Marcelle Lender in Chilperic, 1895]]

Bolero is a name given to certain slow-tempo latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Mexican, Spanish, and Cuban forms, which are both significant, and which have separate origins. The term is also used for some art music. In all its forms, the bolero has been popular for over a century, and still is today.

Spain

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The bolero is a 3/4 dance that originated in Spain in the late 18th century, a combination of the contradanza and the sevillana. Dancer Sebastiano Carezo is credited with inventing the dance in 1780. It is danced by either a soloist or a couple. It is in a moderately slow tempo and is performed to music which is sung and accompanied by castanets and guitars with lyrics of five to seven syllables in each of four lines per verse. It is in triple time and usually has a triplet on the second beat of each bar.

Cuba

In Cuba, the bolero is perhaps the first great Cuban musical and vocal synthesis to win universal recognition. In 2/4 time, this dance music spread to other countries, leaving behind what Ed Morales has called the "most popular lyric tradition in Latin America".

The Cuban bolero tradition originated in Santiago de Cuba in the last quarter of the 19th century; it does not owe its origin to the Spanish music and song of the same name. In the 19th century there grew up in Santiago de Cuba a group of itinerant musicians who moved around earning their living by singing and playing the guitar. Probably, this kind of life had been going on for some time; but it comes into focus when we learn about named individuals who left their marks on Cuban popular music.

"Pepe" Sanchez (born José Sánchez at Santiago de Cuba, 1856–1918) is known as the father of the trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. Untrained, but with remarkable natural talent, he composed numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost, but two dozen or so survive because friends and disciples wrote them down. He was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed.

The Cuban bolero traveled to Mexico and the rest of Latin America after its conception, where it became part of their repertoires and it was transformed. Some of the bolero's leading composers have come from nearby countries, most especially the great and prolific Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernández; another example being Mexico's Agustín Lara. Some Cuban composers of the bolero are listed under Trova.

Bolero fusions

José Loyola comments that the frequent fusions of the bolero with other Cuban rhythms is one of the reasons it has been so fertile for such a long period of time: :"La adaptación y fusión del bolero con otros géneros de la música popular bailable ha contribuido al desarrollo del mismo, y a su vigencia y contemporaneidad."

:(The adaptation and fusion of the bolero with other types of popular dance music has contributed to their development, and to its validity and modernity)

This adaptability was largely achieved by dispensing with limitations in format or instrumentation, and by an increase in syncopation (so producing a more afrocuban sound). Examples would be:

Bolero in the danzón: the advent of lyrics in the danzón to produce the danzonete.

The bolero-son: long-time favourite dance music in Cuba, captured abroad under the misnomer 'rumba'.

The bolero-mambo in which slow and beautiful lyrics were added to the sophisticated big-band arrangements of the mambo.

The bolero-cha: many Cha-cha-cha lyrics come from boleros.

The lyrics of the bolero can be found throughout popular music, especially Latin dance music. This gives the creations of a former time a kind of perpetual life. The old trovadores lived close to their people, and their songs reflected the loves, lives and concerns of the people. It has proved surprisingly difficult for present-day musicians to do better. The bolero is a great survivor.

If the bolero does have limitations for non-Latin audiences (for whom the lyrics are mostly unappreciated), its place in Latin music and dance is more or less permanent.

Ballroom dance

International ballroom

A version of the Cuban bolero is danced throughout the Latin dance world (supervised by the World Dance Council) under the misnomer 'rumba'. This came about in the early 1930s when a simple overall term was needed to market Cuban music to audiences unfamiliar with the various Cuban musical terms. The famous Peanut Vendor was so labelled, and the label stuck for other types of Cuban music.

In Cuba, the bolero is usually written in 2/4 time, elsewhere often 4/4. The tempo for dance is about 120 beats per minute. The music has a gentle Cuban rhythm related to a slow son, which is the reason it may be best described as a bolero-son. Like some other Cuban dances, there are three steps to four beats, with the first step of a figure on the second beat, not the first. The slow (over the two beats four and one) is executed with a hip movement over the standing foot, with no foot-flick.

American Rhythm

In the dance style known as American Rhythm, bolero is also one of the five main competition dances. The first step is typically taken on the first beat, held during the second beat with two more steps falling on beats three and four. In competitive dance the music is in 4/4 time and will range between 96 to 104 bpm. This dance is quite different from the other American Rhythm dances in that it not only requires cuban motion but rises and falls such as found in waltz and contra body movement. Popular music for this dance style need not be latin in origin. Lists of music used in competitions for American Rhythm Bolero are available.

Art music

There are many so-called boleros in art music (e.g. classical music) which may not conform to either of the above types.

Ravel's Boléro is one of his most famous works, originally written as a ballet score for his patron Blanche Lapin, but now usually played as a concert piece. It was originally called Fandango, but has rhythmic similarities with the Spanish dance form as described in this article, being in a constant 3/4 time with a prominent triplet on the second beat of every bar.

Chopin wrote a bolero for solo piano (Op. 19), but its rhythms are more that of the polonaise. He was a close friend of Pauline Viardot, the daughter of the famed Spanish tenor Manuel García, who had introduced the bolero to Paris

Debussy wrote one in La Soirée dans Grenada

Bizet wrote a bolero in Carmen

Saint-Saëns wrote a bolero, El desdichado, for 2 voices and orchestra

Moszkowski's first set of Spanish Dances (Op. 12) ends with a bolero.

Lefébure-Wély wrote Boléro de Concert for organ

The bolero from Hervé's Chilpéric (operetta) has been immortalized in Toulouse-Lautrec's famous painting (above).

Friedrich Baumfelder wrote a Premier Bolero, Op. 317, for piano.

In some art music boleros the root lies, not in the bolero, but in the habanera, a Cuban precursor of the tango, which was a favourite dance rhythm in the mid-19th century, and occurs often in French opera and Spanish zarzuela of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Notes

References

External links

Lefebure-Wely: "Bolero de concert" for organ">Louis Alfred James Lefebure-Wely: "Bolero de concert" for organ (mp3)

Category:Cuban music Category:Cuban styles of music Category:Cuban music history Category:Mexican music Category:Spanish music Category:Ballroom dance Category:Latin dances Category:Latin music

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875December 28, 1937) was a French composer of Impressionist music known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.

Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.

Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music."

According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to international copyright law, Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008 in most countries. In France, due to anomalous copyright law extensions to account for the two world wars, they will not enter the public domain until 2015.

Biography

Early life

Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France, near Biarritz, close to the border with Spain, during 1875. His mother, Marie Delouart, was of Basque descent and grew up in Madrid, Spain, while his father, Joseph Ravel, was a Swiss inventor and industrialist from French Haute-Savoie. Both were Catholics and they provided a happy and stimulating household for their children. Some of Joseph's inventions were quite important, including an early internal-combustion engine and a notorious circus machine, the "Whirlwind of Death," an automotive loop-the-loop that was quite a success until a fatal accident at the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1903. Joseph delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, and he also had a keen interest in music and culture. Ravel substantiated his father's early influence by stating later, “As a child, I was sensitive to music—- to every kind of music.”

Ravel was very fond of his mother, and her Basque heritage was a strong influence on his life and music. Among his earliest memories are folk songs she sang to him. The family moved to Paris three months after the birth of Maurice, and there his younger brother Édouard was born. Édouard became his father’s favorite and also became an engineer.

Though obviously talented at the piano, Ravel demonstrated a preference for composing. He was particularly impressed by the new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Exposition Universelle in 1889. The foreign music at the exhibition also had a great influence on Ravel’s contemporaries Erik Satie, Emmanuel Chabrier, and most significantly Claude Debussy. That year Ravel also met Ricardo Viñes, who would become one of his best friends, one of the foremost interpreters of his piano music, and an important link between Ravel and Spanish music. The students shared an appreciation for Richard Wagner, the Russian school, and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé.

The Conservatoire and early career

Ravel’s parents encouraged his musical pursuits and sent him to the Conservatoire de Paris, first as a preparatory student and eventually as a piano major. His teachers included Émile Descombes. He received a first prize in the piano student competition in 1891. Overall, however, he was not successful academically even as his musicianship matured dramatically. Considered “very gifted”, Ravel was also called “somewhat heedless” in his studies. He dressed like a dandy and was meticulous about his appearance and demeanor. Short in stature, light in frame, and bony in features, Ravel had the "appearance of a well-dressed jockey". His large head seemed suitably matched to his great intellect. He was well-read and later accumulated a library of over 1,000 volumes.

After failing to meet the requirement of earning a competitive medal in three consecutive years, Ravel was expelled during 1895. He turned down a music professorship in Tunisia then returned to the Conservatoire in 1898 and started his studies with Gabriel Fauré, determined to focus on composing rather than piano playing. He studied composition with Fauré until he was dismissed from the class in 1900 for having won neither the fugue nor the composition prize. He remained an auditor with Fauré until he left the Conservatoire in 1903. Ravel found his teacher’s personality and methods sympathetic and they remained friends and colleagues. He also undertook private studies with André Gedalge, whom he later stated was responsible for "the most valuable elements of my technique." Ravel studied the ability of each instrument carefully in order to determine the possible effects, and was sensitive to their color and timbre. This may account for his success as an orchestrator and as a transcriber of his own piano works and those of other composers, such as Mussorgsky, Debussy and Schumann.

His first significant work, Habanera for two pianos, was later transcribed into the well-known third movement of his Rapsodie espagnole, which he dedicated to Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, another of his professors at the Conservatoire. His first published work was Menuet antique, dedicated to and premiered by Viñes. In 1899, Ravel conducted his first orchestral piece, Shéhérazade, and was greeted by a raucous mixture of boos and applause. The critics were somewhat unfavorable, e.g. reviling him as "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the " and terming him a “mediocrely gifted debutante ... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard.” As the most gifted composer of his class and as a leader, with Debussy, of avant-garde French music, Ravel would continue to have a difficult time with the critics for some time to come.

Around 1900, Ravel joined with a number of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who were referred to as the Apaches (hooligans), a name coined by Viñes to represent his band of "artistic outcasts". The group met regularly until the beginning of World War I and the members often inspired each other with intellectual argument and performances of their works before the group. For a time, the influential group included Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla. One of the first works Ravel performed for the Apaches was Jeux d'eau, his first piano masterpiece and clearly a pathfinding impressionistic work. Viñes performed the public premiere of this piece and Ravel's other early masterpiece Pavane pour une infante défunte during 1902.

During his years at the Conservatoire, Ravel tried numerous times to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, but to no avail; he was likely considered too radical by the conservatives, including Director Théodore Dubois. One of Ravel's pieces, the String Quartet in F, likely modeled on Debussy’s Quartet (1893), is now a standard work of chamber music, though at the time it was criticized and found lacking academically. After a scandal involving his loss of the prize during 1905 to Victor Gallois, despite being favored to win, Ravel left the Conservatoire. The incident — named the "Ravel Affair" by the Parisian press — engaged the entire artistic community, pitting conservatives against the avant-garde, and eventually caused the resignation of Dubois and his replacement by Fauré, a vindication of sorts for Ravel. Though deprived of the opportunity to study in Rome, the decade after the scandal proved to be Ravel's most productive, and included his "Spanish period".

Ravel and Debussy

Ravel met Debussy during the 1890s. Debussy was older than Ravel by some twelve years and his pioneering Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was influential among the younger musicians including Ravel, who were impressed by the new language of impressionism. During 1900, Ravel was invited to Debussy’s home and they played each other’s works. Viñes became the preferred piano performer for both composers and a go-between. The two composers attended many of the same musical events and were performed at the same concerts. Ravel and the Apaches were strong supporters of Debussy’s controversial public debut of his unconventional opera Pelléas et Mélisande, which garnered Debussy both fame and scorn. Even though they worked independently of one another, because they employed differing means to similar ends, and because superficial similarities and even some more substantive ones are evident, the public and the critics associated them more than the facts warranted.

Ravel wrote that Debussy’s “genius was obviously one of great individuality, creating its own laws, constantly in evolution, expressing itself freely, yet always faithful to French tradition. For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration, but by nature I am different from Debussy.” Ravel further stated, “I think I have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of the symbolism of Debussy.” As Ravel said, “It is probably better after all for us to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”

Early major works

)]] The next of Ravel’s piano compositions to become famous was Miroirs (Mirrors, 1905), five piano pieces which marked a “harmonic evolution” and which one commentator described as “intensely descriptive and pictorial. They banish all sentiment in expression but offer to the listener a number of refined sensory elements which can be appreciated according to his imagination.” Next was his Histoires naturelles (Nature Stories), five humorous songs evoking the presence of five animals. Two years later, Ravel completed his Rapsodie espagnole, his first major "Spanish" piece, written first for piano four hands and then scored for orchestra. Though it employs folk-like melodies, no actual folk songs are quoted. It premiered during 1908 to generally good reviews, with one critic stating that it was "one of the most interesting novelties of the season", while Pierre Lalo (as usual) reacted negatively, calling it "laborious and pedantic". Next followed Ravel’s music for the opera L'heure espagnole (The Spanish Hour), full of humor and rich in color, employing a wide variety of instruments and their characteristic qualities, including the trombone, sarrusophone, tuba, celesta, xylophone, and bells.

Ravel further extended his mastery of impressionistic piano music with Gaspard de la nuit, based on a collection by the same name by Aloysius Bertrand, with some influence from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly in the second part. Viñes, as usual, performed the premiere but his performance displeased Ravel, and their relationship became strained from then on. For future premieres, Ravel replaced Vines with Marguerite Long. Also unhappy with the conservative musical establishment which was discouraging performance of new music, around this time Ravel, Fauré, and some of his pupils formed the Société musicale indépendante (SMI). During 1910, the society presented the premiere of Ravel’s Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) in its original piano duet version. With this work, Ravel followed in the tradition of Schumann, Mussorgsky, and Debussy, who also created memorable works of childhood themes. During 1912, Ravel's Ma mère l'oye was performed as a ballet (with added music) after being first transcribed from piano to orchestra. Looking to expand his contacts and career, Ravel made his first foreign tours to England and Scotland during 1909 and 1911.

Daphnis et Chloé

Ravel began work with impresario Sergei Diaghilev during 1909 for the ballet Daphnis et Chloé commissioned by Diaghilev with the lead danced by the famous ballet dancer and choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev had taken Paris by storm the previous year in his Parisian opera debut, Boris Godunov. In frustration, Diaghilev nearly cancelled the project. The ballet had an unenthusiastic reception and lasted only two performances, only to be revived to acclaim a year later. Igor Stravinsky called Daphnis et Chloé "one of the most beautiful products of all French music" and author Burnett James claims that it is "Ravel's most impressive single achievement, as it is his most opulent and confident orchestral score". The work is notable for its rhythmic diversity, lyricism, and evocations of nature. The score utilizes a large orchestra and two choruses, one onstage and one offstage. So exhausting was the effort to score the ballet that Ravel's health deteriorated, with a diagnosis of neurasthenia soon forcing him to rest for several months. During 1914, just as World War I began, Ravel composed his Piano Trio (for piano, violin, and cello) with its Basque themes. The piece, difficult to play well, is considered a masterpiece among trio works.

War years

Although he considered his small stature and light weight an advantage to becoming an aviator, and he tried every means of securing service as a flyer, during the First World War Ravel was not allowed to enlist as a pilot because of his age and weak health. Instead, he became a truck driver stationed at the Verdun front. At one point Ravel's unit engaged a German unit that included a young Adolf Hitler. With his mother’s death during 1917, his fondest relationship ended and he began a “horrible despair”, adding to his ill health and the general gloom over the suffering endured by the people of his country during the war. However, during the war years, Ravel did manage some compositions, including one of his most popular works, Le tombeau de Couperin, a commemoration of the musical ideals of François Couperin, the early 18th century composer, which premiered during 1919. Each movement is dedicated to a friend of Ravel's who died in the war, with the final movement dedicated to the deceased husband of Ravel’s favorite pianist Marguerite Long.

1920s

, where the composer lived from 1921 until his death]] Around 1920, Diaghilev commissioned Ravel to write La valse (The Waltz), originally named Wien (Vienna), which was to be used for a projected ballet. The piece, conceived many years earlier, became a waltz with a macabre undertone, famous for its “fantastic and fatal whirling”. However, it was rejected by Diaghilev as “not a ballet. It’s a portrait of ballet”. Ravel, hurt by the comment, ended the relationship. Subsequently, it became a popular concert work and when the two men met again during 1925, Ravel refused to shake Diaghilev's hand. Diaghilev challenged Ravel to a duel, but friends persuaded Diaghilev to recant. The two never met again.

During 1920, the French government awarded Ravel the Légion d'honneur, but he refused it. The next year, he retired to the French countryside where he continued to write music, albeit even less prolifically, but in more tranquil surroundings. He returned regularly to Paris for performances and socializing, and increased his foreign concert tours. Ravel maintained his influential participation with the SMI which continued its active role of promoting new music, particularly of British and American composers such as Arnold Bax, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson. With Debussy’s passing, Ravel became perceived popularly as the main composer of French classical music. As Fauré stated in a letter to Ravel in October 1922, “I am happier than you can imagine about the solid position which you occupy and which you have acquired so brilliantly and so rapidly. It is a source of joy and pride for your old professor.” During 1922, Ravel completed his Sonata for Violin and Cello. Dedicated to Debussy’s memory, the work features the thinner texture popular with the younger postwar composers. Ravel was fully aware of this, and was mostly effective in preventing a serious breach between his generation of musicians and the younger group. These trends posed challenges for Ravel, always a slow and deliberate composer, who desired to keep his music relevant but still revered the past. This may have played a part in his declining output and longer composing time during the 1920s. Around this time, he also completed Chansons madécasses, the summit of his vocal art.

During 1927, Ravel’s String Quartet received its first complete recording. By this time Ravel, like Edward Elgar, had become convinced of the importance of recording his works, especially with his input and direction. He made recordings nearly every year from then until his death. That same year, he completed and premiered his Sonata for Violin and Piano, his last chamber work, with its second movement (titled “Blues”) gaining much attention.

Ravel also served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919-1954 to young French painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.

American tour

, during his American tour, March 7, 1928. At far right is George Gershwin.]]

After two months of planning, during 1928 Ravel made a four-month concert tour in North America, for a promised minimum of $10,000. The noted critic Olin Downes wrote, “Mr. Ravel has pursued his way as an artist quietly and very well. He has disdained superficial or meretricious effects. He has been his own most unsparing critic.” Ravel conducted most of the leading orchestras in the U.S. from coast to coast and visited twenty-five cities.

He also met the American composer George Gershwin in New York and went with him to hear jazz in Harlem, likely hearing some of the famous jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington. There is a story that when Gershwin met Ravel, he mentioned that he would like to study with the French composer. According to Gershwin, the Frenchman retorted, "Why do you want to become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?" The second part of the story has Ravel asking Gershwin how much money he made. Upon hearing Gershwin's reply, Ravel suggested that maybe he should study with Gershwin. This tale may well be apocryphal: Gershwin seems also to have told a near-identical story about a conversation with Arnold Schoenberg, and some have claimed it was with Igor Stravinsky. (See George Gershwin.) In any event, this had to have been before Ravel wrote Boléro, which became financially very successful for him.

Ravel then visited New Orleans and imbibed the jazz scene there as well. His admiration of American jazz, increased by his American visit, caused him to include some jazz elements in a few of his later compositions, especially the two piano concertos. The great success of his American tour made Ravel famous internationally.

Final years

After returning to France, Ravel composed his most famous and controversial orchestral work Boléro, originally called Fandango. Ravel called it “an experiment in a very special and limited direction”. He stated his idea for the piece, “I am going to try to repeat it a number of times on different orchestral levels but without any development.” He conceived of it as an accompaniment to a ballet and not as an orchestral piece as, in his own opinion, “it has no music in it”, and was somewhat taken aback by its popular success. Ravel made one of his few recordings of his own music when he conducted his Boléro with the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1930.

Remarkably, Ravel composed both of his piano concertos simultaneously. He completed the Concerto for the Left Hand first. The work was commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. Ravel was inspired by the technical challenges of the project. As Ravel stated, “In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands.” At the premiere of the work, Ravel, not proficient enough to perform the work with only his left hand, played two-handed and Wittgenstein was reportedly underwhelmed by it. But later Wittgenstein stated, “Only much later, after I’d studied the concerto for months, did I become fascinated by it and realized what a great work it was.” In 1933, Wittgenstein played the work in concert for the first time to instant acclaim. Critic Henry Prunières wrote, “From the opening measures, we are plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us.” Ravel dedicated the work to his favorite pianist, Marguerite Long, who played it and popularized it across Europe in over twenty cities, and they recorded it together during 1932. EMI later reissued the 1932 recording on LP and CD. Although Ravel was listed as the conductor on the original 78-rpm discs, it is possible he merely supervised the recording.

Ravel, ever modest, was bemused by the critics' sudden favor of him since his American tour, “Didn’t I represent to the critics for a long time the most perfect example of insensitivity and lack of emotion?... And the successes they have given me in the past few years are just as unimportant.” However, afterwards he began to experience aphasia-like symptoms and was frequently absent-minded. He had begun work on music for a film, Adventures of Don Quixote (1933) from Miguel de Cervantes's celebrated novel, featuring the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin and directed by G. W. Pabst. When Ravel became unable to compose, and could not write down the musical ideas he heard in his mind, Pabst hired Jacques Ibert. However, three songs for baritone and orchestra that Ravel composed for the film were later published under the title Don Quichotte a Dulcinée, and have been performed and recorded. This accords with an earlier article, published in a journal of neurology, that closely examines Ravel's clinical history and argues that his works Boléro and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand both indicate the impacts of neurological disease. This is contradicted somewhat, however, by the earlier cited comments by Ravel about how he created the deliberately repetitious theme for Boléro.

In late 1937, Ravel consented to experimental brain surgery. One hemisphere of his brain was re-inflated with serous fluid. He awoke from the surgery, called for his brother Édouard, lapsed into a coma and died shortly afterwards at the age of 62. Ravel probably died as a result of a brain injury caused by the automobile accident and not from a brain tumor as some believe. This confusion may arise because his friend George Gershwin had died from a brain tumor only five months earlier. Ravel was buried with his parents in a granite tomb at the cemetery at Levallois-Perret, a suburb of northwest Paris.

Personal life

Ravel is not known to have had any intimate relationships, and his personal life, and especially his sexuality, remains a mystery. Ravel made a remark at one time suggesting that because he was such a perfectionist composer, so devoted to his work, he could never have a lasting intimate relationship with anyone. He is quoted as saying "The only love affair I have ever had was with music". Some of his friends suggested that Ravel frequented the bordellos of Paris, but no factual evidence has ever been found to substantiate this rumor.

A recent hypothesis presented by David Lamaze, a composition teacher at the Conservatoire de Rennes in France, is that he hid in his music representations of the nickname and the name of Misia Godebska, transcribed into two groups of notes, Godebska = G D E B A and Misia = Mi + Si + A = E B A. He was invited onto her boat during a 1905 cruise on the Rhine after his failure at the Prix de Rome, for which her husband, Alfred Edwards, organized a scandal in the newspapers. This same man owned the Casino de Paris where the Ravel family had a number staged, Tourbillon de la mort (A Car Somersault). The family of her half-brother, Cipa Godebski, is said to have been like a second family for Ravel. In 1907 on Misia's boat L'Aimée, Ravel completed L'heure espagnole and the Rapsodie espagnole, and at the premiere of Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel arrived late and did not go to his box but to Misia's, where he offered her a Japanese doll. In her memoires, Misia hid all these facts.

Musicality

Musical sources

Active during a period of great artistic innovations and diversification, Ravel benefited from many sources and influences, though his music defies any facile classification. As Vladimir Jankélévitch notes in his biography, "no influence can claim to have conquered him entirely […]. Ravel remains ungraspable behind all these masks which the snobbery of the century has attempted to impose."

Ravel's musical language was ultimately very original, neither absolutely modernist nor impressionist. Like Debussy, Ravel categorically refused this description of “impressionist” which he believed was reserved exclusively for painting.

Ravel was a remarkable synthesist of disparate styles. Ravel’s music matured early into his innovative and distinct style. As a student, he studied the scores of composers of the past methodically: as he stated, "in order to know one's own craft, one must study the craft of others." Though he liked the new French music, during his youth Ravel still felt fond of the older French styles of Franck and the Romanticism of Beethoven and Wagner. Following the teachings of Gédalge, Ravel placed high importance on melody, once stating to Vaughan Williams, that there is "an implied melodic outline in all vital music." He was inspired by various dances, his favorite being the minuet, composing the Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn during 1908, to commemorate the centenary of the death of Joseph Haydn. Other forms from which Ravel drew material include the forlane, rigaudon, waltz, czardas, habanera, passacaglia, and the boléro.

He believed that composers should be aware of both individual and national consciousness. For him, Basque music was influential. He intended to write an earlier concerto, Zazpiak Bat, but it was never finished. The title is a result of his Basque heritage: meaning 'The Seven Are One' (see Zazpiak Bat), it refers to the seven Basque regions, and was a motto often used in association with the idea of a Basque nation. Instead, Ravel abandoned the piece, using its nationalistic themes and rhythms in some of his other pieces. Ravel also used other folk themes including Hebraic, Greek, and Hungarian.

Ravel has almost always been considered one of the two great French impressionist composers, the other being Debussy. In reality Ravel is much more than an Impressionist (and in fact he resented being labelled as such). For example, he made extensive use of rollicking jazz tunes in his Piano Concerto in G in the first and third movements. Ravel also imitates Paganini's and Liszt's virtuoso gypsy themes and technique in Tzigane. In his À la manière de...Borodine (In the manner of...Borodin), Ravel plays with the ability to both mimic and remain original. In a more complex situation, A la maniere de...Emmanuel Chabrier /Paraphrase sur un air de Gounod ("Faust IIème acte"), Ravel takes on a theme from Gounod's Faust and arranges it in the style of Chabrier. He also composed short pieces in the manner of Haydn and his teacher Fauré. Even in writing in the style of others, Ravel's own voice as a composer remained distinct.

Ravel considered himself in many ways a classicist. He often relied on traditional forms, such as the ternary form, as well as traditional structures as ways of presenting his new melodic and rhythmic content, and his innovative harmonies. Ravel stated, "If I were called upon to do so, I would ask to be allowed to identify myself with the simple pronouncements made by Mozart ... He confined himself to saying that there is nothing that music cannot undertake to do, or dare, or portray, provided it continues to charm and always remain music." He often masked the sections of his structure with transitions that disguised the beginnings of the motif. This is apparent in his Valses nobles et sentimentales — inspired by Franz Schubert's collections, Valses nobles and Valses sentimentales — where the seven movements begin and end without pause, and in his chamber music where many movements are in sonata-allegro form, hiding the change from developmental sections to recapitulation.

From his own experience, Ravel was cognizant of the effect of new music on the ears of the public and he insightfully wrote:

On the initial performance of a new musical composition, the first impression of the public is generally one of reaction to the more superficial elements of its music, that is to say, to its external manifestations rather than to its inner content…often it is not until years after, when the means of expression have finally surrendered all their secrets, that the real inner emotion of the music becomes apparent to the listener.

Methods

His own composing method was craftsman-like and perfectionistic. Igor Stravinsky once referred to Ravel as "the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers", a reference to the intricacy and precision of Ravel's works. Ravel might work on a piece over several years to develop it to the best possible result, “My objective, therefore, is technical perfection. I can strive unceasingly to this end, since I am certain of never being able to attain it. The important thing is to get nearer to it all the time.”

More specifically he stated:

”In my own compositions I judge a long period of conscious gestation necessary. During this interval I come progressively, and with growing precision, to see the form and the evolution that the final work will take in its tonality. Thus I can be occupied for several years without writing a single note of the work, after which composition goes relatively quickly. But one must spend much time in eliminating all that could be regarded as superfluous in order to realize as completely as possible the definitive clarity so much desired. The moment arrives when new conceptions must be formulated for the final composition, but they cannot be artificially forced for they come only of their own accord, often deriving their original from some far-off perception and only manifesting themselves after long years.” For example, Gaspard de la nuit can be viewed as an extension of Liszt’s virtuosity and advanced harmonics. Even Ravel’s most difficult pieces, however, are marked by elegance and refinement. Walter Gieseking found some of Ravel’s piano works to be among the most difficult pieces for the instrument but always based on “musically perfectly logical concepts”; not just technically demanding but also requiring the right expression. In writing for the other sections, he often preferred to score in tutti to produce a full, clear resonance. To add surprise and added color, the melody might start with one instrument and be continued with another.

Because of his perfectionism and methods, Ravel’s musical output over four decades is quite small. Most of his works were thought out over considerable lengths of time, then noted quickly, and refined painstakingly. When a piece would not progress, he would abandon a piece until inspired anew. There are only about sixty compositions in all, of which slightly more than half are instrumental. Ravel’s body of work includes pieces for piano, chamber works, two piano concerti, ballet music, opera, and song cycles.

Ravel crafted his manuscripts meticulously, and relentlessly polished and corrected them. He destroyed hundreds of sketches and even re-copied entire autographs to correct one mistake. Unfortunately, early printed editions of his works were prone to errors so he worked painstakingly with his publisher, Durand, to correct them. One London critic stated "His baton is not the magician's wand of a virtuoso conductor. He just stood there beating time and keeping watch." As to how his music was to be played, Ravel was always clear and direct with his instructions.

Though never a paid critic as Debussy had been, Ravel had strong opinions on historical and contemporary music and musicians, which influenced his younger contemporaries. In creating his own music, he tended to avoid the more monumental composers as models, finding relatively little kinship with or inspiration from Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Hector Berlioz, or Franck. However, as an outspoken commentator on the Romantic giants, he found much of Beethoven "exasperating", Wagner's influence "pernicious" and Berlioz's harmony "clumsy". He had considerable admiration for other 19th century masters such as Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Schubert. Despite what he considered their technical deficiencies, Ravel was a strong advocate of Russian music and praised its spontaneity, orchestral color, and exoticism.

Notable compositions

Menuet antique (piano, 1895, orchestrated in 1929)

Shéhérazade (ouverture de féerie) (1897)

Pavane pour une infante défunte ("Pavane for a dead infanta") (piano 1899, orchestra 1910)

Jeux d'eau (piano, 1901)

String Quartet in F major (1902-3)

Shéhérazade (orchestral song cycle, 1903) Setting poems by his friend Tristan Klingsor

Sonatine (piano, 1903–1905)

Introduction and allegro (pedal harp, flute, clarinet, string quartet, 1905)

Miroirs ("Reflections") (piano, 1905):

*Noctuelles ("Night moths")

*Oiseaux tristes ("Sad birds")

*Une barque sur l'océan ("A boat on the ocean"; orchestrated 1906)

*Alborada del Gracioso ("Dawn song of the jester"; orchestrated 1918)

*La vallée des cloches ("Valley of the bells")

Histoires naturelles ("Tales from nature") (song cycle for voice and piano, text by Jules Renard, 1906)

Pièce en forme de Habanera (bass voice and piano, 1907)

Rapsodie espagnole ("Spanish Rhapsody") (orchestra, 1907)

L'heure espagnole ("The Spanish Hour") (opera, 1907–1909)

Gaspard de la nuit ("Demons of the night") (piano, 1908)

Ma Mère l'Oie ("Mother Goose") (piano duet 1908–1910, orchestrated 1911, expanded into ballet 1912)

Daphnis et Chloé ("Daphnis and Chloé") (ballet, 1909–1912)

Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, (voice, piano, flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet and string quartet, 1913)

Valses nobles et sentimentales ("Noble and Sentimental Waltzes") (piano 1911, orchestra 1912)

Piano Trio A minor (1914)

Le Tombeau de Couperin ("Tombeau for Couperin"; piano 1914–1917; movements I, III, IV and V orchestrated 1919)

*I. Prelude

*II. Fugue

*III. Forlane

*IV. Rigaudon

*V. Minuet

*VI. Toccata

La Valse (choreographic poem, 1906–1914 and 1919–1920)

Sonata for Violin and Cello in C Major (1920–1922)

Chansons Madécasses ("Songs of Madagascar") (voice, flute, cello and piano, text by Evariste Parny, 1926)

L'enfant et les sortilèges ("The Child and the Spells", lyric fantasy, 1920–1925, libretto by Colette 1917)

Tzigane (violin and piano, 1924)

Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major (1923–1927)

Fanfare (1927; for the children's ballet L'Éventail de Jeanne, to which ten French composers each contributed a dance)

Boléro (ballet, 1928)

Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major (1929–1930; composed for Paul Wittgenstein)

Piano Concerto in G (1929–1931)

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée ("Serenade of Don Quixote to Dulcinea"; voice and piano, 1932–1933)

Media depictions

Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein has produced two documentaries about Ravel, Ravel (1987) and Ravel's Brain (2001). The second of these two films dramatizes the musician's illness and death.

Maurice Ravel is played as a "bit role" by actor Oscar Loraine in the 1945 Gershwin film biography Rhapsody in Blue.

See also

Compositions by Maurice Ravel

Expressionism

Impressionist music

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

}}

Free Scores

www.kreusch-sheet-music.net - Free Scores by Ravel

Miscellaneous

Maurice Ravel Frontispice at www.maurice-ravel.net

Epitonic.com: Maurice Ravel featuring a track from Miroirs and Gaspard De La Nuit

Biography of Maurice Ravel

The mystery of the missing Bolero millions - an artist's rights saga! - and a tale of greed?

Many quotations about Ravel's personality

Maurice Ravel "Vocalise Etude en form de Habanera" sung by Varda Kotler.

Recordings

Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)

on Wikilivres

Category:1875 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Pyrénées-Atlantiques Category:French people of Basque descent Category:French people of Swiss descent Category:French composers Category:Opera composers Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Expressionism Category:Modernist composers Category:Neoclassical composers Category:French classical pianists Category:French-Basque people Category:Ballet composers Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:Légion d'honneur refusals Category:Prix Blumenthal Category:Jurors of the International Chopin Competition

Maurice Béjart (1 January 1927 – 22 November 2007) was a French and Swiss choreographer who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger.

Name	Maurice Béjart
Caption	Béjart in 1988
Birth date	1 January 1927
Birth place	France
Death date	22 November 2007
Occupation	choreographer

Biography

He was born in Marseille, France. In 1954, he founded the Ballet de l'Étoile company (dissolved in 1957). In 1960 he founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels (dissolved in 1987).

In 1987 he moved to Lausanne in Switzerland, where he founded the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, one of the most famous and successful dance companies in the world.

He made significant contribution to the Persian Ballet Repertoire in the late 1960s and 1970s performing at the famous Roudaki Hall in Tehran created under the supervision of the former Empress of Iran, with whom he kept strong ties of friendship over the years.

Among his works is a thoroughly revised version of The Nutcracker, presumably inspired by his own life story, which he staged in 2000. It still uses Tchaikovsky's original score, but completely scraps the original plot and characters, instead supplying a new story about a boy's efforts to re-connect with his mother. We also are given a look into the boy's strange sexual fantasies. The production design is full of erotic images — some of which are most likely shocking to many, such as wombs and vaginal openings. One of the characters is Marius Petipa, who becomes Mephisto. Another character is called Felix the Cat, presumably after the famous cartoon character. The production has been issued on DVD.

Dance schools

Béjart was the founder of several dance schools:

the Mudra School in Brussels, 1970-1988;

the Mudra Afrique School in Dakar, 1977-1985;

the Rudra School in Lausanne, 1992-present.

The Rudra School is still open and is one of the most famous professional dance schools in the world.

References

External links

Obituary in The Times, 23 November 2007

Béjart Ballet Lausanne

Rudra Béjart School

Obituary in The Guardian UK

Category:1927 births Category:2007 deaths Category:People from Marseille Category:Ballet choreographers Category:Erasmus Prize winners Category:French choreographers Category:Naturalised citizens of Switzerland Category:Prix Benois de la Danse winners Category:Dance directors of La Monnaie

Christoph Eschenbach (born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland)) is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Early life

Eschenbach's parents were Margarethe (née Jaross) and Heribert Ringmann. He was orphaned during World War II. His mother died giving birth to him; his father, a politically active anti-Nazi, was sent to the front as part of a Nazi punishment battalion where he was killed. As a result of this trauma, Eschenbach did not speak for a year, until he was asked if he wanted to play music. Wallydore Eschenbach (née Jaross), his mother's cousin, adopted him in 1946 and began to teach him to play the piano. At age 11, he attended a concert conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler which had a great impact on the youngster. In 1955 Eschenbach enrolled at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, studying piano with Hans-Otto Schmidt-Neuhaus and conducting with Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg.

Musical career

As a pianist, Eschenbach has won numerous first-place piano competition prizes, including first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey, Switzerland in 1965. In 1964, he made his first recording (of Mozart) for Deutsche Grammophon and signed a contract with the label. Eschenbach continued to study conducting with George Szell, with whom he worked for more than three years. In addition, Herbert von Karajan was his mentor for nearly twenty-five years.

In 1981, Eschenbach became principal guest conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, and was chief conductor from 1982 to 1986. Other posts have included music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra (1988–1999), where he now holds the title of Conductor Laureate; chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg (1998–2004); and music director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1994–2005). He has made more than 80 recordings as piano soloist, conductor, or both, has appeared in several television documentaries, and has made many concert broadcasts for different European, Japanese and U.S. networks. Since 2000, Eschenbach has been the Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris. In May 2007, it was announced that Eschenbach would conclude his tenure with the Orchestre de Paris in 2010.

Eschenbach is credited with helping and supporting talented young musicians in their career development, including soprano Renée Fleming, pianists Tzimon Barto and Lang Lang, cellists Claudio Bohórquez, and Daniel Müller-Schott, and soprano Marisol Montalvo.

Houston Symphony

Eschenbach was music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1999. In that period, he has been credited with enhancing the symphony's both in terms of national and international prominence and well as musical quality. The orchestra toured Japan and Europe under his tenure as well made several recordings with Koch International Classics and RCA. Eschenbach's era was marked by a strong relationship with the musicians, who admired him on and off the stage.

Yet the most pronounced characteristic of Eschenbach's tenure has been the continuing worship of him by the orchestra's musicians. "He's the kind of person who inspires absolute loyalty," said Fliegel, who ticked off some of the things that have made Eschenbach so unusual. "With him all rehearsals are special. They're so instructive." Eschenbach always seems to find a new detail to emphasize or a new insight to impart, even with pieces everyone has played many times.

The musicians have also adored Eschenbach's sensitivity to them as human beings. In the months before Fliegel retired in September 1995, for example, his wife was seriously ill; Eschenbach showed great sensitivity to Fliegel's schedule in caring for her. ...

The Houston Symphony has had an extraordinary list of music directors during Fliegel's association with the orchestra, but Fliegel ranks Eschenbach first.

In honor of his many achievements and tenure with the Houston Symphony, the City of Houston placed a bronze commemorative star with his name in front of Jones Hall, the performance home of the Houston symphony.

Philadelphia Orchestra

Eschenbach was named the seventh Music Director of The Philadelphia Orchestra, effective as of 2003. Some considered this a controversial appointment because, at the time of the announcement, Eschenbach had not conducted the orchestra in over 4 years and there was a perceived lack of personal chemistry between him and the musicians prior to the appointment. One musician from the orchestra had stated, after the announcement:

"'When this announcement was proclaimed after a half-hour meeting with us, there wasn't applause; there was criticism,' recalled a musician with the Philadelphia Orchestra. 'One member of the search committee got up and said, "You'll see, you'll like him."

'The orchestra was taken aback by the attitude because there was no meeting to verify what we thought,' the musician said. 'There was no chemistry with Eschenbach. He hasn't conducted us in four or five years and 20 to 30 persons had never played with him.'"

Partway into his tenure, his initial 3-year contract was renewed to 2008.

However, in October 2006, the orchestra and Eschenbach announced that he would conclude his tenure in Philadelphia at the close of the 2007-2008 season. In the weeks prior to his departure, Philadelphia Inquirer music critics Peter Dobrin and David Patrick Stearns had contrasting articles whether or not he should be retained, with Dobrin suggesting that Eschenbach should move on and Stearns arguing that Eschenbach should remain. Other harsh criticism of Eschenbach's tenure in Philadelphia has been aired.

Following the announcement, Dobrin in the Inquirer wrote that Eschenbach's tenure in Philadelphia has been difficult for many musicians:

"In three seasons, Eschenbach and the orchestra have produced a handful of brilliant concerts. More often, though, his rehearsals and performances have elicited a long list of complaints from musicians: getting lost in the score at concerts; leading disorganized rehearsals and then asking for overtime; and insisting on a peculiar rushing and slowing of tempos.".

The paper also cited a number of accomplishments including a new recording contract and the appointment of nine musicians, four of whom were principals. In addition, Eschenbach has received praise for his work in fund-raising for the orchestra.

Following the announcement and Dobrin's Inquirer article, The Philadelphia Orchestra Association posted a letter on its website, dated 27 October 2006, which also was sent by e-mail to orchestra patrons. A quote from this letter condemned Dobrin's criticism:

"We, and many in the community, feel that in recent press coverage there have been personal attacks on Maestro Eschenbach, along with negative innuendo about his relationship with The Philadelphia Orchestra. ...These types of comments about Maestro Eschenbach and our orchestra are ridiculous, offensive and defamatory. Our entire orchestra family is profoundly disappointed when reporters report the news in such an ungracious way."

Dobrin, in turn, responded in a 29 October 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer article by quoting one of his 2001 Inquirer articles around the time of the Eschenbach announcement:

"....let me quote from something I wrote in March 2001 that might be an important reminder about how we got to this dangerous place:

''It hit many musicians like the dull thud of pragmatism, this decision in January to hire Eschenbach as the orchestra's seventh music director, starting in September 2003. At a meeting announcing the decision, players responded with silence. No applause, no excited stamping of feet. Silence. And then the resentment poured forth.

One musician used the word "underwhelmed." Another said he felt "betrayed."...'' In addition, the new orchestra president (as of 2006), James Undercofler, had spoken with orchestra musicians, and had told Eschenbach this summary of his discussions with them:

"-that 80 percent of the musicians did not agree with his artistic interpretations;
-that 80 percent of the musicians left concerts feeling great anger;
-and that the orchestra was a "ticking time bomb."

In an article by Cragg Hines in the newspaper The Washingtonian on December 1, 2009 Eschenbach was quoted:

"They said there was a survey of the whole orchestra and more than 80 percent of the orchestra was against me. I asked the management 'was that true?' and was told, ‘Yes, it's true.' It was not true at all. As I found out a little later, this survey never happened [...] All of the musicians regretted very, very much that [it] was reported like this."

In a 2007 article, Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times has written about the Eschenbach/Philadelphia Orchestra situation:

"{Eschenbach} is one of the world's finest musicians and widely recognized as such. He has ideas. He has sophisticated tastes. He is cosmopolitan. He is an exciting interpreter. Colleagues speak of him warmly, and he is a favorite accompanist for singers.....So what's wrong? Just about everything. It is well known that the orchestra opposed the hiring of Eschenbach. He hadn't conducted in Philadelphia for five years when the appointment was made, and a memo was leaked to the press with 75 players' signatures asking management to hold off any decision until the orchestra got a chance to work with him. From the beginning, the relationship started off on the wrong foot...But the Philadelphia orchestra has not been exactly transformed by Eschenbach. I've been hearing reports of players looking bored onstage. Audiences walk out during performances. Even two years ago, at my last visit to Verizon Hall, the atmosphere was palpably unpleasant."

In a June 2007 article, Stearns reported Eschenbach as commenting on the Philadelphia Orchestra management as follows:

"The management in both cases [Paris and Philadelphia], I'm sorry to say, is amateurish"...."The management knows what I think ... it's not a secret".

In August 2007, the orchestra announced extended guest-conducting periods for Eschenbach with the ensemble in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 seasons, after the scheduled conclusion of his tenure as music director.

Philadelphia Orchestra European tour

Prior to the announcement of Eschenbach's departure from Philadelphia, Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra received both positive and negative reviews during the Orchestra's European Festivals Tour in 2006.

"The members of The Philadelphia Orchestra played as though their lives depended on it. The strings are both sturdy and responsively supple to Eschenbach's calculated spontaneity; their woodwind soloists, particularly the liquid-amber principal clarinet, are to die for."

"[In Hamburg, Eschenbach] was in what might be called Leopold Stokowski mode, drawing out climaxes with apparent spontaneity, sometimes reaching a nearly unbearable state of tension, and handling the tricky transitions with a daring that bordered on brinksmanship."

"The Philadelphia Orchestra, under its Music Director, Christoph Eschenbach, commended itself completely unostentatiously as one of the leading orchestras not only of America, but of the world... One listens to this masterfully delicate playing in near amazement... They are masters of sound."

"Christoph Eschenbach's monumentally slick account of Beethoven's Fifth took the shock of the new out of the shock of the old...The sense of striving in the piece was nowhere. It sat smugly, contentedly, in a comfort zone of its own making.....{Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5} was rendered merely showy by Eschenbach's portentousness."

"Christoph Eschenbach....evinced a passion that was communicated through the orchestral playing as well. In Tchaikovsky's Fifth, there was a mellifluous continuity of thought....In Beethoven's Fifth, Eschenbach exercised similarly good judgment."

"Christoph Eschenbach...gave this over-familiar classic {Beethoven's Symphony No. 5} newly minted status in a reading that never overstepped the line between vehemence and exaggeration.....Tchaikovsky's Fifth followed: the playing reinforced the Philadelphia's reputation as a virtuoso ensemble, with a particularly fine exposition of the second movement's famous horn solo. But Eschenbach's interpretation was less secure, inconsistently maintaining the level of nervous energy needed to fire the symphony's momentum and motivate its grand rhetoric."

"The sound this orchestra makes is legendary...Whether the results are so convincing interpretatively is another matter. The articulation in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was vigorous, if not downright oppressive....A predilection for idiosyncratic gestures became even more pronounced in Eschenbach's reading of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 in E minor.....Such idiosyncrasies are unexceptionable, even welcome, when well motivated and provoke reappraisal. Here they seemed perverse....Great sound. Shame about the rest."

National Symphony Orchestra (United States)

On September 25, 2008, the National Symphony Orchestra announced that Eschenbach would become the orchestra's sixth music director in the 2010-11 season, though he is scheduled to conduct subscription concerts and auditions earlier. He was also named to the newly created post of music director of the Kennedy Center.

Honours and awards

Eschenbach was made a Chevalier (knight) of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, presented by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in June 2006; in October 2002, he was present with the Legion d'honneur by French President Jacques Chirac; and in August 2002, the Officer's Cross with Star and Ribbon of the Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and the Commander's Cross in 1993. He received the Leonard Bernstein Award (1993) presented to him by the Pacific Music Festival, where he served as co-artistic director from 1992 to 1998.

References

Further reading

Hines, Cragg. "Making Musicians Play Like Devils & Angels", Washingtonian, December 1, 2009.

External links

Christoph Eschenbach official website

Ondine biography of Christoph Eschenbach

Category:1940 births Category:German classical pianists Category:German conductors (music) Category:Living people Category:Texas classical music Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg

Sergiu Celibidache (; June 28, 1912 – August 14, 1996) was a Romanian conductor.

Biography

Celibidache was born in Roman, Romania, and began his studies in music with the piano, after which he studied music, philosophy and mathematics in Bucharest, Romania and then in Paris. One of the most important influences in his life was his introduction to Martin Steinke, who, being knowledgeable about Buddhism, heavily affected Celibidache's outlook for the rest of his life.

Career

Sergiu Celibidache studied in Berlin and, from 1945 to 1952, he was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He later worked with radio orchestras in Stockholm, Stuttgart and Paris. He also worked in Britain in the late 1940s and 1950s, due partly to the promotional efforts of the pianist Eileen Joyce and her partner, an artists' agent. Joyce said that Celibidache was the greatest conductor she had ever worked with - "he was the only one who got inside my soul". In 1970 he was awarded Denmark's Sonning Award. From 1979 until his death he was music director of the Munich Philharmonic. He regularly taught at Mainz University in Germany and in 1984 taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Teaching was a major focus throughout his life and his courses were frequently open to all without fee. One of his notable students was conductor Françoys Bernier.

Celibidache's approach to music-making is often described in terms of what he did not do instead of what he did. For example, much has been made of Celibidache's "refusal" to make recordings even though almost all of his concert activity actually was recorded with many released posthumously by major labels such as EMI and Deutsche Grammophon with consent of his family. Nevertheless, Celibidache did pay little attention to making these recordings, which he viewed merely as by-products of his orchestral concerts.

Celibidache's focus was instead on creating, during each concert, the optimal conditions for what he called a "transcendent experience". Aspects of Zen Buddhism, such as ichi-go ichi-e, were strongly influential on him. He believed that musical experiences were extremely unlikely to ensue when listening to recorded music, so he eschewed them. As a result, some of his concerts did provide audiences with exceptional and sometimes life-altering experiences, including, for example, a 1984 concert in Carnegie Hall by the Orchestra of the Curtis Institute that New York Times critic John Rockwell touted as the best of his twenty-five years of concert-going.

Celibidache was well known for his demands for extensive rehearsal time with orchestras. An oft-mentioned feature of many of his concerts, captured in the live recordings of them, is a slower tempo than what is considered the norm, while, in fast passages, his tempos often exceeded expectations. In Celibidache's own view, however, criticism of a recording's tempo is irrelevant, as it is not (and cannot be) a critique of the performance but rather of a transcription of it, without the ambience of the moment – for him, a key factor in any musical performance. As Celibidache explained, the acoustic space in which one hears a concert directly affects the likelihood of the emergence of his sought-after transcendent experience. The acoustic space within which one hears a recording of one of his performances, on the other hand, has no impact on the performance, as it is impossible for the acoustic features of that space to provide feedback to the musicians that might impel them to, for example, play slower or faster.

That his recorded performances differ so widely from the majority of other recordings has led them to be seen by some as collectors' items rather than mainstream releases, 'one-offs' rather than reference recordings. The reality is that the recordings and their relationship to other recordings are the arena within which his artistic importance is now judged, while the contributions he made in the concert hall fade along with the memories of those who were there.

Notable releases have been his Munich performances of Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Robert Schumann, Johann Sebastian Bach, Gabriel Fauré and a series of live performances with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

One controversial incident during his tenure with the Munich Philharmonic was a protracted legal battle to oust principal trombonist Abbie Conant that lasted 12 years, with Conant ultimately prevailing. Judge Angela Mack ruled that the City of Munich through the orchestra had broken the law concerning the equal treatment of employees. Ms. Conant alleged sexism in an internet article published by her husband, William Osbourne. Her audition and controversy is discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.

Sergiu Celibidache died in La Neuville-sur-Essonne, arrondissement Pithiviers near Paris on August 14, 1996, at age 84.

References

External links

Celibidache's Garden: a 2009 film by the conductor’s son

Sergiu Celibidache discography

Life After Death Reviews of posthumous Celibidache CD releases

Jan Schmidt-Garre: Celibidache's Presence of Mind

Sergiu Celibidache - The Last of the Mad Genius Conductors?

Category:1912 births Category:1996 deaths Category:French people of Romanian descent Category:Romanian conductors (music) Category:People from Roman, Romania

Name	Frank Zappa
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Frank Vincent Zappa
Born	December 21, 1940Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Died	December 04, 1993Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Instrument	Guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards, drums, synclavier
Genre	Rock, jazz, classical, avant-garde
Occupation	Composer, musician, conductor, producer
Years active	1950s–1993
Label	Verve, Bizarre/Straight/DiscReet/Barking Pumpkin
Associated acts	The Mothers of InventionCaptain BeefheartSteve Vai
Url	Zappa.com
Notable instruments	Hagström VikingGibson ES-5 SwitchmasterGibson SGGibson Les PaulFender StratocasterSynclavier }}

Frank Vincent Zappa (; December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, electronic, orchestral, and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

While in his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands—he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. He wrote the lyrics to all his songs, which—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education and the abolition of censorship.

Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist and gained widespread critical acclaim. Many of his albums are considered essential in rock and jazz history. He is regarded as one of the most original guitarists and composers of his time. He also remains a major influence on musicians and composers. He had some commercial success, particularly in Europe, and for most of his career was able to work as an independent artist. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Zappa was married to Kathryn J. "Kay" Sherman from 1960 to 1964. In 1967, he married Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death from prostate cancer in 1993. They had four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. Gail Zappa manages the businesses of her late husband under the name the Zappa Family Trust.

Early life

Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 21, 1940. His mother, Rose Marie (née Colimore), was of Italian and French descent, and his father, Francis Vincent Zappa, was a native of Partinico, Sicily and had Greek and Arab ancestry. Zappa was the eldest of four children, and had two brothers and a sister. The family moved often during Zappa's childhood because his father, a chemist and mathematician, had various jobs in the US defense industry. After a brief time in Florida in the mid-1940s, the family returned to Maryland, where Zappa's father worked at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Due to their home's proximity to the arsenal, which stored mustard gas, gas masks were kept in the house in case of an accident. This had a profound effect on the young Zappa: references to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the defense industry occur throughout his work.

During his childhood, Zappa was often sick, suffering from asthma, earaches and sinus problems. A doctor treated the latter by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappa's nostrils; little was known at the time about the potential dangers of being subjected to even small amounts of therapeutic radiation. Nasal imagery and references appear both in his music and lyrics, as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time visual collaborator, Cal Schenkel.

Many of Zappa's childhood diseases may have arisen from exposure to mustard gas. Furthermore, his health worsened when he lived in the Baltimore area. They next moved to Monterey, California, where Zappa's father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School. Shortly afterward, they moved to Claremont, then to El Cajon before finally moving to San Diego.

Musical influences

Zappa joined his first band, The Ramblers, at Mission Bay High School in San Diego. He was the band's drummer. About the same time his parents bought a phonograph, which allowed him to develop his interest in music, and to begin building his record collection. R&B; singles were early purchases, starting a large collection he kept for the rest of his life. He was interested in sounds for their own sake, particularly the sounds of drums and other percussion instruments. By age 12, he had obtained a snare drum and began learning the basics of orchestral percussion. The article described Varèse's percussion composition Ionisation, produced by EMS Recordings, as "a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds". Zappa decided to seek out Varèse's music. After searching for over a year, Zappa found a copy (he noticed the LP because of the "mad scientist" looking photo of Varèse on the cover). Not having enough money with him, he persuaded the salesman to sell him the record at a discount. Television also exerted a strong influence, as demonstrated by quotations from show themes and advertising jingles found in his later works.

At Antelope Valley High School, Zappa met Don Vliet (who later expanded his name to Don Van Vliet and adopted the stage name Captain Beefheart). Zappa and Vliet became close friends, sharing an interest in R&B; records and influencing each other musically throughout their careers. Around the same time, Zappa started playing drums in a local band, The Blackouts. (In the 1970s and '80s, he invited Watson to perform on several albums.) Zappa considered soloing as the equivalent of forming "air sculptures", He graduated from Antelope Valley High School in 1958, and later acknowledged two of his music teachers on the sleeve of the 1966 album Freak Out! Due to his family's frequent moves, Zappa attended at least six different high schools, and as a student he was often bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with juvenile antics. He left community college after one semester, and maintained thereafter a disdain for formal education, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refusing to pay for their college.

Zappa left home in 1959, and moved into a small apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles. After meeting Kathryn J. "Kay" Sherman during his short stay at Pomona College, they moved in together in Ontario, and were married December 28, 1960. Zappa worked for a short period in advertising. His sojourn in the commercial world was brief, but gave him valuable insights into how it works. Throughout his career, he took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, designing some of his album covers and directing his own films and videos.

Early 1960s: Studio Z

Zappa attempted to earn a living as a musician and composer, and played different nightclub gigs, some with a new version of The Blackouts. Financially more rewarding were Zappa's earliest professional recordings, two soundtracks for the low-budget films The World's Greatest Sinner (1962) and Run Home Slow (1965). The former score was commissioned by actor-producer Timothy Carey and recorded in 1961. It contains many themes that appeared on later Zappa records. The latter soundtrack was recorded in 1963 after the film was completed, but it was commissioned by one of Zappa's former high school teachers in 1959 and Zappa may have worked on it before the film was shot. Excerpts from the soundtrack can be heard on the posthumous album The Lost Episodes (1996).

During the early 1960s, Zappa wrote and produced songs for other local artists, often working with singer-songwriter Ray Collins and producer Paul Buff. Their "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins (although only Cleve Duncan of the original group was featured). Buff owned the small Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga, which included a unique five-track tape recorder he had built. At that time, only a handful of the most sophisticated commercial studios had multi-track facilities; the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track. Although none of the recordings from the period achieved major commercial success, Zappa earned enough money to allow him to stage a concert of his orchestral music in 1963 and to broadcast and record it. He appeared on Steve Allen's syndicated late night show the same year, in which he played a bicycle as a musical instrument. With Captain Beefheart, Zappa recorded some songs under the name of The Soots. They were rejected by Dot Records for having no "commercial potential"; a quote Zappa later used on the sleeve of Freak Out!

In 1964, after his marriage started to break up, he moved into the Pal studio and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day recording and experimenting with overdubbing and audio tape manipulation. This set a work pattern that endured for most of his life. Aided by his income from film composing, Zappa took over the studio from Paul Buff, who was now working with Art Laboe at Original Sound. It was renamed Studio Z. Studio Z was rarely booked for recordings by other musicians. Instead, friends moved in, notably James "Motorhead" Sherwood. Zappa started performing as guitarist with a power trio, The Muthers, in local bars in order to support himself.

An article in the local press describing Zappa as "the Movie King of Cucamonga" prompted the local police to suspect that he was making pornographic films. In March 1965, Zappa was approached by a vice squad undercover officer, and accepted an offer of $100 to produce a suggestive audio tape for an alleged stag party. Zappa and a female friend recorded a faked erotic episode. When Zappa was about to hand over the tape, he was arrested, and the police stripped the studio of all recorded material. Zappa was charged with "conspiracy to commit pornography". This felony charge was reduced and he was sentenced to six months in jail on a misdemeanor, with all but ten days suspended. His entrapment and brief imprisonment left a permanent mark, and was key in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance. Zappa lost several recordings made at Studio Z in the process, as the police only returned 30 out of 80 hours of tape seized. Eventually, he could no longer afford to pay the rent on the studio and was evicted. Zappa managed to recover some of his possessions before the studio was torn down in 1966.

Late 1960s: The Mothers of Invention

In 1965, Zappa was approached by Ray Collins who asked him to join a local R&B; band, The Soul Giants, as a guitarist. The band was renamed The Mothers, coincidentally on Mother's Day. The group increased their bookings after beginning an association with manager Herb Cohen, while they gradually gained attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground music scene. In early 1966, they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson when playing "Trouble Every Day", a song about the Watts Riots. Wilson had earned acclaim as the producer for singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and the folk-rock act Simon & Garfunkel, and was notable as one of the few blacks working as a major label pop music producer at this time.

Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve Records division of MGM Records, which had built up a strong reputation in the music industry for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences. Verve insisted that the band officially re-title themselves "The Mothers of Invention" because "Mother", in slang terminology, was short for "motherfucker"—a term that apart from its profane meanings can denote a skilled musician.

Debut album: Freak Out! (1966)

With Wilson credited as producer, The Mothers of Invention and a studio orchestra recorded the groundbreaking double album Freak Out! (1966). It mixed R&B;, doo-wop, musique concrète, and experimental sound collages that captured the "freak" subculture of Los Angeles at that time. The album immediately established Zappa as a radical new voice in rock music, providing an antidote to the "relentless consumer culture of America". The sound was raw, but the arrangements were sophisticated. (while recording in the studio, some of the additional session musicians were shocked that they were expected to read the notes on sheet music from charts with Zappa conducting them, since it was not standard when recording rock music.) The lyrics praised non-conformity, disparaged authorities, and had dadaist elements. Yet, there was a place for seemingly conventional love songs. Most compositions are Zappa's, which set a precedent for the rest of his recording career. He had full control over the arrangements and musical decisions and did most overdubs. Wilson provided the industry clout and connections to get the group the financial resources needed.

During the recording of Freak Out!, Zappa moved into a house in Laurel Canyon with friend Pamela Zarubica, who appeared on the album. He labeled people on drugs "assholes in action", and he only tried cannabis a few times without any pleasure. He was a regular tobacco smoker for most of his life, and strongly critical of anti-tobacco campaigns. After a short promotional tour following the release of Freak Out!, Zappa met Adelaide Gail Sloatman. He fell in love within "a couple of minutes", and she moved into the house over the summer. Examples are "Plastic People" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", which contained lyrics critical of the hypocrisy and conformity of American society, but also of the counterculture of the 1960s. As Zappa put it, "[W]e're satirists, and we are out to satirize everything." At the same time, Zappa had recorded material for a self-produced album based on orchestral works to be released under his own name. Due to contractual problems, the recordings were shelved and only made ready for release late in 1967. Zappa took the opportunity to radically restructure the contents, adding newly recorded, improvised dialogue to finalize what became his first solo album (under the name Francis Vincent Zappa It is an "incredible ambitious musical project", a "monument to John Cage", which intertwines orchestral themes, spoken words and electronic noises through radical audio editing techniques.

New York period (1966–1968)

The Mothers of Invention played in New York in late 1966 and were offered a contract at the Garrick Theater during Easter 1967. This proved successful and Herb Cohen extended the booking, which eventually lasted half a year. As a result, Zappa and his wife, along with the Mothers of Invention, moved to New York. Guest performers and audience participation became a regular part of the Garrick Theater shows. One evening, Zappa managed to entice some US Marines from the audience onto the stage, where they proceeded to dismember a big baby doll, having been told by Zappa to pretend that it was a "gook baby".

Situated in New York, and only interrupted by the band's first European tour, the Mothers of Invention recorded the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late 1960s work, We're Only in It for the Money (released 1968). It was produced by Zappa, with Wilson credited as executive producer. From then on, Zappa produced all albums released by the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. We're Only in It for the Money featured some of the most creative audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and the songs ruthlessly satirized the hippie and flower power phenomena. The cover photo parodied that of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The cover art was provided by Cal Schenkel whom Zappa met in New York. This initiated a life-long collaboration in which Schenkel designed covers for numerous Zappa and Mothers albums.

Reflecting Zappa's eclectic approach to music, the next album, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968), was very different. It represented a collection of doo-wop songs; listeners and critics were not sure whether the album was a satire or a tribute. Zappa has noted that the album was conceived in the way Stravinsky's compositions were in his neo-classical period: "If he could take the forms and clichés of the classical era and pervert them, why not do the same ... to doo-wop in the fifties?" A theme from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is heard during one song.

In New York, Zappa increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool. A prime example is found on the double album Uncle Meat (1969), where the track "King Kong" is edited from various studio and live performances. Zappa had begun regularly recording concerts, and because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing, he was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and vice versa. Later, he combined recordings of different compositions into new pieces, irrespective of the tempo or meter of the sources. He dubbed this process "xenochrony" (strange synchronizations)—reflecting the Greek "xeno" (alien or strange) and "chrono" (time).

Disbanding the original Mothers of Invention (1969)

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Zappa and the Mothers of Invention returned to Los Angeles in the summer of 1968, and the Zappas moved into a house on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, only to move again to one on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the autumn. This was to be Zappa's home for the rest of his life. Despite being a success with fans in Europe, the Mothers of Invention were not faring well financially. Their first records were vocally oriented, but Zappa wrote more instrumental jazz and classical oriented music for the band's concerts, which confused audiences. Zappa felt that audiences failed to appreciate his "electrical chamber music". but also commented on the band members' lack of sufficient effort. Many band members were bitter about Zappa's decision, and some took it as a sign of Zappa's preference for perfection over feelings. Others were irritated by "his autocratic ways", Several members would, however, play for Zappa in years to come. Remaining recordings with the band from this period were collected on Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (both released in 1970).

After he disbanded the Mothers of Invention, Zappa released the acclaimed solo album Hot Rats (1969). It features, for the first time on record, Zappa playing extended guitar solos and contains one of his most enduring compositions, "Peaches en Regalia", which reappeared several times on future recordings. and had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre.

Rebirth of the Mothers and film making (1970)

Later in 1970, Zappa formed a new version of The Mothers (from then on, he mostly dropped the "of Invention"). It included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons (bass, rhythm guitar), and three members of The Turtles: bass player Jim Pons, and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who, due to persistent legal and contractual problems, adopted the stage name "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie", or "Flo & Eddie".

This version of the Mothers debuted on Zappa's next solo album Chunga's Revenge (1970), which was followed by the double-album soundtrack to the movie 200 Motels (1971), featuring The Mothers, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, and Keith Moon. Co-directed by Zappa and Tony Palmer, it was filmed in a week at Pinewood Studios outside London. co-director Palmer tried afterwards to have his name removed from the film. The film deals loosely with life on the road as a rock musician. It was the first feature film photographed on videotape and transferred to 35 mm film, a process which allowed for novel visual effects. It was released to mixed reviews. The score relied extensively on orchestral music, and Zappa's dissatisfaction with the classical music world intensified when a concert, scheduled at the Royal Albert Hall after filming, was canceled because a representative of the venue found some of the lyrics obscene. In 1975, he lost a lawsuit against the Royal Albert Hall for breach of contract.

After 200 Motels, the band went on tour, which resulted in two live albums, Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band From L.A.; the latter included the 20-minute track "Billy the Mountain", Zappa's satire on rock opera set in Southern California. This track was representative of the band's theatrical performances in which songs were used to build up sketches based on 200 Motels scenes as well as new situations often portraying the band members' sexual encounters on the road.

Accident, attack and their aftermath (1971–1972)

, Germany in 1971]] In December 1971, there were two serious setbacks. While performing at Casino de Montreux in Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a fire that burned down the casino. Immortalized in Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water", the event and immediate aftermath can be heard on the bootleg album Swiss Cheese/Fire, released legally as part of Zappa's Beat the Boots II compilation. After a week's break, The Mothers played at the Rainbow Theatre, London, with rented gear. During the encore, an audience member pushed Zappa off the stage and into the concrete-floored orchestra pit. The band thought Zappa had been killed—he had suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx, which ultimately caused his voice to drop a third after healing. Musically, the albums were close to that of Hot Rats. Zappa began touring again in late 1972.

Top 10 album (1973–1975)

Zappa then formed and toured with smaller groups that variously included Ian Underwood (reeds, keyboards), Ruth Underwood (vibes, marimba), Sal Marquez (trumpet, vocals), Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax, flute and vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Tom Fowler (bass), Chester Thompson (drums), Ralph Humphrey (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals), and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin). , Sydney, Australia, May 1973]] By 1973 the Bizarre and Straight labels were discontinued. In their place, Zappa and Cohen created DiscReet Records, also distributed by Warner Bros. Zappa continued a high rate of production through the first half of the 1970s, including the solo album Apostrophe (') (1974), which reached a career-high #10 on the Billboard pop album charts helped by the chart single "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow". Other albums from the period are Over-Nite Sensation (1973), which contained several future concert favorites, such as "Dinah-Moe Humm" and "Montana", and the albums Roxy & Elsewhere (1974) and One Size Fits All (1975) which feature ever-changing versions of a band still called the Mothers, and are notable for the tight renditions of highly difficult jazz fusion songs in such pieces as "Inca Roads", "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" and "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)". A live recording from 1974, You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 (1988), captures "the full spirit and excellence of the 1973–75 band". They later became estranged for a period of years, but were in contact at the end of Zappa's life.

Business breakups and touring (1976–1979)

, seated left, during a 1975 concert]] Zappa's relationship with long-time manager Herb Cohen ended in 1976. Zappa sued Cohen for skimming more than he was allocated from DiscReet Records, as well as for signing acts of which Zappa did not approve. Cohen filed a lawsuit against Zappa in return, which froze the money Zappa and Cohen had gained from an out-of-court settlement with MGM over the rights of the early Mothers of Invention recordings. It also prevented Zappa access to any of his previously recorded material during the trials. Zappa therefore took his personal master copies of the rock-oriented Zoot Allures (1976) directly to Warner Bros., thereby bypassing DiscReet.

In the mid-1970s Zappa prepared material for Läther (pronounced "leather"), a four-LP project. Läther encapsulated all the aspects of Zappa's musical styles—rock tunes, orchestral works, complex instrumentals, and Zappa's own trademark distortion-drenched guitar solos. Wary of a quadruple-LP, Warner Bros. Records refused to release it. Zappa managed to get an agreement with Mercury-Phonogram, and test pressings were made targeted at a Halloween 1977 release, but Warner Bros. prevented the release by claiming rights over the material. Zappa responded by appearing on the Pasadena, California radio station KROQ, allowing them to broadcast Läther and encouraging listeners to make their own tape recordings. A lawsuit between Zappa and Warner Bros. followed, during which no Zappa material was released for more than a year. Eventually, Warner Bros. issued major parts of Läther against Zappa's will as four individual albums with limited promotion. Läther was released posthumously in 1996.

Although Zappa eventually gained the rights to all his material created under the MGM and Warner Bros. contracts, the various lawsuits meant that for a period Zappa's only income came from touring, which he therefore did extensively in 1975–1977 with relatively small, mainly rock-oriented, bands. The performances included an impromptu musical collaboration with cast member John Belushi during the instrumental piece "The Purple Lagoon". Belushi appeared as his Samurai Futaba character playing the tenor sax with Zappa conducting. Zappa's song, "I'm the Slime", was performed with a voice-over by SNL booth announcer Don Pardo, who also introduced "Peaches En Regalia" on the same airing.

Zappa's band at the time, with the additions of Ruth Underwood and a horn section (featuring Michael and Randy Brecker), performed during Christmas in New York, recordings of which appear on one of the albums released by Warner Bros., Zappa in New York (1978). It mixes intense instrumentals such as "The Black Page" and humorous songs like "Titties and Beer". The former composition, written originally for drum kit but later developed for larger bands, is notorious for its complexity in rhythmic structure, radical changes of tempo and meter, and short, densely arranged passages.

Zappa in New York featured a song about sex criminal Michael H. Kenyon, "The Illinois Enema Bandit", which featured Don Pardo providing the opening narrative in the song. Like many songs on the album, it contained numerous sexual references, Zappa dismissed the criticism by noting that he was a journalist reporting on life as he saw it. Predating his later fight against censorship, he remarked: "What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?" The remaining albums released by Warner Bros. Records without Zappa's consent were Studio Tan in 1978 and Sleep Dirt in 1979, which contained complex suites of instrumentally-based tunes recorded between 1973 and 1976, and which was overlooked in the midst of the legal problems. Also released by the label without the artist's consent was Orchestral Favorites in 1979, which featured recordings of a concert with orchestral music from 1975.

Zappa as an independent artist (1979)

Resolving the lawsuits successfully, Zappa ended the 1970s "stronger than ever", by releasing two of his most successful albums in 1979: the best selling album of his career, Sheik Yerbouti, and the "bona fide masterpiece", The double album Sheik Yerbouti was the first release on Zappa Records, and contained the Grammy-nominated single "Dancin' Fool", which reached #45 on the Billboard charts, and "Jewish Princess", which received attention when a Jewish lobby group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), attempted to prevent the song from receiving radio airplay due to its alleged anti-Semitic lyrics. The album's commercial success was attributable in part to "Bobby Brown". Due to its explicit lyrics about a young man's encounter with a "dyke by the name of Freddie", the song did not get airplay in the US, but it topped the charts in several European countries where English is not the primary language. The triple LP Joe's Garage featured lead singer Ike Willis as the voice of the character "Joe" in a rock opera about the danger of political systems,—and about the "strange relationship Americans have with sex and sexual frankness". "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up", and the title track, as well as extended live-recorded guitar improvisations combined with a studio backup band dominated by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (with whom Zappa had a particularly good musical rapport) adopting the xenochrony process. The album contains one of Zappa's most famous guitar "signature pieces", "Watermelon in Easter Hay".

On December 21, 1979, Zappa's movie Baby Snakes premiered in New York. The movie's tagline was "A movie about people who do stuff that is not normal". The 2 hour and 40 minutes movie was based on footage from concerts in New York around Halloween 1977, with a band featuring keyboardist Tommy Mars and percussionist Ed Mann (who would both return on later tours) as well as guitarist Adrian Belew. It also contained several extraordinary sequences of clay animation by Bruce Bickford who had earlier provided animation sequences to Zappa for a 1974 TV special (which later become available on the video The Dub Room Special (1982)). The movie did not do well in theatrical distribution, but won the Premier Grand Prix at the First International Music Festival in Paris in 1981. The Zappa Family Trust released it on DVD, and it has been available since 2003. Miami Vice and The Ren and Stimpy Show.

1980s: Productive as ever

, Buffalo, New York, 1980. The concert was released in 2007 as Buffalo.]]

After spending most of 1980 on the road, Zappa released Tinsel Town Rebellion in 1981. It was the first release on his own Barking Pumpkin Records, and it contains songs taken from a 1979 tour, one studio track and material from the 1980 tours. The album is a mixture of complicated instrumentals and Zappa's use of sprechstimme (speaking song or voice)—a compositional technique utilized by such composers as Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg—showcasing some of the most accomplished bands Zappa ever had (mostly featuring drummer Vinnie Colaiuta). the political and sociological satire in songs like the title track and "The Blue Light" have been described as a "hilarious critique of the willingness of the American people to believe anything". The album is also notable for the presence of guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who joined Zappa's touring band in the fall of 1980.

The same year the double album You Are What You Is was released. Most of it was recorded in Zappa's brand new Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK) studios, which were located at his house, The album included one complex instrumental, "Theme from the 3^rd Movement of Sinister Footwear", but focused mainly on rock songs with Zappa's sardonic social commentary—satirical lyrics targeted at teenagers, the media, and religious and political hypocrisy. "Dumb All Over" is a tirade on religion, as is "Heavenly Bank Account", wherein Zappa rails against TV evangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for their purported influence on the US administration as well as their use of religion as a means of raising money. In 1981, Zappa also released three instrumental albums, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More, and The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, which were initially sold via mail order, but later released through the CBS label due to popular demand. The albums focus exclusively on Frank Zappa as a guitar soloist, and the tracks are predominantly live recordings from 1979–1980; they highlight Zappa's improvisational skills with "beautiful performances from the backing group as well". Another guitar-only album, Guitar, was released in 1988, and a third, Trance-Fusion, which Zappa completed shortly before his death, was released in 2006.

From hit single to classical performances

In May 1982, Zappa released Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, which featured his biggest selling single ever, the Grammy Award-nominated song "Valley Girl" (topping out at #32 on the Billboard charts). Most Americans who only knew Zappa from his few singles successes now thought of him as a person writing "novelty songs", even though the rest of the album contained highly challenging music. Zappa was irritated by this and never played the song live. Zappa was not satisfied with the LSO recordings. One reason is "Strictly Genteel", which was recorded after the trumpet section had been out for drinks on a break: the track took 40 edits to hide out-of-tune notes. Some reviews noted that the recordings were the best representation of Zappa's orchestral work so far. In 1984 Zappa teamed again with Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra for a live performance of A Zappa Affair with augmented orchestra, life-size puppets, and moving stage sets. Although critically acclaimed the work was a financial failure, and only performed twice.

Synclavier

For the remainder of his career, much of Zappa's work was influenced by his use of the Synclavier as a compositional and performance tool. Even considering the complexity of the music he wrote, the Synclavier could realize anything he could dream up. The Synclavier could be programmed to play almost anything conceivable, to perfection: "With the Synclavier, any group of imaginary instruments can be invited to play the most difficult passages ... with one-millisecond accuracy—every time". Zappa viewed the Synclavier and real-life musicians as separate. The Synclavier pieces stood in contrast to the orchestral works, as the sounds were electronically generated and not, as became possible shortly thereafter, sampled.

The album Thing-Fish was an ambitious three-record set in the style of a Broadway play dealing with a dystopian "what-if" scenario involving feminism, homosexuality, manufacturing and distribution of the AIDS virus, and a eugenics program conducted by the United States government. New vocals were combined with previously released tracks and new Synclavier music; "the work is an extraordinary example of bricolage". Finally, in 1984, Zappa released Francesco Zappa, a Synclavier rendition of works by 18th century composer Francesco Zappa (no known relation), and Them or Us, a two-record set of heavily edited live and session pieces.

Senate testimony

, 1985]] On September 19, 1985, Zappa testified before the United States Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music organization, co-founded by Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore. The PMRC consisted of many wives of politicians, including the wives of five members of the committee, and was founded to address the issue of song lyrics with sexual or satanic content. Zappa saw their activities as on a path towards censorship, and called their proposal for voluntary labelling of records with explicit content "extortion" of the music industry. In his prepared statement, he said:

The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation ... The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow "J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?

Zappa set excerpts from the PMRC hearings to Synclavier music in his composition "Porn Wars" on the 1985 album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. Zappa is heard interacting with Senators Fritz Hollings, Slade Gorton, Al Gore (who claimed, at the hearing, to be a Zappa fan), and in an exchange with Florida Senator Paula Hawkins over what toys Zappa's children played with. Zappa expressed opinions on censorship when he appeared on CNN's Crossfire TV series and debated issues with Washington Times commentator John Lofton in 1986. Zappa's passion for American politics was becoming a bigger part of his life. He had always encouraged his fans to register to vote on album covers, and throughout 1988 he had registration booths at his concerts. He even considered running for President of the United States.

Digital medium and last tour

Around 1986, Zappa undertook a comprehensive re-release program of his earlier vinyl recordings. He personally oversaw the remastering of all his 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s albums for the new digital compact disc medium. Certain aspects of these re-issues were, however, criticized by some fans as being unfaithful to the original recordings. Nearly twenty years before the advent of online music stores, Zappa had proposed to replace "phonographic record merchandising" of music by "direct digital-to-digital transfer" through phone or cable TV (with royalty payments and consumer billing automatically built into the accompanying software). In 1989, Zappa considered his idea a "miserable flop".

Zappa's last tour in a rock and jazz band format took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which had a repertoire of over 100 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split under acrimonious circumstances before the tour was completed. The tour was documented on the albums Broadway the Hard Way (new material featuring songs with strong political emphasis), The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (Zappa "standards" and an eclectic collection of cover tunes, ranging from Maurice Ravel's Boléro to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"), and Make a Jazz Noise Here (mostly instrumental and avant-garde music). Parts are also found on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, volumes 4 and 6.

1990s: Classical music and death

In early 1990, Zappa visited Czechoslovakia at the request of President Václav Havel, and was asked to serve as consultant for the government on trade, cultural matters and tourism. Havel was a lifelong fan of Zappa who had large influence in the avant-garde and underground scene in Central Europe in the 1970s and 1980s (a Czech rock group that was imprisoned in 1976 took its name from Zappa's 1968 song "Plastic People"). Zappa enthusiastically agreed and began meeting with corporate officials interested in investing in Czechoslovakia. Within a few weeks, however, the US administration put pressure on the Czech government to withdraw the appointment. Havel made Zappa an unofficial cultural attaché instead. Zappa also planned to develop an international consulting enterprise to facilitate trade between the former Eastern Bloc and Western businesses. Most of Zappa's projects came to a halt in 1990, when he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. The disease had been developing unnoticed for ten years and was considered inoperable.

In 1991, Zappa was chosen to be one of four featured composers at the world-acclaimed Frankfurt Festival in 1992 (the others were John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Alexander Knaifel). Zappa was approached by the German chamber ensemble, Ensemble Modern, which was interested in playing his music for the event. Although ill, Zappa invited them to Los Angeles for rehearsals of new compositions and new arrangements of older material. In addition to being satisfied with the ensemble's performances of his music, Zappa also got along with the musicians, and the concerts in Germany and Austria were set up for the fall. It would become his last professional public appearance, as the cancer was spreading to such an extent that he was in too much pain to enjoy an event that he otherwise found "exhilarating". On Monday, December 6 his family publicly announced that "Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6:00 pm on Saturday".

Legacy

Acclaim and honors

Zappa earned widespread critical acclaim in his lifetime and after his death. The 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide writes: "Frank Zappa dabbled in virtually all kinds of music—and, whether guised as a satirical rocker, jazz-rock fusionist, guitar virtuoso, electronics wizard, or orchestral innovator, his eccentric genius was undeniable". Even though his work drew inspiration from many different genres, Zappa was seen establishing a coherent and personal expression. In 1971, biographer David Walley noted that "The whole structure of his music is unified, not neatly divided by dates or time sequences and it is all building into a composite". On commenting on Zappa's music, politics and philosophy, Barry Miles noted in 2004 that they cannot be separated: "It was all one; all part of his 'conceptual continuity. Guitar Player Magazine devoted a special issue to Zappa in 1992, and asked on the cover "Is FZ America's Best Kept Musical Secret?" Editor Don Menn remarked that the issue was about "The most important composer to come out of modern popular music". Among those contributing to the issue was composer and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, who conducted premiere performances of works of Ives and Varèse in the 1930s. He became friends with Zappa in the 1980s, and said "I admire everything Frank does, because he practically created the new musical millennium. He does beautiful, beautiful work ... It has been my luck to have lived to see the emergence of this totally new type of music." Conductor Kent Nagano remarked in the same issue that "Frank is a genius. That's a word I don't use often ... In Frank's case it is not too strong ... He is extremely literate musically. I'm not sure if the general public knows that". Pierre Boulez stated in Musician Magazine's posthumous Zappa tribute article that Zappa "was an exceptional figure because he was part of the worlds of rock and classical music and that both types of his work would survive." Many music scholars acknowledge Zappa as one of the most influential composers of his generation. As an electric guitarist, he has become highly regarded.

In 1994, jazz magazine Down Beat's critics poll placed Zappa in its Hall of Fame. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. There, it was written that "Frank Zappa was rock and roll's sharpest musical mind and most astute social critic. He was the most prolific composer of his age, and he bridged genres—rock, jazz, classical, avant-garde and even novelty music—with masterful ease". He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. In 2005, the US National Recording Preservation Board included We're Only in It for the Money in the National Recording Registry as "Frank Zappa's inventive and iconoclastic album presents a unique political stance, both anti-conservative and anti-counterculture, and features a scathing satire on hippiedom and America's reactions to it". The same year, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 71 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Artists influenced by Zappa

A number of notable musicians, bands and orchestras from diverse genres have been influenced by Frank Zappa's music. Rock artists like Alice Cooper, Primus, Fee Waybill of The Tubes all cite Zappa's influence, as do progressive rock artists like Henry Cow, Trey Anastasio of Phish, Paul McCartney regarded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as The Beatles' Freak Out! Heavy rock and metal acts like Black Sabbath, Mike Portnoy, Warren DeMartini, Steve Vai, System of a Down, Clawfinger, and Devin Townsend acknowledge Zappa's inspiration. On the classical music scene, Tomas Ulrich, Meridian Arts Ensemble,, Ensemble Ambrosius and the Fireworks Ensemble regularly perform Zappa's compositions and quote his influence. Contemporary jazz musicians and composers Bill Frisell and John Zorn are inspired by Zappa, as is funk legend George Clinton. Other artists whose work is affected by Zappa include new age pianist George Winston, electronic composer Bob Gluck, parody singer "Weird Al" Yankovic, and noise music artist Masami Akita of Merzbow.

References in arts and sciences

Scientists from various fields have honored Zappa by naming new discoveries after him. In 1967, paleontologist Leo P. Plas, Jr. identified an extinct mollusc in Nevada and named it Amaurotoma zappa with the motivation that, "The specific name, zappa, honors Frank Zappa". In the 1980s, biologist Ed Murdy named a genus of gobiid fishes of New Guinea Zappa, with a species named Zappa confluentus. Biologist Ferdinando Boero named a Californian jellyfish Phialella zappai (1987), noting that he had "pleasure in naming this species after the modern music composer". Belgian biologists Bosmans and Bosselaers discovered in the early 1980s a Cameroonese spider, which they in 1994 named Pachygnatha zappa because "the ventral side of the abdomen of the female of this species strikingly resembles the artist's legendary moustache". A gene of the bacterium Proteus mirabilis that causes urinary tract infections was in 1995 named zapA by three biologists from Maryland. In their scientific article, they "especially thank the late Frank Zappa for inspiration and assistance with genetic nomenclature". In the late 1990s, American paleontologists Marc Salak and Halard L. Lescinsky discovered a metazoan fossil, and named it Spygori zappania to honor "the late Frank Zappa ... whose mission paralleled that of the earliest paleontologists: to challenge conventional and traditional beliefs when such beliefs lacked roots in logic and reason".

In 1994, lobbying efforts initiated by psychiatrist John Scialli led the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center to name an asteroid in Zappa's honor: 3834 Zappafrank. The asteroid was discovered in 1980 by Czechoslovakian astronomer Ladislav Brozek, and the citation for its naming says that "Zappa was an eclectic, self-trained artist and composer ... Before 1989 he was regarded as a symbol of democracy and freedom by many people in Czechoslovakia".

In 1995, a bust of Zappa by sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas was installed in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. A replica was offered to the city of Baltimore in 2008, and on September 19, 2010—the twenty-fifth anniversary of Zappa's testimony to the US senate—a ceremony dedicating the replica was held. Speakers at the event included Gail Zappa and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. In 2002, a bronze bust was installed in German city Bad Doberan, since 1990 location of the Zappanale, an annual music festival celebrating Zappa. At the initiative of musicians community ORWOhaus, the city of Berlin named a street in the Marzahn district "Frank-Zappa-Straße" in 2007. The same year, Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed August 9 as the city's official "Frank Zappa Day" citing Zappa's musical accomplishments as well as his defense of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Discography

;Studio Albums

Freak Out! (1966)

Absolutely Free (1967)

Lumpy Gravy (1977)

We're Only in It for the Money (1968)

Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968)

Uncle Meat (1969)

Hot Rats (1969)

Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1970)

Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970)

Chunga's Revenge (1970)

200 Motels (1971)

Waka/Jawaka(1972)

The Grand Wazoo (1972)

Over-Nite Sensation (1973)

Apostrophe (') (1974)

One Size Fits All (1975)

Zoot Allures (1976)

Studio Tan (1978)

Sleep Dirt (1979)

Sheik Yerbouti (1979)

Orchestral Favorites (1979)

Joe's Garage (1979)

Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (1981)

You Are What You Is (1981)

Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (1982)

The Man from Utopia (1983)

London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 1 (1983)

(1984)

Them or Us (1984)

Thing-Fish(1984)

Francesco Zappa (1984)

Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention (1985)

Jazz from Hell (1986)

London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 2 (1987)

Guitar (1988)

; Posthumous Studio Releases

Civilization, Phaze III (1994)

The Lost Episodes (1996)

Läther (1996)

Have I Offended Someone? (1997)

Mystery Disc (1997)

Everything Is Healing Nicely (1998)

Joe's Corsage (2004)

QuAUDIOPHILIAc (2004)

Joe's Domage (2004)

Joe's XMASage (2005)

The Making Of Freak Out! Project/Object (2006)

The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAA Birthday Bundle (2006)

The Dub Room Special (2007)

The Lumpy Money Project/Object (2009)

Greasy Love Songs (2010)

;Live Albums

Fillmore East – June 1971 (1971)

Just Another Band From L.A. (1972)

Roxy & Elsewhere (1974)

Bongo Fury (1975)

Zappa in New York (1978)

Tinseltown Rebellion (1981)

Baby Snakes (1983)

Does Humor Belong in Music? (1986)

You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1 (1988)

You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 (1988)

Broadway the Hard Way (1988)

You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3 (1989)

The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (1991)

You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4 (1991)

Make a Jazz Noise Here (1991)

Beat the Boots (1991)

Beat the Boots II (1992)

You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 (1992)

You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6 (1992)

Playground Psychotics (1992)

Ahead of Their Time (1993)

The Yellow Shark (1993)

;Posthumous Live Releases

(1996)

(2002)

Halloween (2003)

Imaginary Diseases (2006)

Trance-Fusion (2006)

Buffalo (2007)

Wazoo (2007)

One Shot Deal (2008)

Joe's Menage (2008)

Beat the Boots III (2009)

Philly '76 (2009)

Hammersmith Odeon (2010)

References

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Notes

External links

The official Frank Zappa website

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Name	André Rieu
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth name	André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu
Born	October 01, 1949
Origin	Maastricht, Netherlands
Instrument	Violin
Genre	Waltz
Occupation	Conductor, violinist
Years active	1978–present
Label	Denon Records , Philips
Url	www.andrerieu.com
Notable instruments	Stradivarius violin (1667)

André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu (born 1 October 1949) is a Dutch violinist, conductor, and composer best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra.

Early life and studies

André Rieu was born into a Christian musical family (of French Huguenot origin) on 1 October 1949 in Maastricht in the Netherlands. He began studying violin at the age of five. His father was conductor of the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra. From a very young age he developed a fascination with orchestra. He studied violin at the Conservatoire Royal in Liège and at the Conservatorium Maastricht, (1968–1973). His teachers included Jo Juda and Herman Krebbers. From 1974 to 1977, he attended the Music Academy in Brussels, studying with André Gertler, winning the Premier Prix at the academy.

Career

At University he performed the Gold And Silver Waltz by Franz Lehár. Encouraged by the audience reaction he decided to pursue the waltz form. Rieu formed the Maastricht Salon Orchestra and performed as a violinist with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra. In 1987, he created the Johann Strauss Orchestra and his own production company. Since then, his melodramatic stage performances and rock-star demeanor have for some been associated with a revival of the waltz music category. André Rieu plays a 1667 Stradivarius violin.

Johann Strauss Orchestra

The Orchestra began in 1987 with 12 members but now performs with between 40 and 50 musicians. At the time the Orchestra first toured Europe, there emerged a renewed interest in waltz music. The revival began in the Netherlands and was ignited by their recording of the Second Waltz from Shostakovich's Jazz Suites. As a result, Rieu became known as the waltz King.

Rieu and his orchestra have performed throughout Europe, in North America, and Japan. Winning a number of awards including two World Music Awards, their recordings have gone gold and platinum in many countries, including 8-times Platinum in the Netherlands. In September 2007 Rieu performed in Australia for the first time solo, without his Orchestra at the Eastland shopping centre in the Melbourne suburb of Ringwood playing "My Way" and "Waltzing Matilda"—and the next day appeared at Sydney's Arena Cove, Warringah Mall shopping with the same set. Rieu and orchestra returned to Australia in November as part of his world tour. Rieu and his orchestra played 3 concerts at Melbourne's Telstra Dome from 13–15 November and continued their tour throughout Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, through to December 2008. The concert theme is 'A Romantic Vienna Night' and the set comprises a life-size reproduction of the Viennese imperial Schönbrunn Palace, complete with 2 ice-skating rinks 2 Fountains, and a ballroom dance floor situated above and behind the Orchestra. Rieu's largest concert attendance to date in Australia was 38,000 on Saturday 15 November in Melbourne. The Perth concert did not feature the replica of the Viennese Palace as it was stated in the press because it would not fit into the front doors of Subiaco Oval.

He records both DVD and CD repertoire at his own recording studios in Maastricht in a wide range of classical music as well as popular and folk music plus music from well-known soundtracks and musical theatre. His lively orchestral presentations, in tandem with incessant marketing, have attracted worldwide audiences to this subgenre of classical music.

Some of his orchestra's performances have been broadcast in the United Kingdom and the United States on the PBS television network such as the 2003 airing of Andre Rieu Live in Dublin, filmed in Dublin, Ireland, and 2005's André Rieu Live in Tuscany filmed in the Piazza Della Repubblica in the village of Cortona in Tuscany.

Reception

Rieu's recorded music and live performances have been a cause of controversy in the music and popular press. He has attracted criticism, for example from the artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti, who called Rieu's music Schlagermusik, among other things.

Eamon Kelly writing in The Australian newspaper, in an article that discusses the controversy that Rieu engenders, said: "He depicts his critics as members of a stuffy musical elite with narrow aesthetic tastes, yet regularly demeans in interviews music that is not to his taste and classical musicians who choose not to perform in his manner."

Of Rieu's popularity and the debate in the media over criticism of him, Eamon Kelly says:

It is disappointing to see professional journalists indulging in cheap, inaccurate stereotypes to dismiss criticism of Rieu.

Chris Boyd, a critic writing for Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper, finds that he could not give a general criticism of the playing of Rieu, as, except for "a clean and lyrical solo in Waltzing Matilda", his main stage function was apparently "blarney and delegation". However, Boyd also comments that the quality of the artists that Rieu works with is "extraordinary". Boyd assesses the low points of the concert as the "Three Tenors-style" rendition of "Nessun dorma" which he finds was an "abomination", while saying the concert's highlights included "a sugar-shock sweet rendition" of "O mio babbino caro" as well as Strauss's Emperor Waltz and Blue Danube, Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary and the Boléro.

Personal life

He is married to Marjorie, who works with him full-time as production manager, and has two sons, Marc and Pierre. He speaks (in order of fluency) Dutch, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.

Honours

Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (Netherlands, 2002)

Honorary Medal of the Province of Limburg (Netherlands, 2009)

Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2009)

== Selected discography ==

Forever Vienna (2009) – UK: #2, IRE: #4

The Best of André Rieu (2009) – Australian Albums: #23

Masterpieces (2009) – Australian Albums: #9

You'll Never Walk Alone (2009) – Australian Albums: #2

Live in Australia (2008) – Australian Albums: #14

Waltzing Matilda (2008) – Australian Albums: #1

The 100 Most Beautiful Melodies (2008) – Australian Albums: #2

Live In Dresden: The Wedding at the Opera (2008)

In Wonderland (2007)

Live in Vienna (2007)

Auf Schönbrunn (2006)

New York Memories (2006)

Songs from My Heart (2005)

Christmas Around the World (2005)

Live in Tuscany (2004)

The Flying Dutchman (2004)

New Year's Eve in Vienna (2003)

André Rieu at the Movies (2003)

Live in Dublin (2003)

Romantic Paradise (2003)

Maastricht Salon Orkest – Serenata (2003)

Love Around the World (2002)

Dreaming (2002)

Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2001)

Musik Zum Träumen (2001)

La Vie Est Belle (2000)

Fiesta! (1999)

100 Years of Strauss (1999)

Romantic Moments (1998)

Waltzes (1998, re-edited in November 1999)

The Christmas I Love (1997)

The Vienna I Love (1997)

In Concert (1996)

Strauss gala (1995)

D'n blauwen aovond (1995)

Hieringe biete 1 & 2 (1995)

Strauss & Co (1994)

Hieringe biete (1993)

Merry Christmas (1992)

References

External links

André Rieu (official website)

André Rieu's Official Australian website

André Rieu Albums (fan website – listen here)

André Rieu (C Music TV Biography)

Official André Rieu YouTube Channel

Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Dutch classical violinists Category:Dutch conductors (music) Category:People from Maastricht Category:People from Limburg (Netherlands) Category:People of Huguenot descent Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Dutch people of French descent