Tabloid Tuesday: Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn went from being born in a little-known village in rural Austria to being one of the most celebrated composers of his time, named "the father of the symphony" by his death at the age of 77 in 1809. Here’s how it all happened:

He was sent away from home for serious music tutelage at the young age of 6. His family recognized that he was seriously musically gifted, and knew that he would never be able to get the proper training in their small Austrian town. He eventually moved to Vienna where he worked as a chorister for nine years from 1740.

In 1749, Haydn’s voice had changed enough to annoy the Empress. So when he cut off the pig tail of another chorister as a prank, this was enough to get him fired and sent out into the streets with no food, and no home. She sounds almost like Mrs. Mann from Dickens' Oliver Twist - but with more power.

Luckily, a friend took him in and he immediately began the pursuit of a career as a freelance musician. He struggled to find work, and having had little technical training in his nine years as a chorister, he worked through counterpoint textbooks and began to grow a reputation as a musician. He even had works that he had given away for free published and sold – surprisingly to little annoyance on his part.

Even though he didn’t seem to mind giving these pieces away at the time, apparently later in life he had one major character flaw: greed. He would contently haggle over compensation for his pieces and was quite aggressive when renegotiating contracts. Perhaps this perceived bit of kindness was actually a tipping point?

Getting his work into the public sphere, even without compensation, turned out to aid a wonderful turn of events for Haydn. His music caught the eye of local aristocrats and he was soon engaged as a teacher with many of them, and before long he attained his first full time private employer.

Haydn married a woman named Maira in the year 1760. She was the sister of a woman named Theresa, with whom Haydn had been in love. They had a completely unhappy marriage but the laws kept them from escaping it. They produced no children and both took on lovers.

He said that he was surprised to have been loved by many pretty women throughout his life. This is because though he was a genius, he was far from handsome. He had a short stature (due to malnourishment through his childhood, no doubt). And his face was pitted from surviving a bout of small pox. His nose was also disfigured by polypus which was painful and sometimes debilitating. It’s really quite a miracle that anyone managed to survive in that day in age!

Though his marriage was unhappy, this didn’t seem to keep him down at all. He is reported as having a naturally cheerful disposition through his life. He loved to play pranks and jokes on his friends – and not all of them got him in as much trouble as the pig tail fiasco.

Only a year later, he was offered a similar posting with the wealthy Esterhazyfamily. He moved onto their estate and remained there working in near seclusion. Despite this seclusion, he was one of the most popular composers of the day.

In 1779, his contract was renegotiated, and he could write music for others as well. This was a turning point in his career. He began to compose fewer operas, more symphonies and music for string quartets.

He grew lonelier and so reduced his position to part time so that he could be in Vienna where his friends were, including his dear companion Mozart.

He traveled to London where he gained even more popularity – and even more money until he was completely financially secure, with thanks, I’m sure, to his haggling ways.

He then met young Beethoven in his home city of Bonn and had Beethoven come to Vienna to teach him. (See my post about Beethoven for more of their… tumultuous  relationship.)

He spent many years as a public figure in Vienna, rapidly composing genius works and making public appearances. However, for the last seven years of his life, his health was in a state of decline to the point that he had difficulty composing, though the ideas for new musical works did not stop flowing.

Haydn passed away just after an attack on Vienna by the French army under Napoleon. His last words were words of comfort to his servants in light of the distressing attack: "My children, have no fear, for where Haydn is, no harm can fall," as a canon shot exploded in the neighbourhood. A funeral service was held two weeks later at which Mozart’s Requiem was played.

Tabloid Tuesday: George & Ira Gershwin

We’re going to jump ahead a few years now to two of the most legendary composers of the 20^th century: the Gershwin brothers. Ira, lyricist, and George, composer, together created some of the most memorable songs of the century.

Even though the Gershwin’s parents had moved to America because of the growing Antisemitism in Europe at the beginning of the century and changed their names upon moving because of this, they named their first son Israel (which he shortened to Ira) and their second son Jacob (which he changed to George). So that was kind of counter-intuitive and almost cruel of them, but anyway.

When the boys were growing up they spent a lot of time around the Yiddish Theatre district running errands for the theatres and frequently appearing in performances as extras. They moved around a lot with each new enterprise their father started, but remained around the same area.

Little George roamed the street as a young boy on his roller skates causing a general ruckus with the other fellas, and showed little interest in music until he was about ten when he heard his friend perform at a violin recital. George soon began playing the piano which had been intended for his older brother Ira.

If you know half of the jazz standards out there, you know the work of George and Ira. They had their pieces made famous by such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

They had their first collaboration in 1918 with “The Real American Folk Song.” The two collaborated frequently after 1924 and Ira dropped his pseudonym which he had previously written under. From this point forward they were unstoppable.

George wrote his first major classical piece in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue. Though neither of his operas were commercial successes, the second, Porgy and Bess is now regarded as one of the finest examples of American 20^th century opera and it contains such classics as “Summertime.”

The Gershwin brothers were writing in New York simultaneously with the HarlemRenaissance.

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement in which the African American community formed a strong cultural dialogue and presence in New York city. The movement manifested in visual arts, poetry, and music.

It centred on trying to “uplift” the race, and form a new racial identity of the urban African American of the northern states. There were inherent problems which the movement tried to sort through, including how to perform their art, which discussed the near history of slavery and other civil injustices, to an elite white audience.

Many performers of the Harlem Renaissance were made into the anthropological subjects of populations from the white upper crust of New York “slumming it” in Harlem on the weekends to see the shows of “primitive” cultures, as they put it at the time. This issue was actually addressed in a lot of the art that came out after the beginning of the movement.

Digressions aside, it is difficult to talk about New York culture at this time without delving ever so briefly into this important movement.

Actually! My digression is relevant (for once). Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess got a bad rap for the racist portrayal of African Americans. As white men, this misreading of African American culture by the Gershwin’s is completely congruous with the misunderstanding and mis-viewing of artists in the Harlem Renaissance by white people “slumming it.” Especially being written at this time, in New York at the same time as the cultural uplifting of the race, this was especially problematic.

Okay, back on topic for real now:

At the age of 38, George Gershwin passed away of a brain tumor, much to the disgruntlement of his family and friends. At the time he had been living with Ira and his wife, Lenore in Beverley Hills. A short time before his death, George started to lose mental control and capacity. He had mood swings and his coordination was clearly and quickly slipping. So Lenore kicked him out of the house and made him go live elsewhere, where he was taken care of by his valet.

Though George died young, together he and his brother accomplished wonderful things while they both lived.

Tabloid Tuesday: Franz Liszt

Unlike his counterpart, Chopin, who was born just a year before him, Franz Liszt lived to the ripe old age of 74, in contrast to Chopin’s 39. In this time he was called the greatest piano player of all time, and the most technically skilled pianist of the age. He was also one of the first representatives of the now over-done stereotype of “pop star.” He led a life that was at times tumultuous and nearly always dramatic. Ladies and gents, the life of Franz Liszt:

Like Chopin, Liszt began composing at a young age as well. His father played piano so at 7 he learned to play and started to compose just a year later at 8. When he played some concerts at the age of 9, wealthy sponsors offered to pay for young Franz’s musical education abroad.

The Liszt family moved to Vienna a couple years later, where the prodigy met other greats such as Beethoven and Schubert.

After his father died when he was only 16, Liszt moved to Paris where he taught piano all day and well into the night. He kept erratic hours, smoked and drank a lot – habits which he would maintain for the remainder of his long life.

At the age of 24, his relationship with Countess Marie d’Agoult began. She left her husband and children to run away with Liszt. They lived mainly in Switzerland, and had three children together. However, after being together for four years, their relationship became strained and the Countess moved back to Paris with her children while Liszt went on tour to raise funds for a Beethoven monument in Bonn. The couple finally completely split after another five years.

This time was Liszt’s most prolific as a performer. In an eight year period he performed over 1000 concerts to the delight of his following. There was such an intense craze around the artist which made him a kind of proto-modern pop icons.

Many say that Charles Dickens (who was born just a year after Liszt) was the first “pop star,” as it were, but Franz Liszt may have an equally legitimate claim to that throne.

He had such stage presence as to throw his audience into fits of ecstasy and delight. Women fought over his silk scarves and velvet gloves and consequently ripped them to shreds. This was called "Lisztomania" which was characterized by extreme hysteria over Liszt and his performances. Women would wear his portrait in brooches, and try to get locks of his hair. Apparently some even carried glass vials in an attempt to get just a bit of his coffee dregs. One might say they went just a tad overboard. But just a tad.

Liszt did have one difference from many modern pop icons though – nearly all of the money he made went to charitable and humanitarian causes instead of the purchase of ridiculous homes and an excess of carriages. He even put on charity concerts when he heard about a devastating fire in Hamburg to aid the families in need - and this wasn't just a publicity stunt!

In 1847 he played in Kiev where he met Princess Carolyne who convinced him to focus on composing instead of touring. Thus, he retired from the concert scene at 35, leaving the last remembrance of his performances as he was at the height of his abilities.

He spent that winter with the Princess at her estate in Woronince composing. The Princess stayed with Liszt through his 19 years as Kappelmeister in Weimar, and eventually wished to marry him.

Unfortunately, she was married to a Russian dignitary who was still alive. This meant that she had to convince the Catholic authorities that their marriage was invalid. After a long and exhaustive process she was ostensibly successful and the couple planned to marry in Rome on Liszt’s 50^th birthday. However, on the eve of their wedding night, she was forced to decline to marry him. The Tsar of Russia and her husband managed to quash her efforts at the Vatican just in the nick of time to prevent their marriage. The Russian government also impounded the Princess’ estates in Polish Ukraine.

Around this time, two of Liszt’s children died. He was filled with so much sadness that he retreated to a monastery, as he had already taken his Franciscan Orders. He still taught and wrote, but the deep melancholy he felt at this time is evident in his writing.

He spent his last years among friends, but never again feeling as joyful as he had in his days in the sun.

Tabloid Tuesday: Frederic Chopin

For the next two weeks I will be again featuring a pair of contemporaneous composers: first Frederic Chopin, and next week, Franz Liszt.

Chopin was born in 1810 about 40 miles West of Warsaw, Poland. A few years later, the family relocated to Warsaw where his father taught French. Both of his parents were musicians, so Chopin grew up in a household always filled with joy and music. His mother even taught piano to some of the boys who boarded in the Chopin household.

At only the age of 7, Chopin began to give public concerts and he composed his first two polonaises, neither of which have survived to this day.

The young composer gained popularity as he premiered his new compositions out of his family parlour at the University of Warsaw. Four of the boarders who lived with the Chopin family became very intimate friends of Chopin, two of whom would become part of his Paris milieu when he moved there in 1830 at the age of 20.

Chopin was not a typical musician. He disliked large public concerts, and only gave just over 30 over the course of his lifetime. He much preferred playing in small salons and at his home for friends. He could afford to do this because of the freedom his income from teaching piano and selling his compositions. He attained great critical acclaim within his lifetime, and even received praise from some of the greats, including Robert Schumann.

At the age of 26, Chopin became engaged to 16 year old Maria. However, not long afterwards, the engagement was broken off by Maria’s mother. It has been speculated that the break in the engagement was due to rumors of Chopin’s relations with women such as French author, George Sand.

He collected all of the letters from both Maria and her mother and tied them in a bundle, upon which he wrote in Polish, “my tragedy.”

Two years later, Chopin and Sand became lovers. Originally Chopin had been repulsed by the author when they first met at a party hosted by Liszt’s mistress. He had written of her, “what an unattractive person la Sand is. Is she really a woman?”

This episode is reminiscent of earlier Romantics in the literary and political world, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. When this pair first met at ThomasPaine’s house, Godwin was enraged after the dinner claiming that Wollstonecraft was too talkative and never let Paine get a word in edgewise. He had gone to dinner there to hear the great philosopher speak, not this insipid and scandalous woman. Eventually, they ended up marrying and having a daughter, Mary Shelley (the author of Frankenstein and wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) together. (As an aside, don't feel obliged to click on ALL the links to these important English Romantic figures... I'll just leave them there for you along with my ulterior motive.)

But, much like Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, first impressions for Chopin and Sand turned out to be incorrect.

Also like Wollstonecraft and one of her earlier lovers, Gilbert Imlay (with whom she also had a daughter: Fanny Imlay named for Wollstonecraft's dear departed friend Fanny Blood), this couple received a bad reputation from the public when it was revealed that they were not married while on vacation in Majorca one year for the winter months. The couple was exiled from their situation and forced to spend the winter nearly freezing in a monastery.

The couple eventually broke up after 10 years together. Chopin was shortly afterwards proposed to by Jane Stirling whom he denied because he felt that he was nearing the end of his life.

Chopin had been weak and sickly since he was a young man, and now he knew that he would soon be overtaken. His sister came from Poland to watch over him in his declining health and he was surrounded by a small number of loved ones at his deathbed when he passed away at the age of 39 from tuberculosis.

Just like he requested, upon his death Chopin’s heart was removed from his body, preserved, and sent back to Poland where it remains sealed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.

Tabloid Tuesday: George Frederic Handel

Handel had many things in common with his contemporary composer Bach. Not only were they both born in Germany, but they were also born in the same year. However, whereas Bach came from a family which supported the musical arts and was actually chalk full of musicians, Handel came from a family that didn’t believe in music (yes, I agree, this does sound like a bad children’s book – but bear with me.)

At a young age, it was immediately clear that Handel had a propensity for music. His father, who was a barber/surgeon (Shave and a transplant, two bits?) had high hopes for his son to practice civil law, and so forbade him from contact with any musical instrument. The insubordinate young Handel managed to sneak a small clavichord into an upstairs room, where he would practice in the dead of the night while the rest of the family slept.

Eventually, Handel managed to break into the music business by playing the organ for some shocked noblemen. He was invited to work in opera in Florence by the Medici family, who wanted to make Florence the musical capital of the world. This sparked an interest in Italian opera which Handle would take with him to London when he eventually moved there in 1710.

Over the first twenty-seven years he lived in England, Handel had a blooming career writing and procuring performers for operas. Towards the end of this time he began to move away from Italian opera and towards English Oratorio. This was due in part to a failing interest in the art form. But through this time he opened three different opera companies and worked with various troupes.

In the year 1737 he suffered what appears to have been a stroke. This was a turning point for Handel. He entirely ceased working with Italian music and operas and was solely devoted to English compositions. He went to a spa where he took hot baths and rested which led to a surprisingly speedy recovery, after which he was more sure of himself as a composer than ever before. This is when he wrote some of his greatest masterpieces.

It was in this period that he wrote his most well-known piece of all: Messiah, composed in 1741. A performance of this piece is the last concert the composer heard before he died.

Even though Messiah was originally not met with massive public acclaim, it has since become one of the most popular and most often performed pieces of choral music in the Western Tradition.

There is a rumor that, since this massive oratorio was written in full in only 24 days, that the composer wrote it in a fit of divine inspiration.  When he wrote the Halleluiah Chorus, it is said that “he saw all heaven before him.”

But of course, this speed of composition for regular for Handel. He wrote many of his works of comparable length in roughly the same amount of time. So I suppose we will never know the nature of his state while composing this, the greatest of all Handel has left us with.

Tabloid Tuesday: Johann Sebastian Bach

For the next two weeks we’re going Baroque! No, not like the pun on bankruptcy which I have tried with all my will to suppress – instead we’re going back to the 1700’s. I’ll be featuring two composers who we are not playing the music of this year, but who are greatly influential and important composers. We’ll be starting off with Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach is the most prominent Baroque composer, and one of the most recognized composers generally. He led a life tied very strongly to his home country of Germany. Though he moved around quite a bit at the beginning of his career he always remained within a few hundred mile radius of his home town, Eisenach. This meant that much unlike those who followed in his legacy, he never left Germany.

Bach lived in an exciting time of innovation, change and genius. He had such contemporaries as John Locke, Isaac Newton, and John Dryden.

At the age of 14 he won a scholarship to St. Michael’s school for choral studies. He was exposed to wider European culture there, even though it was close enough to his home to make the journey on foot. He spent two years there and was able to experiment with the organ and harpsichord at the school.

In 1706 he married his second cousin Maria, and they had seven children together, four of whom lived into adulthood.

In 1720, Bach’s wife suddenly died. The same year he met a gifted young soprano, Anna, who was 17 years his junior, and they married VERY shortly afterwards. They had thirteen more children together, only 6 of whom survived into adulthood, of whom three became significant musicians.

Bach was appointed Cantor of Thomasschule in Leipzig in 1723, and he held this position for 27 years until his death.

After his death, his reputation as a composer declined for a while. Though he was popular during his life as an organist and teacher, this began to fade for a number of years. But then in the early nineteenth century, his popularity became restored as famous composers at that time began to recognize his work. These composers included such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. Beethoven even described him as “the original father of harmony.”

Perhaps one of the most interesting bits to pull from the story of Bach’s life is the number of children he lost. Out of twenty children fathered a mere 50% survived. At the time that Bach lived, infant mortality was huge.

It was only actually 20% on average for the German population (which by our modern standards is ludicrously high; for context Canada's infant mortality rate as of 2012 is 0.005%), but his family just set a bad example (his stats also included his deceased offspring who made it out of infancy, but passed away in childhood).

He was living in a time in which the prevalence of the urban centre was on the rise. More people were moving out of the country and into towns where slums quickly erupted, and it became difficult to keep sanitary conditions in check. This meant the spread of disease.

And of course, with a lot of people in close quarters, and many of those people rapidly dying, there was a problem with disposal of the dead, which added even more to the stench, decay and diseases.

But it wasn't all bad; this movement also gave birth to some wonderful things. For instance, just before Bach’s time the City Comedy was a staple in London life before it was banned (see Ben Johnson, first Poet Laureate of Britain  for example)

As much as it assaults our twenty-first-century sensibilities with grief to imagine having that many children die, it was not regarded as such at the time Bach lived. Death of children was seen as more of a natural and regular occurrence. Yes, it was sad, but such were the living conditions that families – especially those in poverty – could not afford to spend a great deal of time mourning the loss of a child.

There were more important things to worry about for lower-class families. There were also more instances of death from disease and undernourishment in the impoverished populations that the death of a fragile young one was hardly shocking.

But in the Bach family, their patriarch was in a good position socially and financially.

Upon doing a bit of research on mourning customs of the 18^th century, I was surprised to find that it was such a big deal– excessive showy mourning is usually ascribed to the middle to upper classes in Victorian England. They went so far as to have people who couldn’t attend the funeral of a loved one send an empty carriage to follow the procession to make it look like there were more people.

One can imagine now the narrow streets festooned with the rotting corpses of the impoverished and sickly, a constant reminder of the horrors of the plague only centuries before. The endless line of darkened carriages of the wealthy which signify the death of one of their own pass by the stinking filth; ornate ceremonies for rich deceased with not a half-penny to spare for their social inferior’s dinner, though they barely cling to the last thread of life.

But it seems that people in the time of Bach also had some excessive funeral practices, though notably I found none for infants and children. It was only a tragedy, it seems, when an adult passed away – quite contrary to our modern perception of death.

Bach may have been of the class to have a formal funeral and mourning period for his family and friends, but his children may not have received quite the same ceremony.

As morbid as this post has been, the customs of funerals and mourning are enlightening if the time in which Bach lived. Even about the music and art produced in this time is informed by the social practices and customs, so a greater understanding of these aspects of the lives of Baroque artists can lead to a greater appreciation of the artists.

Tabloid Tuesday: Edward Elgar

In addition to possessing just the most thick and full mustache my eyes have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, Edward Elgar is a well-known British composer.

This composer had humble beginnings. His parents believed in the virtues of a rural upbringing, so he was raised outside the city, which meant that he had instilled in him at an early age a fondness for nature which would last through his life.

He received his earliest music instruction from his father who owned a music shop. He also had violin lessons with a local musician, but he never received formal academic instruction.

Elgar lived in the Victorian era which was a time obsessed with class. Because social mobility was becoming more common, those who already occupied the ruling classes felt that they needed to defend their kind against the rising members of lower classes, who could now enter their sphere thanks to rapid urbanization which created more opportunities to accumulate wealth. Unless you were a member of the landed gentry in the country, if you didn’t have property in London it was difficult to gain social status in the city spheres.

So signifiers of class became incredibly important. One had to be seen wearing the right thing, saying the right thing at the right time, making the proper connections, showing a certain type of comportment, and most importantly – marrying in a suitable manner.

Elgar, who was not rich, and definitely not a member of the landed gentry, is really an impressive figure for making his way to fame at the time in which he lived, which he certainly did.

His wife, Alice, was a daughter of fortune, but was disinherited by her father when she married a musician who was at that time unknown.

As a Victorian artist, he was expected to be able to interact on a level with the aristocrats who would attend his concerts. Once, he responded rather haughtily to a dinner invitation by referring to himself and Alice as a “shopkeeper’s son and his wife.”

He soon realized that his wife had given up so much for him, and that he should accept the various honours and invitations bestowed upon him with grace, instead of moodiness.

Despite this rocky beginning he became a favourite among London music society. He was praised by his fellow musicians and the general public. He even conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for a year.

After his marriage, he found himself with the means to move to London and get into the heart of the music scene in England. Even though his wife had been disinherited for having married a musician who was at the time unknown and without much in the way of fortune, they still managed to move into the popular city sphere.

In 1904 he was knighted and found himself even more adored by the musical circles in London. However, when his wife died in 1920, he moved out of London and back to the country and wrote very little after that time.

Elgar is a composer who adored his close circle of friends and was in turn adored by English society. He struggled with class relations as many in his time did for part of his life, but managed to come out on top.

You can hear music by Elgar performed by the Kingston Symphony this season in Brahms, Mozart & Elgar on March 2^nd at 2:30 at The Grand Theatre.