Music

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)

Known for: Medieval mystic or prophet and visionary. Abbess. Composer of music. Writer of books on spirituality, visions, medicine, nature. Correspondent with many ordinary and powerful people. Critic of secular and religious leaders. Also Known As: Hildegard von Bingen, Sibyl of the Rhine. Born in Bemersheim (Böckelheim), West Franconia (now Germany), she was the tenth child of a well-to-do family. She’d had visions connected with illness (perhaps migraines) from a young age, and in 1106 her parents sent her to a 400-year-old Benedictine monastery which had only recently added a section for women. They put her under the care of […]

1900 John Philip Sousa Recordings

20th Century, Populair

Here is a selection of likely pieces to have been included at a concert given during the early 1900s by the band of John Philip Sousa, easily the most famous musical group of its day. Typically these concerts included arrangements of popular operatic and symphonic airs, original marches penned by Sousa himself, dazzling instrumental soloists, and light, entertaining popular melodies of the day.

1800 Beethoven’s First Symphony

Classical, Music

IN THE LIST OF COMPOSITIONS OFFERED BY BEETHOVEN TO HIS PUBLISHER THE FIRST SYMPHONY FIGURES AT THE PRICE OF £10. In hearing this Symphony, we can never forget that it is the first of that mighty and immortal series which seem destined to remain the greatest monuments of music, as Raffaelle’s best pictures are still the monuments of the highest point reached by the art of painting, notwithstanding all that has been done since. Schumann has somewhere made the just remark that the early works of great men are to be regarded in quite a different light from those of […]

1847 Abide With Me

Classical, Music

The first printing of the words by Henry Francis Lyte is said to have been in a leaflet printed at Berry Head, Brixham, Devonshire, in Sept., 1847, but otherwise not described; no copy has been found. An early printing of the words is in the Remains of the Late Rev. H. F. Lyte, M.A. (London, 1850), at p. 119; BM and JF. The poem is there said to be derived from ”Abide with us” (St. Luke xxiv. 29) and at the foot reads: “Berry Head, September, 1847.” Tradition has it that Lyte wrote the words after preaching his last […]

1750 Adeste Fideles

Classical

An excellent recent pamphlet contains important new discoveries regarding this hymn. The music and Latin words appear to have been written by John Francis Wade; at least, the three earliest known manuscripts dating from about 1750 are in his handwriting and signed by him. The first printing of the words is in The Evening Office of the Church, in Latin and English; UTS. The words of Adeste Fideles in Latin and English are on the thirteenth unnumbered page in the ‘Troses” section, after p. 322. The English translation starts: ”Draw near ye faithful Christians, With Joy to Bethlehem come.” No […]

1816 The Barber of Seville

Classical

The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais‘s French comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775). The première of Rossini’s opera took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini’s Barber has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all “opere buffe”. After two hundred years, it remains a popular work.

1600 Euridice

Classical

The year 16oo is a traditional milestone in the history of Western music. As will be shown later, the quarrels over the respective merits of ancient and modern music were then at their height. It will also be pointed out that “modern music” then, and for the next two hundred years, referred to music of the Christian era as distinct from music of the ancient Greeks and Romans.6 But in the nineteenth century, with the periodization of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, the latter term comes to mean music since r6oo, the year which saw “the birth of modern opera.” At […]

1910 Early Tin Pan Alley Recordings

20th Century, Populair, With Docu

Between the late 1890s and 1970s New York City’s music publishing district was known as “Tin Pan Alley”—a reference to the continuous sound of pianos emanating from nearly every open window nearby, allegedly causing a remark that it sounded like the banging of tin pans. And it is easy to believe; the activity of composing and “plugging” songs was ceaseless. Here we find pioneering efforts by the tunesmiths and poets of New York’s fabled music publishing district. This list includes both free-standing and from musical shows.

1959 The Day The Music Died

Music, Populair, With Docu, With Movie

On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died” after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song “American Pie“. At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the “Winter Dance Party” tour across the Midwest. The long journeys between venues on board the cold, uncomfortable tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite. After stopping to perform, and frustrated by the conditions on […]

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