Jules Massenet

Jules Émile FrĂ©dĂ©ric Massenet (French pronunciation: [ʒyl emil fʁedeʁik masnɛ]) (May 12, 1842 â€“ August 13, 1912) was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost total oblivion. Apart from Manon and Werther, his works were rarely performed. However, since the mid-1970s, many operas of his such as ThaĂŻs and Esclarmonde have undergone periodic revivals.

Biography[link]

Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the Loire. When he was six, his family moved to Paris due to his father's ill-health. There his mother (AdĂ©laĂŻde Massenet, nĂ©e Royer; her husband's second wife) started taking piano pupils. She also taught Jules so well that at the age of 11 he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire. He was still a student when his family moved from Paris to ChambĂ©ry, but Jules returned to Paris after a few months, living with a married member of his father's family by his first wife. To support himself during his studies, he worked as timpanist for six years at the ThĂ©Ăątre Lyrique, playing also other percussion instruments in other theatres, and working as a pianist in the CafĂ© de Belleville.

Although at first some of his teachers had not predicted for him any career in music, this changed in 1862 when he won the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata David Rizzio and spent three years in Rome. There he met Franz Liszt, at whose request he gave piano lessons to Louise-Constance "Ninon" de Gressy, the daughter of a wealthy lady named Mme Sainte-Marie. Ninon became Massenet's wife in 1866.

Massenet early in his career

His first opera, La grand' tante, was a one-act production at the Opéra-Comique in 1867. Nevertheless it was his dramatic oratorio Marie-Magdeleine (first performed in 1873) that won him praise from the likes of Tchaikovsky, d'Indy (who afterwards turned against him), and Gounod. His real mentor, though, was the composer Ambroise Thomas, a man with important contacts in theatrical milieux. Another important early patron was his publisher, Georges Hartmann, whose connections with journalistic circles aided him in becoming better known during the difficult initial years of his composing activity. Even Massenet's marriage to Ninon helped him a great deal in securing commissions and garnering fame in important social circles.

Massenet took a break from his composing to serve as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to his art following the end of the conflict in 1871. From 1878 he worked as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where his pupils included André Bloch, Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn, Georges Enesco, and Charles Koechlin. His greatest successes were Manon in 1884, Werther in 1892, and Thaïs in 1894. Notable later operas were Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, produced in 1902, and Don Quichotte, produced in Monte Carlo 1910, with the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in the title-role.

In 1876 he received the Légion d'honneur, and was appointed a Grand Officer in 1899. In 1878 he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, to the exclusion of Camille Saint-Saëns. He was only 36, the youngest member ever elected to the Académie.

In addition to his operas, Massenet composed concert suites, ballet music, oratorios and cantatas and about two hundred songs. Some of his non-vocal output has achieved widespread popularity, and is commonly performed: for example the MĂ©ditation from ThaĂŻs, which is a violin solo with orchestra, as well as the Aragonaise, from his opera Le Cid and the ÉlĂ©gie for cello and orchestra (from his incidental music to Les Érinnyes). The latter two pieces are commonly played by piano students, and the ÉlĂ©gie became world-famous in many arrangements.

There have been periodic performances and recordings of Massenet's orchestral music, especially the seven suites. Naxos has issued the complete suites, as well as ballet music from Herodiade, as performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Yves Ossonce.^[1]

Massenet died in Paris at the age of 70, after suffering from a long illness (cancer).^{[2] [3]}

Being a very prolific, hard-working composer (over 25 extant operas, with his daily schedule starting frequently from as early as 4 am), he created his pieces not "at the piano" (as so many other composers do), but entirely from his imagination. That ability greatly helped him to achieve his high standards as an orchestrator. Even in his loudest passages, the instrumental texture is always lucid. It is curious that he was also known to avoid all public dress rehearsals and performances of his works; often he would have to be informed by others of his own operatic successes.

The only known recording by Massenet is a scene from Sapho where he accompanies the soprano Georgette Leblanc on the piano; never published, it is in the Historical Sound Recordings collection of Yale University.^[4]

Compositions[link]

	"Manon! avez-vous peur...On l'appelle Manon" From Manon (1884), performed by Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar in 1912. "Ah! fuyez, douce image" From Manon (1884). Recorded in 1910 by Aristodemo Giorgini for Edison Records. "Notre PĂšre" Performed by l'Atelier Vocal des Herbiers
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Operas[link]

Oratorios and cantatas[link]

• David Rizzio – 1863
• Marie-Magdeleine – 1873
• Ève – 1875
• Narcisse – 1877
• La Vierge – 1880
• Biblis – 1886
• La Terre Promise – 1900

Ballets[link]

• Le carillon – 1892
• Cigale – 1904
• Espada – 1908
• L'histoire de Manon (arr. Leighton Lucas) – 1974

Orchestral compositions[link]

• PremiĂšre suite d'orchestre – 1867
• ScĂšnes hongroises – 1870
• ScĂšnes pittoresques – 1874
• ScĂšnes dramatiques – 1875
• ScĂšnes napolitaines – 1876
• ScĂšnes de fĂ©erie – 1881
• ScĂšnes alsaciennes – 1882
• Fantasy for cello and orchestra – 1897
• Piano Concerto – 1903
• Ouverture de concert
• Overture to Racine's PhĂšdre
• Sarabande espagnole

Incidental music[link]

• Les Ă©rinnyes (containing the famous ÉlĂ©gie) – 1873
• Un drame sous Philippe II – 1875
• La vie de bohĂšme – 1876
• L'Hetman – 1877
• Notre-Dame de Paris – 1879
• Michel Strogoff – 1880
• Nana-Sahin – 1883
• ThĂ©odora – 1884
• Le crocodile – 1900
• PhĂšdre – 1900
• Le grillon du foyer – 1904
• Le manteau du roi – 1907
• Perce-Beige et les sept gnomes – 1909
• JĂ©rusalem – 1914

Song collections and cycles[link]

• PoĂ«me d'Avril (Armand Silvestre), Op. 14, songs, declaimed poems and piano solos, c.1866, published 1868
• PoĂ«me pastoral (Florian and Armand Silvestre), baritone, 3 female voices, piano, 1870–72, published 1872
• Chansons des bois d'Amaranthe (M. Legrand, after Redwitz), four solo voices (SATB) and piano, 1900, published 1901

Songs[link]

• À Colombine (Serenade d’Arlequin) (Louis Gallet)
• À la trĂ©passĂ©e (Armand Silvestre)
• À la Zuecca (Alfred de Musset)
• À Mignonne (Gustave Chouquet)
• Adieu (Complainte) (Armand Silvestre)
• Adieux (Gilbert)
• Anniversaire (Armand Silvestre)
• Aubade (Gabriel PrĂ©vost)
• Automne (Paul Collin)
• Berceuse (Gustave Chouquet)
• Bonne nuit! (Camille Distel)
• Ce que disent les cloches (Jean de la Vingtrie)
• C'est l'amour (Victor Hugo)
• Chant provençal (Michel CarrĂ©)
• Comme autrefois (Jeanne Dortzal)
• CrĂ©puscule (Armand Silvestre)
• Dans l'air plein de fils de soie (Armand Silvestre)
• Declaration (Gustave Chouquet)
• ÉlĂ©gie (Louis Gallet)
• Epitaphe (Armand Silvestre)
• Être aimĂ© (Jules Massenet after Victor Hugo)
• Feux-follets d'amour (Madeleine Grain)
• Guitare (Victor Hugo)
• La Lettre (Catulle MendĂšs)
• La mort de la cigale (Maurice FaurĂ©)
• La veillĂ©e du Petit JĂ©sus (AndrĂ© (Theuriet)
• La vie d'une rose, Op. 12, No. 3 (Jules Ruelle)
• L'air du soir emportati (Armand Silvestre)
• L'Ăąme des oiseau (Elena Vacarescu)
• Le portrait d'une enfant, Op. 12, No. 4 (Pierre de Ronsard)
• Le printemps visite la Terre (Jeanne Chaffotte)
• Le sais-tu? (StĂ©phan BordĂšse)
• Le sentier perdu (Paul de Choudens)
• Le verger (Camille Distel)
• Les alcyons (Joseph Antoine Autran)
• Les bois de pins (Camille Distel)
• Les enfants
• Les femmes de Magdala (Louis Gallet)
• Les mains (Noel Bazan)
• Les oiselets (Jacques Normand)
• L'esclave, Op. 12, No. 1 (ThĂ©ophile Gautier)
• LĂšve-toi (Armand Silvestre)
• Loin de moi ta lĂšvre Qui Ment (Jean Aicard)
• Madrigal (Armand Silvestre)
• Musette (Jean Pierre Claris de Florian)
• Narcisse Ă  la fontaine (Paul Collin)
• NĂ©Ă©re (Michel CarrĂ©)
• Nocturne (Jeanne Dortzal)
• Nouvelle chanson sur un vieil air (Victor Hugo)
• Nuit d'Espagne (Louis Gallet)
• Ouvre tes yeux bleus (Paul Robiquet)
• PensĂ©e d'automne (Armand Silvestre)
• Pour qu'Ă  l'espĂ©rance (Armand Silvestre)
• PrĂ©lude (Armand Silvestre)
• PremiĂšre danse (Jacques Clary Jean Normand)
• Puisqu’elle a pris ma vie (Paul Robiquet)
• Que l'heure est donc brĂšve (Armand Silvestre)
• RĂȘvons, c'est l'heure (Paul Verlaine)
• Riez-vous (Armand Silvestre)
• Rondel de la belle au bois (Julien Gruaz)
• Rose de Mai (S.Poirson)
• Roses d’Octobre (Paul Collin)
• SĂ©rĂ©nade (MoliĂšre)
• SĂ©rĂ©nade aux mariĂ©s, Op. 12, No. 2 (Jules Ruelle)
• SĂ©rĂ©nade de Zanetto (François CoppĂ©e)
• SĂ©rĂ©nade du passant (François CoppĂ©e)
• Si tu veux, Mignonne (AbbĂ© Claude Georges Boyer)
• Soir de rĂȘve (Antonin Lugnier)
• Soleil couchant (Victor Hugo)
• Sonnet (Georges Pradel)
• Sonnet matinal (Armand Silvestre)
• Sonnet payen (Armand Silvestre)
• Souhait (Jacques Normand)
• Sous les branches (Armand Silvestre)
• Souvenez-vous, Vierge Marie! (Georges Boyer)
• Souvenir de Venise (Alfred de Musset)
• Stances (Gilbert)
• Sur la source (Armand Silvestre)
• Un adieu (Armand Silvestre)
• Un souffle de parfums (Armand Silvestre)
• Voici que les grans lys (Armand Silvestre)
• Voix suprĂȘme (Antoinette Lafaix-GontiĂ©)
• Vous aimerez demain (Armand Silvestre)

Other[link]

• Miscellaneous piano pieces
• Massenet completed and orchestrated LĂ©o Delibes' unfinished opera Kassya.
• Prelude in C major for organ.

References[link]

Notes

Cited sources

• Irvine, Demar (1994). Massenet: A Chronicle of His Life and Times. Portland, Oregan: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0-931340-63-2. 
• Harding, James (1970). Massenet. New York: St. Martin's Press. 
• Massenet, Jules (1971). My Recollections. New York: AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-04229-5. 
• Full text of My recollections at archive.org
• Huebner, Steven (2006). French Opera at the Fin de Siecle: Part I – Jules Massenet. Oxford Univ. Press, US. pp. 25–168. ISBN 978-0-19-518954-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=KSQGZOTQKmwC&pg=PA25&dq=%22The+Ascent+of+Massenet%22. 
• Finck, Henry T. (2007). Massenet and His Operas. READ BOOKS. ISBN 978-1-4067-3416-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=byUI4dmwy4AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Massenet+And+His+Operas%22. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jules Massenet

• Works by Jules Massenet at Project Gutenberg
• Free scores by Jules Massenet at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Jules Massenet in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Massenet – Meditation from Thais on YouTube for cello and orchestra.
• Masters of French Music: Jules Massenet by Arthur Hervey
• All Music biographical notes on Massenet (in English)
• Extensive biography with list of references and compositions (in French)
• Scores and Vocal Scores on Indiana University Bloomington Libraries:
  • Werther: Full orchestral score, French text only
  • Manon: Full orchestral score, French text only
  • Don Quichotte: Vocal score (piano reduction), French and English libretto

Yo-Yo Ma 马揋揋
Ma plays the cello during the "Presentation of the Crystal Award" at the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 25, 2008.
Background information
Born	(1955-10-07) October 7, 1955 (age 56) Paris, France
Genres	Classical
Occupations	Cellist, composer, pedagogue
Instruments	Cello, piano, viola, violin
Years active	fl. ca. 1961–present
Labels	CBS, RCA, Sony Classical
Associated acts	Silk Road Ensemble
Website	yo-yoma.com
Notable instruments
Violoncello Davydov 1712 Stradivarius Domenico Montagnana 1733 Luis and Clark

Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is an American^[1] cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001^[2] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.^[3] Ma is regarded by some as the most famous cellist of the modern age.^[4]

Early life[link]

Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris on October 7, 1955, to Chinese parents and had a musical upbringing. His mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University. His family moved to New York when he was five years old.

At a very young age, Ma began studying violin, and later viola, before settling on the cello in 1960 at age four. According to Ma, his first choice was the double bass due to its large size, but he compromised and took up cello instead. The child prodigy began performing before audiences at age five, and performed for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was seven.^[5][6] At age eight, he appeared on American television with his sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma, in a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Ma attended Trinity School in New York but transferred to the Professional Children's School which he graduated at fifteen years of age. ^[7]He appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra in a performance of the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations.

A painting featuring Yo-Yo Ma hanging in Currier House, his residence at Harvard University

Ma studied at the Juilliard School at age nine with Leonard Rose and briefly attended Columbia University before ultimately enrolling at Harvard University later on. Prior to entering Harvard, Ma played in the Marlboro Festival Orchestra under the direction of nonagenarian cellist and conductor Pablo Casals. Ma would ultimately spend four summers at the Marlboro Music Festival after meeting and falling in love with Mount Holyoke College sophomore and festival administrator Jill Hornor his first summer there in 1972.^[8]

However, even before that time, Ma had steadily gained fame and had performed with most of the world's major orchestras. His recordings and performances of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites recorded in 1983 and again in 1994–1997 are particularly acclaimed. He has also played a good deal of chamber music, often with the pianist Emanuel Ax, with whom he has a close friendship back from their days together at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Ma received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1976.^[9] In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard.^[10]

Career[link]

Ma performs at the White House for (left to right, seated) President Ronald Reagan, Crown Princess Michiko and Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, and First Lady Nancy Reagan, 1987

Ma currently plays with his own Silk Road Ensemble, which has the goal of bringing together musicians from diverse countries all of which are historically linked via the Silk Road, and records on the Sony Classical label.^[11] Ma's primary performance instrument is the cello nicknamed Petunia, built by Domenico Montagnana in 1733. It was named this by a female student that approached him after one of his classes in Salt Lake City asking if he had a nickname for his cello. He said, "No, but if I play for you, will you name it?" She chose Petunia, and it stuck.^[12] This cello, more than 270 years old and valued at US$2.5 million, was lost in the fall of 1999 when Ma accidentally left the instrument in a taxicab in New York City.^[13] It was later recovered undamaged. Another of Ma's cellos, the Davidov Stradivarius, was previously owned by Jacqueline du PrĂ© who passed it to him upon her death, and owned by the Vuitton Foundation. Though Du PrĂ© previously voiced her frustration with the "unpredictability" of this cello, Ma attributed the comment to du PrĂ©'s impassioned style of playing, adding that the Stradivarius cello must be "coaxed" by the player.^{[citation needed]} It was until recently set up in a Baroque manner, since Ma exclusively played Baroque music on it. He also owns a modern cello made by Peter and Wendela Moes of Peissenberg, Germany, and one of carbon fiber by the Luis and Clark company of Boston.^[14]

In 1997 he was featured on John Williams' soundtrack to the Hollywood film, Seven Years in Tibet. In 2000, he was heard on the soundtrack of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and in 2003 on that of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He collaborated with Williams again on the original score for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha. Yo-Yo Ma has also worked with world-renowned Italian composer Ennio Morricone and has recorded Morricone's compositions of the Dollars Trilogy including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He also has over 75 albums, 15 of which are Grammy Award winners. Ma is a recipient of the International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.

Ma was named Peace Ambassador by UN then Secretary-General Kofi Annan in January 2006.^[15]

On November 3, 2009, President Obama appointed Ma to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.^[16] His music was featured in the 2010 documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, narrated by Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman.^[17][18][19]

Playing style[link]

Ma with Condoleezza Rice after performing a duet at the presentation of the 2001 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Awards.

Ma has been referred to as "omnivorous" by critics, and possesses a more eclectic repertoire than is typical for classical musicians.^[20] A sampling of his versatility in addition to numerous recordings of the standard classical repertoire would include his recordings of Baroque pieces using period instruments; American bluegrass music; traditional Chinese melodies including the soundtrack to the film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; the tangos of Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla; an eclectic and unusual collaboration with Bobby McFerrin (where Ma admitted to being terrified of the improvisation McFerrin pushed him toward); as well as the music of modern minimalist Philip Glass in such works as the 2002 piece Naqoyqatsi. He is known for his smooth, rich tone as well as his considerable virtuosity, including a cello recording of NiccolĂČ Paganini's 24th Caprice for solo violin, ZoltĂĄn KodĂĄly's cello sonata, and other demanding works.

Notable live performances[link]

On July 5, 1986, Ma performed on the New York Philharmonic's tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, which was televised live on ABC Television.^[21]. The orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta, performed in Central Park.

Ma performed a duet with Condoleezza Rice at the presentation of the 2001 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Awards. Ma was the first performer on September 11, 2002, at the site of the World Trade Center, while the first of the names of the dead were read in remembrance on the first anniversary of the attack on the WTC. He played the Sarabande from Bach's Suite in C minor (#5). He performed a special arrangement of Sting's "Fragile" with Sting and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ma has also appeared as a Pennington Great Performers series artist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra in 2005.

He performed John Williams' "Air and Simple Gifts" at the inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, along with Itzhak Perlman (violin), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet). While the quartet did play live, the music played simultaneously over speakers and on television was a recording made two days prior due to concerns over the cold weather damaging the instruments. Ma was quoted as saying "A broken string was not an option. It was wicked cold."^[22]

On May 3, 2009, Ma performed the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe's "Self Comes to Mind" for solo cello and two percussionists with John Ferrari and Ayano Kataoka at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The work is based on a poetic description written for the composer of the evolution of brain into mind by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, and featured, at the premiere, a film of brain scans provided by Hanna Damasio plus other images, coordinated with the music during the performance.

On August 29, 2009, Ma performed at the funeral mass for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Pieces he performed included the Sarabande movement from Bach's Cello Suite No. 6, and Franck's Panis Angelicus with Placido Domingo.^[23]

On October 3, 2009, Ma appeared alongside Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the National Arts Centre gala in Ottawa. Harper, a noted fan of The Beatles, played the piano and sang a rendition of "With A Little Help From My Friends" while Ma accompanied him on his cello.

On October 16, 2011, Ma performed at the memorial for Steve Jobs held in Stanford University's Memorial Church.^[24]

In 2011, Ma performed with American dancer Charles "Lil Buck" Riley in the United States and in China at the U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture.^[25]

Media appearances[link]

Ma has appeared in an episode of the animated children's television series, Arthur, as well as on The West Wing (episode "Noël", in which he performed the prelude to the Bach Cello Suite No.1 at a Christmas dinner at the White House), Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In The Simpsons episode "Missionary: Impossible", Ma, (voiced by Hank Azaria) runs after Homer Simpson along with many other frequent guests of PBS.

He also starred in the visual accompaniment to his recordings of Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello.

Ma was also seen with former Apple Inc. and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs. Ma was often invited to press events for Jobs's companies, and has performed on stage during event keynote presentations, as well as appearing in a commercial for the Macintosh computer.

Ma was a guest on the Not My Job segment of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on April 7, 2007, where he won for listener Thad Moore.^[26]

On October 27, 2008, Ma appeared as a guest and performer on The Colbert Report.^[27] He was also a show's guest on November 1, 2011, where he performed songs from The Goat Rodeo Sessions with fellow musicians Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile.^[28]

According to research done by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of Harvard University, in 2010 for the PBS series Faces of America, in which Ma made an appearance, a relative had hidden the Ma family genealogy in his home in China to save it from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Ma's paternal ancestry can be traced back eighteen generations to the year 1217. This genealogy had been compiled in the 18th century by an ancestor, tracing everyone with the surname Ma, through the paternal line, back to one common ancestor in the 3rd century BC. Ma's generation name, "Yo", had been decided by his fourth great grand-uncle, Ma Ji Cang, in 1755.^[29][30]

Personal life[link]

Ma married his long-time girlfriend Jill Hornor, a German language professor, in 1977. He proposed outside her apartment. They have two children, Nicholas and Emily, and reside in Winchester, Massachusetts.^[31] Ma's elder sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma, who was also born in Paris, is a violinist married to Michael Dadap, a New York–based guitarist from the Philippines.^[32]

Discography[link]

Awards and recognitions[link]

Avery Fisher Prize

• 1978

Award of Distinction (International Cello Festival)

• 2007

Dan David Prize

• 2006

Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) (honoris causa)

• 2005 Princeton University

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance:

• 1996 Brahms/Beethoven/Mozart: Clarinet Trios (Sony 57499)
• 1993 Brahms: Sonatas for Cello & Piano (Sony 48191)
• 1992 Brahms: Piano Quartets Op. 25, Op. 26 (Sony 45846)
• 1987 Beethoven: Cello and Piano Sonata No. 4 in C & Variations (CBS 42121)
• 1986 Brahms: Cello and Piano Sonatas in E Minor Op. 38, and F Op. 99 (RCA 17022)

Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance:

• 1998 Yo-Yo Ma Premieres – Danielpour, Kirchner, Rouse (Sony Classical 66299)
• 1995 The New York Album – Works of Albert, BartĂłk & Bloch (Sony 57961)
• 1993 Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante/Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme (Sony 48382)
• 1990 Barber: Cello Concerto, Op. 22/Britten: Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68 (CBS 44900)

Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance:

• 1985 Bach: The Unaccompanied Cello Suites (CBS 37867)

Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition:

• 1995 The New York Album, Stephen Albert: Cello Concerto (Sony 57961)

Grammy Award for Best Classical Album:

• 1998 Yo-Yo Ma Premieres – Danielpour, Kirchner, Rouse (Sony Classical 66299)

Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album:

• 2010 Songs of Joy & Peace (Sony Classical B001BN1V8U)
• 2004 Obrigado Brazil (Sony 89935)
• 2001 Appalachian Journey (Sony 66782)
• 1999 Soul of the Tango – The Music of Ástor Piazzolla (Sony Classical 63122)

Glenn Gould Prize

• 1999

Kennedy Center Honor

• 2011

Latin Grammy for Best Instrumental Album

• 2004 Obrigado Brazil (Sony 89935)

LĂ©onie Sonning Music Prize

• 2006

National Medal of Arts

• 2001^[2]

Presidential Medal of Freedom

• Nominated: November 17, 2010^[33]
• Awarded: February 15, 2011^[34]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Asian Americans portal
	Biography portal
	Music portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yo-Yo Ma

• Official Website
• Yo-Yo Ma at Allmusic
• About Us, The Children's Orchestra Society, ChildrensOrch.org, 2007
• Yo-Yo Ma in Conversation from WGBH Radio Boston
• Yo-Yo Ma Interview on Time.com, October 2008
• Yo-Yo Ma Podcast Series produced by Sony BMG Masterworks
• Yo-Yo Ma TV Interview with Ennio Morricone from C Music TV
• 2006 Dan David Prize laureate
• Welcome to Baku: Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Ensemble with Alim Gasimov and Fargana," by Aida Huseinova in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 14:2 (Summer 2006), p. 14

Nathan Mironovich Milstein (January 13, 1904 [O.S. December 31, 1903] â€“ December 21, 1992) was a Russian-born American virtuoso violinist.

Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid 80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand.

Biography[link]

He was born in Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine), the fourth child of seven, to a middle-class Jewish family with virtually no musical background. It was a concert by the 11-year-old Jascha Heifetz that inspired his parents to make a violinist out of Milstein. As a child of seven, he started violin studies (as suggested by his parents, to keep him out of mischief) with the eminent violin pedagogue Pyotr Stolyarsky, also the teacher of renowned violinist David Oistrakh.

When Milstein was 11, Leopold Auer invited him to become one of his students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Milstein reminisced:

Every little boy who had the dream of playing better than the other boy wanted to go to Auer. He was a very gifted man and a good teacher. I used to go to the Conservatory twice a week for classes. I played every lesson with forty or fifty people sitting and listening. Two pianos were in the classroom and a pianist accompanied us. When Auer was sick, he would ask me to come to his home.^[1]

Milstein may in fact have been the last of the great Russian violinists to have had personal contact with Auer. Auer did not name Milstein in his memoirs but mentions "two boys from Odessa ... both of whom disappeared after I left St. Petersburg in June 1917."^[2] Neither is Milstein's name in the registry of the St Petersburg Conservatory.

Milstein also studied with Eugùne Ysaÿe in Belgium. He told film-maker Christopher Nupen, director of Nathan Milstein – A Portrait, that he learned almost nothing from Ysaÿe but enjoyed his company enormously. In a 1977 interview printed in High Fidelity, he said, "I went to Ysaÿe in 1926 but he never paid any attention to me. I think it might have been better this way. I had to think for myself."^[3]

Milstein met Vladimir Horowitz and his pianist sister Regina in 1921 when he played a recital in Kiev. They invited him for tea at their parents' home. Milstein later said, "I came for tea and stayed three years."^[4] Milstein and Horowitz performed together, as "children of the revolution," throughout the Soviet Union and struck up a life-long friendship. In 1925, they went on a concert tour of Western Europe together.

He made his American debut in 1929 with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He eventually settled in New York and became an American citizen. He toured repeatedly throughout Europe, maintaining residences in London and Paris.

A transcriber and composer, Milstein arranged many works for violin and wrote his own cadenzas for many concertos. He was obsessed with articulating each note perfectly and would often spend long periods of time working out fingerings which would make passages sound more articulated. One of his best known compositions is Paganiniana, a set of variations on various themes from the works of NiccolĂČ Paganini.

In 1948, his recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, with Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic, had the distinction of being the first catalogue item in Columbia's newly introduced long-playing twelve-inch 33 rpm vinyl records, Columbia ML 4001.

He was awarded the LĂ©gion d'honneur by France in 1968, and received a Grammy Award for his recording of Bach's sonatas and partitas in 1975. He was also awarded Kennedy Center honors by US President Ronald Reagan.

A recital he gave in Stockholm in July 1986 proved to be his final performance. This recital was recorded in its in entirety and shows the remarkable condition of his technique at age 82. A fall shortly afterwards in which he severely broke his left hand ended his career.

After playing many different violins in his earlier days, Milstein finally acquired the 1716 "Goldman" Stradivari in 1945 which he used for the rest of his life. He renamed this Stradivari the "Maria Teresa" in honour of his daughter Maria (presently wife of Marchese GiovanAngelo Theodoli-Braschi, Duke of Nemi and Grandee of Spain, descendant from Pope Pius VI) and his wife Therese. He also performed on the 1710 ex-"Dancla" Stradivarius for a short period.

During the late 1980s, Milstein published his memoirs, From Russia to the West, in which he discussed his life of constant performance and socializing. Milstein discusses the personalities of important composers such as Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky and conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski, all of whom he knew personally. He also discusses his best friends, pianist Vladimir Horowitz, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and ballet director George Balanchine, as well as other violinists such as Fritz Kreisler and David Oistrakh.

Milstein was married twice, remaining married to his second wife, Therese, until his death. He died of a heart attack in London on December 21, 1992, just three weeks before his 89th birthday.^[5]

References[link]

• From Russia to the West: The Musical Memoirs & Reminiscences of Nathan Milstein by Nathan Milstein & Solomon Volkov. Limelight Edition, 1991.
• Nathan Milstein by Tully Potter, 1995. From CD booklet notes (Testament SBT 1047).
• Henry Roth, Nathan Milstein, in Violin Virtuosos, From Paganini to the 21st Century, Los Angeles, California Classics Books, 1997, pp. 130-138
• Paolo Cecchinelli, Nathan Milstein. Paganiniana. Variations for violin solo, in Quaderni dell’Istituto di Studi Paganiniani, n. 12 (2000), pp. 25-36.
• Beethoven and Brahms violin concertos. (2001) EMI Records Ltd. Barcode 0724356758353

External links[link]

• http://www.geometry.net/violinists/milstein_nathan.html
• Milstein website (but with dead links)
• Inkpot.com biography

Marylene Dosse (Born 23 October 1939) is a French-born pianist currently a US citizen, living in the United States.

Biography[link]

Ms Dosse was born in Domfront in Normandy, France - the only place in which her mother could find a hospital which had not been taken over by the invading German armed forces.

She entered the Paris Conservatoire where she studied initially under Jean Batalla and took supplementary lessons in piano and chamber music with Jacques Février. Later she studied with Jeanne-Marie Darré, who took over Batalla's advanced piano class. In 1960 she won first prize at the Conservatoire. After winning prizes in competitions in Salzburg and Naples, she began on an extensive concert career. She also participated in master classes given by Alfred Brendel, Jörg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda. When Badura-Skoda was offered a position as artist in residence at the University of Wisconsin, he invited her to come as his assistant. She subsequently became artist in residence for a group of seven campuses of the University of Wisconsin, and married William R Peters, one of the deans of the university. She became a US citizen.

Repertoire and recordings[link]

She was approached by George de Mendelssohn, the president of the Vox Records and began an extensive series of recordings of French and Spanish piano works, including the complete solo piano works of Granados, which was Critics' Choice of the month in High Fidelity magazine, and Saint-Saëns as well as numerous neglected works for piano and orchestra. She is the pianist of the Castalia Trio, together with violinist James Lyon and cellist Kim Cook. She also appears in violin and piano duo recitals with the violinist Marianne Behrendt.

Reviewing a 1979 recital, Nancy Malitz, the music critic of the Cincinnati Enquirer described Ms Dosse as "an outstanding musician with a structural and rhythmic grasp of music that one finds in the finest conductors. Dosse is also a superb pianist with technical and tonal resources to spare."^[1]

Academic career[link]

Ms Dosse has been a guest faculty member of Indiana University-Bloomington and artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin. In 1986 she was appointed a distinguished Professor at the Pennsylvania State University. In 1992 she was the only woman elected to the Institute of the Arts and Humanistic Studies, and in 1999 the university awarded her the Faculty Medal for Outstanding achievement in the Arts and Humanities. She is now an emerita professor residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Recordings[link]

• Claude Debussy Fantaisie for piano and orchestra (with the Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg Louis de Froment, conductor) Candide CE31069
• Charles Gounod Fantasy on the Russian Anthem (with the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra, Siegfried Landau, conductor) Candide QCE 31088
• Enrique Granados Complete Piano Works (4 cd)
• Édouard Lalo Piano concerto (with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Matthias Kuntzsch, conductor) Candice QCE 31102
• Jules Massenet Piano concerto (with the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra; Siegfried Landau, conductor) Candide QCE 31088
• Felix Mendelssohn Concerto for violin and piano (with Susanne Lautenbacher, violin, and the WĂŒrttemberg Chamber Orchestra, Jörg Faerber, conductor) Turnabout QTV-S 34662
• Franz Xaver Mozart Piano concerto op. 14 (with the LĂŒbeck Orchestra ProMusica; Matthias Kuntzsch, conductor) Turnabout QTV 34686
• Gabriel PiernĂ© Piano concerto (with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Matthias Kuntzsch, conductor) Candice QCE 31102
• Camille Saint-SaĂ«ns Complete Solo Piano Works
• Camille Saint-SaĂ«ns "Africa" for piano and orchestra (with the Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg Louis de Froment, conductor) Candide QCE 31088

Piano duo recordings

• Emanuel Chabrier Three romantic Waltzes for two pianos (with Annie Petit). Turnabout TV-S 34586
• Norman Dello Joio Complete music for piano duo (with Debra Tork). Albany Records. Troy 468
• Camille Saint-SaĂ«ns Carnival of the Animals (with Annie Petit). Turnabout TV-S 34586
• Deodat de Severac The Tin Soldier for four hands (with Annie Petit). Turnabout TV-S 34586
• French music for piano duo. Works by Bizet, Chabrier, Faure, Lalo, D'indy, Massenet, Caplet, Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Schmitt, Severac and Poulenc (with Annie Petit) 2 volumes: Vol 1 Pantheon D10699, Vol 2 Pantheon D23677.

Chamber music

• Johannes Brahms Piano trio in B major (with the Castalia Trio). SKVRNA SA0046 2131
• Louise Farrenc Sonata op.39
• Maurice Ravel Piano trio (with the Castalia Trio). SKVRNA SA0046 2131
• Pauline Viardot Six Pieces, Sonatine in A minor

Sources[link]

• Marylene Dosse's Website
• Timbrell, Charles. French Pianism: A Historical Perspective. Amadeus Press; 2 edition (March 1, 2003). ISBN 1-57467-045-X; ISBN 978-1-57467-045-5

References[link]

1. ^ "Dosse Threads A String Of Pearls" by Nancy Malitz, Cincinnati Enquirer; Monday, February 26, 1979

External links[link]

• Marylene Dosse's Website

Josef Hassid (Polish: JĂłzef Chasyd) (28 December 1923 - 7 November 1950) was a Polish violinist.

Born 28 December 1923 to Jewish parents in SuwaƂki, Poland, as Joseph or Józef Chasyd, he was the second youngest of four children. He lost his mother when he was ten and was brought up by his father, Owseij, who took charge of his career. After lessons with a local violin teacher he studied from 1934 at the Chopin School of Music in Warsaw under Mieczyslaw Michalowicz (1876-1965) and Irena Dubiska (1899-1989). In 1935 he entered the first Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Warsaw, but suffered a memory lapse; he received an honorary diploma.

His father arranged for him to play for fellow Pole BronisƂaw Huberman (1882-1947), who was much impressed and he arranged for Hassid to study under the Hungarian virtuoso Carl Flesch (1873-1944) at his summer course in 1937 at Spa, Belgium, where fellow students included Ivry Gitlis (b. 1922) and Ginette Neveu (1919-1949). He developed a tremendous passion for a young lady there, three years his senior, but the liaison was broken up by her family (possibly because they were not Jewish), which had a disturbing effect on him.

London studies and concerts[link]

Hassid came to London with his father in 1938 at Flesch’s invitation, to continue studies with him. Flesch concentrated on his musical and interpretative development rather than technical skills. Musical celebrities who heard him play at Flesch’s house and were astonished at his ability included Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973), Jacques Thibaud (1880-1953), David Oistrakh (1908-1974) and Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962). In a passage supplementing his father’s memoirs Carl F. Flesch wrote that “Hassid was no doubt one of the strongest violin talents of his time. Indeed Fritz Kreisler, after hearing him at my father’s house, said: ‘A fiddler such as X [mentioning a very famous name] is born every 100 years; one like Hassid every 200 years.’” ^[1] Kreisler loaned Hassid for the remainder of his career a violin of 1860 by the French maker J.B. Vuillaume (d. 1875), which was a great improvement on the instrument he had played up until then.

He gave a private recital with the pianist Ivor Newton on 9 March 1938 as “Yossef Hassid” at the home of Mr L.L. Gildesgame, 41 Clifton Hill, South Hampstead, where the guests included Sir Henry Wood.^[2] After giving a private recital at the home of Sir Philip Sassoon, Hassid made his public debut at a recital with Gerald Moore in the Wigmore Hall on 3 April 1940, billed as the “Polish Boy Violinist”, playing works by Corelli (La folia variations), Debussy, Schubert (Sonata in G), Bach (adagio and fugue from one of the unaccompanied Sonatas), Paganini (I palpiti) and others. The next day The Times said Hassid “showed imagination and musical insight” and that “his performance created a strong impression.” Many years later Moore commented that Hassid was “the greatest instrumental genius I’ve ever partnered. I don’t know how to explain his incandescence. He had technical perfection, marvellous intonation, glorious tone – but there was something above that which was quite incredible, a metaphysical quality. Sadly he had an unhappy love affair which literally drove him mad. But then maybe the unrest inside him made him play so fantastically.” (Interview in The Gramophone, April 1973.) Three weeks later on the evening of 25 April he made his orchestral debut at the Queen’s Hall in a Polish Relief Fund concert (broadcast on the BBC Home Service) playing the Tchaikovsky concerto with the LPO under Gregor(y) Fitelberg (during which he suffered a memory lapse). The concerto was preceded by two short items by Chabrier and Kondracki and followed by Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The next day The Times reported that Hassid “showed some signs of nervousness at the outset”, but “the beauty of his tone was striking and the brilliance of the finale” earned him generous applause.

He also gave a few recital broadcasts on the BBC and played the Beethoven concerto during an afternoon concert in the Queen’s Hall with Sir Adrian Boult conducting the LPO on 5 January 1941. On the 8th The Times commented of Hassid “a technically accomplished performance, but he has not yet attained to the purity of style, especially in the matter of sustaining an even tone throughout a phrase that the music needs.” Hassid’s final concert was also at the Queen’s Hall, on the afternoon of 1 March 1941, where he played the Brahms concerto with the Sidney Beer Symphony Orchestra of about thirty players under Sidney Beer. The Times review (4 March) noted that the concerto was “the least satisfactory part of the concert, because neither the young violinist not the conductor seemed to have a determined view of Brahms to present to their hearers. The solo performance was scarcely more than that of a clever student who has worked hard to memorize the concerto but is still liable to be thrown off his stroke, even to the point of forgetting his notes occasionally. The rhythm throughout was indecisive and the last pages of the Finale became almost a race between soloist and orchestra.”

Illness and death[link]

Although originally shy and introverted Hassid was described as a carefree, likeable young man when he first came to London, but by February 1941 it became apparent that he was suffering from a severe mental disorder with violent mood swings, often becoming sullen and withdrawn, turning against his violin, his father and his religion. An inability to recognise close friends rapidly led to complete withdrawal from the world at large. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and on 19 June, withdrawn and uncooperative, he was admitted to St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton for insulin coma therapy and electroconvulsive therapy. Hassid’s agent, the impresario Harold Holt, wrote to the superintendent of St Andrew’s: “He is nothing short of a violinistic genius and of such exceptional quality that we want to make the greatest effort possible to cure him. I would particularly like to stress that he is most exceptional, and might have – had this illness not developed – been one of the greatest figures in the violinistic world.” His condition improved for a time and he left the hospital on 2 May 1942, but on 9 December that year he was certified insane and admitted to Moorcroft House, a private asylum in Hillingdon, Middlesex, three days later, for further treatment. On 13 July 1943 Hassid was transferred to an asylum in Epsom (Long Grove Hospital), morose, indifferent and evasive, either silent or laughing inanely. He remained there for the rest of his life. His father had died in 1949 and the following year after an unsuccessful brain operation (bilateral prefrontal leucotomy) on 20 October Hassid developed meningitis and died at 10.17 p.m. on 7 November 1950; he was not quite 27 years old. The hospital records show his height as 5ft 3Ÿin and his weight as 9 stone.

Recordings[link]

Fred Gaisberg of EMI arranged for a test recording of Elgar’s La Capricieuse (Op.17) with accompanist Ivor Newton at the Abbey Road Studios on 9 Jan. 1939 when Hassid had just turned 15 and then Walter Legge produced a further eight recordings on 12 and 28 June and 29 Nov. 1940, this time accompanied by Gerald Moore. The delay was due to Hassid’s agent Harold Holt who thought he should continue his studies for another year. Some who heard Hassid perform live say that the records do not show him at his best. Even so, his performances of Joseph Achron’s Hebrew Melody, Sarasate’s Zapateado and Kreisler’s Caprice viennois in particular are superb and show virtuosity of the highest order in expressive phrasing. To quote from Bryan Crimp’s note with the Testament CD: “The moment Hassid puts bow to string he beguiles the ear via a captivating and uniquely individual sound . . ., a peerless technique and an arresting and frequently original interpretative approach. His technical security and cleanness of attack are awesome, his tone at once vibrant, virile and indescribably pure and sweet.” Hassid apparently thought that his vibrato sounded too fast on record, but this is probably just a matter of taste.

Based on notes with CD issues, Feinstein 1997, newspaper advertisements and reviews, etc.

Complete published recordings issued on CD:

• Pearl GEMMCD9939 (1992)
• Testament SBT1010 (1992)
• Symposium SYMPCD1327 (2003)

(The Testament and Symposium CDs also include the test from 1939.)

Josef Hassid was one of several prodigies whose brilliant careers were short lived. Bruno Monsaingeon's The Art of Violin commemorates Hassid.^[3]

References[link]

• STRAD magazine 94.1983/84.8; 12/1997; 5/1998, p. 455

STRAD Index

• Anthony Feinstein: “Psychology and the child prodigy: the mental illness of violin virtuoso Josef Hassid.” (History of Psychiatry, vol. 8, part 1, no. 29 [1 March 1997], pp. 55-60.)

External links[link]

• Hassid photo