own 7-year-old son and took him out of the country. Although Copland was alarmed by Kraft’s behavior, he did not break off all communication. Although Copland made sure Kraft was kept from high profile events, such as Copland’s presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and various Grammy Award ceremonies, Copland remembered Victor’s positive influence on his music and life in their early years together. Most biographers agree that Copland’s feelings of guilt over his constant humiliations and betrayals of Kraft prohibited a clean break from each other.
Copland’s musical inspiration seemed to dry up as difficulties continued to plague his personal life. Nevertheless, he and Kraft continued to travel together and maintain sexual relations. After Kraft separated from his second wife, Copland traveled with him on trips to Israel and England (photograph at right, Yorkshire 1970). Six years later Kraft died of a heart attack while vacationing in Maine in 1976. He was sixty years old.
Upon Victor’s death Copland was devastated and entered into a period of clinical depression. He looked after Victor’s son and even paid for the boy’s tuition at a private school. As for Copland, major recognition continued to come his way – the Kennedy Center Honors in 1979 and a Medal of the Arts from Ronald Reagan in 1986 – but Copland had written his last great music well before Kraft’s death. Copland also ceased his pursuit of young men, likely because of guilt over the humiliating affairs that lead to Victor’s tragic demise.
When Copland died fourteen years after Kraft, there were great tributes and accolades that flooded the press. No public mention, however, was made of Victor Kraft. Every news source referred to Copland as a lifelong bachelor, when in fact he had been one of the first prominent homosexual composers to live openly with a male partner.
El Salon Mexico - Aaron Copland
Aaron Copeland
AARON COPLAND: APPALACHIAN SPRING
Appalachian Spring - Aaron Copland LIVE
Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man
Aaron Copland - Hoedown
Aaron Copland - The Promise of Living
Quiet City, Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland: Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924)
Aaron Copland - Themes from Our Town and The Red Pony
Aaron Copland (/ˌærən ˈkoʊplənd/; November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, in his later years he was often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers" and is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as Populist and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style.[1] Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man andThird Symphony. The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are archetypical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.
After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland traveled to Paris, where he studied at first with Isidor Philipp and Paul Vidal, then with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste in that area. Determined upon his return to the U.S. to make his way as a full-time composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission and did some teaching and writing. He found composing orchestral music in the "modernist" style he had adapted abroad a financially contradictory approach, particularly in light of the Great Depression. He shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik("music for use"), music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, and Mexico, formed an important friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chávez and began composing his signature works.
During the late 1940s Copland felt a need to compose works of greater emotional substance than his utilitarian scores of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was aware that Stravinsky, as well as many fellow composers, had begun to study Arnold Schoenberg's use of twelve-tone (serial) techniques. In his personal style, Copland began to make use of twelve-tone rows in several compositions. He incorporated serial techniques in some of his later works.[clarification needed] Among them, his Piano Quartet (1951), Piano Fantasy (1957), Inscape for orchestra (1961) and Connotations for orchestra (1967). From the 1960s onward, Copland's activities turned more from composing to conducting. He became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U.S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records.
Personal life
Deciding not to follow the example of his father, a solid Democrat, Copland never enrolled as a member of any political party, but he espoused a general progressive view and had strong ties with numerous colleagues and friends in the Popular Front, including Odets.[75] Copland supported the Communist Party USA ticket during the 1936 presidential election, at the height of his involvement with The Group Theater, and remained a committed opponent of militarism and the Cold War, which he regarded as having been instigated by the United States. He condemned it as "almost worse for art than the real thing". Throw the artist "into a mood of suspicion, ill-will, and dread that typifies the cold war attitude and he'll create nothing". In keeping with these attitudes, Copland was a strong supporter of the Presidential candidacy of Henry A. Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. As a result, he was later investigated by the FBI during the Red scare of the 1950s and found himself blacklisted.
Copland was included on an FBI list of 151 artists thought to have Communist associations. Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn questioned Copland about his lecturing abroad, neglecting completely Copland's works which made a virtue of American values. Outraged by the accusations, many members of the musical community held up Copland's music as a banner of his patriotism. The investigations ceased in 1955 and were closed in 1975. Though taxing of his time, energy, and emotional state, the McCarthy probes did not seriously affect Copland's career and international artistic reputation. In any case, beginning in 1950, Copland, who had been appalled at Stalin's persecution of Shostakovich and other artists, began resigning from participation in leftist groups. He decried the lack of artistic freedom in the Soviet Union, and in his 1954 Norton lecture he asserted that loss of freedom under Soviet Communism deprived artists of "the immemorial right of the artist to be wrong." He began to vote Democratic, first for Stevenson and then for Kennedy.
On Copland's religious views, he was an agnostic.
Copland is documented as a gay man in author Howard Pollack's biography, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man. Like many of his contemporaries he guarded his privacy, especially in regard to his homosexuality, providing very few written details about his private life. However, he was one of the few composers of his stature to live openly and travel with his lovers, most of whom were talented, much younger men. Among Copland's love affairs, most of which lasted for only a few years yet became enduring friendships, were ones with photographer Victor Kraft, artist Alvin Ross, pianist Paul Moor, dancer Erik Johns, and composer John Brodbin Kennedy.
The talented boy from Brooklyn started piano lessons at age seven and began composing music by age eight. When he turned twenty-one his musical gifts were deemed so extraordinary that he moved to Paris to study with legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger. She was so impressed that she arranged for his works to be performed by symphony orchestras in Boston and New York. Audiences and critics hated what they heard. When they weren’t booing and hissing, they were spreading the word that his music was dull, derivative, unimaginative and ineffective.
Although Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is now considered a major figure in American classical music, he had to develop a thick skin for the first eight years of his professional career. Obviously Boulanger heard something in his music that was not shared by others. His personal life was a major disappointment, as well. He was not a social butterfly, nor was he handsome. To be honest, he wasn’t even attractive. He was tall, rail thin, careless about his clothes, had protruding teeth and an enormous nose. He wore glasses and his hair had thinned prematurely.
Although most other American expats lived a wild, Bohemian lifestyle while in Europe, Copland was geeky, reserved and a model of propriety. During the three years he lived and studied in Paris he was not sexually involved with anyone. It didn’t help that he liked his men handsome and very young. His first major man crush was with 16-year-old musician Israel Citkowitz; Copland was 26, and his feelings were not reciprocated. Next up was 19-year-oldPaul Bowles, another musician; Copland was 29, and the result was the same. Then along came the stunningly handsome, muscular 17-year-old violinist Victor Kraft. Copland was 32, and it turns out the third time was the charm.
But Copland, thrilled at finally having his attentions returned, had already accepted an invitation from a fellow composer to travel to Mexico City for two months, so he called ahead to inform his host that he’d be bringing along a 17-year-old pupil for the entire time, saying, “Im sure you’ll like him.” Copland had intended to compose the full duration of his stay, but young Victor (photo at left) had other ideas, and he was quite persuasive. Victor insisted that Aaron take a real holiday, and the two spent many days at the beach while Copland happily photographed Kraft in the nude.
Copland had to keep up with Kraft’s youthful enthusiasm, and the pair frequently went clubbing until dawn. This was a 180-degree turn-around in Copland’s life, and he was so happy that he willingly agreed to Kraft’s desire to extend the stay to a full five months. The two acted like honeymooners, trekking off to Acapulco, Cuernavaca and Xochimilco.
A fortuitous side effect of this young love was Copland’s rebirth as a composer. He dropped his complicated, dense European style of writing and began filling scores with a fresh, simple kind of music, a reflection of the lifestyle he and Kraft had shared in Mexico. The first of these, El Salón México, resulted in something that Copland had never heard before – rave reviews and enthusiastic audience reception. In gratitude for his young lover’s inspiration and influence, Copland dedicated El Salón México to Victor Kraft (see top of title page below).
This piece was based on sheet music Copland obtained for four Mexican folk songs. “El Salón México” was a real place, an actual popular dance hall. Copland elaborated:
A sign on the wall of the dance hall read: “Please don’t throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies won’t burn their feet.” A guard, stationed at the bottom of the steps leading to the three halls, would nonchalantly frisk you as you started up the stairs to be sure you had checked all your “artillery” at the door and to collect the 1 peso charged for admittance. When the dance hall closed at 5:00 a.m., it hardly seemed worthwhile to some of the patrons to travel all the way home, so they curled themselves up on chairs around the walls for a quick two hour snooze before going to their seven o’clock job in the morning.
.jpg)
Copland then set about writing a string of hits, such as music for the ballet Billy the Kid and numerous film scores. Before he knew it, he found his soundtrack for the movie Of Mice and Men nominated for an Academy Award. Kraft had moved into Copland’s Manhattan apartment and took over the household, playing the role of charming host by planning and cooking for casual dinner parties. Kraft gave up his own career as a violinist to work in the field of photojournalism, going on to achieve great success in this endeavor. Kraft also insisted that Copland clear his schedule several times a year so that they could enjoy felicitous getaways as a couple.
At this time Fanfare for the Common Man, perhaps now the most recognizable 2-minute composition in history, came about as a commission from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1942. It has since been used in advertising, films, rock anthems, and even as the wake-up call for astronauts. President Obama chose it to kick-off his inaugural celebrations in 2009. Success built upon success, and the cup that held Copland’s musical inspiration was suddenly filled to overflowing.
As Copland’s fame grew, Kraft saw to it that the composer had a stress-free home life. Victor planned vacations – local getaways as well as major treks to Cuba, South America and a return visit to Mexico. Kraft even found a cottage retreat for the pair when they needed a break from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. Copland bought it, and they enjoyed their first stay in rural New Jersey in 1944. That summer Copland’s Appalachian Spring won the Pulitzer Prize. Two more film scores were nominated for an Academy Award, and his soundtrack for the film adaption of the Henry James novel The Heiress (1940) won the Academy Award for best musical score.
Film work meant that Copland was spending more and more time in California, while Victor had to stay behind in NYC, where he was working full time as a photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. Copland’s penchant for young male flesh began to breed trouble into their relationship, as his fame meant he had no difficulty attracting men 20-30 years his junior into the bedroom. In an attempt at making Copland jealous, Victor Kraft entered into an affair with Leonard Bernstein. When that ploy failed, Kraft delivered a bolt of lightning by marrying a female writer, Pearl Kazin, in 1951. The marriage went up in flames, however, lasting only a few months, and Kraft went back to Copland.
Victor had to accept that Copland would forever pursue young flesh, but took comfort that he remained the focus of Copland’s life. They continued to enjoy sexual relations, and Victor took on secretarial and managerial duties for the composer. While they lived a surprisingly open life as a couple, Copland never provided details of their relationship to the public. His stock comment was, “I’m married to my music.”
Hardly. Copland blazed a trail through relationships with many younger, talented young men – artist Alvin Ross, pianist Paul Moor, dancer Erik Johns (librettist for Copland's opera The Tender Land) and composer John Brodbin Kennedy, for starters. By the late 1950s, however, the strain of Copland’s philandering took its toll on Victor. He quit his job, got into fights with Copland’s younger lovers and suffered crying fits. Unable to deal with the emotional strain, Kraft married once more, settling into a house only a few miles from Copland’s residence. They had a son named Jeremy Aaron, who was born with brain damage. At this, Victor’s mind snapped. His handsome appearance lapsed into that of a sloppily dressed long-haired hippie. He sank into a ruinous drug culture. He begged Copland to reenter into a relationship with him, and upon his refusal kidnapped his own 7-year-old son and took him out of the country. Although Copland was alarmed by Kraft’s behavior, he did not break off all communication. Although Copland made sure Kraft was kept from high profile events, such as Copland’s presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and various Grammy Award ceremonies, Copland remembered Victor’s positive influence on his music and life in their early years together. Most biographers agree that Copland’s feelings of guilt over his constant humiliations and betrayals of Kraft prohibited a clean break from each other.
Copland’s musical inspiration seemed to dry up as difficulties continued to plague his personal life. Nevertheless, he and Kraft continued to travel together and maintain sexual relations. After Kraft separated from his second wife, Copland traveled with him on trips to Israel and England (photograph at right, Yorkshire 1970). Six years later Kraft died of a heart attack while vacationing in Maine in 1976. He was sixty years old.
Upon Victor’s death Copland was devastated and entered into a period of clinical depression. He looked after Victor’s son and even paid for the boy’s tuition at a private school. As for Copland, major recognition continued to come his way – the Kennedy Center Honors in 1979 and a Medal of the Arts from Ronald Reagan in 1986 – but Copland had written his last great music well before Kraft’s death. Copland also ceased his pursuit of young men, likely because of guilt over the humiliating affairs that lead to Victor’s tragic demise.
When Copland died fourteen years after Kraft, there were great tributes and accolades that flooded the press. No public mention, however, was made of Victor Kraft. Every news source referred to Copland as a lifelong bachelor, when in fact he had been one of the first prominent homosexual composers to live openly with a male partner.
El Salon Mexico - Aaron Copland
Aaron Copeland
AARON COPLAND: APPALACHIAN SPRING
Appalachian Spring - Aaron Copland LIVE
Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man
Aaron Copland - Hoedown
Aaron Copland - The Promise of Living
Quiet City, Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland: Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924)
Aaron Copland - Themes from Our Town and The Red Pony
My notes
I have downloaded several videos which features the classical selections of the Composer, Adolphus Hailstock. Adolphus Hailstock studied violin, piano, organ, and voice. Most of his compositions were
religious choral music, enjoy.
Adolphus Hailstork
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adolphus Hailstork (born Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III, Rochester, New York, April 17, 1941) is an American composer and educator. He grew up in Albany, New York, where he studied violin, piano, organ, and voice.
Hailstork received a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a doctorate in music composition from Michigan State University in 1971, studying with H. Owen Reed. His other composition instructors include Mark Fax, Vittorio Giannini, David Diamond, and Nadia Boulanger.
He has served as professor at Youngstown State University in Ohio, as well as professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at Virginia's Norfolk State University. He is currently a professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
Hailstork is of African American ancestry and his works blend musical ideas from both the African American and European traditions.
Hailstork's awards include a Fulbright fellowship (1987). In 1992 he was named a Cultural Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Old Dominion University maintains the Adolphus Hailstork Collection, in the special collections area of the F. Ludwig Diehn Composers Room, in the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center.
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) : Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed (1979)
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) : Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed (1979)
Draw the Sacred Circle Closer (Adolphus Hailstork) -- performed by Timothy Holley
Candace Johnson Sings Hailstork part 1 of 5.avi
Adolphus C. Hailstork
Difficulties (from Songs of Love and Justice) by Adolphus Hailstork
"GO DOWN, MOSES" by Adolphus Hailstork I. Sherman Greene Chorale
Shout For Joy! Adolphus Hailstork
I will Lift up Mine Eyes, Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork: Toccata on Veni Emmanuel
Lead Gently, Lord -- Adolphus Hailstork
FSU University Singers - Crucifixion
BYU Singers, "Crucifixion (He Never Said a Mumblin' Word)"
The Virginia Chorale – Nocturne
Kum Ba Ya
Adolphus Hailstork
Taken From Wikipedia
Draw the Sacred Circle Closer (Adolphus Hailstork) -- performed by Timothy Holley
Candace Johnson Sings Hailstork part 1 of 5.avi
Adolphus C. Hailstork
Difficulties (from Songs of Love and Justice) by Adolphus Hailstork
"GO DOWN, MOSES" by Adolphus Hailstork I. Sherman Greene Chorale
Shout For Joy! Adolphus Hailstork
I will Lift up Mine Eyes, Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork: Toccata on Veni Emmanuel
Lead Gently, Lord -- Adolphus Hailstork
FSU University Singers - Crucifixion
BYU Singers, "Crucifixion (He Never Said a Mumblin' Word)"
The Virginia Chorale – Nocturne
Kum Ba Ya
I have downloaded several videos which features the classical selections of the Composer, Adolphus Hailstock. Adolphus Hailstock studied violin, piano, organ, and voice. Most of his compositions were
religious choral music, enjoy.
Adolphus Hailstork
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adolphus Hailstork (born Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III, Rochester, New York, April 17, 1941) is an American composer and educator. He grew up in Albany, New York, where he studied violin, piano, organ, and voice.
Hailstork received a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a doctorate in music composition from Michigan State University in 1971, studying with H. Owen Reed. His other composition instructors include Mark Fax, Vittorio Giannini, David Diamond, and Nadia Boulanger.
He has served as professor at Youngstown State University in Ohio, as well as professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at Virginia's Norfolk State University. He is currently a professor of music and Composer-in-Residence at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
Hailstork is of African American ancestry and his works blend musical ideas from both the African American and European traditions.
Hailstork's awards include a Fulbright fellowship (1987). In 1992 he was named a Cultural Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Old Dominion University maintains the Adolphus Hailstork Collection, in the special collections area of the F. Ludwig Diehn Composers Room, in the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center.
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) : Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed (1979)
Draw the Sacred Circle Closer (Adolphus Hailstork) -- performed by Timothy Holley
Candace Johnson Sings Hailstork part 1 of 5.avi
Adolphus C. Hailstork
Difficulties (from Songs of Love and Justice) by Adolphus Hailstork
"GO DOWN, MOSES" by Adolphus Hailstork I. Sherman Greene Chorale
Shout For Joy! Adolphus Hailstork
I will Lift up Mine Eyes, Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork: Toccata on Veni Emmanuel
Lead Gently, Lord -- Adolphus Hailstork
FSU University Singers - Crucifixion
BYU Singers, "Crucifixion (He Never Said a Mumblin' Word)"
The Virginia Chorale – Nocturne
Kum Ba Ya
Adolphus Hailstork
Taken From Wikipedia
Draw the Sacred Circle Closer (Adolphus Hailstork) -- performed by Timothy Holley
Candace Johnson Sings Hailstork part 1 of 5.avi
Adolphus C. Hailstork
Difficulties (from Songs of Love and Justice) by Adolphus Hailstork
"GO DOWN, MOSES" by Adolphus Hailstork I. Sherman Greene Chorale
Shout For Joy! Adolphus Hailstork
I will Lift up Mine Eyes, Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork: Toccata on Veni Emmanuel
Lead Gently, Lord -- Adolphus Hailstork
FSU University Singers - Crucifixion
BYU Singers, "Crucifixion (He Never Said a Mumblin' Word)"
The Virginia Chorale – Nocturne
Kum Ba Ya
My Notes: I have downloaded several musical selections of Viktor Ullmann's piano Sonatas and other compositions. Viktor was working on a major opera before he died in a German Concentration camp in 1944. I would like to thank the Florida Opera for this discovery./
Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944) was born on 1 January 1898 in the garrison town of Teschen in Silesia, in what belonged to the Austro–Hungarian Empire and is now a part of the Czech Republic. Educated in Vienna, Ullmann made important contributions to both Czech and German cultural life as a composer, conductor, pianist and music critic. Shaped by his engagement with Schoenberg's musical philosophy, German aesthetics, as well the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, Ullmann understood the role of art as central to human spiritual and ethical development. Prior to his death in 1944, he wrote that “[artistic] form” must be understood from the perspective of Goethe and Schiller as that which “overcomes matter or substance [and where] the secret of every work of art is the annihilation of matter through form—something that can possibly be seen as the overall mission of the human being, not only the aesthetic but ethical human being as well.” Within the context of his own compositions, Ullmann used form as a powerful commentary on his own self–conscious engagement with the traditions of Western art music as he engaged with them in the works of Schoenberg, Mahler and Berg.
Childhood and Youth 1898–1919
The son of Maximilian and Malwine Ullmann, Viktor Ullmann's birth was registered with the Catholic community in Teschen, where he was later baptized on 27 January. Prior to Ullmann's birth, his father, who was of Jewish heritage, had officially renounced his faith and converted to Catholicism in order to advance his military career as an officer in the Austrian army. In order to avoid the itinerate lifestyle that her husband's work imposed on the family, when he was dispatched for extended periods to military outposts throughout Silesia, Ullmann's mother moved with him to Vienna in 1909, where he attended gymnasium until 1916. Concurrent to his schoolwork, Ullmann studied piano under Eduard Steuermann and received theory and composition lessons from Arnold Schoenberg's student Josef Polnauer, beginning in 1914. Although there is little documentation concerning Ullmann's early musical engagements beyond these lessons, a program from his gymnasium years indicates that Ullmann conducted his school orchestra in 1915 in a concert of works by Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss.
After completing his Kriegsabitur, facilitating his early graduation from the gymnasium in May 1916, Ullmann enlisted for voluntary military service and was sent to the Isonzo–Front, after initially serving in a garrison in Vienna. Decorated for bravery for his service in the war, Ullmann was made a lieutenant in 1918. Returning to Vienna that year after two years of military duty, Ullmann not only entered Vienna University as a law student but was also accepted into Arnold Schoenberg's Composition Seminar, where his classmates included, among others, Hanns Eisler and Josef Travinek. Resuming piano lessons with his former teacher Steuermann at that time, Ullmann, at Schoenberg's recommendation, was made a founding member of the committee for the Verein für Musikalische Privataufführungen.
Professional Life in Prague: 1920–1927
In May 1919, after having worked with Schoenberg for less than a year, Ullmann married his fellow composition student Martha Koref, left the university and abruptly moved to Prague, where musical culture in this cosmopolitan European capital was centered around the Czech National and New German Theaters. Joining the staff at the New German Theater as a choir director and repetiteur in 1920, Ullmann underwent a rigorous training from its director Alexander Zemlinsky, who demanded that he develop a comprehensive grasp of both Czech and German musical repertories. In his capacity as choir director, Ullmann was responsible for preparing the choruses and soloists for different productions, which included, most notably, performances of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne in 1921. Appointed as a conductor at the theater in 1922, Ullmann maintained this position until 1927. During these formative years in Prague, Ullmann witnessed numerous performances of new works, including the Prague premiere of Berg's Wozzeck at the Czech National Theater in 1926, which became the basis of his life–long admiration of the composer's work.
Parallel to his activity at the New German Theater, Ullmann was composing new works such as the Sieben Lieder with piano (1923), the Octet (1924), his incidental music for Klabund's Kreidekreis (1925), the Symphonische Phantasie (1925), as well as the first version of his Variationen und Doppelfuge über ein Klavierstück von Arnold Schönberg (1925), based on the composer's Op. 19, No. 4. An orchestrated version of this work later was awarded the prestigious Emil–Hertzka–Gedächtnispreis in 1934. Although composed in 1923, Ullmann's First String Quartet, Op. 2, was premiered in 1927 on a program advertised as an “Evening of Prague Composers,” which included works by the composers Hans Krása, Karl Boleslav Jirák, and Fidelio Finke.
Ullmann was appointed as the conductor of the opera house in Aussig (now Ústí nad Labem) for the 1927 season, where he conducted, most notably, Tristan und Isolde, Ariadne auf Naxos, Le nozze di Figaro, and Jonny Spielt Auf. Returning to Prague at the end of that season, Ullmann remained without a permanent post, actively pursuing his career as freelance composer at that time. While his Concerto for Orchestra generated interest when performed in Prague in 1929 and in Frankfurt in 1930, it was the second version of his Schoenberg–Variationen, performed by pianist Franz Langer at the 1929 festival of the ISCM in Geneva, which brought Ullmann's work to international attention.
Although the period between 1929 and 1931 can be seen as a highpoint of Ullmann's career, when he was engaged by the Zürich Schauspielhaus as a composer of incidental music and his works were being performed throughout Europe, it was also a time of spiritual and intellectual crisis. As part of facing his inner conflicts, Ullmann not only underwent psychoanalysis in Zürich but also continued his exploration of diverse esoteric paths of knowledge, including the I–Ching, the Freemasons, as well as the anthroposophy of the Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner (1865–1925). The term ‘anthroposophy,’ meaning ‘the wisdom of the human being,’ was chosen by Steiner to designate a path or epistemology for attaining occult knowledge that he developed through his engagement with Goetheanism, German idealist philosophy, esoteric Christianity, Rosicrucianism, as well the theosophical tradition. As a prominent intellectual figure in the cultural life of pre– and post–World War I Europe, Steiner lectured widely and developed a large following that included intellectuals, artists, scientists and politicians who drew on his ideas as a basis for their own work.
Ullmann and Anthroposophy 1929–1933
Although Ullmann “encountered” Steiner's work through friends in 1919 while a student in Vienna, he initially rejected it. Ten years later at the time of his crisis in 1929, a visit to the Goetheanum—the international center of the anthroposophical movement in Dornach, Switzerland—became the basis for a radical reorientation of his worldview. Compelled by his new experiences, he eventually joined the Anthroposophical Society in 1931 and subsequently abandoned his musical career for a period of two years in order to manage, and later acquire, an anthroposophical bookstore in Stuttgart.
Despite the complete failure of this entrepreneurial endeavor, which, in his words, “led [him] back to music,” Ullmann's sojourn in Germany between 1931 and 1933 was an important time of introspection. During this period, he developed friendships with Hans Büchenbacher and Herman Beckh, who were key figures in the German anthroposophical movement. Ullmann's musical engagements within Stuttgart's anthroposophical circles brought him into contact with the musicologist Erich Schwebsch, as well as with Felix Petyrek, a professor of music at the Stuttgart Academy of Music, whom he had known since secondary school in Vienna. As Ullmann explained it in a 1931 letter to his friend Alban Berg, he was reading “everything Steiner said […] about music” and working in Stuttgart at the Novalis Bookstore in order “to fulfill an old desire to serve the anthroposophical movement directly.”
Return to Prague 1933–1942
Following the rise of the National Socialists to power in Germany in 1933, Ullmann returned to Prague. As musicologist Ingo Schultz' research has demonstrated, Ullmann's sudden departure was not prompted by the fact that his Jewish identity had been exposed. Rather, it was due to the fact that a legal process had been initiated against him, because of debts he had accrued in conjunction with his eventual purchase of the Novalis bookstore. Arriving in Prague in July of that year and unable to secure a permanent position, Ullmann once again established himself as a freelance musician, making important contributions to both Czech and German musical culture there as a composer, conductor, music journalist and educator. As part of his professional activities, Ullmann lectured regularly at Leo Kestenberg's Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikerziehung and additionally wrote articles and music reviews for journals such as Der Auftakt, Das Montagsblatt, as well as for Anbruch: Monatschrift für Moderne Musik.
Once in Prague, Ullmann began work on his monumental opera Der Sturz des Antichrist Op. 9, which he based on a drama of the same name by the anthroposophical writer Albert Steffen. (As a complex archetype of evil in the opera, the Antichrist brings unity to a world ravaged by perpetual war through the formation of a one–world state, which is imposed as the price of individual freedom.) In the opera, which essentially stages a battle between good and evil, the Artist–Poet— unlike the Priest and the Technician— is the only character able to harness the forces necessary to challenge the hegemony of the Antichrist. Completed in 1935, the opera was awarded the prestigious Emil–Herztka–Gedächtnispreis in 1936 by a jury that included Alexander Zemlinsky, Ernst Krenek, Egon Wellesz, Karl Rankl and Lothar Wallerstein, all of whom where leading figures in Prague's cosmopolitan cultural life.
Despite the initial success of the work, however, it was never performed during Ullmann's lifetime. With the political movement to the right in Czechoslovakia and Austria after 1933, the work's anti–totalitarian theme made it problematic for institutions like the Vienna Opera and Czech National Theater that later considered it for their repertories in 1935 and 1937.
Having completed Der Sturz des Antichrist, Ullmann began a two–year composition course with Alois Hába in his quarter–tone techniques (1935–1937), producing his Sonata für Viertelton–Klarinette und Viertelton–Klavier, Op. 16 in 1936. Other significant works composed and performed in Prague during this period were his Piano Sonata No. 1, the Sechs Lieder for soprano and piano, Op. 17, with texts by Albert Steffen, as well as his String Quartet No. 2, which was performed at the ISCM festival in London in 1938. Works composed after 1938, including his Slawische Rhapsodie, the Piano Concerto, as well as his opera Der zerbrochene Krug, did not receive public performances due to the political situation at that time.
Prague: 1938–1942
With the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1938, which effectively brought Czechoslovakia under German control, the political situation became increasingly dire as the Nuremburg Laws, which had been applied inside the German Reich, were then applied to the regions in Czechoslovakia under jurisdiction of the protectorate. As a result, the authorities of the occupation introduced anti–Jewish legislation through the puppet government of the protectorate, which, among many other measures, eventually expelled Jews from public life and institutions. After the invasion and subsequent defeat of Poland on 1 September 1939, the administration made plans for massive transports of the Jewish population to take place out of the occupied territories.
In this climate of escalating political tension and fear, Ullmann no longer attempted to have his Der Sturz des Antichrist staged. Rather, he directed his efforts towards procuring emigration visas for his family, which now included his second wife Annie Winternitz, whom he had married in 1931, their sons Max and Johannes, as well as their daughter Felicia. In a series of letters written to friends and colleagues in places as far away as South Africa, Ullmann appealed for help. By the end of 1939, having exhausted all possibilities for immigration, Ullmann and his wife made the decision to send their two oldest children Felicia and Johannes in a children's transport to England through the British Committee for Children in Prague.
Although Ullmann continued to compose during this difficult period, even self–publishing several new works during the first two years of the war, his personal circumstances grew increasingly serious. With the finalization of his divorce from his second wife Annie in August of 1941, Ullmann, who was already stateless, became single, making him particularly vulnerable to the threat of deportation. By mid–October of 1941, it was known that the administration of the protectorate was making lists for five transports of approximately one–thousand stateless and single Jews from Prague to be deported to the Lodz Ghetto. In a desperate and last minute effort to prevent his anticipated deportation, Ullmann married his new partner Elisabeth Frank–Meissl on 15 October 1941. Although Ullmann did receive a deportation notice for Lodz, the Office of Jewish Community Affairs in Prague intervened on his behalf, providing him with a requisite identification card that effectively rescued him from the transport. This protection was temporary, however, and the following year, on 8 September 1942, Ullmann and his new wife Elisabeth were deported to Terezín, or Theresienstadt as it was renamed by the Nazis, a concentration and transit camp located north of Prague.
Terezín/Theresienstadt: 1942–1944
At Theresienstadt, under the auspices of the Freizeitgestaltung (the Administration of Leisure Activities), a cultural organ of the Jewish self–administration in the camp and officially sanctioned by the SS, Ullmann composed twenty–three works. These included three piano sonatas, a string quartet, arrangements of Jewish songs for chorus, incidental music for dramatic productions, his one–act opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, as well as his final work, a melodrama based on Rilke's Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, which he completed in 1944.
Parallel to his activity as a composer in Theresienstadt, Ullmann was also influential there as a pianist, conductor, music critic and lecturer and additionally served as the director of the Studio für neue Musik. In that capacity, Ullmann championed the work of his fellow composers in the camp, including that of Pavel Haas, Hans Krasa, Gideon Klein, and Siegmund Schul, in particular. Ullmann's twenty–six surviving reviews of musical events in Theresienstadt, which were a product of his ongoing activity as the official music critic in the camp, provide an important perspective on the astounding cultural life that developed there. Having begun underground, this cultural activity was later allowed to flourish openly, because it provided the Nazis with a propaganda vehicle to deceive the outside world about the conditions in Theresienstadt, which was portrayed to the Red Cross as a “model camp” during their decisive visit in June of 1944. Behind the façade created by the regime, however, the prisoners where subjected to the same hardships and brutalities as existed in the larger concentration camps, including disease, starvation, torture, executions and the frequent transports to the extermination camps in the east.
Death serves as both the historical and dramatic backdrop of Ullmann's 1943 opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, which he composed while a prisoner in Theresienstadt. Based on a libretto by the young Czech poet and painter Petr Kien, who was also active in the cultural life in the camp. Der Kaiser von Atlantis is a profound meditation on death that stages a dramatic confrontation between the Emperor of Atlantis and the character of Death. The central problem of the opera develops when the Emperor of Atlantis declares a holy war against evil elements in his empire and seeks “to conscript Death to his cause.” Insulted by the Emperor's effort to involve him in his modernized military campaign, Death—who is already offended by the “mechanization of modern life and dying”—refuses to cooperate. Instead, he decides to teach the Emperor and humanity a lesson that will demonstrate his centrality in regulating existence by making it impossible for anyone to die.
Although Der Kaiser von Atlantis was composed and rehearsed under the auspices of the Administration of Leisure Activities in Theresienstadt, it was never performed in the camp. The parallel between the despotic character of the Emperor Overall and Hitler appears to have been obvious to the SS, who cancelled the production after observing a rehearsal in the autumn of 1944. As a critique of modern warfare and the political tyrannies that perpetuate war, Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis—like Der Sturz des Antichrist—can be understood as powerful allegory on the despotic nature of power, where the dramatic confrontation with tyranny and death is portrayed as a powerful catalyst in shaping the exigencies of human freedom.
Ullmann's Musical Language and Aesthetic
In a 1938 letter to his friend Karel Reiner, Ullmann reflected on the development of his musical language, making it clear that his earlier compositions, particularly his Variationen und Doppelfuge über ein Thema von Arnold Schönberg für Klavier, Op. 3a, had been shaped in terms of their harmonic and architectural conception by his engagement with Schoenberg's teachings. Although Ullmann's musical development falls into roughly three periods, with the first extending from 1920 to the early 1930's, he had already begun to distance himself from the Schoenberg school by 1924 as he came increasingly under the influence of Berg's work at that time.
Characteristic of Ullmann's second period is his first piano sonata, composed upon his return to Prague in 1933. Ullmann termed this work one of his “new endeavors,” where “new harmonic functions within the framework of a tonality […] could be called polytonality. The principal tonality is three tonalities, but this is not essential. What is apparently happening is the linking of the twelve tonalities and their related minor keys.”
Acknowledging Berg as the first composer to bridge the historical–musical impasse precipitated by the crisis of tonality at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ullmann strove to further Berg's path of synthesis between tonality and twelve–tone techniques. In his own work, Ullmann was striving for a musical language that would, as he explained it in the letter to Reiner, “serve as a twelve–tone system on a tonal basis [and be] similar to the merging of major and minor keys.”
The final stage of Ullmann's musical development took place in Terezín, where the “formal and expressive mastery” he had achieved during his final years in Prague was harnessed to fulfill the demands of the musical culture in the camp. In an essay entitled “Goethe and Ghetto,” written during the final months of his life, Ullmann makes it clear that he confronted the desolate landscape of the concentration camp in spiritual and aesthetic terms. This compelled him to write “Theresienstadt was and is for me a school of form.” As he explained it, “earlier, when one did not feel the impact and burden of material life because comfort—this magic of civilization—suppressed it, it was easy to create beautiful forms. Yet, in Theresienstadt, where in daily life one has to overcome matter through form, where everything musical stands in direct contrast to the surroundings: here is true school for masters […]”
During the late summer of 1944, as news filtered into Theresienstadt that the allies had invaded Europe and the Russian front was drawing near, the prisoners waited eagerly to be liberated. From September to October, however, massive transports from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz and other death camps in the east effectively liquidated the camp. Ullmann was sent to Auschwitz on 16 October 1944 where he perished two days later along with other key figures from the cultural life in the camp.
Author:Gwyneth Bravo/The Orel Foundation/
Viktor ULLMANN - The Emperor of Atlantis
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 46 (1943) by Viktor Ullmann- Part I of II
Viktor Ullmann: Slawische Rhapsodie op.23 (1940)
Viktor Ullmann: Piano Sonata 7 (5)
Viktor Ullmann: Piano Sonata 7 (1)
Viktor Ullmann - Abendphantasie
Lieder der Tröstung von Viktor Ullmann Tote wollen nicht verweilen
Berlin im Licht-Song (Berlin in Lights)
My Notes: I have downloaded several video selections from "Tchaikovsky:Sleeping Beauty Waltz", Waltz of the Flowers, The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake. enjoy
Bio taken from Great performances
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
Born: Kamsko-Votkinsk, 7 May 1840
Died: St. Petersburg, 6 November 1893
Nationality: Russian composer
Tachailkovsky’s father was a mine inspector. He started piano studies at five and soon showed remarkable gifts; his childhood was also affected by an abnormal sensitivity. At ten he was sent to the School of Jurisprudence at St. Petersburg, where the family lived for some time. His parting from his mother was painful; further, she died when he was 14 -- an event that may have stimulated him to compose. At 19 he took a post at the Ministry of Justice, where he remained for four years despite a long journey to western Europe and increasing involvement in music. In 1863 he entered the Conservatory, also undertaking private teaching. Three years later he moved to Moscow with a professorship of harmony at the new conservatory. Little of his music so far had pleased the conservative musical establishment or the more nationalist group, but his First Symphony had a good public reception when heard in Moscow in 1868.
Rather less successful was his first opera, "The Voyevoda," given at the Bol'shoy in Moscow in 1869; Tchaikovsky later abandoned it and re-used material from it in his next, "The Oprichnik." A severe critic was Balakirev, who suggested that he write a work on "Romeo and Juliet": this was the Fantasy-Overture, several times rewritten to meet Balakirev's criticisms; Tchaikovsky's tendency to juxtapose blocks of material rather than provide organic transitions serves better in this programmatic piece than in a symphony as each theme stands for a character in the drama. Its expressive, well-defined themes and their vigorous treatment produced the first of his works in the regular repertory.
"The Oprichnik" won some success at St. Petersburg in 1874, by when Tchaikovsky had won acclaim with his Second Symphony (which incorporates Ukrainian folktunes); he had also composed two string quartets (the first the source of the famous Andante cantabile), most of his next opera, "Vakula the Smith," and of his First Piano Concerto, where contrasts of the heroic and the lyrical, between soloist and orchestra, clearly fired him. Originally intended for Nikolay Rubinstein, the head of the Moscow Conservatory, who had much encouraged Tchaikovsky, it was dedicated to Hans von Bülow (who gave its première, in Boston) when Rubinstein rejected it as ill-composed and unplayable (he later recanted and became a distinguished interpreter of it). In 1875 came the carefully written Third Symphony and "Swan Lake," commissioned by Moscow Opera. The next year a journey west took in "Carmen" in Paris, a cure at Vichy and the first complete "Ring" at Bayreuth; although deeply depressed when he reached home -- he could not accept his homosexuality -- he wrote the fantasia "Francesca da Rimini" and (an escape into the 18th century) the "Rococo Variations" for cello and orchestra. "Vakula," which had won a competition, had its première that autumn. At the end of the year he was contacted by a wealthy widow, Nadezhda von Meck, who admired his music and was eager to give him financial security; they corresponded intimately for 14 years but never met.
Tchaikovsky, however, saw marriage as a possible solution to his sexual problems; and when contacted by a young woman who admired his music he offered (after first rejecting her) immediate marriage. It was a disaster: he escaped from her almost at once, in a state of nervous collapse, attempted suicide and went abroad. This was however the time of two of his greatest works, the Fourth Symphony and "Eugene Onegin." The symphony embodies a "fate" motif that recurs at various points, clarifying the structure; the first movement is one of Tchaikovsky's most individual with its hesitant, melancholy waltz-like main theme and its ingenious and appealing combination of this with the secondary ideas; there is a lyrical, intermezzo-like second movement and an ingenious third in which pizzicato strings play a main role, while the finale is impassioned if loose and melodramatic, with a folk theme pressed into service as second subject. "Eugene Onegin," after Pushkin, tells of a girl's rejected approach to a man who fascinates her (the parallel with Tchaikovsky's situation is obvious) and his later remorse: the heroine Tatyana is warmly and appealingly drawn, and Onegin's hauteur is deftly conveyed too, all against a rural Russian setting which incorporates spectacular ball scenes, an ironic background to the private tragedies. The brilliant Violin Concerto also comes from the late 1870s.
The period 1878-84, however, represents a creative trough. He resigned from the conservatory and, tortured by his sexuality, could produce no music of real emotional force (the Piano Trio, written on Rubinstein's death, is a single exception). He spent some time abroad. But in 1884, stimulated by Balakirev, he produced his "Manfred" symphony, after Byron. He continued to travel widely, and conduct; and he was much honoured. In 1888 the Fifth Symphony, similar in plan to the Fourth (though the motto theme is heard in each movement), was finished; a note of hysteria in the finale was recognized by Tchaikovsky himself. The next three years saw the composition of two ballets, the finely characterized "Sleeping Beauty" and the more decorative "Nutcracker," and the opera "The Queen of Spades," with its ingenious atmospheric use of Rococo music (it is set in Catherine the Great's Russia) within a work of high emotional tension. Its theatrical qualities ensured its success when given at St. Petersburg in late 1890. The next year Tchaikovsky visited the USA; in 1892 he heard Mahler conduct "Eugene Onegin" at Hamburg. In 1893 he worked on his Sixth Symphony, to a plan -- the first movement was to be concerned with activity and passion; the second, love; the third, disappointment; and the finale, death. It is a profoundly pessimistic work, formally unorthodox, with the finale haunted by descending melodic ideas clothed in anguished harmonies. It was performed on 28 October. He died nine days later: traditionally, and officially, of cholera, but recently verbal evidence has been put forward that he underwent a "trial" from a court of honour from his old school regarding his sexual behaviour and it was decreed that he commit suicide. Which version is true must remain uncertain.
Tchaikovsky - Sleeping Beauty Waltz
Tchaikovsky - Waltz of the Flowers
The Nutcracker HD - Valery Gergiev / Mariinsky Ballet & Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - The Kirov Ballet
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