Bedřich Smetana (; 1824, Litomyšl, Bohemia 1884, Prague, Bohemia) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride, for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland") which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land, and for his First String Quartet From My Life.

Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.

In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague's new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theatre's principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city's musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative work, and may have hastened the health breakdown which precipitated his resignation from the theatre in 1874.

By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum, and his subsequent death. Smetana's reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors. However, relatively few of Smetana's works are in the international repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer.

Biography

Family background and childhood

Bedřich Smetana was born on 1824, in Litomyšl, east of Prague near the traditional border between Bohemia and Moravia, then provinces of the Habsburg Empire. He was the third child, and first son, of František Smetana and his third wife Barbora Lynková. František had fathered eight children in two earlier marriages, five daughters surviving infancy; he and Barbora had ten more children, of whom seven reached adulthood. The Smetana family came from the Hradec Králové region of Bohemia. František had initially learned the trade of a brewer, and had acquired moderate wealth during the Napoleonic Wars by supplying clothing and provisions to the French Army. He subsequently managed several breweries before coming to Litomyšl in 1823 as brewer to Count Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle dominates the town.

The elder Smetana, although uneducated, had a natural gift for music and was a competent violinist who played in a string quartet. Bedřich was introduced to music by his father and in October 1830, at the age of six, gave his first public performance. At a concert held in Litomyšl's Philosophical Academy he played a piano arrangement of Auber's overture to La Muette de Portici, to a rapturous reception. In 1831 the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec in the south of Bohemia – the region where, a generation later, Gustav Mahler grew up.

In 1835, František retired to a farm in the south-eastern region of Bohemia. whose departure for Prague in 1838 may have influenced Smetana's own desire to experience life in the capital. The following year, with František's approval, he enrolled at Prague's Academic Grammar School under Josef Jungmann, a distinguished poet and linguist who was a leading figure in the movement for Czech national revival.

Apprentice musician

First steps

Smetana arrived in Prague in the autumn of 1839. Finding Jungmann's school uncongenial (he was mocked by his classmates for his country manners), However, the Prague idyll ended when František discovered his son's truancy, and removed him from the city.

An older cousin, Josef Smetana, a teacher at the Premonstratensian School in Plzeň (Pilsen), then offered to supervise the boy's remaining schooling, and in the summer of 1840 Smetana departed for Plzeň. He composed several pieces for her, among which are two Quadrilles, a song duet, and an incomplete piano study for the left hand. He also composed his first orchestral piece, a B flat minuet.

Student and teacher

By the time Smetana completed his schooling, his father's fortunes had declined. Although František now agreed that his son should follow a musical career, he could not provide financial support. and no immediate prospects. Lacking any formal musical training, he needed a teacher, and was introduced by Kateřina Kolářová's mother to Josef Proksch, head of the Prague Music Institute – where Kateřina was now studying. In 1846 Smetana attended concerts given in Prague by Berlioz, and in all likelihood met the French master at a reception arranged by Proksch. At the home of Count Thun he met Robert and Clara Schumann, and showed them his G minor sonata, but failed to win their approval for this work – they detected too much of Berlioz in it.

Early career

Revolutionary

Smetana's concert tour to Western Bohemia was poorly supported, so he abandoned it and returned to Prague, where he made a living from private pupils and occasional appearances as an accompanist in chamber concerts. For a brief period in 1848, Smetana was a revolutionary. In the climate of political change and upheaval that swept through Europe in that year, a pro-democracy movement in Prague led by Smetana's old friend Karel Havlíček was urging an end to Habsburg absolutist rule and for more political autonomy. In June 1848, as the Habsburg armies moved to suppress rebellious tendencies, Prague came under attack from the Austrian forces led by the Prince of Windisch-Grätz. As a member of Svornost, Smetana helped to man the barricades on the Charles Bridge. The nascent uprising was quickly crushed, but Smetana avoided the imprisonment or exile received by leaders such as Havlíček. This encouragement was the beginning of a friendship that was of great value to Smetana in his subsequent career. Despite Liszt's lack of financial support, Smetana was able to start a Piano Institute in late August 1848, with twelve students. After a period of struggle the Institute began to flourish and became briefly fashionable, particularly among supporters of Czech nationalism in whose eyes Smetana was developing a reputation. Proksch wrote of Smetana's support for his people's cause, and said that he "could well become the transformer of my ideas in the Czech language." In 1849 the Institute was relocated to the home of Kateřina's parents, and began to attract distinguished visitors; Liszt came regularly, and the former emperor Ferdinand, who had settled in Prague, attended the school's matinée concerts. He also wrote numerous short experimental pieces collected under the name Album Leaves, and a series of polkas.

Private sorrows and professional disenchantment

In the years between 1854 and 1856 Smetana suffered a series of personal blows. In July 1854 his second daughter, Gabriela, died of tuberculosis. A year later his eldest daughter Bedřiška, who at the age of four was showing signs of musical precocity, died of scarlet fever. Smetana wrote his Piano Trio in G minor as a tribute to her memory; it was performed in Prague on 1855 and, according to the composer, was received "harshly" by the critics, although Liszt praised it. Smetana's sorrows continued; just after Bedřiška's death a fourth daughter, Kateřina, had been born but she, too, died in June 1856. By this time Smetana's wife Kateřina had also been diagnosed with tuberculosis. The political climate in Prague was a further source of gloom; hopes of a more enlightened government and social reform following Franz Josef's accession in 1848 had faded as Austrian absolutism reasserted itself under Baron Alexander von Bach.

Years of travel

Gothenburg

Smetana initially went to Gothenburg without Kateřina. Writing to Liszt, he said that the people there were musically unsophisticated, but he saw this as an opportunity "for an impact I could never have achieved in Prague." and become conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music. In summer 1857, Smetana came home to Prague and found Kateřina in failing health. In June, Smetana's father František died. That autumn Smetana returned to Gothenburg, with Kateřina and their surviving daughter Žofie, but before doing so he visited Liszt in Weimar. The occasion was the Karl August Goethe-Schiller Jubilee celebrations; Smetana attended performances of Liszt's Faust Symphony and the symphonic poem Die Ideale, which invigorated and inspired him. Liszt was Smetana's principal teacher throughout the latter's creative life, and at this time was crucially able to revive his spirits and rescue him from the relative artistic isolation of Gothenburg. He also began composing on a more expansive scale. In 1858 he completed the symphonic poem Richard III, his first major orchestral composition since the Triumphal Symphony. He followed this with Wallenstein's Camp, inspired by Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein drama trilogy, and began a third symphonic poem Hakon Jarl, based on the tragic drama by Danish poet Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger.

Bereavement, remarriage and return to Prague

Kateřina's health gradually worsened and in the spring of 1859 failed completely. Homeward bound, she died at Dresden on 1859. Smetana wrote that she had died "gently, without our knowing anything until the quiet drew my attention to her." After placing Žofie with Kateřina's mother, Smetana spent time with Liszt in Weimar, where he was introduced to the music of the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad, by Liszt's pupil Peter Cornelius. This work would influence Smetana's own later career as an opera composer. Later that year he stayed with his younger brother Karel, and fell in love with Karel's sister-in-law Barbora (Bettina) Ferdinandiová, sixteen years his junior. He proposed marriage, and having secured her promise returned to Gothenburg for the 1859–60 winter.

Meanwhile, the defeat of Franz Josef's army at Solferino in 1859 had weakened the Habsburg Empire, and led to the fall from power of von Bach. This had gradually brought a more enlightened atmosphere to Prague, and by 1861 Smetana was seeing prospects of a better future for Czech nationalism and culture. Smetana responded that "a prophet is without honour in his own land."

National prominence

Seeking recognition

In 1861, it was announced that a Provisional Theatre would be built in Prague, as a home for Czech opera. Smetana saw this as an opportunity to write and stage opera that would reflect Czech national character, similar to the portrayals of Russian life in Mikhail Glinka's operas. Smetana then turned his attention to an opera competition, organised by Count Jan von Harrach, which offered prizes of 600 gulden each for the best comic and historical operas based on Czech culture. and received Sabina's text in February 1862, a story of the 13th century invasion of Bohemia by Otto of Brandenburg. In April 1863 he submitted the score, under the title of The Brandenburgers in Bohemia. and he had difficulty expressing himself in what was supposedly his native tongue. To overcome these linguistic deficiencies he studied Czech grammar, and made a point of writing and speaking in Czech every day. He had become Chorus Master of the nationalistic Hlahol Choral Society soon after his return from Sweden, and as his fluency in the Czech language developed he composed patriotic choruses for the Society; The Three Riders and The Renegade were performed at concerts in early 1863. In March of that year Smetana was elected president of the music section of Umělecká Beseda, a society for Czech artists. Meanwhile, Bettina had given birth to another daughter, Božena.

On 23 April 1864, Smetana conducted Berlioz's choral symphony Roméo et Juliette at a concert celebrating the Shakespeare tercentenary, adding to the programme his own March for the Shakespearean Festival. His hopes were again dashed by his affiliation with the perceived radical Liszt, the appointing committee choosing the conservative patriot Josef Krejčí for the post.

Almost three years passed before Smetana was declared the winner of Harrach's opera competition. Music historian Rosa Newmarch believes that, although The Brandenburgers has not stood the test of time, it contains all the germs of Smetana's operatic art.

Opera maestro

In July 1863, Sabina had delivered the libretto for a second opera, a light comedy entitled The Bartered Bride, which Smetana composed during the next three years. Because of the success of The Brandenburgers, the management of the Provisional Theatre readily agreed to stage the new opera, which was premiered on 1866 in its original two-act version with spoken dialogue. The opera's first performance was a failure; it was held on one of the hottest evenings of the year, on the eve of the Austro-Prussian War with Bohemia under imminent threat of invasion by Prussian troops. Unsurprisingly the occasion was poorly attended, and receipts failed to cover costs. When presented at the Provisional Theatre in its final form, in September 1870, it was a tremendous public success.

Back in 1866, as the composer of The Brandenburgers with its overtones of German military aggression, Smetana thought he might be targeted by the invading Prussians, so he absented himself from Prague until hostilities ceased. The quality of Smetana's production of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar angered Glinka's champion Mily Balakirev, who expressed himself forcefully. This caused prolonged hostility between the two men. On 1868 Smetana, representing Czech musicians, helped to lay the foundation stone for the future National Theatre; This opera soon became the basis of a series of attacks on Smetana, followed by a concerted effort to drive him from his position as Provisional Theatre conductor. In an increasingly bitter public correspondence, Pivoda claimed that Smetana was using his position to further his own career, at the expense of other composers. (c. 1860). Smetana was accused by his enemies of "excessive Wagnerism".]]

Pivoda then took issue with Dalibor, calling it an example of extreme "Wagnerism" and thus, unsuited as a model for Czech national opera. "Wagnerism" meant the adoption of Wagner's theories of a continuous role for the orchestra and the building of an integrated musical drama, rather than a stringing together of lyrical numbers. but was withholding its premiere for the future opening of the National Theatre. The machinations of Pivoda and his supporters distracted Smetana from composition, Smetana was deeply offended, and blamed his old adversary, Balakirev, for inciting negative feelings against the opera. After its first performance at the Provisional Theatre on 1874, Smetana's supporters presented him with a decorative baton. He had become totally deaf in his right ear, and in October lost all hearing in his left ear also. After his subsequent resignation the theatre offered him an annual pension of 1,200 gulden for the continued right to perform his operas, an arrangement which Smetana reluctantly accepted. Money raised in Prague by former students, and by former lover Fröjda Benecke in Gothenburg, amounted to 1,244 gulden. This allowed Smetana to seek medical treatment abroad, but to no avail. His spirits were further lowered at this time by a deterioration in his relationship with Bettina, mainly over money matters. "I cannot live under the same roof as a person who hates and persecutes me", Smetana informed her. Although divorce was considered, the couple stayed unhappily together.

Late flowering

In worsening health, Smetana continued to compose. In June 1876 he, Bettina and their two daughters left Prague for Jabkenice, the home of his eldest daughter Žofie where, in tranquil surroundings, Smetana was able to work undisturbed. Before leaving Prague he had begun a cycle of six symphonic poems, called Má vlast ("My Fatherland"), and had completed the first two, Vyšehrad and Vltava, which had both been performed in Prague during 1875. In Jabkenice Smetana composed four more movements, the complete cycle being first performed on 1882 under the baton of Adolf Čech. The long-delayed premiere of Smetana's opera Libuše finally arrived when the National Theatre opened on 1881. He had not initially been given tickets, but at the last minute was asked into the theatre director's box. The audience received the work enthusiastically, and Smetana was called to the stage repeatedly. Shortly after this event the new theatre was destroyed by fire; despite his infirmities, Smetana helped to raise funds for the rebuilding. The restored theatre reopened on 1883, again with Libuše By the winter of 1882–83 he was experiencing depression, insomnia, and hallucinations, together with giddiness, cramp and a temporary loss of speech. He started a new opera, Viola, based on the character in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but wrote only fragments as his mental state gradually deteriorated. On his family, unable to nurse him any longer, removed him to the Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum in Prague, where he died on 1884. Tests carried out by Prof. Emanuel Vlček in the late 20th century on samples of muscular tissue from Smetana's exhumed body provided further evidence of the disease. However, this research has been challenged by Czech physician Dr Jiří Ramba, who has argued that Vlček's tests do not provide a basis for a reliable conclusion, citing the age and state of the tissues and highlighting reported symptoms of Smetana's that were incompatible with syphilis.

Smetana's funeral took place on , at the Týn Church in Prague's Old Town. The subsequent procession to the Vyšehrad Cemetery was led by members of the Hlahol, bearing torches, and was followed by a large crowd. On the funeral evening, a scheduled performance of The Bartered Bride at the National Theatre was allowed to proceed, the stage draped with black cloth as a mark of respect. The younger daughters eventually married, living out their lives away from the public eye. In 1936 the museum moved to the former Waterworks building on the banks of the Vltava, and since 1976 has been part of the Czech Museum of Music. A particular feature of all his later music is its descriptive character – all his major compositions outside his operas are written to programmes, and many are specifically autobiographical. Smetana's champions have recognised the major influences on his work as Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz – the "progressives" – while those same advocates have often played down the significance of "traditionalist" composers such as Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Meyerbeer.

Piano works

All but a handful of Smetana's compositions before his departure for Gothenburg had been piano works. Some of these early pieces have been dismissed by music historian Harold Schonberg as "bombastic virtuoso rhetoric derived from Liszt". Under Proksch, however, Smetana acquired more polish, as revealed in works such as the G minor Sonata of 1846 and the E flat Polka of the same year. The set of Six Characteristic Pieces of 1848 was dedicated to Liszt, who described it as "the most outstanding, finely felt and finely finished pieces that have recently come to my note." In this period Smetana planned a cycle of so-called "album leaves", short pieces in every major and minor key, after the manner of Chopin's Preludes. The project became somewhat disorganised; in the pieces completed, some keys are repeated while others are unrepresented. After Smetana's final return from Gothenburg, when he committed himself primarily to the development of Czech opera, he wrote nothing for the piano for 13 years. Smetana's choral music is generally nationalistic in character, ranging in scale from the short Ceremonial Chorus written after the death of the composer's revolutionary friend Havlíček, to the setting of Song of the Sea, a substantial work with the character of a choral drama.

Towards the end of his life Smetana returned to simple song-writing, with five Evening Songs (1879) to words by the poet Vítězslav Hálek. His final completed work, Our Song (1883), is the last of four settings of texts by Josef Srb-Debrnov. Despite the state of Smetana's health, this is a happy celebration of Czech song and dance. The piece was lost for many years, and only received its first performance after rediscovery in 1924.

Chamber

Apart from a juvenile fantasia for violin and piano, Smetana composed only four chamber works, yet each had a deep personal significance. The Piano Trio in G minor of 1855 was composed after the death of his daughter Bedřiška; its style is close to that of Robert Schumann, with hints of Liszt, and the overall tone is elegiac. It was 20 years before he returned to the chamber genre with his first String Quartet. This E minor work, subtitled From my life, was autobiographical in character, illustrating the composer's youthful enthusiasm for his art, his friendships and loves and, in a change of mood, the onset of his deafness represented by a long harmonic E in the final movement above ominous string tremolos. His second String Quartet, in D minor, written in 1882–83 in defiance of his doctor's orders to refrain from all musical activity, was composed in short snatches, "a swirl of music of a person who has lost his hearing." It represents Smetana's frustrations with his life, but is not wholly gloomy, and includes a bright polka. Smetana studied passages from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Weber and Berlioz before producing his Triumphal Symphony of 1853. Though this is dismissed by Rosa Newmarch as "an epithalamium for a Habsburg Prince", Smetana's biographer Brian Large identifies much in the piece that characterises the composer's more mature works. Despite the symphony's rejection by the Court and the lukewarm reception on its premiere, Smetana did not abandon the work. It was well received in Gothenburg in 1860, and a revised version was performed in Prague in 1882, without the "triumphal" tag, under Adolf Čech. These insights enabled Smetana to write the three Gothenburg symphonic poems, (Richard III, Wallenstein's Camp and Hakon Jarl), did not return to purely orchestral music before beginning Má vlast in 1872. In his introduction to the Collected Edition Score, František Bartol brackets Má vlast with the opera Libuše as "direct symbols of [the] consummating national struggle". Má vlast is the first of Smetana's mature large-scale works that is independent of words, and its musical ideas are bolder than anything he had tried before. To musicologist John Clapham, the cycle presents "a cross-section of Czech history and legend and impressions of its scenery, and ... conveys vividly to us Smetana's view of the ethos and greatness of the nation." Despite its nationalistic associations this work has, according to Newmarch, carried Smetana's name further afield than anything he wrote, with the exception of The Bartered Bride Overture. Smetana dedicated Má vlast to the city of Prague; after its first performance in November 1882 it was acclaimed by the Czech musical public as the true representation of Czech national style.

Opera

Smetana had virtually no precursors in Czech opera apart from František Škroup, whose works had rarely lasted beyond one or two performances. He drew on existing European traditions, notably Slavonic and French,

Although a follower of Wagner's reforms of the operatic genre, which he believed would be its salvation, Smetana rejected accusations of excessive Wagnerism, claiming that he was sufficiently occupied with "Smetanism, for that is the only honest style!" The predominantly "national" character of the first four operas is tempered by the lyrical romanticism of those written later, particularly the last three, composed in the years of Smetana's deafness. The first of this final trio, The Kiss, written when Smetana was receiving painful medical treatment is described by Newmarch as a work of serene beauty, in which tears and smiles alternate throughout the score. Smetana's librettist for "The Kiss" was the young feminist Eliška Krásnohorská, who also supplied the texts for his final two operas. She dominated the ailing composer, who had no say in the subject-matter, the voice types or the balance between solos, duets and ensembles. and London in 1895, Its trademark overture, which Newmarch says "lifts us off our feet with its madcap vivacity", Smetana himself was later inclined to disparage his achievement: "The Bartered Bride was merely child's play, written straight off the reel".

Reception

Even in his own homeland the general public was slow to recognise Smetana. As a young composer and pianist he was well regarded in Prague musical circles, and had the approval of Liszt, Proksch and others, but the public's lack of acknowledgement was a principal factor behind his self-imposed exile in Sweden. After his return he was not taken particularly seriously,

Smetana's first noteworthy public success was his initial opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, in 1866 when he was already 42 years old. His second opera, The Bartered Bride, survived the unfortunate mistiming of its opening night and became an enduring popular triumph. The different style of his third opera, Dalibor, closer to that of Wagnerian music drama, was not readily understood by the public and was condemned by critics who believed that Czech opera should be based on folk-song. Thereafter the machinations which accompanied Smetana's tenure as Provisional Theatre conductor restricted his creative output until 1874.

In his final decade, the most fruitful of his compositional career despite his deafness and increasing ill-health, Smetana belatedly received national recognition. Of his later operas, The Two Widows and The Secret were warmly received, while The Kiss was greeted by an "overwhelming ovation". Nevertheless, the first few performances in October 1882 of an evidently under-rehearsed The Devil's Wall were chaotic, and the composer was left feeling "dishonoured and dispirited". This disappointment was swiftly mitigated by the acclaim which followed the first performance of the complete Má vlast cycle in November: "Everyone rose to his feet and the same storm of unending applause was repeated after each of the six parts ... At the end of Blaník [the final part] the audience was beside itself and the people could not bring themselves to take leave of the composer."

Character and reputation

Smetana's biographers describe him as physically frail and unimpressive in appearance, yet at least in his youth he had a joie-de-vivre which women evidently found attractive. He was also excitable, passionate and strong-willed, determined to make his career in music whatever the hardships, over the wishes of his father who wanted him to become a brewer or a civil servant. His personal life became stressful; his marriage to Bettina was loveless, and effectively broke down altogether in the years of illness and relative poverty towards the end of his life. Little of his relationships with his children is recorded, although it is reported that, on the day that he was transferred to the asylum, Žofie was "crying as though her heart would break". There is broad agreement among most commentators that Smetana created a canon of Czech opera where none had previously existed, and that he developed a style of music in all his compositions that equated with the emergent Czech national spirit. A modified view is presented by music writer Michael Steen, who questions whether "nationalistic music" can in fact exist: "We should recognise that, whereas music is infinitely expressive, on its own it is not good at describing concrete, earthly objects or concepts." He concludes that much is dependent upon what listeners are conditioned to hear.

According to musicologist John Tyrrell, Smetana's close identification with Czech nationalism, and the tragic circumstances of his last years, have tended to affect the objectivity with which his work has been assessed, particularly in his native land. Tyrrell argues that the almost iconic status awarded to Smetana in his homeland "monumentalized him into a figure where any criticism of his life or work was discouraged" by the Czech authorities, even as late as the last part of the 20th century. As a result, Tyrrell claims, a view of Czech music has been propagated which downplays the contributions of contemporaries and successors such as Dvořák, Janáček, Josef Suk and other lesser-known figures. This is at odds with perceptions in the outside world, where Dvořák is far more frequently played and much better known. Harold Schonberg observes that "Smetana was the one who founded Czech music, but Antonín Dvořák ... was the one who popularized it."

Notes and references

Sources

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External links

Category:1824 births Category:1884 deaths Category:19th-century Czech people Category:19th-century composers Category:Burials in the Czech Republic Category:Czech Austro-Hungarians Category:Czech composers Category:Deaf musicians Category:Opera composers Category:People from Litomyšl Category:Romantic composers

Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski (; born 4 July 1972, Birgisson, Russia) is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski.

Jurowski began his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1990, he moved with his family, including his brother Dmitri, to Germany, where he completed his education at the music schools at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. He studied conducting with Rolf Reuter and vocal coaching with Semion Skigin. He participated in a conducting master class with Sir Colin Davis on Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 in 1991.

In the 1996/1997 season, Jurowski joined the ensemble of the Komische Oper Berlin, as an assistant to Yakov Kreizberg and second Kapellmeister. He received the title first Kapellmeister a year later, and continued to work there full-time until 2001. He was the principal guest conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna between 2000 and 2003.

In August 2000, Jurowski was named the Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and he took on the post in January 2001. His conducting debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) was in December 2001. In 2003, he was appointed the LPO's Principal Guest Conductor and a member of the Russian National Orchestra Conductor Collegium He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra, and a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Jurowski was reported to have been offered the music directorship of Welsh National Opera upon the 2004 departure of Carlo Rizzi, but he declined the position. His tenure with Glyndebourne has been highly acclaimed, and Jurowski has spoken of the favourable working conditions at Glyndebourne.

In May 2006, Jurowski was announced as the LPO's 11th Principal Conductor, effective with the 2007/2008 season, with an initial contract of 5 years. Several CD recordings of Jurowski conducting the LPO have been released. In April 2007, Jurowski was one of eight conductors of British orchestras to endorse the 10-year classical music outreach manifesto, "Building on Excellence: Orchestras for the 21st Century", to increase the presence of classical music in the UK, including giving free entry to all British schoolchildren to a classical music concert. In May 2007, Jurowski received the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Conductor of the Year. In May 2010, the LPO announced the extension of his principal conductorship through the 2014-2015 season.

In the USA, Jurowski first conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in December 1999. He made an acclaimed conducting debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in October 2005. He returned in February 2007 to Philadelphia for a second guest conducting engagement which also received critical praise. Jurowski has since become a regular guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra, including appearances in March 2009, October 2009 and March 2010.

Jurowski and his wife Patricia have two children, Martha and Yuri. The family resides in Berlin.

References

External links

Vladimir Jurowski biography

Interview

Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, 2007 Conductor of the Year, announcement

Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:Russian conductors (music) Category:Music directors (opera) Category:Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" alumni Category:Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler alumni Category:Moscow Conservatory alumni

Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE, FRSA, (born 19 January 1955) is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (BPO).

Early life

Rattle was born in Liverpool, the son of Pauline Lila Violet (Greening) and Denis Guttridge Rattle, a Commander in the Royal Navy. He was educated at Liverpool College. Although Rattle studied piano and violin, his early work with orchestras was as a percussionist. He entered the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1971. There, his teachers included John Carewe. In 1974, his graduation year, Rattle won the John Player Conductor Competition. After organising and conducting a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony whilst still at the Academy, he was talent-spotted by the music agent Martin Campell-White, of Harold Holt Ltd. (now Askonas Holt Ltd.), who has since managed Rattle's career. He spent the academic year 1980/81 at St Anne's College, Oxford studying English Language and Literature. He had been attracted to the college by the reputation of Dorothy Bednarowska, Fellow and Tutor in English. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Anne's in 1991. He was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa of the University of Oxford in 1999.

UK career

In 1974, he was made assistant conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. His first Prom at the Royal Albert Hall, conducting the London Sinfonietta, was, according to the BBC Proms Archive web-site, on 9th August 1976. The programme included Sir Harrison Birtwistle's Meridian and Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony. In 1977 he became assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

His time with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) from 1980 to 1998 drew him to the attention of critics and the public. In 1980, Simon Rattle became the CBSO's Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser, and in 1990, Music Director. Rattle increased both his profile and that of the orchestra over his tenure. One of his long-term concert projects was the series of concerts of 20th century music titled "Towards the Millennium". One other major achievement during his time was the move of the CBSO from its former venue, Birmingham Town Hall, to a newly built concert hall, Symphony Hall, in 1991. The BBC commissioned film director Jaine Green to follow him in his final year with the CBSO to make Simon Rattle—Moving On.

Rattle was awarded a CBE in 1987 and made a Knight Bachelor in 1994. In 1992, Rattle was named a Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE), along with Frans Brüggen. Rattle now has the title of Principal Artist with the OAE. In 2001, Rattle conducted the OAE at Glyndebourne in their first production of Fidelio with a period-instrument orchestra.

Rattle was very supportive of youth music. He led two attempts at gaining the record for the World's Largest Orchestra, both designed to raise awareness of youth music in schools. The first, in 1996, was unsuccessful. The second, in 1998, did succeed and the record held at nearly 4,000 musicians until it was broken in 2000 by a group in Vancouver.

In May 2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Arts.

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Rattle made his conducting debut with the Berlin Philharmonic (BPO) in 1987, in a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6. In 1999, Rattle was appointed as successor to Claudio Abbado as the orchestra's principal conductor. The appointment, decided on in a 23 June vote by the orchestra's members, was somewhat controversial, as several members of the orchestra were earlier reported to have preferred Daniel Barenboim for the post. Nevertheless, Rattle won the post and proceeded to win over his detractors by refusing to sign the contract until he had ensured that every member of the orchestra was paid fairly, and also that the orchestra would gain artistic independence from the Berlin Senate.

Before leaving for Germany and on his arrival, Rattle controversially attacked the British attitude to culture in general, and in particular the artists of the Britart movement, together with the state funding of culture in the UK.

Since his appointment, Rattle has reorganised the Berlin Philharmonic into a foundation, meaning its activities are more under the control of the members rather than politicians. He has also ensured that orchestra members' wages have increased quite dramatically, having fallen over the past few years. He gave his first concert as principal conductor of the BPO on 7 September 2002, leading performances of Thomas Adès' Asyla and Mahler's Symphony No. 5, performances which received rave reviews from the press worldwide and were recorded for CD and DVD release by EMI. Early collaborative projects in the Berlin community with Rattle and the BPO involved a choreographed performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and a film project with Mark-Anthony Turnage's Blood on the Floor. He has also continued to champion contemporary music in Berlin. The orchestra has established its first education department during Rattle's tenure.

Criticism of Rattle's tenure with the Berlin Philharmonic began to appear after their first season together, and continued in their second season. The German critic Klaus Geitel was reported in 2004 to have described Rattle as "the weakest musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic he's ever seen". Rattle himself stated in 2005 that his relationship with the BPO musicians could sometimes be "turbulent", but also "never destructively so".

In 2006, a new controversy began in the German press as to the quality of Rattle's concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, with criticism from the German critic Manuel Brug in Die Welt. One musician who wrote to the press to defend Rattle was the pianist Alfred Brendel. In 2007, the BPO/Rattle recording of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem received the Classic FM Gramophone best choral disc award.

Rattle was originally contracted to lead the BPO through 2012, but in April 2008 the BPO musicians voted to extend his contract as chief conductor for an additional ten years past the next season, to 2018.

UNICEF appointed Rattle and the BPO as Goodwill Ambassadors in November 2007.

Conducting in North America

Rattle made his North American debut in 1976, conducting the London Schools Symphony Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl. He conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LAP) in 1979, and was their Principal Guest Conductor from 1981–1994. He also guest-conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. His New York City debut was with the LAP in 1985.

In 1993, Rattle made his conducting debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra. He returned for guest conducting engagements in 1999 and 2000. The musical relationship between Rattle and The Philadelphia Orchestra was reported to be such that Philadelphia wanted to hire Rattle as its next music director after Wolfgang Sawallisch, but Rattle declined. However, Rattle continues to guest-conduct with The Philadelphia Orchestra in what is currently his sole North American guest-conducting engagement, including appearances in 2006 and the Philadelphia Orchestra's first performances of Robert Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri in November 2007.

Musical styles and recordings

Rattle has conducted a wide variety of music, including some with period instruments (musical instruments whose design is similar to that of instruments commonly in use at the time the piece was composed - or the actual historical instrument itself), but he is best known for his interpretations of late-19th and early 20th century composers such as Mahler, with a recording of Mahler's Second Symphony winning several awards on its release and being regarded by some music critics as Rattle's finest recording to date. He has also championed much contemporary music, an example of this being the TV series Leaving Home, where he presents a 7-part survey of musical styles and conductors with excerpts recorded by the CBSO. His newest recordings with the Berlin orchestra (as of 2006) have, on the whole, been favourably received, notably his recordings of the Dvořák tone poems, Mahler's Symphony No.9 and Debussy's La Mer. The Gramophone Magazine praised the latter as a "magnificent disc" and drew favourable comparisons with interpretations of the piece by Rattle's immediate predecessors, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan. He has also worked with the Toronto Children's Chorus. Rattle and the BPO also recorded Holst's Planets (EMI), which was the BBC Music Magazine Orchestra Choice. In addition, Rattle's acclaimed complete 1989 recording of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess was used as the soundtrack for the equally acclaimed 1993 television production of the work. It was the first made-for-television production of Porgy and Bess ever presented. Rattle's 2007 recording of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem received praise from BBC Music Magazine, as "Disc of the Month" for April 2007, "as probably the best new version of the Requiem I've heard in quite some years." Rattle and the BPO have also released recordings of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, Romantic, and Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 88-92 and Sinfonia concertante, and Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

Simon Rattle's recording of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the BPO received the Choral Performance Grammy Award in 2008. He has won two other Grammy Awards, one Choral Performance Award for a recording of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms in 2007, and another for Best Orchestral Performance, for a recording of Mahler's unfinished Symphony No. 10 in 2000.

Personal life

Rattle's first marriage was to Elise Ross, an American soprano, with whom he had two sons; Sacha, who is a clarinetist, and Eliot. They were divorced in 1995 after 15 years of marriage. His second wife was Candace Allen, a Boston-born writer. This second marriage ended after Rattle and the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená began a relationship. Kožená and Rattle have two sons, Jonas and Milos.

Rattle is a fan of Liverpool F.C.

Books

Kenyon, Nicholas (1987) Simon Rattle: The Making of a Conductor. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571146708.

Discography

References

External links

Simon Rattle official website

Berliner Philharmoniker website

Simon Rattle Recordings on EMI Classics

Website of the film and education project "Rhythm is it!

The Planets microsite

The Guardian, 19 June 2006.">Phillipa Ibbotson, "He won't play the game". Essay from The Guardian, 19 June 2006.

La Scena Musicale, 23 August 2006.">Norman Lebrecht, "Rattle has a battle on his hands". La Scena Musicale, 23 August 2006.

Ed Vulliamy, Simon Rattle: bringing Berlin home to Liverpool, The Observer, 31 August 2008

Television Interview with Simon Rattle from C Music TV.

theartsdesk Q&A; interview, 30 July 2010

Category:Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:English conductors (music) Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Old Lerpoolians Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:1955 births Category:Living people

Name	Sarah Vaughan
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Sarah Lois Vaughan
Alias	"Sassy""The Divine One""Sailor"
Born	March 27, 1924
Died	April 03, 1990
Origin	Newark, New Jersey, United States
Genre	Vocal jazz, bebop, cool jazz, traditional pop
Years active	1942–1989
Occupation	Singer
Instruments	Vocals, piano
Label	Columbia, Mercury, Roulette, Pablo

Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". She had a contralto vocal range.

Nicknamed "Sailor" (for her salty speech), "Sassy" and "The Divine One", Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its "highest honor in jazz", the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.

Biography

Early life

Sarah Vaughan's father, Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, was a carpenter by trade and played guitar and piano. Her mother, Ada Vaughan, was a laundress and sang in the church choir. Jake and Ada Vaughan migrated to Newark from Virginia during the First World War. Sarah was their only natural child, although in the 1960s they adopted Donna, the child of a woman who traveled on the road with Sarah Vaughan.

The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street, in Newark, New Jersey, for Sarah's entire childhood.

When Vaughan's contract with Mercury Records ended in late 1959, she immediately signed on with Roulette Records, a small label owned by Morris Levy, who was one of the backers of New York's Birdland, where she frequently appeared. Roulette's roster also included Count Basie, Joe Williams, Dinah Washington, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and Maynard Ferguson.

Vaughan began recording for Roulette in April 1960, making a string of strong large ensemble albums arranged and/or conducted by Billy May, Jimmy Jones, Joe Reisman, Quincy Jones, Benny Carter, Lalo Schifrin, and Gerald Wilson. Surprisingly, she also had some pop chart success in 1960 with "Serenata" on Roulette and a couple of residual tracks from her Mercury contract, "Eternally" and "You're My Baby". She also made a pair of intimate vocal/guitar/double bass albums of jazz standards: After Hours (1961) with guitarist Mundell Lowe and double bassist George Duvivier and Sarah + 2 (1962) with guitarist Barney Kessell and double bassist Joe Comfort.

Vaughan was incapable of having children, so, in 1961, she and Atkins adopted a daughter, Debra Lois. However, the relationship with Atkins proved difficult and violent so, following a series of strange incidents, she filed for divorce in November 1963. She turned to two friends to help sort out the financial wreckage of the marriage: club owner John "Preacher" Wells, a childhood acquaintance, and Clyde "Pumpkin" Golden, Jr. Wells and Golden found that Atkins' gambling and profligate spending had put Vaughan around $150,000 in debt. The Englewood Cliffs house was ultimately seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes. Vaughan retained custody of their child and Golden essentially took Atkins place as Vaughan's manager and lover for the remainder of the decade.

Around the time of her second divorce, she also became disenchanted with Roulette Records. Roulette' finances were even more deceptive and opaque than usual in the record business and its recording artists often had little to show for their efforts other than some excellent records. When her contract with Roulette ended in 1963, Vaughan returned to the more familiar confines of Mercury Records. In the summer of 1963, Vaughan went to Denmark with producer Quincy Jones to record four days of live performances with her trio, Sassy Swings the Tivoli, an excellent example of her live show from this period. The following year, she made her first appearance at the White House, for President Johnson.

Unfortunately, the Tivoli recording would be the brightest moment of her second stint with Mercury. Changing demographics and tastes in the 1960s left jazz artists with shrinking audiences and inappropriate material. While Vaughan retained a following large and loyal enough to maintain her performing career, the quality and quantity of her recorded output dwindled even as her voice darkened and her skill remained undiminished. At the conclusion of her Mercury deal in 1967, she was left without a recording contract for the remainder of the decade.

In 1969, Vaughan terminated her professional relationship with Golden and relocated to the West Coast, settling first into a house near Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles and then into what would end up being her final home in Hidden Hills.

Rebirth in the 1970s

Vaughan met Marshall Fisher after a 1970 performance at a casino in Las Vegas and Fisher soon fell into the familiar dual role as Vaughan's lover and manager. Fisher was another man of uncertain background with no musical or entertainment business experience, but—unlike some of her earlier associates—he was a genuine fan devoted to furthering her career.

The seventies also heralded a rebirth in Vaughan's recording activity. In 1971, Bob Shad, who had worked with her as producer at Mercury Records, asked her to record for his new record label, Mainstream Records. Basie veteran Ernie Wilkins arranged and conducted her first Mainstream album, A Time In My Life in November 1971. In April 1972, Vaughan recorded a collection of ballads written, arranged and conducted by Michel Legrand. Arrangers Legrand, Peter Matz, Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson teamed up for Vaughan's third Mainstream album, Feelin' Good. Vaughan also recorded Live in Japan, a live album in Tokyo with her trio in September 1973.

During her sessions with Legrand, Bob Shad presented "Send In The Clowns", a Stephen Sondheim song from the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, to Vaughan for consideration. The song would become her signature, replacing the chestnut "Tenderly" that had been with her from the beginning of her solo career.

Unfortunately, Vaughan's relationship with Mainstream soured in 1974, allegedly in a conflict precipitated by Fisher over an album cover photograph and/or unpaid royalties . This left Vaughan again without a recording contract for three years.

In December 1974, Vaughan played a private concert for the United States President Gerald Ford and French president Giscard d'Estaing during their summit on Martinique.

Also in 1974, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas asked Vaughan to participate in an all-Gershwin show he was planning for a guest appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. The arrangements were by Marty Paich and the orchestra would be augmented by established jazz artists Dave Grusin on piano, Ray Brown on double bass, drummer Shelly Manne and saxophonists Bill Perkins and Pete Christlieb. The concert was a success and Thomas and Vaughan repeated the performance with Thomas' home orchestra in Buffalo, New York, followed by appearances in 1975 and 1976 with symphony orchestras around the country. These performances fulfilled a long-held interest by Vaughan in working with symphonies and she made orchestra performances without Thomas for the remainder of the decade.

In 1977, Vaughan terminated her personal and professional relationship with Marshall Fisher. Although Fisher is occasionally referenced as Vaughan's third husband, they were never legally married. Vaughan began a relationship with Waymond Reed, a trumpet player 16 years her junior who was playing with the Count Basie band. Reed joined her working trio as a musical director and trumpet player and became her third husband in 1978.

In 1977, Tom Guy, a young filmmaker and public TV producer, followed Vaughan around on tour, interviewing numerous artists speaking about her and capturing both concert and behind-the-scenes footage. The resulting sixteen hours of footage was pared down into an hour-and-a-half documentary, Listen To The Sun, that aired on September 21, 1978, on New Jersey Public Television, but was never commercially released.

In 1977, Norman Granz, who was also Ella Fitzgerald's manager, signed Vaughan to his Pablo Records label. Vaughan had not had a recording contract for three years, although she had recorded a 1977 album of Beatles songs with contemporary pop arrangements for Atlantic Records that was eventually released in 1981. Vaughan's first Pablo release was I Love Brazil, recorded with an all-star cast of Brazilian musicians in Rio de Janeiro in the fall of 1977. It garnered a Grammy nomination.

The Pablo contract resulted in a total of seven albums: a second and equally wondrous Brazilian record, "Copacabana", again recorded in Rio (1979), How Long Has This Been Going On? (1978) with a quartet that included pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Louis Bellson; two Duke Ellington Songbook albums (1979); Send In The Clowns (1981) with the Count Basie orchestra playing arrangements primarily by Sammy Nestico; and Crazy and Mixed Up (1982), another quartet album featuring Sir Roland Hanna, piano, Joe Pass, guitar, Andy Simpkins, bass, and Harold Jones drums.

Vaughan and Waymond Reed divorced in 1981.

Late career

Vaughan remained quite active as a performer during the 1980s and began receiving awards recognizing her contribution to American music and status as an important elder stateswoman of Jazz. In the summer of 1980, Vaughan received a plaque on 52nd Street outside the CBS Building (Black Rock) commemorating the jazz clubs she had once frequented on "Swing Street" and which had long since been demolished and replaced with office buildings.

A performance of her symphonic Gershwin program with the New Jersey Symphony in 1980 was broadcast on PBS and won her an Emmy Award in 1981 for "Individual Achievement - Special Class". She was reunited with Michael Tilson Thomas for slightly modified version of the Gershwin program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the CBS Records recording, Gershwin Live! won Vaughan the Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female. In 1985, Vaughan received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1988, Vaughan was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame.

After the conclusion of her Pablo contract in 1982, Vaughan did only a limited amount of studio recording. Vaughan made a guest appearance in 1984 on Barry Manilow's , an album of original pastiche compositions that featured a number of established jazz artists. In 1984, Vaughan participated in one of the more unusual projects of her career, The Planet is Alive, Let It Live a symphonic piece composed by Tito Fontana and Sante Palumbo on Italian translations of Polish poems by Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II. The recording was made in Germany with an English translation by writer Gene Lees and was released by Lees on his own private label after the recording was turned down by the major labels. In 1986, Vaughan sang two songs, "Happy Talk" and "Bali Ha'i", in the role of Bloody Mary on an otherwise stiff studio recording by opera stars Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras of the score of the Broadway musical South Pacific, while sitting on the studio floor.

Vaughan's final complete album was Brazilian Romance, produced and composed by Sérgio Mendes and recorded primarily in the early part of 1987 in New York and Detroit. In 1988, Vaughan contributed vocals to an album of Christmas carols recorded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Utah Symphony Orchestra and sold in Hallmark Cards stores. In 1989, Quincy Jones' album Back on the Block featured Vaughan in a brief scatting duet with Ella Fitzgerald. This was Vaughan's final studio recording and, fittingly, it was Vaughan's only formal studio recording with Fitzgerald in a career that had begun 46 years earlier opening for Fitzgerald at the Apollo.

Vaughan is featured in a number of video recordings from the 1980s. Sarah Vaughan Live from Monterrey was taped in 1983 or 1984 and featured her working trio with guest soloists. Sass and Brass was taped in 1986 in New Orleans and also features her working trio with guest soloists, including Dizzy Gillespie and Maynard Ferguson. Sarah Vaughan: The Divine One was featured in the American Masters series on PBS.

She was given the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.

Death

In 1989, Vaughan's health began to decline, although she rarely betrayed any hints in her performances. Vaughan canceled a series of engagements in Europe in 1989 citing the need to seek treatment for arthritis in the hand, although she was able to complete a later series of performances in Japan. During a run at New York's Blue Note jazz club in 1989, Vaughan received a diagnosis of lung cancer and was too ill to finish the final day of what would turn out to be her final series of public performances.

Vaughan returned to her home in California to begin chemotherapy and spent her final months alternating stays in the hospital and at home. Toward the end, Vaughan tired of the struggle and demanded to be taken home, where she died on the evening of April 3, 1990, while watching a television movie featuring her daughter, a week after her 66th birthday.

Vaughan's funeral was held at Mount Zion Baptist Church at 208 Broadway in Newark, New Jersey which was the same congregation she grew up in, although relocated to a new building. Following the ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage transported her body to its final resting place in Glendale Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Sarah Vaughan were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

{| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Grammy Hall of Fame |- ! Year Recorded ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Year Inducted |- align=center | 1954 | Sarah Vaughan With Clifford Brown | Jazz (Album) | Mercury | 1999 |- align=center | 1946 | "If You Could See Me Now" | Jazz (Single) | Musicraft | 1998 |- align=center |}

Style and influence

Although Vaughan is usually considered a "Jazz Singer", she avoided classifying herself as such. Indeed, her approach to her "Jazz" work and her commercial "Pop" material was not radically different. Vaughan stuck throughout her career to the jazz-infused style of music that she came of age with, only rarely dabbling in rock-era styles that usually did not suit her unique vocal talents. Vaughan discussed the label in an 1982 interview for Down Beat:

"I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer. Betty Bebop (Carter) is a jazz singer, because that's all she does. I've even been called a blues singer. I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues - just a right-out blues - but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music."

Vaughan was an accomplished pianist with a fine ear for bebop harmonies, but her most obvious gift was always her powerful voice. Her vocal range was vast in her youth, stretching from true female baritone lows to mezzo-soprano highs; as she aged, her lower register became stronger and her forays into her (still-strong) mezzo register became rare. Musicologist Henry Pleasants notes: "Sarah Vaughan who sings easily down to a contralto low D, ascends to a pure and accurate [soprano] high C." The dynamic range, tonal quality and sheer beauty of her voice were near-operatic. While Vaughan was proficient at scatting, the improvisatory aspect of her art was focused more on ornamentation, phrasing and variation on melodies, which were almost always jazz standards. Perhaps her most noticeable musical mannerism was the creative use of often widely "swooping" glissandi through her wide entire vocal range, which was most sonorous in a dark chest register that grew deeper as she aged. Vaughan approached her voice more as a melodic instrument than a vehicle for dramatic interpretation of lyrics, although the expressive qualities of her style did accentuate lyrical meaning and she would often find unique and memorable ways of articulating and coloring individual key words in a lyric.

During her childhood in the 30s, Vaughan was strongly attracted to the popular music of the day, much to the consternation of her deeply religious father. She was certainly influenced by the gospel traditions that she grew up with in a Baptist church, but the more radically melismatic elements of those influences are less obvious than they would be in later generations of singers in the R&B; and hip-hop genres. That Vaughan was also influenced by (and an influence on) her friend and mentor, Billy Eckstine, is obvious in the numerous duet recordings they made together. However, since no recordings exist of Vaughan prior to her joining Eckstine in the Earl Hines band (nor with the Hines band) it is difficult to know with any certainty what stylistic nuances she absorbed during the critical first years of her performing career.

Perhaps because of the individuality of her style, Vaughan has rarely been overtly imitated by subsequent generations of singers, unlike such contemporaries of hers as Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra or, later, Aretha Franklin. Many modern artists, however, have claimed Sarah Vaughan as a major influence, chief among them Teena Marie, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan, Chrisette Michele and Amy Winehouse. Even in death she retains a loyal following and attracts new fans through her recorded legacy, most of which remains in commercial release.

While Vaughan frequently performed and recorded with large ensembles, her live performances usually featured trio accompaniments. Aside from economy, there was an inherent advantage in working with musicians who knew her style and could anticipate her improvisational side trips.

Personal life

Vaughan was married three times: George Treadwell (1946–1958), Clyde Atkins (1958–1961) and Waymon Reed (1978–1981). Being unable to have biological children, Vaughan adopted a baby girl (Debra Lois) in 1961. Debra worked in the 1980s and 1990s as an actress under the name Paris Vaughan.

Sarah Vaughan's personal life was a jumble of paradoxes. She had a mercurial personality and could be extremely difficult to work with (especially in areas outside of music), but numerous fellow musicians recounted their experiences with her to be some of the best of their career. None of her marriages were successful, yet she maintained close long-running friendships with a number of male colleagues in the business and was devoted to her parents and adopted daughter. Despite effusive public acclaim, Vaughan was insecure and suffered from stage fright that was, at times, almost incapacitating . While shy and often aloof with strangers, she was quite gregarious and generous with friends.

Sarah Vaughan was a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

Discography

Tributes

In 2004-2006, New Jersey Transit paid tribute to Miss Vaughan in the design of its new Newark Light Rail stations. Passengers stopping at any station on this line can read the lyrics to one of her signature songs, "Send in the Clowns", along the edge of the station platform.

On March 27, 2003, initiated by Susie M. Butler, the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley, California, signed a proclamation making March 27 "Sarah Lois Vaughan Day" in their respective cities.

References

External links

[ Billboard Chart History for Sarah Vaughan]

A Brief summary of Vaughan's career

BBC Profile of Sarah Vaughan

IMDB Profile of Sarah Vaughan

Interview with Les Tomkins

Personal recollections of Sarah Vaughan

Profile of Vaughan from BookRags.com

Profile of Vaughan from PBS American Masters

Profile of Vaughan from PBS Ken Burns Jazz Series

Profile of Vaughan from Verve Records

Sarah Vaughan performs "Perdido" on Rhythm and Blues Revue in 1955

Category:1924 births Category:1990 deaths Category:1940s singers Category:1950s singers Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:American contraltos Category:American Protestants Category:Bebop singers Category:Cadet Records artists Category:Cool jazz musicians Category:Cool jazz singers Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vocal jazz musicians Category:African American female singers Category:American jazz singers Category:American jazz pianists Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Musicians from New Jersey Category:People from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey Category:People from Newark, New Jersey Category:Torch singers Category:Women in jazz Category:Mercury Records artists Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Mainstream Records artists

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (, English see fn.), baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of Mozart's death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. His influence on subsequent Western art music is profound. Beethoven wrote his own early compositions in the shadow of Mozart, of whom Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

Biography

Family and early years

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart at 9 Getreidegasse in Salzburg, capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg, in what is now Austria but, at the time, was part of the Bavarian Circle in the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling to survive past birth was Maria Anna (1751–1829), called "Nannerl". Wolfgang was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart" as an adult, but there were many variants.

His father Leopold (1719–1787) was from Augsburg. He was deputy Kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a minor composer, and an experienced teacher. In the year of Mozart's birth, his father published a violin textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, which achieved success.

; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold]]When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father; and her three-year-old brother would look on, evidently fascinated. Years later, after his death, she reminisced:

He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was always striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. [...] In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier. [...] He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. [...] At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.

These early pieces, K. 1–5, were recorded in the Nannerl Notenbuch.

Biographer Maynard Solomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Wolfgang was keen to make progress beyond what he was being taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were on his own initiative and came as a great surprise to Leopold. Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evident. He was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest years and taught his children languages and academic subjects as well as music.]]

1762–1773: Years of travel

During Mozart's youth, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition, in 1762, at the court of the Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip, Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765. The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768.

These trips were often arduous. Travel conditions were primitive; the family had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility. They endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764) then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765).

After one year in Salzburg, father and son set off for Italy, leaving Wolfgang's mother and his sister at home. This travel lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Wolfgang met G. B. Martini, in Bologna, and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. In Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel. He wrote it out in its entirety from memory, only returning to correct minor errors—thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican.

In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions. He returned with his father later twice to Milan (August–December 1771; October 1772 – March 1773) for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba (1771) and Lucio Silla (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son in Italy, but these hopes were never fulfilled.

Toward the end of the final Italian journey, Mozart wrote the first of his works to be still widely performed today, the solo cantata Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165.

1773–1777: The Salzburg court

After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, composing symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, serenades, and a few minor operas. Several of these early works are still performed today. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three—K. 216, K. 218, K. 219—are now staples of the repertoire. In 1776 he turned his efforts to piano concertos, culminating in the E-flat concerto K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.

Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontent with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150 florins a year; Mozart also longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theater was closed, especially since the other theater in Salzburg was largely reserved for visiting troupes.

Two long expeditions in search of work (both Leopold and Wolfgang were looking) interrupted this long Salzburg stay: they visited Vienna, from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich, from 6 December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera La finta giardiniera.

1777–1778: The Paris journey

In August 1777, Mozart resigned his Salzburg position and, on 23 September, ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich. Since Archbishop Colloredo would not give Leopold leave to travel, Mozart's mother Anna Maria accompanied him.

Mozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters in a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778 to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment. He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables. The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother took ill and died on 3 July 1778. There had been delays in calling a doctor—probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds.

While Wolfgang was in Paris, Leopold was pursuing opportunities for him back in Salzburg, and, with the support of local nobility, secured him a post as court organist and concertmaster. The yearly salary was 450 florins, but Wolfgang was reluctant to accept. After leaving Paris on 26 September 1778, he tarried in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she made it plain that she was no longer interested in him. Mozart finally reached home on 15 January 1779 and took up the new position, but his discontent with Salzburg was undiminished.

Among the better known works that Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata K. 310/300d and the "Paris" Symphony (no. 31); these were performed in Paris on 12 June and 18 June 1778. for his gallery; Mozart with the Order of the Golden Spur which he received in 1770 as a 14-year old from Pope Clement XIV in Rome.]]

1781: Departure to Vienna

In January 1781, Mozart's opera Idomeneo premiered with "considerable success" in Munich. The following March the composer was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of Joseph II to the Austrian throne. Mozart, fresh from the adulation he had earned in Munich, was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant and particularly when the archbishop forbade him to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary. The resulting quarrel came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused. The following month, permission was granted but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the ass", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.

Early Vienna years

Mozart's new career in Vienna began well. He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781, and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna". Aloysia, who had earlier rejected Mozart's suit, was now married to the actor Joseph Lange, and Mozart's interest shifted to the third daughter, Constanze. The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly broke up in April 1782. Mozart also faced a very difficult task in getting his father's permission for the marriage. The couple were finally married on 4 August 1782, in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before Leopold's consent arrived in the mail.

In 1783, Wolfgang and Constanze visited his family in Salzburg. Leopold and Nannerl were, at best, only polite to Constanze, but the visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C minor. Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part.

Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna, and the two composers became friends (see Haydn and Mozart). When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785, and are judged to be a response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn in 1785 told the visiting Leopold: "I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition."

From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season. Since space in the theaters was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof (an apartment building), and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube (a restaurant). The concerts were very popular, and the concertos he premiered at them are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Solomon writes that during this period Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre". Mozart also bought a fine fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a billiard table for about 300. and kept servants. Saving was therefore impossible, and the short period of financial success did nothing to soften the hardship the Mozarts were later to experience.

On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit ("Beneficence"). Freemasonry played an important role in the remainder of Mozart's life: he attended meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on various occasions he composed Masonic music. (See Mozart and Freemasonry.)

1786–1787: Return to opera

Despite the great success of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart did little operatic writing for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act Der Schauspieldirektor. He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. However, around the end of 1785, Mozart moved away from keyboard writing and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. 1786 saw the successful premiere of The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna. Its reception in Prague later in the year was even warmer, and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera Don Giovanni, which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, and also met with success in Vienna in 1788. The two are among Mozart's most important works and are mainstays of the operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulty for both listeners and performers. These developments were not witnessed by the composer's father, as Leopold had died on 28 May 1787.

In December 1787 Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and only required Mozart to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal. However, even this modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph's aim was to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.

In 1787 the young Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart. No reliable records survive to indicate whether the two composers ever met. (See Mozart and Beethoven.)

1788–1790

, made by Dora Stock during Mozart's visit to Dresden, April 1789]] Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786 he had ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because Austria was at war, and both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined.

By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund. Mozart began to borrow money, most often from his friend and fellow Mason Michael Puchberg; "a pitiful sequence of letters pleading for loans" survives. Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from depression, and it seems that his output slowed. Major works of the period include the last three symphonies (Nos. 39, 40, and 41, all from 1788), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Così fan tutte, premiered in 1790.

Around this time Mozart made long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes: to Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789 (see Mozart's Berlin journey), and to Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790. The trips produced only isolated success and did not relieve the family's financial distress.

1791

Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, a time of great productivity—and by some accounts a time of personal recovery. He composed a great deal, including some of his most admired works: the opera The Magic Flute, the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B-flat), the Clarinet Concerto K. 622, the last in his great series of string quintets (K. 614 in E-flat), the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618, and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.

Mozart's financial situation, a source of extreme anxiety in 1790, finally began to improve. Although the evidence is inconclusive, it appears that wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities to Mozart in return for the occasional composition. He probably also benefited from the sale of dance music written in his role as Imperial chamber composer. and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered on 15 November 1791.

Final illness and death

in 1819]] Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the premiere on 6 September of his opera La clemenza di Tito, written in 1791 on commission for the Emperor's coronation festivities. He was able to continue his professional functions for some time, and conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute on 30 September. The illness intensified on 20 November, at which point Mozart became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.

Mozart was nursed in his final illness by Constanze and her youngest sister Sophie, and attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. It is clear that he was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem. However, the evidence that he actually dictated passages to his student Süssmayr is very slim.

Mozart died at 1 a.m. on 5 December 1791 at the age of 35. The New Grove gives a matter-of-fact description of his funeral:

The cause of Mozart's death cannot be known with certainty. The official record has it as "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever", referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death, including trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that Mozart died of acute rheumatic fever.

Mozart's sparse funeral did not reflect his standing with the public as a composer: memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, in the period immediately after his death, Mozart's reputation rose substantially: Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his work; biographies were written (first by Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, and Nissen; see Biographies of Mozart); and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.

Mozart usually worked long and hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches and drafts; unlike Beethoven's these are mostly not preserved, as Constanze sought to destroy them after his death. (See: Mozart's compositional method.) He was raised a Roman Catholic and remained a member of the Church throughout his life. (See Mozart and Roman Catholicism.)

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, and knew a great number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. Solomon considers his three closest friends to have been Gottfried von Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani; others included his older colleague Joseph Haydn, singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a curious kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.

He enjoyed billiards and dancing (see Mozart and dance), and kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, and also a horse for recreational riding. He had a fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, but also in his correspondence with his sister and parents. Mozart even wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends. See: Mozart and scatology.

Works, musical style, and innovations

Style

" (K. 626) in Mozart's own handwriting. It is located at the Mozarthaus in Vienna.]] Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetype of the Classical style. At the time he began composing, European music was dominated by the style galant, a reaction against the highly evolved intricacy of the Baroque. Progressively, and in large part at the hands of Mozart himself, the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque emerged once more, moderated and disciplined by new forms, and adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu. Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical sophistication and emotional reach. He almost single-handedly developed and popularized the Classical piano concerto. He wrote a great deal of religious music, including large-scale masses, but also dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the Classical style are all present in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are the hallmarks of his work, but simplistic notions of its delicacy mask the exceptional power of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:

It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous.

Especially during his last decade, Mozart exploited chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time, with remarkable assurance and to great artistic effect.

Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others' music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique compositional language. In London as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which deeply affected the evolution of his own practice. In London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light music with a mania for cadencing; an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of movements. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.

As Mozart matured, he progressively incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 is another excellent example.

Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and instrumental music. He produced operas in each of the prevailing styles: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone color, for emotional depth and to mark dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted: his increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concertos influenced his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was in turn reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.

Influence

Mozart's most famous pupil, whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child, was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras. More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of the training of classical musicians.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at Bonn, and he traveled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study the older composer. Some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.

A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827) and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G, "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to Mozart.

Köchel catalogue

For unambiguous identification of works by Mozart, a Köchel catalogue number is used. This is a unique number assigned, in regular chronological order, to every one of his known works. A work is referenced by the abbreviation "K." followed by this number. The first edition of the catalogue was completed in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves our knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.

See also

The Complete Mozart Edition, 180 compact discs arranged into 45 themed volumes released by Philips Classics Records in 2000.

Mozart effect

Mozart family

Mozart in fiction

Mozartkugel

Mozarteum

Mozarthaus Vienna

Notes

References

Fradkin, Robert A. (1996) The well-tempered announcer: a pronunciation guide to classical music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 025321064X.

Further reading

External links

Mozarthaus Salzburg

Salzburg Tourist Office – Salzburg City Tourist Board website.

Digitized, scanned Material (Books, Sheet music)

"Mozart" Titles; Mozart as author from archive.org

"Mozart" Titles; Mozart as author from books.google.com

Digital Mozart Edition (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum)

"Mozart" titles from Gallica

From the British Library

*Mozart's Thematic Catalogue (view with "Turning the Pages")

*Mozart's Musical Diary

*Background information on Mozart and the Thematic Catalogue

Letters of Leopold Mozart und Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Badische Landesbibliothek)

Sheet music (Scores)

Complete sheetmusic (scores) from the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum)

"Mozart" Titles from the Munich Digitisation Centre (MDZ)

"Mozart" Titles from the University of Rochester

Free typeset sheet music of Mozart's works from Cantorion.org

Mozart as author from archive.org

Mozart as author from books.google.com

* Category:Classical era composers Category:German composers Category:Opera composers Category:Organ improvisers Category:Viennese composers Category:Austrian classical pianists Category:Child classical musicians Category:People from Salzburg Category:Austrian Roman Catholics Category:Knights of the Golden Spur Category:1756 births Category:1791 deaths

Name	John Coltrane
Imge alt	In a black-and-white photo, Coltrane—a middle-aged African-American male—stands against a paper backdrop with his saxophone around his neck, wearing a striped jacket, plain white shirt, and dark pants.
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth name	John William Coltrane
Alias	"Trane"
Born	September 23, 1926Hamlet, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	July 17, 1967Huntington, New York, U.S.
Genre	Jazz, avant-garde jazz, bebop, hard bop, post bop, modal jazz, free jazz
Occupation	Saxophonist, composer, bandleader
Instrument	Tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
Years active	1946–1967
Label	Prestige, Blue Note, Atlantic, Impulse!, Pablo
Associated acts	Miles Davis Quintet, Thelonious Monk
Url	johncoltrane.com

Name	Saint John William Coltrane
Birth date	September 23, 1926
Birth place	Hamlet, North Carolina, U.S.
Death date	July 17, 1967
Death place	Huntington, New York, U.S.
Venerated in	African Orthodox Church
Patronage	Musicians}}

John William Coltrane (sometimes abbreviated "Trane"; September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He was prolific, organizing at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.

As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane, and their son Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He received many posthumous awards and recognition, including a beatification by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane. In 2007, Coltrane was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."

Biography

Early life and career (1926–1954)

John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926, and grew up in High Point, NC, attending William Penn High School (now Penn-Griffin School for the Arts). Beginning in December 1938 Coltrane's aunt, grandparents, and father all died within a few months of each other, leaving John to be raised by his mother and a close cousin. In June 1943 he moved to Philadelphia PA. He enlisted in the Navy in 1945, and played in the Navy jazz band once he was stationed in Hawaii. Coltrane returned to civilian life in 1946 and began jazz theory studies with Philadelphia guitarist and composer Dennis Sandole. Coltrane continued under Sandole's tutelage until the early 1950s. Originally an altoist, during this time Coltrane also began playing tenor saxophone with the Eddie Vinson Band. Coltrane later referred to this point in his life as a time when "a wider area of listening opened up for me. There were many things that people like Hawk, and Ben, and Tab Smith were doing in the '40s that I didn't understand, but that I felt emotionally."

An important moment in the progression of Coltrane's musical development occurred on June 5, 1945, when he saw Charlie Parker perform for the first time. In a DownBeat article in 1960 he recalled: "the first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes." An advantage to Coltrane recording with Impulse! was that it would enable him to work again with engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who had taped both his and Davis's Prestige sessions, as well as Blue Train. It was at Van Gelder's new studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey that Coltrane would record most of his records for the label.

By early 1961, bassist Davis had been replaced by Reggie Workman while Eric Dolphy joined the group as a second horn around the same time. The quintet had a celebrated (and extensively recorded) residency in November 1961 at the Village Vanguard, which demonstrated Coltrane's new direction. It featured the most experimental music he'd played up to this point, influenced by Indian ragas, the recent developments in modal jazz, and the burgeoning free jazz movement. John Gilmore, a longtime saxophonist with musician Sun Ra, was particularly influential; after hearing a Gilmore performance, Coltrane is reported to have said "He's got it! Gilmore's got the concept!" The most celebrated of the Vanguard tunes, the 15-minute blues, "Chasin' the 'Trane", was strongly inspired by Gilmore's music.

During this period, critics were fiercely divided in their estimation of Coltrane, who had radically altered his style. Audiences, too, were perplexed; in France he was famously booed during his final tour with Davis. In 1961, Down Beat magazine indicted Coltrane, along with Eric Dolphy, as players of "Anti-Jazz" in an article that bewildered and upset the musicians. Coltrane admitted some of his early solos were based mostly on technical ideas. Furthermore, Dolphy's angular, voice-like playing earned him a reputation as a figurehead of the "New Thing" (also known as "Free Jazz" and "Avant-Garde") movement led by Ornette Coleman, which was also denigrated by some jazz musicians (including Trane's old boss, Miles Davis) and critics. But as Coltrane's style further developed, he was determined to make each performance "a whole expression of one's being", as he would call his music in a 1966 interview.

Classic Quartet period (1962–1965)

In 1962, Dolphy departed and Jimmy Garrison replaced Workman as bassist. From then on, the "Classic Quartet", as it came to be known, with Tyner, Garrison, and Jones, produced searching, spiritually driven work. Coltrane was moving toward a more harmonically static style that allowed him to expand his improvisations rhythmically, melodically, and motivically. Harmonically complex music was still present, but on stage Coltrane heavily favored continually reworking his "standards": "Impressions", "My Favorite Things", and "I Want to Talk about You."

The criticism of the quintet with Dolphy may have had an impact on Coltrane. In contrast to the radicalism of Trane's 1961 recordings at the Village Vanguard, his studio albums in 1962 and 1963 (with the exception of Coltrane, which featured a blistering version of Harold Arlen's "Out of This World") were much more conservative and accessible. He recorded an album of ballads and participated in collaborations with Duke Ellington on the album Duke Ellington and John Coltrane and with deep-voiced ballad singer Johnny Hartman on an eponymous co-credited album. The Impulse compilation Coltrane for Lovers is largely drawn from these three albums. The album Ballads is emblematic of Coltrane's versatility, as the quartet shed new light on old-fashioned standards such as "It's Easy to Remember". Despite a more polished approach in the studio, in concert the quartet continued to balance "standard" and its own more exploratory and challenging music, as can be seen on the Impressions album (two extended jams including the title track along with "Dear Old Stockholm", "After the Rain" and a blues), Coltrane at Newport (where he plays "My Favorite Things") and Live at Birdland both from 1963. Coltrane later said he enjoyed having a "balanced catalogue."

The Classic Quartet produced their most famous record, A Love Supreme, in December 1964. A culmination of much of Coltrane's work up to this point, this four-part suite is an ode to his faith in and love for God. These spiritual concerns would characterize much of Coltrane's composing and playing from this point onwards, as can be seen from album titles such as Ascension, Om and Meditations. The fourth movement of A Love Supreme, "Psalm", is, in fact, a musical setting for an original poem to God written by Coltrane, and printed in the album's liner notes. Coltrane plays almost exactly one note for each syllable of the poem, and bases his phrasing on the words. Despite its challenging musical content, the album was a commercial success by jazz standards, encapsulating both the internal and external energy of the quartet of Coltrane, Tyner, Jones and Garrison. Indeed the previous album Crescent recorded only a few months before already shows the adventurousness and rapport between these musicians. The album was composed at Coltrane's home in Dix Hills on Long Island.

The quartet only played A Love Supreme live once—in July 1965 at a concert in Antibes, France. By then, Coltrane's music had grown even more adventurous, and the performance provides an interesting contrast to the original.

Avant-garde jazz and the second quartet (1965–1967)

In his late period, Coltrane showed an increasing interest in avant-garde jazz, purveyed by Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra and others. In developing his late style, Coltrane was especially influenced by the dissonance of Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, a rhythm section honed with Cecil Taylor as leader. Coltrane championed many younger free jazz musicians, (notably Archie Shepp), and under his influence Impulse! became a leading free jazz record label.

After A Love Supreme was recorded, Ayler's apocalyptic style became more prominent in Coltrane's music. A series of recordings with the Classic Quartet in the first half of 1965 show Coltrane's playing becoming increasingly abstract, with greater incorporation of devices like multiphonics, utilization of overtones, and playing in the altissimo register, as well as a mutated return to Coltrane's sheets of sound. In the studio, he all but abandoned his soprano to concentrate on the tenor saxophone. In addition, the quartet responded to the leader by playing with increasing freedom. The group's evolution can be traced through the recordings The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, Living Space, Transition (both June 1965), New Thing at Newport (July 1965), Sun Ship (August 1965), and First Meditations (September 1965).

In June 1965, he went into Van Gelder's studio with ten other musicians (including Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Marion Brown, and John Tchicai) to record Ascension, a 40-minute long piece that included adventurous solos by the young avant-garde musicians (as well as Coltrane), and was controversial primarily for the collective improvisation sections that separated the solos. After recording with the quartet over the next few months, Coltrane invited Pharoah Sanders to join the band in September 1965.

By any measure, Sanders was one of the most abrasive, virtuosic saxophonists then playing. While Coltrane used over-blowing frequently as an emotional exclamation-point, Sanders would opt to overblow his entire solo, resulting in a constant screaming and screeching in the altissimo range of the instrument. The more Coltrane played with Sanders, the more he gravitated to Sanders' unique sound.

Adding to the quartet

By late 1965, Coltrane was regularly augmenting his group with Sanders and other free jazz musicians. Rashied Ali joined the group as a second drummer. This was the end of the quartet; claiming he was unable to hear himself over the two drummers, Tyner left the band shortly after the recording of Meditations. Jones left in early 1966, dissatisfied by sharing drumming duties with Ali. Both Tyner and Jones subsequently expressed displeasure in interviews, after Coltrane's death, with the music's new direction, while incorporating some of the free-jazz form's intensity into their own solo projects.

In 1965 Coltrane may have begun using LSD - informing the sublime, "cosmic" transcendence of his late period, and also its incomprehensibility to many listeners. After Jones's and Tyner's departures, Coltrane led a quintet with Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone, his second wife Alice Coltrane on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Rashied Ali on drums. Coltrane and Sanders were described by Nat Hentoff as "speaking in tongues". When touring, the group was known for playing very lengthy versions of their repertoire, many stretching beyond 30 minutes and sometimes even being an hour long. Concert solos for band members regularly extended beyond fifteen minutes in duration.

Despite the radicalism of the horns, the rhythm section with Ali and Alice Coltrane had a more relaxed, random but meditative feel than with Jones and Tyner. The group can be heard on several live recordings from 1966, including Live at the Village Vanguard Again! and Live in Japan. In 1967, Coltrane entered the studio several times; though pieces with Sanders have surfaced (the unusual "To Be", which features both men on flutes), most of the recordings were either with the quartet minus Sanders (Expression and Stellar Regions) or as a duo with Ali. The latter duo produced six performances which appear on the album Interstellar Space.

Death and funeral

Coltrane died from liver cancer at Huntington Hospital on Long Island on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40. His funeral was held on Friday, July 21 at St. Peters Lutheran Church in New York City. The Albert Ayler Quartet and The Ornette Coleman Quartet respectively opened and closed the service. He is buried at Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, N.Y.

Biographer Lewis Porter has suggested, somewhat controversially, that the cause of Coltrane's illness was hepatitis, although he also attributed the disease to Coltrane's heroin use. In a 1968 interview Albert Ayler claimed that Coltrane was consulting a Hindu meditative healer for his illness instead of Western medicine, though Alice Coltrane later denied this.

His death surprised many in the musical community who were not aware of his condition. Miles Davis commented: "Coltrane's death shocked everyone, took everyone by surprise. I knew he hadn't looked too good... But I didn't know he was that sick—or even sick at all."

The Coltrane family reportedly remains in possession of much more as-yet-unreleased music, mostly mono reference tapes made for the saxophonist and, as with the 1995 release Stellar Regions, master tapes that were checked out of the studio and never returned. The parent company of Impulse!, from 1965 to 1979 known as ABC Records, purged much of its unreleased material in the 1970s. Lewis Porter has stated that Alice Coltrane, who died in 2007, intended to release this music, but over a long period of time; her son Ravi Coltrane, responsible for reviewing the material, is also pursuing his own career.

Instruments

Coltrane played the clarinet and the alto horn in a community band before taking up the alto saxophone during high school. In 1947, when he joined King Kolax's band, Coltrane switched to tenor saxophone, the instrument he became known for playing primarily. in High Point, North Carolina, and John's paternal grandfather, Reverend William H. Coltrane, was an A.M.E. Zion minister in Hamlet, North Carolina.

In 1955, Coltrane married Juanita Naima Grubbs, a Muslim convert, (for whom he later wrote the piece "Naima"), and came into contact with Islam. Coltrane explored Hinduism, the Kabbalah, Jiddu Krishnamurti, African history, and the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Coltrane also became interested in Zen Buddhism and, later in his career, visited Buddhist temples during his 1966 tour of Japan.

Since 1948, Coltrane had struggled with heroin addiction as well as alcoholism. In 1957, Coltrane changed his life for the better. He had a religious experience which may have been what finally led him to overcome his addictions to alcohol and heroin. In the liner notes of A Love Supreme (released in 1965) Coltrane states "[d]uring the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music." In his 1965 album Meditations, Coltrane wrote about uplifting people, "...To inspire them to realize more and more of their capacities for living meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaning to life."

John and Naima Coltrane had no children together and were separated by the summer of 1963, and not long after that John met pianist Alice McLeod (who soon became Alice Coltrane). John and Alice moved in together and had two sons before he was "officially divorced from Naima in 1966, at which time John and Alice were immediately married." However, in Lewis Porter's book John Coltrane: His Life and Music (2000), on page 242, he describes the lyrics this way: "Coltrane and another voice - probably himself overdubbed - chant the words "a love supreme" in unison with the bass ostinato". In Peter Lavezzoli's book The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi (2006), on page 283, he says, "Certainly in his opening solo in "Acknowledgment," with his constant modulations of the same phrase in different keys, Coltrane assumes the role of the preacher. After stating the theme in every possible key, Coltrane concludes his solo and quietly begins to chant, "A love supreme . . . . a love supreme," singing the same four notes played by Garrison on the bass. After chanting "A love supreme" sixteen times, Coltrane and the band shift from F minor down to E flat minor, and the chant slowly tapers off." Whatever the case may be, the liner notes to A Love Supreme appear to mention God in a Universalist sense, and do not advocate one religion over another. Further evidence of this universal view regarding spirituality can be found in the liner notes of Meditations (1965), in which Coltrane declares, "I believe in all religions."

Lavezzoli points out that "After A Love Supreme, most of Coltrane's song and album titles had spiritual implications: Ascension, Om, Selflessness, Meditations, "Amen," "Ascent," "Attaining," "Dear Lord," "Prayer and Meditation Suite," and the opening movement of Meditations, "The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost," the most obvious Christian reference in any of Coltrane's work."

In October 1965, Coltrane recorded Om, referring to the sacred syllable in Hinduism, which symbolizes the infinite or the entire Universe. Coltrane described Om as the "first syllable, the primal word, the word of power". The 29-minute recording contains chants from the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu holy book, as well as Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders chanting from a Buddhist text, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and reciting a passage describing the primal verbalization "om" as a cosmic/spiritual common denominator in all things.

Coltrane's spiritual journey was interwoven with his investigation into world music. He believed not only in a universal musical structure which transcended ethnic distinctions, but in being able to harness the mystical language of music itself. Coltrane's study of Indian music led him to believe that certain sounds and scales could "produce specific emotional meanings." According to Coltrane, the goal of a musician was to understand these forces, control them, and elicit a response from the audience. Coltrane said: "I would like to bring to people something like happiness. I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I'd like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he'd be broke, I'd bring out a different song and immediately he'd receive all the money he needed."

Legacy

The influence Coltrane has had on music spans many different genres and musicians. Coltrane's massive influence on jazz, both mainstream and avant-garde, began during his lifetime and continued to grow after his death. He is one of the most dominant influences on post-1960 jazz saxophonists and has inspired an entire generation of jazz musicians. In 1965, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1972, A Love Supreme was certified gold by the RIAA for selling over half a million copies in Japan. This album, as well as My Favorite Things, was certified gold in the United States in 2001. In 1982 Coltrane was awarded a posthumous Grammy for "Best Jazz Solo Performance" on the album Bye Bye Blackbird, and in 1997, was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Coltrane's tenor (Selmer Mark VI, serial number 125571, dated 1965) and soprano (Selmer Mark VI, serial number 99626, dated 1962) saxophones were auctioned on February 20, 2005 to raise money for the John Coltrane Foundation. The soprano raised $70,800 but the tenor remained unsold.

Sainthood

The African Orthodox Church has beatified Coltrane and declared him a saint in 1971. Its services incorporate Coltrane's music, using his lyrics as prayers. A documentary on Coltrane, featuring the church, presented by Alan Yentob was produced for the BBC in 2004.

Discography

Discography below lists albums conceived and approved by Coltrane as a leader during his lifetime. It does not include his many releases as a sideman, sessions assembled into albums by various record labels after Coltrane's contract expired, sessions with Coltrane as a sideman later reissued with his name featured more prominently, or posthumous compilations except for the one which he approved before his death. See main discography link above for full list.

Prestige and Blue Note Records

Coltrane (debut solo LP) (1957)

Blue Train (1957)

John Coltrane with The Red Garland Trio (1957)

Soultrane (1958)

Lush Life (1958)

Atlantic Records

Giant Steps (first album entirely of Coltrane compositions) (1960)

Coltrane Jazz (first appearance by McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones) (1961)

My Favorite Things (1961)

Olé Coltrane (features Eric Dolphy, compositions by Coltrane and Tyner) (1961)

Impulse! Records

Africa/Brass (brass arranged by Tyner and Dolphy) (1961)

Live! at the Village Vanguard (features Dolphy, first appearance by Jimmy Garrison) (1962)

Coltrane (first album to solely feature the "classic quartet") (1962)

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1963)

Ballads (1963)

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)

Impressions (1963)

Live at Birdland (1963)

Crescent (1964)

A Love Supreme (1965)

The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (1965)

Ascension (1965)

New Thing at Newport (live with Archie Shepp) (1965)

Kulu Se Mama (1966)

Meditations (quartet plus Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali) (1966)

Live at the Village Vanguard Again! (featuring Alice Coltrane, as well as Sanders and Ali) (1966)

Expression (posthumous and final Coltrane-approved release; one track features Coltrane on flute) (1967)

References

Sources

External links

Official Website

Cuthbert Simpkins Interviews on John Coltrane at Duke University

David Tegnell Interviews on John Coltrane at Duke University

Jazz Archive at Duke University

Ode to John Coltrane — By The Antioch Review

John Coltrane Sessionography

1957 Carnegie Hall Performance in Transcription and Analysis

Infography about John Coltrane

"Joe Lovano Selects Essential John Coltrane Tracks", edited by Ted Panken, (Jazz.com)

John Coltrane Multimedia Directory - Kerouac Alley

SoundUnwound timeline

Complete Discography (as band leader)

Category:1926 births Category:1967 deaths Category:20th-century Christian saints Category:ABC Records artists Category:African American composers Category:American jazz bandleaders Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz soprano saxophonists Category:American jazz tenor saxophonists Category:American saints Category:Anglican saints Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Avant-garde jazz composers Category:Avant-garde jazz flautists Category:Avant-garde jazz saxophonists Category:Bebop composers Category:Bebop saxophonists Category:Blue Note Records artists Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:Combs College of Music alumni Category:Deaths from liver cancer Category:Free jazz clarinetists Category:Free jazz composers Category:Free jazz flautists Category:Free jazz saxophonists Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Hard bop saxophonists Category:Impulse! Records artists Category:Miles Davis Category:Modal jazz saxophonists Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:Musicians from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Pablo Records artists Category:People from Richmond County, North Carolina Category:Post-bop composers Category:Post-bop saxophonists Category:Prestige Records artists Category:Savoy Records artists Category:United States Navy sailors

Name	Count Basie
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth name	William James Basie
Born	August 21, 1904Red Bank, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	April 26, 1984Hollywood, Florida, U.S.
Instrument	Piano, organ
Genre	Swing, big band, piano blues
Occupation	Musician, bandleader, composer
Years active	1924–1984

William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie's theme songs were "One O'Clock Jump" and "April In Paris".

Biography

Early life

William James Basie was born to Harvey Lee Basie, and Lillian Ann Childs, who lived on Mechanic Street in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his father became a groundskeeper and handyman for several families in the area. His mother, a piano player who gave Basie his first piano lessons, took in laundry and baked cakes for sale and paid 25 cents a lesson for piano instruction for him.

Basie was not much of a scholar and instead dreamed of a traveling life, inspired by the carnivals which came to town. He only got as far as junior high school. He would hang out at the Palace Theater in Red Bank and did occasional chores for the management, which got him free admission to the shows. He also learned to operate the spotlights for the vaudeville shows. One day, when the pianist failed to arrive by show time, Basie took his place. Playing by ear, he quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to silent movies.

Though a natural at the piano, Basie preferred drums. However, the obvious talents of another young Red Bank area drummer, Sonny Greer (who was Duke Ellington's drummer from 1919 to 1951), discouraged Basie and he switched to piano exclusively by age 15. When not playing a gig, he hung out at the local pool hall with other musicians where he picked up on upcoming play dates and gossip. He got some jobs in Asbury Park, New Jersey, playing at the Hongkong Inn, until a better player took his place.

Early career

Around 1924, he went to Harlem, a hotbed of jazz, living down the block from the Alhambra Theater. Early after his arrival, he bumped into Sonny Greer, who was by then the drummer for the Washingtonians, Duke Ellington's early band. Soon, Basie met many of the Harlem musicians who were making the scene, including Willie "the Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson.

Basie toured in several acts between 1925 and 1927, including Katie Krippen and Her Kiddies as part of the Hippity Hop show; on the Keith, the Columbia Burlesque, and the Theater Owners Bookers Association (T.O.B.A.) vaudeville circuits; and as a soloist and accompanist to blues singers Katie Krippen and Gonzelle White. His touring took him to Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Chicago. Throughout his tours, Basie met many great jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong.

Back in Harlem in 1925, Basie got his first steady job at Leroy's, a place known for its piano players and its "cutting contests." The place catered to "uptown celebrities," and typically the band winged every number without sheet music (using "head" arrangements). He met Fats Waller, who was playing organ at the Lincoln Theater accompanying silent movies, and Waller taught him how to play that instrument (Basie later played organ at the Eblon Theater in Kansas City). As he did with Duke Ellington, Willie "the Lion" Smith helped Basie out during the lean times arranging gigs at house-rent parties, introducing him to other top musicians, and teaching him some piano technique.

In 1928 Basie was in Tulsa and heard Walter Page and his Famous Blue Devils, one of the first big bands, which featured Jimmy Rushing on vocals. A few months later, he was invited to join the band, which played mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. It was at this time that he began to be known as "Count" Basie (see Jazz royalty).

Kansas City years

The following year, Basie became the pianist with the Bennie Moten band based in Kansas City, inspired by Moten's ambition to raise his band to the level of Duke Ellington's or Fletcher Henderson's. Where the Blue Devils were "snappier" and more "bluesy," the Moten band was classier and more respected, and played in the "Kansas City stomp" style. In addition to playing piano, Basie was co-arranger with Eddie Durham, who actually did the notating. During a stay in Chicago, Basie recorded with the band. He occasionally played four-hand piano and dual pianos with Moten, who also conducted. The band improved with several personnel changes, including the addition of tenor saxophonist Ben Webster.

When the band voted Moten out, Basie took over for several months as Count Basie and his Cherry Blossoms until the band folded, when he returned to Moten's newly re-organized band. When Moten died in 1935 after a surgical procedure, the band unsuccessfully attempted to stay together. Then Basie formed a new band, which included many Moten alumni, with the important addition of tenor player Lester Young. They played at the Reno Club and sometimes were broadcast on local radio. Late one night with time to fill, the band started improvising. Basie liked the results and named the piece "One O'Clock Jump." According to Basie, "we hit it with the rhythm section and went into the riffs, and the riffs just stuck. We set the thing up front in D-flat, and then we just went on playing in F." It became his signature tune.

Hammond and first recordings

, from the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)]] At the end of 1936, Basie and his band, now billed as Count Basie and His Barons of Rhythm, moved from Kansas City and honed their repertoire at a long engagement at the Grand Terrace Ballroom in Chicago. Right from the start, Basie's band was noted for its rhythm section. Another Basie innovation was the use of two tenor saxophone players; at the time, most bands had just one. When Lester Young complained of Herschel Evans' vibrato, the two were split apart and placed one on each side of the alto players, and soon Basie had the tenor players engaged in "duels". Many other bands later adapted the split tenor arrangement.

In that city in October 1936, members of the band participated in a recording session which producer John Hammond later described as "the only perfect, completely perfect recording session I've ever had anything to do with". Hammond, according to Basie, had heard Basie's band over short-wave radio, then he went to Kansas City to check them out. The results were Lester Young's earliest recordings. Those four sides were released under the name Jones-Smith Incorporated, because Basie had already signed with Decca Records but had not started recording for them (his first Decca session was January 1937). The sides were "Shoe Shine Boy", "Evening", "Boogie Woogie", and "Oh, Lady Be Good".

By now, Basie's sound was characterized by a "jumping" beat and the contrapuntal accents of his own piano. His personnel around 1937 included: Lester Young and Herschel Evans (tenor sax), Freddie Green (guitar), Jo Jones (drums), Walter Page (bass), Earle Warren (alto sax), Buck Clayton and Harry Edison (trumpet), Benny Morton and Dickie Wells (trombone). Lester Young, known as "Prez" by the band, came up with nicknames for all the other band members. Basie became known as "Holy Man", "Holy Main", and just plain "Holy".

Basie favored blues, and he showcased some of the most notable blues singers of the era: Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rushing, Big Joe Turner, Helen Humes, and Joe Williams. He also hired arrangers who knew how to maximize the band's abilities, such as Eddie Durham and Jimmy Mundy.

New York City and the Swing years

When they arrived in New York, they made the Woodside Hotel their base (where they often rehearsed in the basement). Soon, they were booked at the Roseland Ballroom for the Christmas show. Basie recalled a review, which in his words was something like, "We caught the great Count Basie band which is supposed to be so hot he was going to come in here and set the Roseland on fire. Well, the Roseland is still standing". Compared to the reigning band of Fletcher Henderson, Basie's band lacked polish and presentation. Hammond advised and encouraged them, and they soon came up with some adjustments, including softer playing, more solos, more standards, and saving their hottest numbers for later in the show to give the audience a chance to warm up. His first official recordings for Decca followed, under contract to agent MCA, including "Pennies from Heaven" and "Honeysuckle Rose".

Hammond introduced Basie to Billie Holiday who was soon singing with the band. (Holiday didn't record with Basie, however, as she had her own record contract and preferred working with small combos). The band's first appearance at the Apollo Theater followed, with vocalists Holiday and Rushing getting the most attention. Eddie Durham came back to help with arranging and composing, but for the most part their numbers were worked out in rehearsal, with Basie, guiding the proceedings, and the results written out little if at all. Once they found what they liked, they usually were able to repeat it using their collective memory.

Next, Basie played at the Savoy, which was noted more for jitterbugging, while the Roseland was more of a place for fox-trots and congas. In early 1938, the Savoy was the meeting ground for a "battle of the bands" with Chick Webb's group. Basie had Holiday and Webb countered with Ella Fitzgerald. As Metronome magazine proclaimed, "Basie's Brilliant Band Conquers Chick's", then it went on in detail, : "Throughout the fight, which never let down in its intensity during the whole fray, Chick took the aggressive, with the Count playing along easily and, on the whole, more musically scientifically. Undismayed by Chick's forceful drum beating, which sent the audience into shouts of encouragement and appreciation and casual beads of perspiration to drop from Chick's brow onto the brass cymbals, the Count maintained an attitude of poise and self-assurance. He constantly parried Chick's thundering haymakers with tantalizing runs and arpeggios which teased more and more force from his adversary". The publicity over the battle, before and after, gave the Basie band a big boost and they gained wider recognition, as evidenced by Benny Goodman's recording of One O'Clock Jump shortly thereafter.

A few months later, Holiday left for Artie Shaw's band, and was replaced by Helen Humes; she was also ushered in by John Hammond, and stayed with Basie for four years. Co-arranger and trombone player Eddie Durham left for Glenn Miller's orchestra and was replaced by Dicky Wells. Basie's 14-man band began playing at the Famous Door, a mid-town nightspot, with a CBS network feed and air conditioning. Their fame took a huge leap. Adding to their play book, Basie received arrangements from Jimmy Mundy (who had also worked with Benny Goodman and Earl Hines) particularly for "Cherokee", "Easy Does It", and "Super Chief". In 1939, Basie and his band made a major cross-country tour, including their first West Coast dates. A few months later, Basie quit MCA and signed with the William Morris Agency, who got them better fees.

In 1942, Basie moved to Queens with Catherine Morgan, after being married to her for a few years. On the West Coast, the band did a spot in Reveille With Beverly, a musical starring Ann Miller, and also a "Command Performance" for Armed Forces Radio with Hollywood stars Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Carmen Miranda, Jerry Colonna, and singer Dinah Shore. Other minor movie spots followed including Choo Choo Swing, Crazy House, Top Man, and Hit Parade of 1943. They also started to record with RCA. The war years caused a lot of member turn over, and the band worked many play dates with lower pay. Dance hall bookings were down sharply as swing began to fade, the effects of the musicians' strikes of 1942-44 and 1948 began to be felt and the public's growing taste for singers.

Post-war and later years

The big band era appeared to have ended after the war, and Basie disbanded the group. For a while, he performed in combos, sometimes stretched to an orchestra. In 1950, he headlined the Universal-International short film 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet. He reformed his group as a 16-piece orchestra in 1952. Basie credits Billy Eckstine, a top male vocalist of the time, for prompting his return to Big Band and Norman Granz for getting him into the Birdland club and promoting the new band through recordings on the Mercury, Clef, and Verve labels. The jukebox era had begun, and Basie shared the exposure along with early rock'n'roll and rhythm and blues artists. Basie's new band was more of an ensemble group, with fewer solo turns, and relying less on "head" and more on written arrangements.

Basie added touches of bebop "so long as it made sense", and he required that "it all had to have feeling". Basie's band was sharing Birdland with bebop greats Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. Behind the occasional bebop solos, though, he always kept his strict rhythmic pulse, "so it doesn't matter what they do up front; the audience gets the beat". Basie also added flute to some numbers, a novelty at the time that became widely copied. Soon, they were touring and recording again. The new band included: Paul Campbell, Tommy Turrentine, Johnny Letman, and Idris Sulieman, Joe Newman (trumpet); Jimmy Wilkins, Benny Powell, Matthew Gee (trombone); Paul Quinichette and Floyd Johnson (tenor sax); Marshall Royal and Ernie Wilkins (alto sax); and Charlie Fowlkes (baritone sax). Down Beat said "(Basie) has managed to assemble an ensemble that can thrill both the listener who remembers 1938 and the youngster who has never before heard a big band like this".

In 1954, the band made its first European tour. Jazz was especially strong in France, The Netherlands, and Germany in the 1950s; These countries were the stomping grounds for many expatriate jazz stars who were either resurrecting their careers or sitting out the years of racial divide in the United States. Neal Hefti began to provide arrangements, notably "Lil Darlin'". By the mid-1950s, Basie's band had become one of the preeminent backing big bands for some of the most prominent jazz vocalists of the time. They also toured with the "Birdland Stars of 1955", whose lineup included Sarah Vaughan, Erroll Garner, Lester Young, George Shearing, and Stan Getz.

In 1957, Basie released the live album Count Basie at Newport. "April in Paris" (arrangement by Wild Bill Davis) was a best-selling instrumental and the title song for the hit album. The Basie band made two tours in the British Isles and on the second, they put on a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II, along with Judy Garland, Vera Lynn, and Mario Lanza.He was a guest on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, a venue also opened to several other black entertainers. In 1959, Basie's band recorded a "greatest hits" double album The Count Basie Story (Frank Foster, arranger) and "Basie and Eckstine, Inc.": album featuring Billy Eckstine, Quincy Jones (as arranger) and the Count Basie Orchestra. It was released by Roulette Records, then later reissued by Capital Records.

Later that year, Basie appeared on a television special with Fred Astaire, featuring a dance solo to "Sweet Georgia Brown", followed in January 1960 by Basie performing at one of the five John F. Kennedy Inaugural Balls. That summer, Basie and Duke Ellington combined forces for the recording First Time! The Count Meets the Duke, each providing four numbers from their play books.

During the balance of the 1960s, the band kept busy with tours, recordings, television appearances, festivals, Las Vegas shows, and travel abroad, including cruises. Some time around 1964, Basie adopted his trademark yachting cap. Through steady changes in personnel, Basie led the band into the 1970s. Basie made a few more movie appearances, such as the Jerry Lewis film Cinderfella (1960) and the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles (1974), playing his arrangement of "April in Paris".

Basie died of pancreatic cancer in Hollywood, Florida on April 26, 1984 at the age of 79.

Basie also recorded with Tony Bennett in the early 1960s — their albums together included the live recording at Las Vegas and Strike Up the Band, a studio album. Basie also toured with Bennett, including a date at Carnegie Hall. Other notable recordings were with Sammy Davis, Jr., Bing Crosby, and Sarah Vaughan. One of Basie's biggest regrets was never recording with Louis Armstrong, though they shared the same bill several times.

Legacy

Count Basie introduced several generations of listeners to the Big Band sound and left an influential catalog. Basie is remembered by many who worked for him as being considerate of musicians and their opinions, modest, relaxed, fun-loving, dryly witty, and always enthusiastic about his music. As he summed up the key to his understated style, in his autobiography, "I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter".

Other cultural connections include Jerry Lewis using "Blues in Hoss' Flat" from Basie's Chairman of the Board album, as the basis for his own "Chairman of the Board" routine in the movie The Errand Boy, in which Lewis pantomimed the movements of a corporate executive holding a board meeting. (In the early 1980s, Lewis revived the routine during the live broadcast of one of his Muscular Dystrophy Association telethons). Blues in Hoss' Flat, composed by Basie band member Frank Foster, was also the longtime theme song of San Francisco and New York radio DJ Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins. In addition, Basie is one of the producers of the "world's greatest music" that Brenda Fricker's "Pigeon Lady" character claims to have heard in Carnegie Hall in 1992's . Drummer Neil Peart of the Canadian rock band Rush recorded a version of "One O'Clock Jump" with the Buddy Rich Big Band, and has used it at the end of his drum solos on the 2002 Vapor Trails Tour and Rush's .

The Count Basie Theatre and Count Basie Field in his hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey were named in his honor. The street on which he lived, Mechanic Street has the honorary title of Count Basie Way.

On September 26, 2009, Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan, were renamed as Paul Robeson Boulevard and Count Basie Place. The corner is the location of 555 Edgecombe Avenue, also known as the Paul Robeson Home, a National Historic Landmark building where Count Basie and Paul Robeson lived.

Discography

The majority of Basie's recordings were made with his big band, see Count Basie Orchestra Discography.

Basie also made several small group recordings without his band:

Count Basie Sextet (1954, Clef)

Count Basie and the Kansas City 7 (1962, Columbia)

Basie Swingin' Voices Singin' (1966, EMI)

Afrique (1971, BMG International)

Loose Walk (with Roy Eldridge) (1972, Pablo)

Basie Jam (1973, Pablo)

The Bosses (with Big Joe Turner) (1973)

For the First Time (1974, Pablo)

Satch and Josh (with Oscar Peterson)

Basie & Zoot (with Zoot Sims) (1975, Pablo)

For the Second Time (1975, Pablo)

Basie Jam 2 (1976, Pablo)

Basie Jam 3 (1976, Pablo)

Kansas City 5 (1977, Pablo)

The Gifted Ones (with Dizzy Gillespie) (1977, Pablo)

(live) (1977, Pablo)

Satch and Josh...Again (with Oscar Peterson) (1977, Pablo)

Night Rider (with Oscar Peterson) (1978, Pablo)

Count Basie Meets Oscar Peterson – The Timekeepers (with Oscar Peterson) (1978, Pablo)

Yessir, That's My Baby (with Oscar Peterson) (1978, Pablo)

(1979, Pablo)

Kansas City 7 (1980, Pablo)

Kansas City 6 (1981, Pablo)

Mostly Blues...and Some Others (1983, Pablo)

Filmography

Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet (1950) – as himself

Cinderfella (1960) – as himself

Blazing Saddles (1974) – as himself with his orchestra

Awards

Grammy Awards

{| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Count Basie Grammy Award History |- |- ! Year ! Category ! Title ! Genre ! Results |- align=center | 1982 | Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band | Warm Breeze | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1984 | Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band | 88 Basie Street | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1980 | Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band | On The Road | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1977 | Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band | Prime Time | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1976 | Best Jazz Performance By A Soloist (Instrumental) | Basie And Zoot | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1963 | Best Performance By An Orchestra – For Dancing | This Time By Basie! Hits Of The 50's And 60's | Pop | Winner |- align=center | 1960 | Best Performance By A Band For Dancing | Dance With Basie | Pop | Winner |- align=center | 1958 | Best Performance By A Dance Band | Basie | Pop | Winner |- align=center | 1958 | Best Jazz Performance, Group | Basie | Jazz | Winner |- align=center |}

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Count Basie was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

{| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Count Basie Grammy Hall of Fame Awards |- ! Year Recorded ! Title ! genre ! Label ! Year Inducted |- align=center | 1939 | Lester Leaps In | Jazz (Single) | Vocalion | 2005 |- align=center | 1955 | Everyday (I Have the Blues) | Jazz (Single) | Clef | 1992 |- align=center | 1955 | April in Paris | Jazz (Single) | Clef | 1985 |- align=center | 1937 | One O'Clock Jump | Jazz (Single) | Decca | 1979 |- align=center |}

Honors and Inductions

On May 23, 1985, William "Count" Basie was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. The award was received by his son, Aaron Woodward.

On September 11, 1996 the U.S. Post Office issued a Count Basie 32 cents postage stamp. Basie is a part of the Big Band Leaders issue, which, is in turn, part of the Legends of American Music series.

{| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Count Basie Award History |- ! Year ! Category ! Result ! Notes |- align=center | 2007 | Long Island Music Hall of Fame | Inducted |- align=center | 2005 | Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame | Inducted |- align=center | 2002 | Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award | Winner | |- align=center | 1983 | NEA Jazz Masters | Winner |- align=center | 1981 | Grammy Trustees Award | Winner |- align=center | 1981 | Kennedy Center Honors | Honoree |- align=center | late 1970s | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Honoree | at 6508 Hollywood Blvd. |- align=center | 1970 | Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia | Initiated | Mu Nu Chapter |- align=center | 1958 | Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame | Inducted |- align=center |}

National Recording Registry

In 2005, Count Basie's song "One O'Clock Jump" (1937) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

References

External links

International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation

Basie biography at swingmusic.net

BBC Profile of Count Basie

Downbeat Magazine

U.S. Postal Service Biography

Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom – May 23, 1985

Basie biography and album list

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