my stories
editThe 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
(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)
January
edit
1 January 2024
editHappy New Year 2024
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.
14 July 2010
2 January 2024
edit"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.
3 January 2024
editBass-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.
4 January 2024
editJosef 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.
5 January 2024
editThe new
Catalogue of Works of Carl Friedrich Abel,
listing 420 compositions,
was introduced
at a festival
celebrating Abel's tercentenary
in Köthen
6 January 2024
edit
7 January 2024
editHermann 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.
8 January 2024
editDmitri 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.
9 January 2024
editA 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.
10 January 2024
editChris 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.
11 January 2024
editBright 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.
12 January 2024
editKihwan 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.
13 January 2023
editGuido 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.
14 January 2023
editIn
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.
15 January 2024
editWie 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.
16 January 2024
editThomas 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.
17 January 2024
editThe 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)
18 January 2024
editTamara 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.
19 January 2023
editRomuald 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.
20 January 2023
editSt. Joseph,
a 1909 Catholic church
in the Romanesque Revival style
in Berlin-Wedding,
has served as an interim cathedral
since 2018.
21 January 2024
editVivi 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)
22 January 2024
editHenri 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.
23 January 2024
editMaria, 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).
24 January 2024
editEwa 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.
25 January 2024
editThe 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.
26 January 2024
editBefore 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.
27 January 2024
editFranz Fink conducted
Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine,
dedicated to the pope
on 1 September 1610,
at St. Martin, Idstein
on 1 September 2019.
28 January 2024
editGerd 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.
29 January 2024
editGertrude 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.
30 January 2024
editA 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.
February
edit
1 February 2024
editMax 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.
2 February 2023
editBishop 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".
3 February 2024
editIn 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.
7 August 2021
4 February 2024
editMichael 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.
5 February 2024
editJosef 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.
6 February 2024
editMagna Lykseth
appeared as Isolde
when Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
was first performed
at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1909.
7 February 2024
editStephen Gould,
an American heldentenor,
performed three roles
at the 2022 Bayreuth Festival:
Tannhäuser, Siegfried and Tristan,
earning him nicknames such as "Iron Man".
8 February 2024
editOskar 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.
9 February 2024
editBaritone
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.
10 February 2024
editAlfred 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.
11 February 2024
editBach 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".
12 February 2024
editSeiji 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.
13 February 2024
editHelga 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.
14 February 2024
editVoltaire's tragedy Olimpie
premiered in 1762
and Henze's opera
Elegie für junge Liebende
(Elegy for Young Lovers)
in 1961 at the
Schlosstheater Schwetzingen.
15 February 2024
editFelix 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").
16 February 2024
editHans-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.
17 February 2024
edit
18 February 2024
editBassoonist 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.
19 February 2024
editJohanna 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.
20 February 2024
editLadislav 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.
21 February 2024
editRudolf 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".
22 February 2024
editFor 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.
23 February 2024
editMax 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.
24 February 2024
editGabriele 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.
25 February 2024
editRaymund 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.
26 February 2024
editThe 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.
27 February 2024
editRussian Jewish painter
Marc Chagall
created the windows
of the church of
St Stephan in Mainz
as a sign of
Jewish-German reconciliation.
28 February 2024
editElisabeth 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
29 February 2024
editGioachino 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.
March
edit
1 March 2024
editSoprano
Rotraud Hansmann
(born 1 March 1940)
performed six roles in three Monteverdi operas
conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
including Euridice in L'Orfeo.
2 March 2024
editErna 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.
10 August 2010
Kurt Honolka's mid–20th century German translation
of Smetana's Dalibor
was still being performed in 2019
in a new Oper Frankfurt production.
5 January 2020
3 March 2024
editGabriela 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.
4 March 2024
editBenjamin Britten
composed many viola parts for
Cecil Aronowitz,
(4 March 1916 – 7 September 1978)
a co-founder of the Melos Ensemble.
5 March 2024
editThe 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".
6 March 2024
editDutch 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.
7 March 2024
editHans-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.
8 March 2024
editCatherine 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.
9 March 2024
edit- see 9 March 2023: Azio Corghi
10 March 2024
editWhen 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.
11 March 2024
editGerman 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.
10 May 2018
12 March 2024
editOdile 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.
13 March 2024
editFrank 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.
14 March 2024
editGioachino 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.
15 March 2024
editFrançoise 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.
16 March 2024
editGuy Touvron,
a French classical trumpet player
for whom 25 concertos were composed,
wrote a biography
of his teacher Maurice André
published in 2003.
17 March 2024
editArvo 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".
18 March 2024
editChrista 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".
19 March 2024
editRequiem
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
20 March 2024
edit- see 20 March 2023: Stefan Keil
Aribert Reimann
composed
Medea
for a 2010 premiere
at the Vienna State Opera,
based on the drama by Franz Grillparzer.
21 March 2024
editIch 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.
22 March 2024
editWolfgang 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.
23 March 2024
editCecelia 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.
24 March 2024
editComet 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".
25 March 2024
editWie 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.
26 March 2024
edit- see 26 March 2023: Jörg Streli
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.
27 March 2024
edit... sofferte onde serene ...
(serene waves suffered)
is a composition for piano and tape
written by Luigi Nono
in collaboration with pianist
Maurizio Pollini
(pictured).
28 March 2024
editIn a motet for Maundy Thursday
attributed to Johann Kuhnau,
Tristis est anima mea,
Jesus says in Gethsemane
"Sad is my soul even unto death".
29 March 2024
edit... 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.
30 March 2024
editIn his opera
Tri sestry
(Three Sisters),
composer Péter Eötvös
wanted the three sisters from Chekhov's play
to be sung by countertenors.
31 March 2024
editFor 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.
April
edit
1 April 2024
editThe 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".
25 April 2011
2 April 2024
editAt age 22,
Judith Hemmendinger
helped rehabilitate
nearly 100 child survivors
of the Buchenwald concentration camp,
among them Elie Wiesel.
3 April 2024
edit- see 3 April 2023: Renate Behle
Ladislav Burlas,
a musicologist at the Slovak Academy of Sciences
for almost 40 years,
wrote more than 150 works during his career.
4 April 2024
editKarsten 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.
5 April 2024
editTilmann 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".
6 April 2024
editAppalachian 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".
7 April 2024
editBach 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.
8 April 2024
editNotker 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.
9 April 2024
editAfter being denied the use
of Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.,
contralto
Marian Anderson
gave an open-air concert
at the Lincoln Memorial
on 9 April 1939.
10 April 2024
edit- see 10 April 2023: [[Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, BWV 66
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.
11 April 2024
editThe 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
12 April 2024
editDenn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras,
und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen
wie des Grases Blumen.
Das Gras ist verdorret und die Blume abgefallen.
13 April 2024
editThe 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.
14 April 2024
editJohann 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.
15 April 2024
editMichael 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.
16 April 2024
editDieter 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.
17 April 2024
editThe 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.
18 April 2024
editLorenzo 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.
19 April 2024
editDiego 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.
20 April 2024
editJohn 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.
listen
26 December 2010
21 April 2024
editThe 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.
22 April 2024
editKathleen 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.
23 April 2024
editAndrew 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.
interview
23 April 2024
Hebe deine Augen auf
24 April 2024
editThe 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.
25 April 2024
editFelix 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.
26 April 2024
editContralto 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.
27 April 2024
editAdalbert 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.
28 April 2024
editIn Patrick Süskind's play
Der Kontrabaß,
the double bass in the title role
is a "constant handicap" to its player,
"humanly, socially, sexually, musically".
29 April 2024
editSamuel 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.
30 April 2024
editOksana Lyniv
founded the
Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
in 2016 and conducted them
in thirty concerts across ten music festivals
in 2022.
May
edit
1 May 2024
editThe choir
Groningse Bachvereniging
sang Bach's Magnificat
with Harnoncourts' Concentus Musicus Wien
in the orchestra's first appearance
in the Netherlands in 1970.
2 May 2024
edit- see 2 May 2023: Manfred Weiss
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'.
3 May 2024
editHans 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".
4 May 2024
edit- see 4 May 2023: Kurt Huber
Bach's cantata for Easter Monday,
Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6,
is based on the Road to Emmaus narration
5 May 2024
edit
6 May 2024
edit- see 6 May 2023: Te Deum
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.
7 May 2024
editPeter 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.
8 May 2024
edit"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.
9 May 2024
edit- see 9 May 2023: Colin Mawby
Bach's first cantata
for the Feast of the Ascension,
Wer da gläubet und getauft wird, BWV 37,
omits the topic of the Ascension
and derives from the quoted Gospel (Mark 16:16) Lutheran thoughts.
10 May 2024
editA reviewer described the approach of soprano
Magdalena Hinterdobler
to her role as Grete in Zemlinsky's Der Traumgörge
(Görgr the Dreamer)
as "bold" and "sassy".
11 May 2024
edit
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?
12 May 2024
edit- see 12 May 2023: Raimund Hoghe
In Bach's cantata
Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 44
(They will banish you),
for Exaudi Sunday,
the word "töten" (kill) is
"twice emphasized by a sudden, mysterious piano and
... chromatically tinged harmonies".
13 May 2024
edit- see 13 May 2023: Kari Løvaas
Klaus Wallrath
(born 13 May 1959)
composed a mass for peace
for the 2018 Katholikentag in Münster,
performed to an audience of more than 30,000
by a choir, an orchestra, and a dance company.
14 May 2024
editThe dancer and cabaret artist
Hedi Schoop
emigrated to California with her husband,
the composer Friedrich Hollaender,
where she created and manufactured
California pottery.
15 May 2024
editThe Franciscan
Helmut Schlegel
(born 15 May 1943)
wrote the lyrics of an oratorio
Laudato si',
including writings
by Francis of Assisi
and Pope Francis,
and the Magnificat.
16 May 2024
editGerhard Müller,
leading bishop of the
United Lutheran Church of Germany
and professor in Erlangen and Göttingen,
wrote a book about
Martin Luther's insights then and now.
17 May 2024
edit- see 17 May 2023: Günter Wewel
The performance of tenor
Julian Prégardien,
first trained in Limburg,
as the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion
was noted by one reviewer
for its emphatic and penetrating
"profoundly human" nature.
watch
17 May 2024
18 May 2024
editTimon Altwegg
(born 18 May 1967)
and his wife Hana Gubenko
recorded a collection entitled
Sonata ebraica (Hebrew Sonata),
after the Viola Sonata by Graham Waterhouse.
19 May 2024
editIn his first cantata for Pentecost,
Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!
BWV 172,
first performed in 1714 in Weimar,
Johann Sebastian Bach
marked to repeat the opening chorus
after the final chorale.
20 May 2024
edit
21 May 2024
edit- see 21 May 2023: Irma Blank
Martin Krumbiegel
sang the tenor part in Bach's cantata
Erschallet, ihr Lieder (Resound, ye songs)
and Bach's "Pipe Aria".
22 May 2024
edit- see 22 May 2023: Maria Mies
Baritone
Liviu Holender
chose lieder by five composers
whose music was banned by the Nazis
—Schreker, Zemlinsky,
Mahler, Korngold and Schönberg—
for a recital at the Oper Frankfurt.
watch one
Verdi: Messa da Requiem 22 May 1874
22 May 2024
23 May 2024
edit
The 1653 hymn
"Jesu, meine Freude"
(Jesus, my joy)
by Johann Franck and Johann Crüger
mentions singing in defiance
of the "old dragon", death, and fear.
24 May 2024
editEthel Smyth,
whose opera The Wreckers
was premiered in Leipzig in 1906
and revived at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2022,
joined the Women's Social and Political Union
in 1910, giving up music for two years.
25 May 2024
editWilli Brokmeier,
a tenor focused on operettas,
participated in the world premiere
of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten
at the Cologne Opera
and appeared as Beethoven's Jaquino on a tour to Japan.
26 May 2024
editThe Lutheran
St. Trinitatis
in Wolfenbüttel, consecrated in 1719,
is a Baroque church
with a facade recalling that of a palace.
27 May 2024
edit"Ständchen"
(Serenade),
the setting of a poem by A. F. v. Schack
by Richard Strauss,
begins with an appeal to creep out quietly
and ends with a climax of expecting
a rose to glow from the rapture of the night.
28 May 2024
editJohann Sebastian Bach
used music of thanks
from his cantata
Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29,
for his final
Dona nobis pacem
(Grant us peace).
watch
29 March 2015
29 May 2024
editIn the Opernhaus Wuppertal production
of Stravinsky's
The Rite of Spring,
choreographed by Pina Bausch,
the dancers performed on a stage covered with soil.
watch a bit
30 July 2013
30 May 2023
editSamuel Kummer
chose for his first recital
as the organist of the restored
Frauenkirche in Dresden
music by Bach, Brahms, Max Reger,
Louis Vierne, and himself.
31 May 2024
edit- see 31 May 2023: Eva Randová
Rolf-Ernst Breuer,
who spent almost his whole career at Deutsche Bank,
as CEO from 1997 to 2002, is credited
with expanding the bank to international importance,
and later supported the Goethe University Frankfurt.
June
edit
1 June 2023
edit
Ludwigsburg Palace,
the "Versailles of Swabia",
was home to four
of Württemberg's rulers?
2 June 2024
editAccording to John Eliot Gardiner,
Bach was "fired up as never before"
when he began his
second cycle of chorale cantatas
with
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20
(O eternity, you word of thunder),
on the first Sunday after Trinity
in 1724.
3 June 2024
edit- see 3 June 2023: Michael Hampe
Franz Kafka
(3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924)
wrote the 109
Zürau Aphorisms
at the estate
of his sister Ottla and her husband in Zürau
where he sought recovery from tuberculosis.
4 June 2023
editDuring his tenure as director of the Paris Opera,
Hugues Gall
added 60 ballets to the repertoire of the company
and world premieres of operas
by Philippe Fénelon, Philippe Manoury,
Pascal Dusapin and Matthias Pintscher.
5 June 2024
edit- see 5 June 2023: Aile Asszonyi
Peter Demetz,
who taught German literature
at Yale University
from 1956 to 1991,
was born in Prague
where he was persecuted under the Nazis
and escaped the Communist regime in 1949.
6 Jun 2023
editAlexander Lang,
actor at Deutsches Theater in East Berlin from 1969,
was invited to direct plays by Kleist, Lessing and Goethe
at the Comédie-Française in Paris.
7 June 2024
edit- see 7 June 2023: Kurt Widmer
Dimitri,
a grand opera by Victorin de Joncières,
based on Schiller's incomplete play Demetrius
about the Russian pretender False Dmitriy I,
was first performed in Paris in 1776.
8 June 2024
editMartin Luther
created the Pentecost hymn
"Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott"
by adding two stanzas
to an earlier German version of
"Veni Sancte Spiritus",
keeping its melody.
9 June 2023
editMozart built the final scene
of his opera Die Zauberflöte
"upon a solemn fugato"
around the chorale
"Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein"
and Bach composed
a chorale cantata
for the Second Sunday after Trinity 1724
based on it.
10 June 2024
editErnst Gutstein,
an Austrian operatic baritone
whose signature role was Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier,
created the role of Perlimplin
in Fortner's In seinem Garten liebt Don Perlimplin Belisa
at the 1962 Schwetzingen Festival.
11 June 2023
edit"O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort",
translated as
"Eternity! tremendous Word",
is a hymn by Johann Rist
that served as the basis for
the first work in Bach's chorale cantata cycle.
12 June 2024
edit"Nun jauchzt dem Herren, alle Welt"
(Now rejoice to the Lord, all the world),
a 1646 paraphrase of Psalm 100
by David Denicke and Justus Gesenius,
appears in current
Protestant and Catholic hymnals.
13 June 2024
edit- see 13 June 2023: Kurt Equiluz
Jürgen Moltmann,
professor of systematic theology
at the University of Tübingen,
was internationally known
for books such as
Theology of Hope,
The Crucified God
and God in Creation.
14 June 2024
editAndreas Schager
was called a "sensation"
when he first performed Wagner's Tristan
in Minden, and went on
to Siegfried at the Staatsoper Berlin,
La Scala, and The Proms.
15 June 2024
edit- same as 2023
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.
16 June 2024
editIn Bach's fourth 1724 chorale cantata,
Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder, BWV 135,
for the third Sunday after Trinity
based on a hymn by Cyriakus Schneegass,
the first movement is a polyphonic chorale fantasia
with the bass as the cantus firmus.
17 June 2024
editFour Epigraphs after Escher
is a 1993 piano trio
by Graham Waterhouse
for viola, heckelphone and piano
based on four graphic artworks by
M. C. Escher
(17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972)
including Reptiles.
18 June 2024
edit- see 18 June 2023: Jörg Faerber
In Noye's Fludde,
a one-act opera by Benjamin Britten.
based on a 15th-century Chester "mystery" play
and premiered on 18 June 1968
only the roles of Noye (Noah) and his wife
are intended to be sung by professionals,
the others by child and adolescent performers.
19 June 2024
edit- see 19 June 2023: Jörg Widmann
Éric Tappy,
a member of the Grand Théâtre de Genève,
has been regarded as legendary
for portraying Monteverdi's Orfeo,
Tamino in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte
and Debussy's Pelléas
with a tenor voice of exemplary clarity and diction.
watch
19 June 2024
20 June 2024
editThe main work of sculptor
Fritz Koenig
(20 June 1924 – 22 February 2017)
is The Sphere,
the world's largest bronze sculpture of modern times,
on the plaza beneath the two World Trade towers,
and recovered largely intact from the ruins
after the September 11 attacks.
21 June 2024
editErnst Pepping composed in 1937
in Nazi Germany
the Evangelienmotette
Jesus und Nikodemus
on John 3:1–15, showing
"the reality of a different, heavenly world".
listen
21 June 2015
22 June 2024
editThe 2024 Rheingau Musik Festival
opens at Eberbach Abbey
with Alain Altinoglu
conducting Christian Tetzlaff
and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony
in Dvořák's Violin Concerto.
23 June 2024
editJohn Rutter
wrote the text and music of
A Clare Benediction
for choir and orchestra
to honour
Clare College, Cambridge,
where he had studied.
24 June 2024
editIn the third chorale cantata,
Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7,
first performed
on St. John's Day 1724,
based on Luther's hymn
about the baptism of Jesus,
Bach gave the cantus firmus to the tenor.
25 June 2024
editAs stage director and scenic designer
of Puccini's Turandot
for the 2024 Internationale Maifestspiele,
Daniela Kerck
crafted a new ending
to the music left unfinished in 1924
and Puccini's "Requiem".
trailer
26 June 2024
edit- see 26 June 2023: Alte Liebe
The first solo album of
Jodie Devos,
second-prize winner of
the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2014
who appeared as Philine
in Mignon by Ambroise Thomas
at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie,
was Offenbach – Colorature.
27 June 2024
editThe favourite role of
Wilma Schmidt,
who performed at the Staatsoper Hannover
for more than five decades
in German, Italian and Slavic operas,
was the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.
20 July 2022
28 June 2024
editRichard Strauss
reportedly composed
"Traum durch die Dämmerung"
("Dream in the Twilight"),
from a love poem
by Otto Julius Bierbaum,
in 20 minutes.
29 June 2024
edit- see 29 June 2023: Soňa Červená
Margarita Voites,
from 1969 to 1990 coloratura soprano
at the Estonia Theatre,
portrayed tragic characters
such as Lucia di Lammermoor
and well as comic roles
like La fille du régiment.
watch
30 June 2024
editPaul Gerhardt's hymn
"Du meine Seele singe"
(You my soul sing),
a paraphrase of Psalm 146,
became known for a melody
beginning with a rocket motif.
July
edit
1 July 2024
editThe first public performance
in Vienna in 1903
of Arnold Schönberg's
Zwei Gesänge, Op. 1,
two expressive lieder of thanks and farewell
to contemporary poems,
with Zemlinsky at the piano,
was met with hostile audience reactions.
2 July 2024
editIn 1724 Johann Sebastian Bach
composed the church cantata
Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10,
based on Luther's German Magnificat,
translating" to "My soul magnifies the Lord",
for the Feast of the Visitation,
as the fifth work in his chorale cantata cycle.
3 July 2024
edit- see 3 July 2023: Rachel Yakar
Libuše Domanínská,
a soprano of Prague's National Theatre,
performed in all operas by
Leoš Janáček
(3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928),
and a recording she made
as his Jenůfa
made his works better known
beyond their home country.
4 July 2024
editLando Bartolini
was a spinto tenor who performed worldwide,
as Luigi in Puccini's Il tabarro in Philadelphia in 1968,
as Verdi's Ernani at La Scala in 1982,
as Radames in Aida at the Arena di Verona in 1983
and as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot in Beijing in 1999.
listen
5 July 2023
editDiana Tishchenko,
a violinist from Ukraine,
played Myroslav Skoryk's
Melody
on a tour of
the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra
to Poland and Germany
in April 2022.
6 July 2023
editIn 2016,
Leonore von Zadow-Reichling
and Günter von Zadow from
Edition Güntersberg
published
12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba
by Telemann
that had been lost.
7 July 2024
edit- see 7 July 2023: Wolkentanz
Prince Nikolaus Esterházy,
who commissioned
Beethoven's Mass in C major
for his wife's name day,
found it
"unbearably ridiculous and detestable".
8 July 2024
editMartti Wallén,
a Finnish bass singer
who was a member of the Royal Swedish Opera from 1975 to 2000,
performed in world premieres by Aulis Sallinen,
in The Horseman at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1975,
and in Kullervo in Los Angeles in 1992.
9 July 2024
editOn the Mozart family grand tour
to the cultural centres of Europe,
undertaken by Leopold Mozart,
his wife Anna Maria,
and their children Maria Anna (Nannerl)
and Wolfgang Theophilus (Wolferl)
from 9 July 1763 to 1766
the Wunderkinder
amazed and gratified their audiences.
10 July 2024
editIn Bio's Bahnhof,
a German live music talk show series
presented by
Alfred Biolek
(10 July 1934 – 23 July 2021)
in a former train depot,
Kate Bush
made her first television appearance.
11 July 2024
editLiana Isakadze,
who won the 1970
Jean Sibelius Violin Competition,
recorded as soloist, arranger and conductor
concertos by Otar Taktakishvili
and Tigran Mansurian
with the Chamber Orchestra of Georgia,
in Ingolstadt.
12 July 2024
edit- see 12 July 2023: Frank Stähle
Variations for Cello Solo,
premiered by the composer
Graham Waterhouse
in Vienna in 2020,
depict characteristics
of the members of his family.
13 July 2024
editVioleta Dinescu
(born 13 July 1953)
composed the children's opera
Der 35. Mai
based on
The 35th of May,
or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas
by Erich Kästner.
14 July 2024
editAlbert Schweitzer
likened the bass line
of an aria mentioning Satan
in Bach's chorale cantata
for the seventh Sunday after Trinity,
Was willst du dich betrüben,
BWV 107
(Why would you grieve),
"to the contortions of a huge dragon.
15 July 2024
editSoprano
Melitta Muszely
appeared as
the four women Hoffmann loves
in Offenbach's opera
in Felsenstein's production
at the Komische Oper Berlin in 1958,
and still sang recitals at age 80.
16 July 2024
editAfter Mozart's opera
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna
on 16 July 1782,
Emperor Joseph II anecdotally remarked
that it had "too many notes".
17 July 2024
editMarina Kondratyeva,
a leading ballerina
at the Bolshoi Ballet from 1952
described as
"weightless, airy, poetic and spiritual",
was admired as Giselle
also in New York and London
and became a master tutor at the Bolshoi,
passing its tradition for decades.
watch
18 July 2024
editAfter 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.
watch
19 July 2024
edit- see 19 July 2023: Martin Janus
When Ruth Hesse
appeared at the Royal Opera House
as the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten,
a critic described her performance as
"tirelessly ingenious and vocally in splendid command".
20 July 2024
editThomas Hoepker,
a photojournalist for Stern and Geo
and president of Magnum Photos,
with a desire to photograph human conditions
on assignments around the globe,
took
View from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Manhattan, 9/11.
21 July 2024
edit- see 21 July 2023: Casals Forum
In 1524,
Justus Jonas wrote the hymn text
Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält
(If God the Lord does not remain on our side),
paraphrasing Psalm 124,
and in 1724,
Bach composed the chorale cantata
Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 178,
for the eighth Sunday after Trinity,
with five different chorale settings
for six of its stanzas.
watch
31 July 2012
22 July 2024
editSarah Gibson,
who formed the piano duo
HOCKET with Thomas Kotcheff,
composed warp & weft for large orchestra,
inspired by the art of Miriam Schapiro
and scheduled for the BBC Proms.
23 July 2024
editGerhard Klingenberg,
who had a successful early career in Austria
as an actor at the Burgtheater in Vienna at age 18
and as stage director at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt
but followed an invitation by Bertold Brecht
to his Berliner Ensemble in East Germany,
was Intendant of the Burgtheater from 1971 to 1976,
bringing in avant-garde European directors
and staging innovative plays
by Thomas Bernhard, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard.
tribute
23 July 2024
24 July 2024
editApril Cantelo
created soprano roles such as
Helena in Benjamin Britten's
A Midsummer Night's Dream
and Miss Beswick in Malcolm Williamson's
English Eccentrics.
25 July 2024
editMax Reger
based four tone poems,
Vier Tondichtungen nach A. Böcklin,
on four paintings by Arnold Böcklin,
including Isle of the Dead.
26 July 2024
editElena Mauti Nunziata,
who gained international recognition
as Verdi's La traviata
at the Teatro Real in Madrid in 1977,
portrayed Puccini's Mimi
at the Metropolitan Opera
and Madama Butterfly
at the Opéra de Paris.
27 July 2024
editLothar Zenetti's poem
"Segne dieses Kind"
became a song
of blessing for a child,
often sung
at baptism.
28 July 2024
editIn 1724,
Johann Sebastian Bach had
an excellent flauto traverso player
at hand for
Was frag ich nach der Welt, BWV 94
(What should I ask of the world),
the chorale cantata
for the ninth Sunday after Trinity.
listen
29 July 2024
editThe
Rheingauer Kantorei
performed Mendelssohn's oratorio
Elias
in the Rheingauer Dom
and in the Marktkirche Wiesbaden.
30 July 2024
editEugene Sârbu,
who won the 1978 Paganini Competition
and made an international career,
premiered the Violin Concerto
that Einojuhani Rautavaara dedicated to him.
31 July 2024
editWolfgang Rihm
composed Dionysos,
an "opera fantasia"
with text only by Nietzsche,
which was voted premiere of the year
after its first performance
at the Salzburg Festival in 2010.
trailer - with Rihm explaining
3 October 2017 and today
August
edit
1 August 2024
editThe opera
Die Hamletmaschine
by Wolfgang Rihm
has been described as
"a total theatre of sound
and nonnarrative, ritualistic drama".
29 July 2013 and today
2 August 2024
editThe 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 stanzas
by Martin Luther
relate to faith, love and hope.
3 August 2024
editJohann Münzberg
(3 August 1799 – 1 September 1878)
ran leading textile factories in Bohemia
and promoted the building
of the Empress Elisabeth Bridge
over the Elbe in Tetschen.
4 August 2024
editThe central movement
of Bach's cantata
Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101,
a "furious ritornello" of three oboes,
is followed unexpectedly
by a line of the chorale,
with the melody of
"Vater unser im Himmelreich".
5 August 2024
editVerses 2 to 6 of
Psalm 97,
"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice",
in Czech were set to music
by Antonín Dvořák
in his Biblical Songs.
listen
6 August 2024
editIn celebration of the tercentenary of the birth
of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, tenor
Markus Schäfer
performed in his oratorio
Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu
at the Rheingau Musik Festival.
7 August 2024
editJürgen Ahrend
restored the Gothic Rysum organ
and the Arp Schnitger organs
in Groningen's Martinikerk
and Hamburg's St. Jacobi.
8 August 2024
editSarah Gibson,
who formed the piano duo
Hocket with Thomas Kotcheff,
composed warp & weft for large orchestra,
inspired by the art of Miriam Schapiro
and scheduled for the BBC Proms.
watch 2022 interview and performance
22 July + 8 August 2024
9 August 2024
editAntônio Meneses,
the last cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio,
recorded the Brahms Double Concerto
with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Berlin Philharmonic
in 1983
and the cello concertos by Heitor Villa-Lobos
in 2023.
10 August 2024
editThe opera
Behold the Sun
by Alexander Goehr
(born 10 August 1932),
about the Anabaptists in Münster,
was premiered at Theater Münster
in an abridged version in German,
but the BBC aired it in full in English.
listen
26 August 2019
11 August 2024
editBach's cantata
Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut, BWV 113,
is based on a penitential chorale,
matching the prescribed reading,
the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
12 August 2024
editMiguel Ángel Gómez Martínez,
chief conductor of the
RTVE Symphony Orchestra,
Nationaltheater Mannheim
and the Orquesta de Valencia,
conducted a recording of
his Sinfonía del descubrimiento.
watch Mahler
12 August 2024
13 August 2024
editJohann Sebastian Bach led
the Thomanerchor in Leipzig
in the first performance of
the chorale cantata,
Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101,
on 13 August 1724.
watch
14 August 2024
editCountertenor
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.
15 August 2024
editAfter an absence of four years,
the Inkpot Madonna,
holding a naked Baby Jesus
with quill in hand,
returned to the Hildesheim Cathedral
on 15 August 2014.
16 August 2024
editThe 80th birthday of
Walter Fink
was celebrated at the Rheingau Musik Festival
with compositions of
Kirchner, Lachenmann, Rihm, Widmann and Hosokawa
on 16 August 2010.
17 August 2024
editCelestina Casapietra,
the glamourous Italian soprano
at the Berlin State Opera
in East Berlin from the 1960s,
was the partner of Franco Corelli
in a DVD of Giordano's Andrea Chénier.
18 August 2024
editAfter Kasper König
curated exhibitions of works
by Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol
in his 20s, he initiated the
Skulptur Projekte Münster
for large sculptures in public space.
19 August 2024
editLibrettist Gerhard Müller
and composer Georg Katzer wrote
Antigone oder die Stadt
in East Germany,
but it premiered at the Komische Oper Berlin
only after reunification.
watch
19 August 2019
20 August 2024
editChristof Nel
directed plays invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen,
like the world premiere of Thomas Brasch's Rotter in 1978,
and operas such as Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in 2003
and the first production in German of Aulis Sallinen's Kullervo in 2011.
watch Aida
21 August 2024
editHans-Georg Münzberg
(21 August 1916 – 7 November 2000)
continued to work on the development
of the Snecma Atar engine in France
despite being a professor at the Technical University of Berlin.
22 August 2024
editChieftain's Salute,
composed by
Graham Waterhouse,
is scored for
Great Highland Bagpipe
and string orchestra.
listen
Debussy: Cello Sonata
23 August 2024
editZofia Posmysz
(23 August 1923 – 8 August 2022),
Auschwitz inmate No. 7566,
wrote an audio play on her memories,
which became the basis for
her 1962 novel Passenger,
a 1963 film,
and a 1968 opera.
24 August 2024
editConductor Roland Bader
(born 24 August 1938)
recorded late choral works by Max Reger,
including his Hebbel Requiem,
and the First Symphony by Richard Wetz.
25 August 2024
editBach composed his chorale cantata
Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 33,
for the 13th Sunday after Trinity
on a hymn by Konrad Hubert
and first performed it
on 3 September 1724.
26 August 2024
editWolfgang Rihm
said of the music of his 1987 opera
Oedipus:
"Sound is a weapon here – or a scalpel?".
27 August 2024
editMaryvonne Le Dizès
was violinist of the ensemble intercontemporain,
working with composers
such as Pierre Boulez and György Ligeti,
and commissioning new chamber music works like
a trio for saxophone, trombone, and violin by Gilbert Amy.
28 August 2024
editJerzy Artysz,
a baritone who performed title roles
from Orfeo to King Roger
at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw,
created the role of Josep Soler's Oedipus
at the Liceu in Barcelona in 1986.
29 August 2024
editMDR Rundfunkchor,
the radio choir of the MDR in Leipzig,
performed Dvořák's Stabat Mater
in the opening concert of the
2019 Rheingau Musik Festival
at Eberbach Abbey.
watch
30 August 2024
editSiegfried Lorenz
(30 August 1945 – 24 August 2024),
the first lyrical baritone of the Berlin State Opera,
recorded 151 songs by Schubert
and sang, according to Alan Blyth,
"with an enviable control of line and dynamics".
listen
31 August 2024
editOf 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".
September
edit
1 September 2024
editJesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78,
Bach's chorale cantata
for the 14th Sunday after Trinity,
uses the same bass line
in a passacaglia as in
Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12.
2 September 2024
editAlexander Goehr,
who introduced compositions
of the European avant-garde to England
as.a central figure of the Manchester School,
composed the opera Arianna in 1995,
setting the libretto of Monteverdi's lost opera.
listen
3 September 2024
editAnja Kaesmacher
(born 3 September 1974)
and clarinetist Sabine Meyer were the soloists in
Manfred Trojahn's Ariosi
for soprano, basset horn and orchestra,
conducted by the composer.
listen to Mozart
4 September 2024
editMaxim Berezovsky
is thought to have been the first
Russian or Ukrainian
to write an opera and a violin sonata.
watch symphony
In the motet
Locus iste,
composed for the dedication
of the votive chapel of Linz Cathedral,
Anton Bruckner
(4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896)
requests a pause
"by carefully measuring out five beats".
5 September 2023
editWhen 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".
6 September 2024
editA 2009 recording of Louis Vierne's
Messe solennelle
for choir and two organs at Saint-Sulpice,
where it was first performed in 1901,
was called "musical and spiritual time-travel".
7 September 2024
editThe melody of the Christian hymn
"Ik sta voor U in leegte en gemis"
(I stand before You in emptiness and loss)
is written without bar lines,
reflecting the singer's insecurity and questions.
8 September 2024
editSchloss Weilburg,
a Baroque garden palace,
contains a Renaissance palace.
9 September 2024
editInternational mezzo-soprano
Soňa Červená
(9 September 1925 – 7 May 2023)
won the Alfréd Radok Award for Best Actress
when she was 83 years old.
10 September 2024
editOn 10 September 1724
Johann Sebastian Bach
led the first performance of
Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78,
a chorale cantata based on
a passion hymn by Johann Rist.
11 September 2024
edit
12 September 2024
editEric Sams remarked
"what bride ever had a finer wedding gift?"
of the song collection
Myrthen
which Robert Schumann dedicated
to Clara.
13 September 2024
editGünter Reich
recorded the role of Moses in
Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron
with both Michael Gielen and Pierre Boulez.
listen
27 August 2010
Alban Berg dedicated his
Three Pieces for Orchestra
"with immeasurable gratitude and love"
to his teacher,
Arnold Schönberg,
for his fortieth birthday
on 13 September 1914.
14 September 2024
editTilman Michael,
who is set to be
the Metropolitan Opera's chorus master
from the 2024/25 season,
helped the Oper Frankfurt win multiple
awards for operatic choir of the year.
Haydn: Stabat Mater
15 September 2024
editThe theologian
Friedrich Schorlemmer
was a speaker at the
1989 Alexanderplatz demonstration
in East Berlin,
as a prominent member
of the Peaceful Revolution.
16 September 2024
editLieder singer and voice teacher
Franziska Martienssen-Lohmann's
textbook for singers
Der wissende Sänger
was recommended for general readers
interested in "the human instrument".
watch
17 September 2024
editHans Otto Jung
was a jazz musician during World War II,
ran a winery from the Boosenburg,
and was co-founder
of the Rheingau Musik Festival.
18 September 2024
editCaterina Valente,
who performed 1,500 songs in 13 languages
as one of few world stars
from a German-speaking country,
knew that she wanted to become a singer
when she heard jazz singer Billie Holiday
at age five.
watch with Count Basie
19 September 2024
editRaymond Arritt
(September 19, 1957 – November 14, 2018),
contributing author of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
encouraged a fellow editor:
"go on with life, have a laugh, don't get too upset".
20 September 2024
editGeorg 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.
21 September 2024
editPhilippe Herreweghe
conducted the Collegium Vocale Gent
in Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine
at the Konzerthaus Dortmund.
22 September 2024
editBach based his chorale cantata
Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost, BWV 114,
on the hymn by Johannes Gigas
and first performed it on 1 October 1724,
two days after his
previous chorale cantata.
watch
23 September 2024
editBeppe Menegatti
directed first Italian performances
of plays by Beckett and Babel
and productions with his wife,
ballerina Carla Fracci.
24 September 2023
editFor 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".
25 September 2024
editThe Baroque orchestra
L'arpa festante
produced the first recording
of a Passion by Telemann
and played Bach's Mass in B minor
in the Cathedral of Trier.
26 September 2024
editA 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".
27 September 2024
editBaritone
Franz Grundheber
(born 27 September 1937)
performed the title role
in Alban Berg's Wozzeck in Paris and Berlin,
staged by Patrice Chéreau
and filmed in 1994.
28 September 2024
editBenny Golson,
a jazz tenor saxophonist
who had played
with John Coltrane in high school,
composed I Remember Clifford
in memory of trumpeter Clifford Brown.
watch
29 September 2024
editJ. S. Bach
led the first performance of
Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir, BWV 130,
based on Paul Eber's hymn
in twelve stanzas about the angels,
for the feast of archangel Michael.
Bach: Mass in B minor
30 September 2024
editMozart conducted
the premiere of his last opera,
Die Zauberflöte
at the Theater auf der Wieden
in a suburb of Vienna
on 30 September 1791.
October
edit
1 October 2024
edit"Sozusagen grundlos vergnügt"
("Call it causelessly merry")
was one of about 40 poems
by Mascha Kaléko
set to music on a 2011 album.
2 October 2024
editAfter the Chernobyl disaster
Michael Sladek
and his wife Ursula
initiated a movement to become
independent of nuclear energy
and achieved green power for Schönau.
3 October 2024
editMaryvonne Le Dizès,
the first woman to win
the Paganini Competition,
became violinist of the ensemble intercontemporain,
playing the solo
in Ligeti's Violin Concerto.
4 October 2024
edit- see 4 October 2023: Le Laudi
In 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.
5 October 2024
editStoika Milanova,
who made an international career
after winning the 1970 Carl Flesch Competition,
passed her father's violin teaching method
to students in Venezuela and Bulgaria.
6 October 2024
editA solo viola part
in Bach's chorale cantata
Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 5,
has been described as
"the cleansing motions of
some baroque washing machine".
watch
4 November 2011
7 October 2024
editRohan de Saram,
the cellist of the Arditti Quartet
trained by Pablo Casals
played Sequenza XIV that Luciano Berio wrote for him,
inspired by his Kandyan drumming.
8 October 2024
editTabea 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.
9 October 2023
editAlain 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.
10 October 2024
editThe 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.
watch talk about Gaveston
11 October 2024
editMartin Lücker
(born 11 October 1953)
played 3,000 free organ concerts
at the Katharinenkirche in Frankfurt.
12 October 2023
editHelmut Bauer,
emerited auxialiary bishop in Würzburg,
was responsible for church music in the diocese
and presided the commission
for the common Gotteslob hymnal.
13 October 2023
editThe opening chorus
of Bach's chorale 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".
14 October 2024
editAmaury du Closel,
a French conductor and composer,
founded the Forum Voix Etouffées
to raise attention to
the music of composers persecuted or exiled
by totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
15 October 2023
editViolinist
Mela Tenenbaum
recorded in the United States works
that Dmitri Klebanov had composed for her in Ukraine,
including Japanese Silhouettes
for soprano, viola d'amore and ensemble.
listen
16 October 2024
editBeginning in 2016
Leif Segerstam
conducted recordings of
the four Symphonies by Johannes Brahms,
each paired with one of his own,
Nos. 288, 289, 294 and 295.
17 October 2023
editThe 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.
18 October 2024
editWhen pianist
Clara Wieck
composed her
Piano Concerto in A minor
as a teenager,
her future husband
Robert Schumann
helped with the orchestration.
19 October 2023
editResidenz Ansbach
and the churches
of St. Gumbertus
and St. Johannis
are venues for the biennial
Bachwoche Ansbach.
Bach Mass in B minor
20 October 2023
editWhen Bach composed
the chorale cantata
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38,
on Luther's 200-year old hymn
based on Psalm 130,
he let four trombones, two oboes and strings
all play with the voices.
21 October 2024
editBarbara Owen
worked as organist in Newburyport for 40 years,
as pipe voicer,
librarian of the Organ Library
of the American Guild of Organists
at Boston University,
and wrote books such as
The Organ Music of Johannes Brahms.
22 October 2024
editGarbis Aprikian,
who was born in Egypt,
grew up in the Armenian Diaspora
and studied at the Conservatoire de Paris,
conducted the Armenian mixed chorus Sipan-Komitas for around 50 years,
composing music fusing Armenian melodies
with Western harmonies and counterpoint.
23 October 2024
editToshio Hosokawa
(born 23 October 1955)
composed several operas
based on Japanese Noh theatre, including
Vision of Lear after Shakespeare,
and the oratorio
Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima.
24 October 2024
editSwiss composer Hermann Suter's
symphonic oratorio
Le Laudi
(The Praises)
is a setting of St. Francis of Assisi's
Canticle of the Sun
in Italian
for choir, soloists, voci di ragazzi,
organ and orchestra.
25 October 2024
editPeruvian theologian
Gustavo Gutiérrez,
a founder of
Latin American liberation theology,
focused on connecting salvation and liberation
through the option for the poor.
26 October 2043
editJanusz Olejniczak,
at age 18 placed at the Chopin Competition,
played Chopin's works on modern and period instruments,
portrayed the composer in Andrzej Żuławski's 1991 film Blue Note,
and played piano music in Polanski's 2002 film The Pianist,
some as the hand double.
27 October 2024
editBach created
a "musical sleep scene ...
that could have graced any opera of the time"
in his chorale cantata
Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit, BWV 115.
28 October 2024
editBarbara Kolb,
the first women to win the Rome Prize,
composed Millefoglie for chamber orchestra and tape
while in residence at IRCAM,
premiered at the Centre Pompidou in 1985
by the Ensemble intercontemporain
conducted by Peter Eötvös.
listen to album Millefoglie
28 October 2024
29 October 2024
editWalter Jacob
a Reform rabbi
at the Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh
from 1955 to 1997,
co-founded and presided
the Abraham Geiger College,
the first rabbinic seminary in Central Europe
since the Holocaust, in 1999.
30 October 2024
editRodolfo Halffter
(30 October 1900 – 14 October 1987),
who left for Mexico
after the Spanish Civil War,
was the first composer there
to use Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique,
in Tres hojas de album.
31 October 2024
editCucurbita
is a genus of herbaceous fruits
in the gourd family
native to the Andes and Mesoamerica,
with edible species grown
known as squash, gourd or pumpkin.
November
edit
1 November 2024
editThe Ukrainian mixed chamber choir
OREYA
won a special prize
for the best interpretation
of a religious choral work at the 14th
International Chamber Choir Competition Marktoberdorf.
listen to Prayer for Ukraine (2000 CD)
2 November 2024
editBishop
Franz Kamphaus
opposed Pope John Paul II,
"convinced that
our way of counselling women
would save the lives
of many more children".
3 November 2024
editSalve Regina,
composed by Arvo Pärt
to venerate the Golden Madonna
of the Essen Cathedral,
"builds very gradually
to a late, majestic climax".
4 November 2024
edit"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".
5 November 2024
editMonika Buczkowska,
who made her stage debut as a student in Poznań
as Mozart's Susanna,
was a soloist in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
at a charity concert for Ukraine
at the Alte Oper Frankfurt in April 2022.
6 November 2024
editOn 6 November 2016
Peter Reulein
conducted the premiere
of his oratorio
Laudato si',
subtitled
A Franciscan Magnificat,
with more than 250 performers
at the Limburg Cathedral.
7 November 2024
edit- 7 November 2023: also Myrthen
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.
8 November 2024
editSilvana Lattmann,
biologist, poet and author,
published the memoir
Nata il 1918
in 2019.
9 November 2024
editRussian Jewish painter
Marc Chagall
created the stained-glass windows
of the church of St. Stephan in Mainz
as a sign of Jewish-German reconciliation.
10 November 2024
editPaul 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.
11 November 2024
editMadeleine Riffaud
wrote poems,
fought in the French Resistance,
reported on the Algerian War
for the Communist L'Humanité,
worked in Vietnam for the Viet Cong resistance,
wrote poems.
watch
10 November 2024
Reger: Seele, vergiß sie nicht
12 November 2024
editThe dissertation of
Barbara Stühlmeyer
(born 12 November 1964)
about the chants
by Hildegard of Bingen
became a standard work.
13 November 2024
editJohannes Beutler SJ,
who taught theology at the
Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology
and the Pontifical Gregorian University,
is known for his 2013
A Commentary on the Gospel of John.
14 November 2024
editIn 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.
15 November 2024
editBarbara Aland
was internationally recognized
for her work on the
Novum Testamentum Graece
and the Greek New Testament,
which she undertook with
her husband, Kurt Aland.
16 November 2024
editThe 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
17 November 2023
editSoprano
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".
18 November 2024
editAndris Nelsons
(born 18 November 1978)
conducted
Bartok's Viola Concerto
and Mahler's Fifth Symphony
in the final concert with his
Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.
19 November 2023
editIn 2008
Naji Hakim composed
variations for oboe and organ
on Philipp Nicolai's chorale
"Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern",
published in 1599.
20 November 2023
editClaude 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.
21 November 2024
editTwo conductors
shared performances
of Verdi's Messa da Requiem
in St. Martin, Idstein.
Palmeri: Misatango
Reulein: Te Deum
look and listen to us
22 November 2024
editBenjamin 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.
23 November 2023
editLea Ackermann,
a German nun of the
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa,
fought against
forced prostitution and sex tourism
in East Africa.
24 November 2023
editColette 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.
25 November 2024
editBurgenland Croat sculptor
Thomas Resetarits
(25 November 1939 – 18 May 2022)
created Stations of the Cross.
26 November 2024
editDirector 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.
27 November 2023
editJerome 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.
28 November 2023
editLuca Salsi
performed leading roles
in two operas in a row at the Metropolitan Opera,
stepping in on 30 minutes' notice
in Verdi's Ernani
and singing as planned
in Lucia di Lammermoor?
Verdi: Macbeth
29 November 2023
editFrançois Glorieux
was a Belgian pianist and improvisor,
conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra and Stan Kenton's band,
and arranger for Michael Jackson.
30 November 2023
editContralto
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.
December
edit
1 December 2023
editAmerican 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.
2 December 2023
editBernard 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.
3 December 2023
editThe 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.
4 December 2023
edit| 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".
5 December 2023
editChristof 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?
6 December 2023
editWilhelm II,
German Emperor,
called the
Kurhaus in Wiesbaden
"the most beautiful spa in the world"
at the opening ceremony.
7 December 2023
editIgnace 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
8 December 2023
editMax 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.
9 December 2023
editMedea 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".
10 December 2023
editIn 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.
11 December 2023
editThe 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.
12 December 2023
editThe 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.
13 December 2023
editRabbi
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.
14 December 2023
editWolfgang Rennert
conducted the world premieres
of Louise Talma's Die Alkestiade at the Oper Frankfurt
and Rainer Kunad's Sabellicus at the Staatsoper Berlin.
15 December 2023
editErna 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.
16 December 2023
editPrince Nikolaus Esterházy,
who commissioned
Beethoven's Mass in C major
for his wife's name day,
found it "unbearably ridiculous and detestable".
17 December 2023
editIn 2018
Lydia Steier,
born in Hartford, Connecticut,
became the first woman
to stage Mozart's Die Zauberflöte
at the Salzburg Festival.
18 December 2023
editMartin 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.
19 December 2023
edit"Mit Ernst, o Menschenkinder",
a 1642 Advent hymn,
includes a call to penitence
that John the Baptist took
from the prophet Isaiah.
20 December 2023
editThe 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.
21 December 2023
editSoprano
Nadine Secunde
(born 21 December 1953)
was praised for "formidable acting skills"
in the title role of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
22 December 2023
editDer 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.
23 December 2023
editGunther Emmerlich,
bass singer and television presenter,
appeared as Kuno
in the performance of Weber's Der Freischütz
to open the restored Semperoper.
24 December 2023
editOn Christmas Eve in 1818,
the Christmas carol
"Stille Nacht"
("Silent Night")
was first performed in the
Nikolauskirche
in Oberndorf, Austria.
25 December 2023
edit"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.
26 December 2023
editBach'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.
27 December 2023
editBach 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.
28 December 2023
editDiethard 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.
29 December 2023
editRebekka 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.
30 December 2023
editHeike 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.
31 December 2023
editA 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.
7 April 2021