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.

Tabloid Tuesday: Maurice Ravel

Today is going to be a sort of anti-tabloid Tuesday, because the featured composer actually led a very secretive private life of which little is known – and many speculate that there was little to know about.

Maurice Ravel, though mysterious in many ways, was incredibly devoted to the creation of music, and ostensibly not much else. After the death of his mother in 1917, he is said to never have been so fond of another living being again.

His parents raised him in Paris where they discovered very early that their son was musically talented. He was sent to the best teachers and got a start in performance and moved on to composition afterwards, though he did not fare so well on the academic side of things.

He is a man known for being solely devoted to his art. In fact, he actually is not known to have ever had an intimate relationship with another person. He is famously quoted as once saying “my only love affair is with music.”

Of course, as soon as a man is not in a relationship with a woman, many people make the assumption that he is gay – and this speculation has been repeatedly made about Ravel, though I have not found any conclusive evidence of his sexuality of either persuasion.

I find Ravel interesting because his secretive nature is so unlike many public figures today; though I’ve always been fascinated by the artists whose lives are shrouded in mystery. For instance, Frederick Phillip Grove, Canadian author, spent a quiet second half to his life writing fiction in Manitoba in the early twentieth century. While people thought that he was born in North America and had led an unimportant first half of his life, this was far from the truth.

Grove was born in Germany and after graduating from a prestigious school, quickly became a prolific translator. He was part of a homoerotic circle before running off with a woman to Italy, amid a great deal of scandal. He was later charged with fraud and found himself in immense debt. So he spent a year in jail and burned some bridges.

He was again accused of fraud a few years later, so he and his wife staged his suicide and ran off to America – because once you’re accused of fraud you may as well continue to perpetrate that crime. There he soon abandoned his wife who became a model, and he moved to Manitoba where he married a school teacher and became a well-known writer of prairie fiction, and few knew of his scandalous origins until after his death.

Ravel, like Grove, spoke very little about his life, and actually insisted that he was much too devoted to his craft to even have a private life for the public to speculate upon.

Though there have been no grand reveals about Ravel’s private life, his entire existence was fairly mysterious. I’m not just talking about his private life, but also his artistic process.

No one would ever have the privilege of seeing one of his works in progress; he only revealed a work once he had put on all the finishing touches.

The process of writing music for this composer seemed magical. He would go on lengthy walks in the woods and across Paris, no matter what the weather was like until he felt properly inspired, then subsequently shut himself up for long periods of time to compose.

He once said, “It’s lucky I’ve managed to write music, because I know perfectly well I should never have been able to do anything else.”

Ravel was a man completely committed to his craft, and it shows in the works he produced. You have the opportunity to see his piano concerto performed by prodigy Jan Lisecki and the Kingston Symphony this season on February 2^nd at the Grand Theatre in Mahler Ravel & Dvorak.

Tabloid Tuesday: Carl Orff

There have been a lot of interesting speculations made about composer Carl Orff over the years – and not all of them flattering.

But first I’m going to start with an important tidbit on his contribution to musical instruction (not to say that this bit isn’t also terribly fascinating, of course). He seriously influenced the principles of elementary teaching of musical skills. He believed that all children have the ability to learn music to a degree. While many thought that a child had to show natural genius to be able to learn music, he showed the world that just about any child can be taught to play an instrument or sing. In other words, he came down on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate.

I want to add a disclaimer right now, before we get into the heart of the issue I will be discussing this week: Though we play and listen to the music of any given composer does not mean we endorse his/her political views. This is merely a discussion of lives of artists, and a showcase of rumors surrounding them.

Orff lived a long life in a tumultuous time, especially considering the fact that he was a German citizen. He was born in 1895 and died in 1982. This means that he lived through both world wars, post-WWII Germany and all that it entailed, and unfathomable technological and political development.

The most well-known work Orff produced in his lifetime is Carmina Burana. This piece was largely popular with the Nazi party during WWII. Of course, having your work admired by bad people does not necessarily make you a bad person.

Moreover, if you’re living in Nazi Germany and you are commissioned to write a piece for the Nazi’s, you’d better believe you’re going to do it. After all, you’re creating music, not actively killing people. So when the Nazi’s asked someone to re-write incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream after Felix Mendelssohn had been banned, Orff took on the task, though there is evidence that he may have actually written the music before the Nazis asked for it, and simply produced it upon request.

Now without getting too much into a major discussion of the nature of evil, I want to briefly discuss something called the banality of evil. This is essentially the S.S. officer who works at the camps all day, then comes home, gives his wife and kiss and spends the evening playing with his children. This was a term coined post-WWII to describe those who accepted the basic premise of their state and carried forth orders accordingly; that the people who committed these atrocities were not fanatics or psychopaths, but regular people – those “just following orders.” If you’re familiar with the Milgram Experiment, this is the issue from which it arises.

So we have to ask: How far down does evil go? Does complying with the demands (even if those demands are just to compose music) of an evil administration to save yourself make you evil? Moreover, does this discussion really apply to Orff at all? These are all important questions, and definitely something to consider before condemning Orff to the category of evil based upon speculations about his supposed associations with the Nazi party, as some people do.

Those who say that Orff supported the Nazi party have little evidence to back this up, however, and there is little cause to believe it to be true. Though there is evidence that he went through the “denazification” process. 

In fact, Orff himself claims to have helped to establish theWhite Rose resistance movement in Germany, but like the contrary claims, this also has little evidence.

No matter what his political standing was, it is impossible to recognize Carima Burana as anything short of a musical masterpiece. You can hear this comedic and bawdy scenic cantata performed by the Kingston Symphony on Saturday November 9^th at 7:30 at the Kingston Gospel Temple.

Tabloid Tuesday: Ludwig van Beethoven

Many of you are well aware of the most reported-upon aspects of Beethoven’s private life. These include his deafness, and the “Immortal Beloved” letter to a mystery woman, supposedly written in the year 1812.

Since those bits have been over-discussed and over-publicized (if you don’t know much about them, look up pretty much any other biography on Beethoven), I have decided to write about something else concerning this early nineteenth-century musician.

As you’ve probably picked up on by now, I have a mild interest in literature. That’s why this week I am going to explain to you why Beethoven’s early adulthood strongly resembles the form of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novel.

Something that occupies the focus of most fictions written around the time that Beethoven was alive was money. The major anxiety for all women characters in Jane Austen novels for instance, while ostensibly love is actually about the annuity and estate tied to the men who these women fell for.

Money prevented marriages, condemned ill-suited connexions, and rarely allowed the perfect match to take place in the first 300 pages.

So back to our composer. When he was a young man, he had Great Expectations (see what I did there?) placed upon him.

His teacher, Gottlob Neffe said of Beethoven when he was only 11 years old that “he would surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart if he were to continue as he has begun.”

As he grew a little older, Beethoven became part of a circle of aristocratic friends, and even had an older woman who seems to have acted as a pseudo mother figure (see Lady Russell from Jane Austen’s Persuasion). She prevented advances from ill suitors and gave advice to the young composer.

It was not long before Beethoven impressed Haydn with his musical prowess and became his pupil. Upon his leaving for further tutelage by this great composer, his friend Waldstein prophetically wrote “you shall receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.”

Unfortunately, Beethoven believed that Haydn was “not well minded towards him” and therefore did not show him much affection or trust. He also believed that Haydn may have been neglecting or even sabotaging his tuition. So he also enlisted a second tutor to supplement his education, without informing his primary teacher.

He said that although he had taken lessons with Haydn, the musician had never taught him anything, so he declined to publish “pupil of Haydn” as a byline to any of his compositions, despite the fact that it was the custom at the time to do so.

Even though he was receiving a healthy annuity, Beethoven found himself in a bit of debt around this time, and complained about his plight to his tutor, who got Beethoven in trouble with some of the governing bodies supplying him with money.

Luckily, a few years later, Beethoven, who was admired by the aristocracy, was patronized by a number of noblemen who offered him a salary to keep composing.

But after the year 1812, the war had decreased the value of the florin, and he found himself in even more difficulty. This was supplemented by the untimely death of a few of his patrons who had suddenly passed away before being able to leave instructions for further payment to the Beethoven. (The untimely deaths highly resemble the plot to more than one late-Romantic novel.)

Though he managed to stay out of crushing poverty, Beethoven struggled with money for his entire life. Relying upon the commissions from publications and donations from patrons are hardly stable, and even with a guaranteed annuity, difficulties can still arise.

The plight of being an artist in the time of Beethoven is that nothing is really sure when it comes to money. This is why so many novels centre on the anxiety of young women finding a good match. In this period, a woman - much like an artist -  was nearly unable to support herself without dependence upon an annuity from an external source, whether that was a husband, inheritance from a father, or an aristocratic patron.

Over the years Beethoven not only suffered financial stress, but various romantic disappointments as well. He was turned down by women he was fond of, and to be honest, just fell in love with women who were unavailable much too frequently.

In fact, after a major disappointment around 1812, Beethoven fell into such a depression that he suffered a slight creative slump.

This just shows how important literature is to understanding different cultures and periods of time – the reality of Beethoven’s life is aptly represented in the literature produced in this period. It reflects values, attitudes, and most importantly, social anxieties at the core of the issues each culture faces on a regular basis.

You can hear the music of Beethoven this season performed by the Kingston Symphony in our season opener: Beethoven & Brahms on September 29^th at 2:30 at the Grand Theatre and in Mozart & Beethoven on December 1^st, at 2:30 at the Grand Theatre.

Tabloid Tuesday: Carl Maria von Weber

In 1786, a fifty year old military man turned judge and nobleman, turned squanderer and minor council, and his sixteen year old wife had a baby boy. The baby was born with a hip disease which led to incurable partial lameness. The boy was not able to walk until he was four, though by this time he was proficient at both piano and singing. This boy was Carl Maria von Weber.

His mother died before he was twelve so that meant, like many other musical young children at the time, he was submitted to the will of his father who wanted to have a prodigy in the family like the famous Mozart. 

Fortunately for Weber, his father also gave him sufficient instruction in other subjects, though, of course, music was emphasised as the most important aspect of his education.

So when he was still in his teens he began to direct an opera house, though he gave up this posting after a few years because of the growing resentment of the musicians who were over twice or three times his own age and didn’t take kindly to his firm instruction.

At 21, he was appointed to work under Duke Louis, King of Würtemburg. He and the king did not get along well at all. So one day, after a heated fight, Weber who had stormed out of the King’s chamber directed a woman who was looking for the washerwoman into the King’s chamber. The King was furious and soon discovered who was at fault for this audacious violation, and he had Weber thrown in jail. And yes, this does seem a tad extreme.

Not long after this, Weber discovered that his father had been misappropriating some of the King’s funds, and upon discovery by the royal court, they were both banished.

His father died a short two years later, and it is around this time that Weber really came into his own as a composer.

Even though his father had gotten him into a lot of trouble and pushed him perhaps more than a young child should be pushed, Weber still mourned with extreme passion over his father’s death.

While directing the opera in Dresden, he married a singer named Caroline Brandt, and the couple settled down in Dresden and became incredibly popular. He brought German opera to the stage where Italian opera had been establish and long preferred. In fact, many consider him to be the founder of German Romantic opera.

It was not long before Weber found himself attacked by the Prime Minister of the King, who took ill will towards the young German composer and his new German opera. However, eventually he had to submit to the will of the public and make Weber’s place in Dresden a permanent one. At this time Caroline left the stage and committed herself to being a wife and filling the Weber home with happiness.

Though Weber was publically popular, he was constantly under attack by the aristocracy. It really speaks to the personality of the composer that he did not bend under the violent abuse of the nobles.

Years later, Weber began to fall ill. He realized that he would not be able to leave his wife and children with enough money to live on after he passed away. Knowing this, and in a great deal of physical pain, Weber took it upon himself to compose a great masterpiece which would make enough money to ensure his family’s security. So he wrote what is his most famous and beautifully composed work: Oberon.

(Aside: Many disregard the opera as a whole and instead solely recognize "Overture to Oberon" as his greatest masterpiece.)

Though he became even weaker, Weber knew that to earn the money he needed for his family he would have to go to England for the premiere of Oberon. He longed for home but continued to attend performances of his work to raise more money.

He continued to attend concerts until nearly two months later he felt that he had raised enough to return home to his family. He made arrangements to return back to his wife and kids, set to depart on June 6, 1826. On the morning of June 5, his servant walked into the room and found his master peacefully asleep, never to wake again.

You can hear Weber’s “Overture to Oberon” performed by the Kingston Symphony this season in Cathedral Architecture on October 27^th at St. George’s Cathedral.

Tabloid Tuesday: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Even if you’re a new comer to the classical scene, I know you know who Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is. He has been called the most universal composer in the history of Western music. And with a name like that how could he not be destined for greatness?

His earliest compositions were written when he was five. It’s not like he wrote the requiem at this point (in fact the Requiem is the last piece he wrote), but that’s still an impressively young age for the short simple pieces he wrote at that time.

He was an eager and affectionate young man, but also very proud and ambitious. He only liked to play for people who took music seriously.

His father paraded him around Europe showing off his musical talents, much like the pageant mothers of the 21^st century but without the spray tan and wigs… well maybe the wigs. He toured to prestigious venues all over the continent at a young age and wowed nobles everywhere he went.

Though he didn’t have any formal schooling, he learned Latin at a young age, then Italian and later some French and English. He also had a fondness for arithmetic, demonstrated by his mathematical doodlings.

He married Constanze Weber in 1782. Their relationship appears to have been very affectionate and dedicated, though initially opposed by his father who wanted his son to focus solely on his music.

This brilliant man went on to write masterpiece after masterpiece. By the time of his death he had composed over 600 pieces, though the exact number is unknown due to misappropriations and some things which may have been lost, and some which were incomplete.

Alright. Have I made it sufficiently clear that Mozart was an absolutely genius composer who had the greatest of influence on generations to come?

Good. I don’t want any of that to be depreciated by what I tell you next. Because really, we all have our own quirks in our personal lives.

As many young people do, Mozart just loved silly, gross things. He commonly corresponded with his female cousin, Maria Anna Thekla, by letter in simple rhyming verse.

This was not the verse of children’s rhymes, or sonnet, ballad, or ode. Nope. These were bawdy rhymes featuring flatulence and defecation (on various body parts and items of furniture).

He also corresponded in a like manner with his mother, who thought it was a jolly old time and wrote back similarly. I won’t actually post the lyrics to the songs he wrote (sometimes in canon form) on the theme, nor snippets from the letters he wrote. However, if you don’t believe me or need a good laugh, please, Google it.

I want to reiterate that I no less respect Mozart as an artist and great mind. It just goes to show that even the most brilliant among us have oddities.

Actually, the things he wrote are quite funny, if in the most juvenile way possible. It just shows that this great artist still had a sense of humor about him after being showcased like a prize pig by his father, and furiously turning out one masterpiece after another.

You can hear the more professional music written by this great mind performed by the Kingston Symphony this season in Mozart & Beethoven (December 1^st), Brahms, Mozart & Elgar (March 2^nd), and Mozart’s Requiem (March 23^rd). 

Tabloid Tuesday: Antonin Dvorak

Today’s post is going to be on the theme of modesty, and personal pride in one’s origins.

I find Antonin Dvorak a fascinating composer because despite many professional conflicts regarding his nationality and his undying humility, he was incredibly successful in his own time. He is the perfect example of the claim that it doesn’t take superstar ego to be a super star.

A trend I’m sure you have noticed in a lot of the big names of Dvorak’s time is that many of them are German or Austrian. Dvorak, on the other hand, was Czech.

Johannes Brahms was indisputably a key factor in the success of Dvorak’s music. He sent some of Dvorak’s early works off to his publisher, Simrock, and also encouraged him to move into a more serious musical scene. Brahms’ connections were of infinite help to the young Czech composer who felt that his people were discriminated against by the German population.

The two composers had a great friendship which lasted through their lives. They supported one another, and Brahms’ influence in Dvorak’s music is evident.

To be honest, Dvorak’s personal life is quite tame compared to some of the other composers I’ve featured. Had he been alive today his modesty and docile home life surely would have kept him off the magazine rack. But I think that he deserves just the same spotlight as his slightly more dramatic contemporaries – perhaps even more as a reward for his good behaviour.

But I will give you this little tidbit:

He was in love with his pupil Jesofina Cermakova, though married her younger sister Anna in November 1873, whom he also taught. They remained happily married. The end. Though it may seem odd, this was actually a fairly common occurrence at the time.

Though his personal life was far from dramatic, this composer was fierce when it came to defending the honour of his home country.

He got into a fight with his publisher over his 7^th symphony. The publisher wanted Dvorak to print both his name and the title of the piece in German. The composer angrily replied: “But what have we two to do with politics; let us be glad that we can dedicate our services solely to the beautiful art!” After another rift over compensation for another of his larger pieces, Dvorak severed all ties with Simrock and sold his works to Novello instead.

His strong sense of Czech nationalism stuck with him through his travels to America – in many of the cities he visited the Czech populations threw banquets for him.

Ultimately, he wasn’t able to return to America to finish his term position in New York because his employer had gone bankrupt and was behind in paying him and there was little promise of future compensation.

Despite all of the professional problems he had over the years, Dvorak still managed to do very well for himself. This just goes to show that with his good connections (he was also friends with Tchaikovsky and Mahler) and talent he was able to make the best of difficult professional situations.

In the last years of his life he lived in his beloved home country, and was honoured with prizes and awards. He loved wandering in the woods and forests of his home country; he bred pigeons and enjoyed train spotting.

Essentially, this post aims to remind you (hopefully not too didactically) that genius does not always spring from drama; artistry comes not solely from the dusty streets of the impoverished, nor from beneath the “majestical roof fretted with golden fire” of aristocrats. Those who lead a humble life, and remain true to that humility can achieve greatness.

This season you can hear music written by Dvorak performed by the Kingston Symphony on February 2^nd, 2014 in Mahler, Ravel & Dvorak. 

Tabloid Tuesday: Franz Schubert

As one of the first major figures of Romantic era music, I want to discuss Franz Schubert as a markedly Romantic artistic figure.

Some of the characteristics he shared with Romanticism include his short life, and his death from illness. Ah the Romantic era, when the best artists died young and everyone had consumption.

I’m going to go a little off-track here, and talk about the artistic counterpart of music: poetry.

Poetry and music have long shared an important relationship. The reciprocal nature of the two art forms throughout history bring light to one another, and together they reveal societal attitudes and beliefs of a given era. And this is my justification for taking you down the road of the Romantic poets. Bear with me.

In the literary world, there is a generally recognized big six of the Romantic canon in England: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron (the namesake of my gorgeous new puppy). The first three compose the first generation Romantics, and the last three the second generation. What’s interesting about the second generation is that none of the three of them lived to see 30.

Shelley died in a boating accident (though there is much discussion and conspiracy theory around the “accidental” nature of his death) less than a month before his 30^th birthday. Byron died from illness while fighting in the civil war in Greece at 25. And young Keats died of tuberculosis at 25 in Rome. Actually, the entire second generation of Romantic poets was survived by the entire first generation, who all lived to ripe old ages, and much like a peach, some of them (ahem, Wordsworth) softened with their ripeness.

Alright, I need to put this Schubert thing on hold for a second, and you need to hear THE BEST story about Lord Byron. He was a little out there to say the least. He had a pet Newfoundland dog named Boatswain whom he adored and who was the subject of one of Byron's most well-known poems, Epitaph to a Dog. When he went to Cambridge University he was prohibited from keeping his dog with him in his chambers. So what did Byron do? He brought a bear to campus to live in his room with him. Yes, an actual bear. He even suggested that he would apply for a college fellowship for the animal, and was often seen walking his tame bear around town.

Anyway!

Like these young poets, Schubert also died young and of illness, though he did live past 30 (just to 31 though). It was believed for a long time that he died of typhoid. But now it is almost conclusively recognized that he suffered from syphilis.

Evidence for this claim includes the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Mercury was often used to treat syphilis, though clearly it was not a very effective treatment for Schubert.

Like Lord Byron, this composer found that the medical treatments of the day were of no help to his cause. When Byron was sick and suffering in Greece, he was prescribed bloodletting. This actually weakened him and helped the disease progress further and faster.

But while Schubert was alive, he created some wonderful masterpieces. He wrote around 600 lieder (or art songs) and nine symphonies, some operas, a large body of chamber and solo piano music just to name some of his accomplishments.

Much like Keats, Schubert wasted no time while he was alive. Both artists created a massive and well-developed mature body of work, considering how young they both were when they died.

You can hear Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, or as it is more commonly known, the mysterious and beautiful “Unfinished Symphony,” performed by the Kingston Symphony this season on October 27^th at St. George’s Cathedral in Cathedral Architecture.

Tabloid Tuesday: Gustav Mahler

Today I am going to tell you all about Gustav Mahler, the passionate and dramatic composer of the nineteenth century.

One of the many things Mahler is known for is his passion. These characteristics are evident in his music; he is famous for his big crashes, and loud brass sections. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I've met a single brass player who doesn't just adore playing Mahler, because they are encouraged to get as loud as possible.

This passion, however, led to some melodrama in the composer’s life and the loss of some postings he had over the years. On a few occasions, he resigned from positions in a fit of rage – luckily not all of these resignations were accepted. Another time because of “artistic differences” he was fired.

As much as his extreme emotions led to a lot of rage, he was also a passionate lover. He once fell in love with a singer and consequentially wrote his first masterpiece, inspired by his love for her.

Next he fell in love with Carl von Wagner’s wife while he was working alongside Wagner conducting some of his operas. Because of his love for his colleague’s wife he had a fierce creative period about this time.

But he didn’t always fall for unattainable women. In spring 1902, Mahler married young Alma Schindler, who was an intellectual young woman studying composition. However, because Mahler demanded their relationship work around his schedule, and that she give up composing, there were obviously issues in the marriage.

Many people take the option of marriage counseling when there are difficulties at home. Mahler also went this route. But instead of talking to any old councilor, he went to the father of psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud. Yeah, because apparently that was a thing you could just do. The doctor himself was impressed with Mahler’s deep understanding of psychoanalytic theory, and helped Mahler rediscover his love for Alma.

I want to add an aside here about Freud and psychoanalysis: Though many people think of Freud as an old crackpot who was misogynistic (the misogyny bit is unfortunately true) and kind of insane, he actually had some really important ideas. He initiated the discourse of modern psychology, and without his radical and fundamental ideas, we would not be where we are today.

On a somewhat related note, it’s fascinating to me that Mahler was so tied up with important thinkers of his time. Mahler was a scholar of philosophy and a great reader of Nietzsche’s early work, which is ironic, because Mahler’s pieces themselves are philosophically light-years away from nihilism!

Whew, now that I have that off my chest, let’s carry on, shall we?

Mahler’s passion for music led him to do some pretty extraordinary things. Upon realizing that he would not be able to get a posting in Vienna because of his Jewish heritage, he accepted baptism as a Catholic in 1897, and was appointed Kapellmeister at Vienna after a few months.

However, even though he had converted to Catholicism, there were still intolerant people in Vienna. There was an anti-Mahler campaign launched which came to a head in 1907, at which time Mahler agreed to give his resignation.

He eventually died of a bacterial infection after various other medical difficulties in Vienna on May 12, 1911.

There aren’t too many gossipy things about Mahler that I came across in my searches, however, there are some fun little rumours of which I doubt the veracity, but perhaps speak to the kind of man he was anyway.

I was told that he used to walk around in different cadences, and then use one of those odd walking patterns for the rhythm for whichever piece he was working on.

I also read that he was once composing in the countryside at the foot of the Alps, and demanded absolute silence. So he had all of the surrounding farmers lock up their animals so that he could write in peace.

You can hear music composed by Mahler performed by the Kingston Symphony on February 2^nd, 2014 in Mahler, Ravel & Dvorak.

Tabloid Tuesday: Tchaikovsky

It’s that day again! This week is Tchaikovsky’s Tabloid Tuesday. I’m extra excited about this week for three reasons: 1. Tchaikovsky is one of my favourite composers; 2. He had a radical and fascinating life; and 3. I love alliteration!

As many people know, it is widely recognized that Tchaikovsky was homosexual. As a public figure in the nineteenth century, this makes his story especially fascinating and dramatic.

Of course his sexual orientation didn’t keep Tchaikovsky from attempting to fit in with the rest of his heteronormative society. But after failing to marry singer Desiree Artot when she suddenly married a Spanish baritone in 1869, it might have seemed a good time to stop trying to be something he wasn’t, but society demanded he be.

Yet Tchaikovsky was not completely deterred from the idea of a heterosexual marriage. In 1877, a woman named Antonina Milyukova wrote to him, and in subsequent letters threatened to kill herself if he would not meet her. A week after their meeting, Tchaikovsky proposed to her on the terms that there could be no physical component to their relationship.

Disclaimer: this method of flirtation is not always as effective as it was for Antonina; use at your own discretion.

As soon as they were engaged then married, Tchaikovsky promptly ran off to compose a few more masterpieces elsewhere – far away from his new wife. That September, Tchaikovsky was forced to return to his Antonina, which proved to be too much stress for our composer. So a few days later he made a feeble attempt at suicide.

He arranged to go back to St. Petersburg for October 7^th, and consulted a specialist who suggested he never see his wife again. His brother then arranged a separation.

For years Antonina made poor Tchaikovsky’s life unbearable by alternatively accepting then refusing a divorce.

At one point Antonina actually moved into the apartment above Tchaikovsky, just to make his life miserable, and for ease of tormenting. I can just imagine it now – wake up, have breakfast, go downstairs to harass her estranged husband. The situation almost seems to be perfectly inspired by the drama from which Tchaikovsky drew from for many of his compositions, which included Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Lord Byron’s Manfred.

Luckily this all worked out in the end for our favourite Russian composer: in 1881 it was discovered that Antonina had birthed an illegitimate child, which gave Tchaikovsky legitimate grounds for divorce. I know, this sounds suspiciously like a Shakespearean comedy. It has movement from imperfect social order, to absolute disaster with both excessive and funny elements (see Act IV, scene V of Taming of the Shrew), finally settling on a renewed and balanced order in which wrongs are righted. Though this comedy, instead of ending in marriage, ended in a happy divorce.

But still, Antonina could reveal at any time Tchaikovsky’s refusal to engage in sexual acts with women. He worried that it may become public at any moment, and so spent a great deal of time out in seclusion in the countryside.

And here is where the comedy switches to tragedy; the ghosts take the place of the wood nymphs.

Ultimately, in 1893, he committed suicide. It seems that the reason is because of an affair the composer had with an aristocrat’s nephew. There was a court of honour to decide how to dispel the scandal, and it was decided that the composer should kill himself.

Even though Michel Foucault, renowned theorist and critic says in his History of Sexuality that the Victorian Era (roughly 1837-1901) is the time that “the homosexual became a species,” it is clear that though distinct, this minority group was far from accepted in Tchaikovsky’s time.

Tchaikovsky struggled his entire life with what his society believed were unnatural desires. There are many rumours and bits of information, none of which I am completely convinced, that I’ve come across regarding the composer’s personal life.

Some sources say that he was surrounded by a close community of men who supported his differences.

Some even say that he was fairly open about his sexuality and frequently engaged in sexual acts with men, but felt shameful about it.

Whatever the truth was about his personal life, it is completely indisputable that Tchaikovsky was a musical genius. And, as some critics suggest, much of the wonderful passion in his music came from his inability to fully express himself in his personal life. So ultimately, his misery led to some of the greatest musical masterpieces we know today.

This season you can hear music by Tchaikovsky performed by the Kingston Symphony on April 13^th, 2014 in Brahms, Schumann & Tchaikovsky.