There is a chill in the air but you can depend on WWUH to fill your home with musical warmth and great public affairs programming!

As we journey towards the end for 2012 I want to thank all our listeners for helping make the Fall Fund Raiser 2012 a grand success!!  We have over $42,000 pledged from you the best listeners on the planet. Reminders have been sent out for all who are paying by check and premiums are going out over the next few weeks for all who paid via credit card. Our address is WWUH, 200 Bloomfield Ave, West Hartford, CT 06117. If you are expecting a denim shirt or other item it will be in your home soon for you to enjoy. Thanks again for making helping to keep WWUH on the air! Our wonderful will continue Celtic concerts have resumed after the summer renovation to Wilde Auditorium and we will continue to present the best in alternative programming for you every day.You can find out what is playing by going to our program grid at WWUH weekly program grid.

Keep your radio's tuned to WWUH radio for a great selection of music to make your days and nights more interesting and fun. Don't forget our great alternative public affairs shows that will give you information about the things the mainstream usually avoids. So hang in there and keep your radios tuned to 91.3.  You can also listen and follow us at our web site - wwuh.org. We are also available now as a Mp3 stream on many smart phones so we can follow you anywhere you go.  Thanks for all your support! 

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WWUH PRESENTS THE UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD WOMEN'S BASKETBALL GAMES AGAIN THIS YEAR 

Hawks and WWUH  

Prove Championship Pair

 Runa

            Thanks to all of you who contributed to our successful Fall Fund Raiser. Your ongoing support of Celtic Airs and WWUH Radio are essential and much appreciated! The concert series will continue to be another source of funding for our commercial free enterprise.

            Our November Celtic Airs concert features a return visit from Runa on November 16th at 7:30 in the Wilde Auditorium. I've decided not to present a concert in December as it always seems to be a month already too full of holiday plans and commitments.

            Runa is a quintet composed of husband and wife Fionan de Barra (from Ireland), and Shannon Lambert-Ryan (from Philadelphia), Galway's Dave Curley, Canadian Cheryl Prashker and Tomoko Omura from Japan! They present a fusion of music from Ireland, Scotland, Canada and America. As you might expect, based on their diverse cultural backgrounds, their repertoire includes highly energetic and graceful tunes mixed with beautiful songs, presented in a fresh, appealing style.

            In addition to their commitment to Runa, the band members each have their own projects and pursuits. Their talents have been recognized by other traditional musicians and they have spent time with a number of well known artists/ensembles including Solas, Riverdance, Clannad, Fiddlers Bid, Moya Brennan and Eileen Ivers.

            Shannon Lambert-Ryan is from Philadelphia. Her musical background, before forming Runa, included Celtic, Folk and Classical music and acting in musical theater. Her vocals are rich and vibrant, backed by her gentle piano playing.

            Fionan de Barra was born in Dublin into the well known de Barra family which has produced a bevy of talented musicians, many of them actively involved in the traditional music of Ireland. He first came to America in 1999 as guitarist in Riverdance. USA. He moved on to become musical director for the Moya Brennan Band and produced and played on a number of her solo albums. Currently, he splits performance time between Runa, Fiddlers Bid and Clannad, the renowned Brennan family band fronted by lead vocalist Moya Brennan.

            Galway's Dave Curley has been heralded as a sensational multi-instrumentalist as well as a singer and dancer known for velvet vocals and quick feet. He is proficient on guitar, banjo, mandolin and bodhran and earned a BA in Irish Music at The University of Limerick. He has previously performed in the Celtic Airs concert series with the Irish band Slide.

            Cheryl Prashker studied classical percussion at McGill University in Montreal. After graduation, she moved to New York City where she branched out to play Rock and Roll, Klezmer and Celtic music. She is often sought as a guest musician for touring bands and as a studio musician, contributing her special brand of percussion to a variety of recordings and performances.

            Tomoko Omura, born in Japan, began to play classical violin at age four. As a teenager, she became interested in Rock and Roll and Jazz. It was her passion for jazz that prompted her to move to America to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Following graduation, she produced a critically acclaimed album of self-penned material for jazz violin. This led to a 2008 "Honorable Mention" award at the International Songwriting Competition. In 2009, Strings Magazine recognized her as one of their top fifteen "Emerging Solo Artists." She now resides in New York City and is involved in many musical endeavors including her own jazz ensemble that performs in venues all over the world.

            In a review of a Runa performance, The Philadelphia Irish said "There is a truly mystical quality to their playing. They create a lyrical sound that is at once unique and seamless."

            If you're looking for one last night of live Celtic music to carry you into the holiday season, I can highly recommend an evening spent with Runa on Friday, November 16th at 7:30 in the University of Hartford's Wilde Auditorium.

            Tickets for this event are only available through the University Box Office, open Monday- Friday, 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM. Call 1-800-274-8587 or 860-768-4228. On line purchases can be made at www.hartford.edu/hart

            I hope you will continue to tune into Celtic Airs Tuesdays from 6-9AM on WWUH 91.3 FM or  via wwuh.org , streaming live on the internet.

 University of Hartford Box Office

                                                               Steve Dieterich, Producer/Host of Celtic Airs

                                                         Producer /Promoter of the Celtic Airs concert series.

WWUH Classical Programming -

November and December 2012

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera... Sundays 1:00 - 4:30 pm

Evening Classics... Weekdays 4:00 to 7:00/ 8:00 pm

Drake's Village Brass Band... Mondays 7:00-8:00 pm

Featured Artist

November 5                 Johnnie Bassett (1935-2012)     

November 12               Robben Ford

November 19               Nighthawks

November 26               Candye Kane

December 3                 Michael Bloomfield

December 10               Muddy Waters

Back to the Roots

November 5                 Rhythm & Blues

November 12               Boogie Woogie

November 19               Texas Blues

November 26               Jump Blues

December 3                 Delta Blues

December 10               Kansas City Blues

Thursday Evening Classics

Composer Birthdays

November and December 2012

Presented by Steve Petke

November 1

1666 James Sherard

1731 Theodore-Jean Tarade

1748 Christoph Rheineck

1761 Antonin Josef Alois Volanek

1805 Alessandro Nini

1832 Johann Gottfried Matthison-Hansen

1851 Andre Wormser

1854 William Paris Chambers

1862 Johan Wagenaar

1863 Alfred Reisenauer

1871 Alexander Spendiarov

1873 Charles Quef (Paul Florimond)

1877 Roger Quilter

1887 Max Trapp

1901 Szymon Laks

1907 Rio Gebhardt

1909 Bruno Bjelinski

1921 Jan Tausinger

1921 John Willard Peterson

1934 William Mathias

1962 Roman Pieruzek

1968 Javier Jacinto

November 8

1590 Francesco Gonzaga

1657 Thomas Bullis

1725 Johann George Tromlitz

1770 Friedrich Witt

1785 Friedrich Kalkbrenner

1849 Edward Julius Biedermann

1850 Karel Komzak

1867 Ilmari Henrik Reinhold Krohn

1882 Lazare Saminsky

1883 Sir Arnold Bax

1887 Yury Alexandrovich Shaporin

1888 David Monrad Johansen

1900 Mihailo Vukdragovic

1902 Walerian Josef Gniot

1906 Rudolph Arnold Dolmetsch

1909 Norman Lloyd

1912 Jean-Louis Martinet

1921 Jerome Hines

1921 Douglas Townsend

1945 Arnold Rosner

1945 Judith Lang Zaimont

1950 Christopher Bochmann

Arnold Bax

Birth: November 8, 1883 in Streatham, London, England

Death: October 3, 1953 in Cork, Ireland

The eldest son of a wealthy Nonconformist family, he enjoyed independent means and was able to devote himself entirely to composition and writing. He described himself as "a brazen romantic," and in some respects could be considered the last of the European post-Romantic school of composers. During his five years at the Royal Academy of Music, Bax was deeply impressed by the poetry of W.B. Yeats, founder of the Irish National Theater. Bax's earlier works, which include the tone-poems In the Faery Hills, The Garden of Fand and Tintagel, are imbued with the spirit of Celtic legend, an interest ignited by his reading Yeats's The Wanderings of Usheen in 1902. In the Fairy Hills, is typical of the fantastic and exotic nature of his orchestral writing, chromatic and opulent, with a broad melodic sweep and luminous harmonies. The Garden of Fand, an imaginative evocation of an ancient legend of sea gods and goddesses, is similarly impressionistic, though less naturalistic, than Debussy's La Mer. Tintagel, inspired by traditional English stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table was composed in 1919 after a holiday in Cornwall and quickly became Bax's most frequently performed work. Living in the shadow of composers like Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Bax received little public recognition until late in life. Up to the late 1930s, his songs, choral works, and chamber music were rarely heard, and, had it not been for a broadening of his style and the championship of Sir Adrian Boult, conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bax would probably be remembered, if at all, for his comparatively youthful works. On a visit to Scandinavia in 1932, Bax met Sibelius and the two composers became friends. While Sibelius' influence is not obvious in Bax's symphonic style, he is clearly indebted to the Finnish master in Winter Legends and The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew. Bax later turned his attention to abstract forms, producing important cycles of string quartets, piano sonatas, concertos, and symphonies. The latter, spanning the years 1923-39, form a substantial body of works, ranging from the angry tones of the First Symphony (inspired by the tragedy of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the death of several Irish friends), through the epic Second Symphony and the Third, which established the hallmark of a closing, serene epilogue, to the more classical Seventh with its variation finale. In addition to the string quartets he produced many other colorful chamber works including the fine Elegiac Trio for flute, viola, and harp, an Irish Elegy for cor anglais, harp, and string quartet, the striking Harp Quintet, and three works for larger forces: a nonet, an octet, and a septet. A composer with great facility, Bax developed a vivid orchestral palette drawn eclectically from Wagner, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Elgar, and the Russians, all of whom he admired. He wrote plays, novels, and poetry under an Irish pseudonym, Dermot O'Byrne. He was knighted in 1937. In 1942, he was appointed Master of the Kings' Music and in 1943 he published his autobiography, Farewell my Youth. His last work, written to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, is a set of madrigals called What is it like to be young and fair.

November 15

1604 Davis Mell

1640 Nicolaus Adam Strungk

1657 Michel Richard Delalande

1696 Gerhardus Havingha

1705 Louis-Gabriel Guillemain

1738 Sir William Herschel

1746 Joseph Quesne

1774 William Horsley

1775 Georges-Julien Sieber

1800 George Rodwell

1810 Anne Marie Leopoldine Blahetka

1829 Frederic Etienne Barbier

1878 Bela Reinitz

1888 Dr. Artie Matthews

1902 Frederico Freitas

1905 Francis Chagrin

1912 Ivana Lang

1920 Jerome Richardson

1922 Doreen Carwithen

1925 Jurriaan Andriessen

1934 Peter Dickinson

1940 Robert Hampton Burt

November 22

1450 Jacob Obrecht

1690 Francois Collin de Blamont

1709 Frantisek (Franz) Benda

1710 Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

1780 Conradin Kreutzer

1838 Jose Augusto da Ferreira Veiga, Viscount d' Arneiro

1870 Howard Brockway

1879 Julio Salvador Sagreras Ramirez

1896 Mario Labroca

1900 Hugo Godron

1901 Joaquin Rodrigo

1907 Bernard Naylor

1913 Benjamin Britten

1917 Jean-Etienne Marie

1922 Fikret Meshadi Jamil Amirov

1923 Dika Newlin

1924 Axel Borup-Jorgensen

1925 Gunther Schuller

1936 Hans Zender

1952 Frank Wallace

1963 Vasil S. Tole

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Birth: November 22, 1710 in Weimar, Germany

Death: July 1, 1784 in Berlin, Germany

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was an organist, improviser and composer. When Friedemann was 9, his mother died suddenly. J. S. Bach remarried in December of 1721. J. S. Bach supervised Friedemann's studies in keyboard and composition with great attention. At the age of 16 he went to Merseburg to learn the violin with Johann Gottlieb Graun. In addition to his musical training, Friedemann received formal schooling beginning in Weimar. When J.S. Bach took the post of Cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, he enrolled Friedemann in the associated Thomasschule. On graduating in 1729, Friedemann enrolled as a law student in Leipzig University. After graduation he worked as a musical assistant for his father. Friedemann was appointed in 1733 to the position of organist of the St. Sophia's Church at Dresden. This was a part-time position, allowing him time for more math studies, and composition of operas and ballets for the local Court. In 1746, he became the organist at the Liebfrauenkirche in Hallé, a better position involving not only playing organ in that church, but organizing orchestral performances in the city's three main churches. In 1751, Friedemann married Dorothea Elisabeth Georgi, who was 11 years his junior and who outlived him by 7 years. The couple produced two sons and a daughter. Dorothea was the daughter of a tax collector. The landed estates she inherited caused the family to be placed in a high tax bracket by Halle authorities, who were raising taxes to meet the revenue demands of the Seven Years War. To raise cash for these payments, she sold part of her property in 1770. Friedemann was deeply unhappy in Halle almost from the beginning of his tenure. In 1749 he was involved in a conflict with the Cantor of the Liebfrauenkirche, Gottfried Mittag, who had misappropriated funds that were due to Friedemann. In 1750 the church authorities reprimanded Friedemann for overstaying a leave of absence (he was in Leipzig settling his father's estate). In 1753 he made his first documented attempt to find another post, and thereafter made several others. All these attempts failed. In 1762, he received an appointment as Kapellmeister in Darmstadt, seemingly a congenial position. But Bach delayed leaving Hallé and lost the job. In June 1764, Friedemann left the job in Halle without any employment secured elsewhere. His financial situation deteriorated so much that in 1768 he re-applied for his old job in Halle, without success. After leaving Halle in 1770, he lived for several years in Braunschweig where he applied in vain for the post of an organist at the St. Catherine's church. Then he moved to Berlin, where he initially was welcomed by the princess Anna Amalia (the sister of Frederick the Great), but later fell into disgrace under still unclear circumstances. He died in poverty in 1784 from a pulmonary disease. Historians have regarded Friedemann as a poor custodian of his father's musical manuscripts, many of which he inherited. However, more recent scholars are uncertain how many were lost. It is known that Friedemann sold some of his father's collection to raise cash to pay debts. Also, his daughter took some of the J.S. Bach manuscripts with her when she moved to America, and these were passed on to descendants, who may have inadvertently destroyed many of them.  Friedemann's compositions include many church cantatas and instrumental works, of which the most notable are the fugues, polonaises and fantasias for clavier, and the duets for two flutes. He incorporated more elements of the contrapuntal style learned from his father than any of his three composer brothers, but his use of the style has an individualistic and improvisatory edge which endeared his work to musicians of the late 19th century, when there was something of a revival of his reputation. His music fell generally into the transitional period between Baroque and Classical styles, but it was distinctive and personal.

Joaquin Rodrigo

Birth: November 22, 1901 in Sagunto, Spain

Death: July 6, 1999 in Madrid, Spain

Blind from the age of 3 due to diphtheria, Rodrigo began his musical education early and took lessons in composition with Francisco Antich in Valencia. Rodrigo started composing in 1923, and won a National Prize in 1925 for his Cinco Piezas Infantiles for orchestra. Due to his blindness, Rodrigo always composed in Braille, and later painstakingly dictated the music to a copyist. His first works revealed the influence of Granados, Ravel and Stravinsky, but his individual musical voice was soon heard in the songs, piano works and orchestral pieces composed during the 1920s and 30s. In 1927 he moved to Paris as a pupil of Dukas at the Ecole Normale de Musique. While in Paris, Rodrigo befriended many of the great composers of the time, and received particular encouragement from his fellow Spaniard Manuel de Falla. In 1933 Rodrigo married the Turkish pianist Victoria Kamhi. They remained inseparable companions until her death in 1997. After returning to Spain in 1934, Rodrigo quickly won, with some help from Falla, the Conde de Cartagena scholarship that allowed him to return to Paris to study musicology with Maurice Emmanuel at the Paris Conservatoire and with Andre Pirro at the Sorbonne. Some of the most difficult years in Rodrigo's life were in the late 1930s during the Spanish Civil War. His scholarship was cancelled, and he and his wife lived in France and Germany. They made a meager living giving Spanish and music lessons at the Institute for the Blind in Freiburg.But by 1939, they were able to return to Spain. Soon after the première in 1940 of his first concerto, the Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar, he began to be recognized as one of the leading composers in Spain. Apart from writing a great deal of music during the following years, he was active as an academic and music critic, writing for several newspapers and publishing articles on a wide range of topics. He also worked in the music department of Radio Nacional and for the Spanish National Organization for the Blind (ONCE). In 1947 he was appointed to the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music at Complutense University, Madrid, created especially for him, and in 1950 he was elected to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. During these and subsequent years he made several tours throughout Spain, Europe, the Americas and Japan, teaching, giving piano recitals and lectures, and attending concerts and festivals of his own music. Distinctions awarded to Rodrigo included the Gran Cruz de Alfonso X el Sabio, the Legion d'Honneur, election as a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts of Belgium to the place left vacant on the death of Benjamin Britten. By the end of his life, he had also received 6 honorary doctorates from universities worldwide. Two significant distinctions in Rodrigo's old age were the conferment of the hereditary titles 'Marqueses de los Jardines de Aranjuez' on the composer and his wife by King Juan Carlos I in 1992, and the award of the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes in 1996. During the second half of the 20th century Rodrigo came to occupy a position in Spanish musical life close to that of Manuel de Falla. Like his mentor, he cultivated a style far removed from the major currents of European musical development and, as with Falla, his music needs to be judged in the context of Spain's classical and traditional music, art and literature. His compositions number around 170, including 11 concertos, numerous orchestral and choral works, 60 songs, some two dozen pieces each for piano and guitar, and music for the ballet, theatre and cinema. His published writings also demonstrate a remarkable breadth of knowledge of music and the arts. Rodrigo's music attracted favorable attention from both critics and performers from the start of his career, first in Valencia and Paris and subsequently worldwide. His first two guitar concertos, Concierto de Aranjuez and Fantasía para un gentilhombre, also achieved remarkable popularity. From the late 1970s onwards, however, appreciation of his music began to broaden. Many of the world's great instrumentalists commissioned concertos of him, and he eventually wrote works for, among others, guitarist Andrés Segovia, flutist James Galway, harpist Nicanor Zabaleta, and cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. His forms were traditional and his musical language, drawn from both Classical and nationalist sources, underpinned a melodic gift of remarkable eloquence. He made many of the finest settings of classical Spanish poetry, his guitar pieces are in the main repertory, and his concertos are the most significant such works composed in Spain.

Benjamin Britten

Birth: November 22, 1913 in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England

Death: December 4, 1976 in Aldeburgh, England

Considered by many as the greatest English composer since Henry Purcell, Britten was a musician of wide-ranging talents. Essentially a vocal composer, his operas and song-cycles won wide international acceptance. He never abandoned the principles of tonality and was a 'modern' composer who reached a mass audience. He also produced much music for orchestra and instrumentalists, including symphonies, concerti, and chamber and solo works. He shared with his predecessors Parry, Vaughan Williams, and Holst an intense interest in the work of amateurs and children. His gifts as a pianist and conductor, coupled with the virtuoso nature of his inventiveness, led him to compose music for great performers such as the cellist Rostropovich and the singers Vishnevskaya, Fischer-Dieskau, and Janet Baker. The greatest personal influence on his music was his relationship with the tenor Peter Pears, for whom he created many operatic and vocal roles. Britten's father was a prosperous oral surgeon in the town of Lowestoft. His mother was a leader in the local choral society. When Benjamin's musical aptitude became evident, the family engaged composer Frank Bridge to supervise his musical education. The influence of Bridge in particular was strong and lasting. Britten was at the Royal College of Music 1930- 3, but found the atmosphere uncongenial and resented official refusal to allow him to study with Alban Berg in Vienna. He studied piano with Arthur Benjamin and composition with John Ireland. His astonishing early works include the Sinfonietta and A Boy was Born, and his song-cycle with orchestra Our Hunting Fathers. He worked for the General Post Office Film Unit, writing music for a dozen short documentaries, the best known being Coal Face and Night Mail. In 1937, for the Boyd Neel String Orchestra's concert at the Salzburg Festival, he wrote the Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge. A steadfast pacifist, Britten left England in 1939 as war loomed over Europe. He and Pears followed their friend the poet W. H. Auden to North America in 1939, staying until 1942. While in New York, performances of his Violin Concerto and Sinfonia da Requiem were given in Carnegie Hall under John Barbirolli. Returning to England, Britten settled at Snape and then Aldeburgh. His opera Peter Grimes was performed at Sadler's Wells on June 7, 1945, a day of importance for English music comparable with the first performance of Elgar's Enigma Variations. His interest in chamber opera led in 1947 to foundation of the English Opera Group and his desire for a festival rooted in English village life led to the Aldeburgh Festival, first held in 1948. The Aldeburgh Festival also featured neglected works by composers whom Britten and his colleagues deemed to deserve reappraisal. Britten excelled not only in his own music. As an accompanist in Schubert he was second to none. He played and conducted Mozart superbly, and conducted major works by Bach, Mahler, Elgar, Schumann, and others. After a major heart operation in 1973 his activities were much reduced. A major strength of Britten's art, which contributes to the dramatic effectiveness of his operas, is his gift for finding an apt, simple, memorable phrase to illustrate a point or situation. He was preoccupied with themes of innocence destroyed, of the persecution of the 'outsider' in society (stemming from his own pacifism and conscientious objection to war service), and of cruelty. These themes found their most impressive outlet in the operas Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, and Owen Wingrave. If these, and such works as the War Requiem, represent the dark side of his musical personality, the 1953 Coronation opera Gloriana, his splendid Midsummer Night's Dream, the comedy Albert Herring, and a host of choral and instrumental works show a capacity for joy. His instrumental works, in particular the string quartets and cello suites, explore and stretch the players' capacities without ceasing to be musical. Few composers have caught the public's imagination as vividly as did Britten. Each new work was eagerly awaited and absorbed.

November 29

1632 Jean-Baptiste Lully

1770 Peter Hansel

1797 Gaetano Donizetti

1816 Carl Binder

1852 Paul Joseph Guillaume Hillemacher

1860 Hans Haym

1862 Friedrich Klose

1861 Spyridon Filiskos Samara

1866 Waldemar von Baussnern

1869 Sir Ivor (Algernon) Atkins

1891 Richard Frank Donovan

1895 Lodovico Rocca

1899 Gustave Reese

1904 Piet Ketting

1916 Valentino Bucchi

1932 Antoine Tisne

1947 Ivan Kurz

1969 Eldad Tsabary

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Birth: November 29, 1632 in Florence, Italy

Death: March 22, 1687 in Paris, France

The son of a miller, Lully had only simple instruction in music during childhood, from a monk who taught him the guitar and the violin. Lully was taken to France by the Chevalier de Guise in 1646 as garçon de chambre and Italian teacher to Louis XIV's cousin, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans. At her court in the Tuileries his musical talents soon attracted attention and he became famous for his skill as a violinist. By the time, in 1652, that Mademoiselle d'Orléans was exiled from Paris because of her sympathy with the Fronde uprising, Lully had made an impression at court for his dancing, and the next year he was taken into court employment as compositeur de la musique instrumentale to Louis XIV, a position that involved writing music for the court ballets and dancing in them. He was admitted to the Vingt-Quatre Violons du Roi ("King's 24 violins") but found the band lacking in discipline and obtained permission to set up his own Petits Violons of 16 players. From 1656 to 1664 he trained this ensemble, which became widely famous for its precision. Meanwhile Lully was becoming known as a composer, especially of ballet. In 1660 his ballet entrées for Cavalli's Xerse and Ercole amante attracted more attention than the operas themselves, and the following year Louis made him surintendant de la musique de la chambre du roi. He became a naturalized French citizen, and a further mark of the royal favor, his appointment as maître de musique to the royal family, enabled him to marry the daughter of the composer Michel Lambert. They had 3 sons, all of whom became musicians, and 3 daughters. Lully continued to compose ballets and in 1664 he wrote entrées for a revival of Pierre Corneille's Oedipe and his first comédie-ballet in partnership with Molière, a collaboration which was to culminate in 1670 with Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. By the end of the 1660s the idea of opera was growing increasingly popular in Paris. A privilege to establish opera academies in France was granted in 1679 to Pierre Perrin. In spite of Lully's initial scorn at the idea of large-scale dramatic works sung in French he was quick to take advantage of Perrin's fall from favor at court and bought his privilege in 1672. Soon after, and following some vicious intrigue, he was granted the right to compose and produce opera at the Académie Royale de Musique, a monopoly he held for the rest of his life. When Lully began composing opera in the 1670s, Italy was the center of great opera. Opera in France was in its infancy. Lully's operas, which were based on Italian models but with French libretto, helped popularize the art form. He went into partnership with the designer Carlo Vigarani, obtained premises in a tennis court, and staged the first tragédie en musique: Cadmus et Hermione, produced in 1673. The libretto was provided by Philippe Quinault, who also wrote texts for ten further tragédies for Lully in spite of the composer's constant criticisms and cuts. Louis then provided him with a theatre, at the Palais Royal. Lully stifled any potential rivals by imposing arbitrary and often crippling limits, as his privilege entitled him to do, on any other theatrical production. For example, no one was permitted to use dancers, more than 2 voices, or more than 6 violins. Lully was unscrupulous in his greed and ambition and capable of ruthless plotting against his rivals. He made numerous enemies. Royal favor saved him from prosecution for homosexual practices, though even Louis reprimanded him on this account in 1685. In the 1680s the court became more sober and restrained in its entertainments, and Lully turned his attention to church music. It was during a performance of his monumental Te Deum before the King in 1687 that Lully struck his foot with his conducting cane (it was normal practice to keep time by striking it upon the floor), and later that year he died after the foot had turned gangrenous. He left a considerable fortune, including five houses in Paris and the monopoly of the performing rights to his music. Lully's primary achievement was the creation of French opera, and with it he established a style tradition that continued to dominate French musical theatre for more than a century. They inspired several controversies among Paris intellectuals (French v. Italian; Lully v. Rameau; French tragédie v. Italian comedy). Lully brought to the composition of lyric drama in French an acute understanding of French declamatory traditions and the non-metric structure of the language, devising a new musical style to accommodate them. He shunned the Italian method of dividing musical numbers into separate recitatives and arias, choosing instead to combine the two for dramatic effect. He devised too a simple form of air, often using a dance rhythm, that could capture faithfully the nature of the sentiment expressed. He also created special scenes, using chorus and dancers, and spectacular divertissements, often with picturesque effects (tempests, sleep scenes, the underworld). His dances, which abound in the operas, are often highly attractive melodically, with unusual rhythmic structures; and his five-part orchestration is rich and resourceful.

Gaetano Donizetti

Birth: November 29, 1797 in Bergamo, Italy

Death: April 8, 1848 in Bergamo, Italy

Donizetti was among the most important composers of bel canto opera in both Italian and French in the first half of the 19th Century. Many of Donizetti's more than 60 operas are still part of the modern repertoire and continue to challenge singers for their musical and technical demands. Donizetti stands stylistically between Rossini and Verdi.  His scenes are usually more expanded in structure than those of Rossini, but he never blurred the lines between set pieces and recitative, as Verdi did in his middle-period and late works. Often compared to his contemporary, Bellini, Donizetti produced a wider variety of operas and showed a greater stylistic flexibility. Donizetti was educated in Bergamo, the town of his birth, studying with the opera composer Simon Mayr from 1806-1814. Because of parental opposition to a musical career, he joined the Austrian army, composing in his off-duty spells. His youthful works include chamber operas, religious works, and chamber music. His opera Enrico di Borgogna was produced in Venice in 1818, and his 4th opera, Zoraida di Granata was so successful in Rome in 1822 that he obtained his release from the army. In the next 8 years he wrote nearly 30 operas which were performed throughout Italy. He continued to work in Naples throughout the 1820's and 1830's, where he was active as both a conductor and composer. In 1830, Donizetti finally achieved international fame with his opera Anna Bolena. Notable for its expressive music and more extended scenes, it established Donizetti as one of the leading opera composers. The comic opera L'elisir d'amore and the tragic Lucrezia Borgia came shortly after. Donizetti's next work was Maria Stuarda, followed the same year by Lucia di Lammermoor, which became an internationally recognized masterpiece. The Elizabethan tragedy Roberto Devereux completed his trilogy of operas that chronicle the English court from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. Donizetti's operas from the late 1830s were unable to match the success of Lucia, and when Donizetti was passed over for the directorship of the Naples Conservatory in 1840, he moved to Paris. There he composed the opera comique La fille du Régiment, which was celebrated immediately for its charm and virtuosity. Later that year he completed La favorite, another major contribution to the French repertoire. In 1842 Donizetti was appointed Kapellmeister of the Austrian court in Vienna, but retained his association with Paris. Among Donizetti's last operas are Maria di Rohan, an important historic opera, and his French tragedy Dom Sébastian. Caterina Cornaro is also one of his finest works for its strong dramatic content. These late operas, although rarely performed, are serious works that set the standard for Verdi. His last success was also in Paris, with Don Pasquale in 1843. He became paralyzed and mentally unbalanced as a result of syphilis in 1844. Donizetti's ability to write at great speed has prejudiced attitudes toward the quality of his work. The tendency to underrate the melodic and dramatic content of his operas has only recently been reinterpreted by a willingness to recognize Donizetti's brilliance as a rival in comic opera to Rossini. Recently, several of Donizetti's lesser-known operas have been revived and found to have unsuspected merit. He also composed church music, 19 string quartets, and some orchestral works.

December 6

1550 Orazio Vecchi

1642 Johann Christoph Bach

1743 Franz Nikolaus Novotny

1776 Paul Friedrich Struck

1806 Gilbert-Louis Duprez

1808 Johann Christian Gebauer

1841 Donato Lovreglio

1843 Gustav Adolph Niemann

1872 Moyzes Mikulas

1887 Joseph Lamb

1896 Arnold Foster

1897 John Axel Fernstrom

1902 Virgilio Mortari

1919 Gideon Klein

1920 Dave Brubeck

1927 Jacques Bondon

1929 Mark Kopytman

1933 Henryk Gorecki

1939 Tomas Svoboda

1954 Andrew Violette

1954 Beat Furrer

1955 Bright Sheng

December 13

1732 Jean-Claude Trial

1740 Franz Xaver Schnitzer

1770 John Clarke-Whitfeld

1819 Edwin George Monk

1838 Alexis Vicomte de Castillon

1843 George Stephanescu

1850 Iver Paul Fredrik Holter

1858 Jakab Gyula Major

1865 Gustav Luders

1889 Clarence Loomis

1898 Daniel Lazarus

1899 Yusef Greiss

1900 Jonel Perlea

1902 Paul Kurzbach

1906 Ingemar Liljefors

1933 Borah Bergman

1938 Alvin Curran

1952 Roger Bourland

1967 Christopher Milmerstadt

December 20

1680 Nicolas Couperin

1728 Franz Xaver Pokorny

1819 John William Dadmun

1826 Otto Dresel

1871 Henry Kimball Hadley

1872 Lorenzo Perosi

1909 Vagn Holmboe

1933 Gordon Getty

1938 John Harbison

1949 Edward P. Mascari

1950 Arturo Márquez

1958 Nicholas Simpson

December 27

1800 Sir John Goss

1845 Augusto Machado

1856 Andre Gedalge

1859 Hope Temple (Alice Maude Davis)

1872 Georg Hoeberg

1887 Bernard van Dieren

1890 Maurice Schoemaker

1906 Oscar Levant

1907 Willem van Otterloo

1925 Allan Blank

1928 Gareth Walters

1930 Jacqueline Fontyn

1932 Louis-Noël Belaubre

1945 Klarenz (Clarence) Barlow

1958 Igor Panov

1970 Vsevolod Chmoulevitch (Vsevolod Polonsky)

1978 Jason Thomas

[Biographies derived from Oxford Music Online and Allmusic.com.]

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