Alfred Brendel, the Czech-born Austrian pianist, writer, composer, and lecturer, passed away on Tuesday (June 17) at his home in London. He was 94. Largely self-taught after the age of 16, Brendel followed a unique path to the top. As a teenager, he was already an author and an exhibited painter. At the age of 14, in the final days of the Second World War, he dug trenches in Yugoslavia. In 1949 …
Francis Poulenc’s Violin Sonata is music born out of war and tragedy. It is one of a series of defiant, politically charged works Poulenc composed between 1942 and 1943 while remaining in occupied France.* The Sonata was dedicated to the Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, who was arrested, imprisoned without trial, and executed by Falangist forces during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Poulenc, who wrote numerous chamber pieces …
Brian Wilson, the legendary American musician, songwriter, singer, record producer, and co-founder of The Beach Boys, passed away last Wednesday, June 11. He was 82. As the primary songwriter for The Beach Boys, Wilson employed striking harmonic sophistication and innovative recording techniques. In 1964, he stopped touring with the band to focus on writing and recording. Meticulous in the recording studio, Wilson demanded the highest standards. In his memoir, Hallelujah Junction, composer John …
For American composer John Adams (b. 1947), the inspiration for the solo piano work, China Gates, came on an endlessly rainy day in San Francisco during the winter of 1977. Adams recalls the gentle, hypnotic patter of the rain hitting the roof of his cottage near the Pacific Ocean. This natural counterpoint gave rise to the repetitive patterns of China Gates, a brief companion composition to Adams’ Phrygian Gates, composed during the same period. “Gates,” …
Richard Wagner’s 1868 opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (“The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”), is a comic love story, set in the sixteenth century. Its plot centers around the historical Master Singers, an ancient guild of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily middle class master craftsmen of various trades. The guild’s Tabulatur, or law book, established an intricate system of rules which dictated the structure and performance of songs. The opera’s principle theme involves …
Joan Lippincott, the American organist and esteemed teacher, passed away last Saturday, May 31 in Newtown, Pennsylvania. She was 89. For nearly four decades, Lippincott served as Professor of Organ and Head of the Organ Department at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. A recent statement released by the College honors her contribution: With an unerring ear, a fierce dedication to musical integrity, and deep personal kindness, she was both a …
Harmonium, a towering choral symphony set in three movements, is one of the earliest major works of American composer John Adams (b. 1947). It was composed in 1980 for the opening season of Davies Symphony Hall, the home of the San Francisco Symphony. Following such pieces as Common Tones in Simple Time and Phrygian Gates, it is music which expands on the pulse-and-pattern Minimalism of Steve Reich.’ The titles of the three poems …