Music
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Felix Mendelssohn *II 3 1809 — The Life You Give
Felix Mendelssohn, born Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, on February 3 1809, in Hamburg, Germany, is, as composer, pianist, musical conductor, and teacher, one of the most-celebrated figures of the early Romantic period. In his music Mendelssohn largely observed Classical models and practices while initiating key aspects of Romanticism—the artistic movement that exalted feeling and the…
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Renata Tebaldi *II 1 1922 — The Life You Give
Renata Tebaldi, born February 1, 1922, in Pesaro, Italy, is an operatic soprano, a star at both Milan’s La Scala and New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. Tebaldi received her early musical training from her mother, a singer, and studied at the Parma Conservatory. At age 18 she sang for Carmen Melis, of the Arrigo Boito…
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Franz Schubert *I 31 1797 — The Life You Give
Franz Schubert, born Franz Peter Schubert on January 31, 1797, in Himmelpfortgrund, near Vienna, Austria, is the composer who bridged the worlds of Classical and Romantic music, noted for the melody and harmony in his songs (lieder) and chamber music. Among other works are Symphony No. 9 in C Major (The Great; 1828), Symphony in…
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Philip Glass *I 31 1937 — The Life You Give
No other composer, no public figure has ever played consequential roles in my life like Phillip Glass. It all began with a physical, mental, perhaps even spiritual shock in 1982, when I sat in Carnegie Hall and experienced his music for the first time. That year I moved to Boston, where, not long after that,…
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *I 27 1756 — The Life You Give
Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, is the composer widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. With Haydn and Beethoven he brought to its height the achievement of the Viennese Classical school. Unlike any other composer…
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Jacqueline du Pré *I 26 1945 — The Life You Give
Her story is one of the most legendary of all twentieth century musicians’ stories, and also, one of the most tragic. Cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, born on January 26, 1945, in Oxford, England, to Derek and Iris Du Pré. (Despite the family name, Derek Du Pré was not French, but rather of British Channel Island…
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Witold Lutosławski *I 25 1913 — The Life You Give
Lutoslawski was the leading progressive figure in Polish music of the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Warsaw, he showed an exceptional musical talent at an early age, with his first compositions dating from 1922. He studied piano, violin, and composition (with Witold Maliszewski, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov), graduating from the Warsaw Conservatory…
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Warren Zevon *I 24 1947 — The Life You Give
Few of rock & roll’s great misanthropes were as talented, as charming, or as committed to their cynicism as Warren Zevon. A singer and songwriter whose music often dealt with outlaws, mercenaries, sociopaths, and villains of all stripes, Zevon’s lyrics displayed a keen and ready wit despite their often uncomfortable narrative circumstances, and while he…
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Plácido Domingo *I 21 1941 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
Plácido Domingo, nacido José Plácido Domingo Embil el 21 de enero de 1941, en Madrid, España, es cantante de ópera español, y uno de los más destacados tenores del panorama operístico del siglo XX. A los pocos años de nacer se trasladó con su familia a Latinoamérica, donde sus padres, cantantes de zarzuela, tenían que…
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“Parsifal” (Wagner) is completed on this day, 1882
The Poem Parzival, an epic poem, is one of the masterpieces of the Middle Ages, written between 1200 and 1210 in Middle High German by Wolfram von Eschenbach. This 16-book, 25,000-line poem is in part a religious allegory describing Parzival’s painful journey from utter ignorance and naïveté to spiritual awareness. The poem introduced the theme…
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Morton Feldman *I 12 1926 — The Life You Give
Morton Feldman, born on January 12 1926, in New York, N.Y., U.S.A., was an avant-garde composer. He studied composition with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe. In the 1950s, much more influenced by Abstract Expressionist painters than by other composers, he began using a method of graphic notation that included such devices as indicating the length…
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Blixa Bargeld *I 12 1959 — The Life You Give
A powerfully influential figure in experimental and avant-garde rock, Blixa Bargeld is best known as one of the founders of the pioneering industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, as well as for his work with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Blixa Bargeld was born Christian Emmerich in the Friedenau quarter of Berlin, Germany on January 12,…
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Giacinto Scelsi *I 8 1905 — The Life You Give
Giacinto Scelsi was born on January 8th, 1905 to an aristocratic family living on an old estate in the country surrounding Naples in southern Italy. Though he had little formal musical training, he is now recognized as one of the most creative composers of our century. Scelsi’s mature music is marked by a supreme concentration…
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David Bowie *I 8 1947 — The Life You Give
David Bowie, born David Jones on January 8 1947, in London, England, is the singer, songwriter, and actor who was most prominent in the 1970s and best known for his shifting personae and musical genre hopping. To call Bowie a transitional figure in rock history is less a judgment than a job description. Every niche…
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Aleksandr Scriabin *I 6 1871 — The Life You Give
Aleksandr Scriabin, born Aleksandr Nikolayevich Scriabin, on Jan. 6, 1872, in Moscow, Russia, was a composer of piano and orchestral music noted for its unusual harmonies through which the composer sought to explore musical symbolism. Scriabin was trained as a soldier at the Moscow Cadet School from 1882 to 1889 but studied music at the…
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