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The badge of the Prince of Wales.

The Prince of Wales's feathers is the heraldic badge of the Heir Apparent to the Commonwealth realms thrones. It consists of three white feathers emerging from a gold coronet. A ribbon below the coronet bears the motto Ich dien (a contraction of the German for "I serve", ich diene). As well as being used in royal heraldry, the badge is sometimes used to symbolise Wales,^[1] particularly in Welsh rugby union and rugby league; however, its use as such is controversial and rejected by some Welsh nationalists as a symbol of the British monarchy rather than of Wales.

Origins of the badge[link]

The Black Prince's "shield for peace".

The badge has no connection with the native Princes of Wales.

Its use is generally traced back to Edward, the Black Prince, eldest son (and heir apparent) of Edward III of England. Edward bore (as an alternative to his differenced royal arms) a shield of Sable, three ostrich feathers argent, described as his "shield for peace": this probably means it was the shield he used for jousting. These arms can be seen several times on his tomb chest in Canterbury Cathedral, alternating with his royal arms.^[2] The prince also used badges of one or more ostrich feathers in a number of other contexts.^[3]

The feathers had first appeared at the marriage of Edward III to Philippa of Hainault, and it is therefore likely that the Black Prince inherited the badge from his mother.^[4] Philippa was descended from the Counts of Hainault, whose eldest son bore the title "Count of Ostrevent", the ostrich (French: autruche) feathers being (perhaps) a heraldic pun on that name.^[5][6][7] Alternatively, the badge may have derived from the Counts of Luxembourg, from whom Philippa was also descended, and who had used the badge of an ostrich.^[8]

Edward III himself occasionally used ostrich feather badges,^[9] as did other members of the royal family in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Black Prince's younger brother, John of Gaunt, used the feathers in several contexts, including on a very similar coat of arms to Edward's "shield for peace", although in this case the feathers were ermine.^[10][11] Edward's illegitimate son, Sir Roger de Clarendon, bore arms of Or, on a black bend, three ostrich feathers argent;^[12] while his legitimate son, King Richard II, used ostrich feather badges in several different colours.^[13] Henry IV used a badge of a single ostrich feather with a scroll entwined around it bearing the motto "Ma sovereyne" or "Sovereygne"; while, of Henry's sons, Henry V used ostrich feathers as a secondary royal badge at various times, Thomas, Duke of Clarence used an ermine ostrich feather labelled; John, Duke of Bedford an ostrich feather with the "Sovereygne" scroll; and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester an ostrich feather studded with fleurs-de-lis. Similar badges were used by other royal princes.^[14][15]

The badge of Prince Edward (later Edward VI), as published in the Genethliacon illustrissimi Eaduerdi principis Cambriae of John Leland (1543).

An early 17th-century painted carving on the main gate of Oriel College, Oxford, depicting the badge of the Prince of Wales.

The first Prince of Wales to use the badge in its modern form (i.e. three white feathers encircled by a coronet, and with the motto Ich dien) was Prince Arthur (1486–1502), eldest son of Henry VII, at the beginning of the 16th century.^[16][17] It was also widely used by Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII and afterwards Edward VI, although he was never formally created Prince of Wales.^[18] Feathers continued to be used as lesser royal badges, including by Elizabeth I, until the end of the century.^[19] Only from the beginning of the 17th century did the badge become exclusively associated with the Prince of Wales.

According to a longstanding but now discredited legend, the Black Prince obtained the badge from the blind John I of Bohemia, against whom he fought at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. After the battle, the prince is said to have gone to the body of the dead king, and taken his helmet with its ostrich feather crest, afterwards incorporating the feathers into his arms, and adopting King John's motto, "Ich Diene", as his own. The story first appears in writing in 1376, the year of the Black Prince's death. There is, however, no sound historical basis for it, and no evidence for King John having used either the crest (he actually bore a crest of vultures' wings) or the motto.^[20][21][22]

Since a key factor in the English army's victory at Crécy was the use of Welsh archers, it is also sometimes said to have been Edward's pride in the men of Wales which led him to adopt a symbol alluding to their assistance. The German motto "Ich Dien" (= "I serve") is a near-homophone for the Welsh phrase "Eich Dyn" meaning "Your Man", which might have helped endear the young Black Prince to the Welsh soldiers in particular. Again, however, there is no historical evidence to support this theory.

Modern uses of the badge[link]

The badge has traditionally been worn on the jerseys of players in the Welsh rugby union team and as the logo of the Welsh Rugby Union. In the 1990s, the WRU modified the form of the badge they used in order to copyright the design. The new logo is more stylised, with "WRU" in place of "Ich Dien". The Welsh Rugby League has stuck to the traditional three feathers with "Cymru RL" ("RL" standing for "rugby league") written underneath. Surrey County Cricket Club have permission to use the feathers for their emblems; their home ground, The Oval, is on land owned by the Prince of Wales.

This badge is also used by a society in Malta called 'The Prince of Wales Philharmonic Society'. The scope of this organisation is mainly one related to music but is also linked to the feast of St. Dominic in Vittoriosa in Malta. Malta was a colony of the British Crown for 200 years, and there exist a variety of clubs and organisations bearing the name of royal personalities.

The badge was until 1985 on the coat of arms of Penang, a state in present-day Malaysia, which was originally founded in 1786 as the settlement of Prince of Wales Island.

The Prince of Wales' Own displays the ensign with three feathers on a royal blue background and carries the standard during all of its activities as well as a flag on top of its premises. It has been doing so for the last 100 years.

The badge is also the cap badge of The Royal Welsh, an amalgamation of three Welsh regiments, The Royal Welch Fusiliers, The Royal Regiment Of Wales and the Territorial Army's Royal Welsh Regiment. Previously the badge was the cap badge of the Prince of Wales's Own Civil Service Rifles, whose motto was also Ich Dien. The badge is also displayed on the regimental badges of many other regiments of the British and Commonwealth Armies which have a historical connection with the Prince of Wales:

• The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys) (as arm badge)
• 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's)
• The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires) (part of cap badge)
• The Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's) (part of cap badge)
• 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles)
• The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (Prince of Wales's Own) (part of cap badge)
• The Cheshire Yeomanry (Earl of Chester's)
• 4th Battalion 8 Punjab Regiment
• 4th/19th Prince of Wales's Light Horse Regiment
• The Royal Regiment of Canada (part of cap badge)
• Ceylon Light Infantry
• Bengal Engineer Group
• The Princess of Wales' Own Regiment (part of cap badge)

See also[link]

• Dieu et mon droit
• Flag of Wales
• Fleur-de-Lys
• Honi soit qui mal y pense
• Rashtriya Indian Military College
• Royal Welsh
• Royal standards of Canada

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Pinches, J.H.; Pinches, R.V. (1974). The Royal Heraldry of England. London: Heraldry Today. ISBN 090045525X. 
• Scott-Giles, C. Wilfred (1929). The Romance of Heraldry. London: J.M. Dent. 
• Siddons, Michael Powell (2009). Heraldic Badges in England and Wales. 2.1. Woodbridge: Society of Antiquaries/Boydell. pp. 178-90. ISBN 9781843834939. 

External links[link]

• thereddragonhood.com
• Permission given in 1915 for Surrey CCC to use feathers

v t e Royal heraldry in the United Kingdom United Kingdom Royal coat of arms Royal Standard Cadency labels of the Royal Family Imperial State Crown The Lion and the Unicorn England Royal Arms Royal Standards Honi soit qui mal y pense Dieu et mon droit St Edward's Crown Royal Supporters Tudor rose College of Arms Scotland Royal coat of arms Royal Standard Nemo me impune lacessit In My Defens God Me Defend Crown of Scotland Court of the Lord Lyon Wales Royal Badge Prince of Wales's feathers Welsh Dragon Monarchy of the United Kingdom Heraldry

v t e Princes of Wales Edward (1301–1307) Edward (1343–1376) Richard (1376–1377) Henry (1399–1413) Edward (1454–1471) Edward (1471–1483) Edward (1483–1484) Arthur (1489–1502) Henry (1504–1509) Edward (1537–1547) Henry (1610–1612) Charles (1616–1625) Charles (1641–1649) James (1688) George (1714–1727) Frederick (1729–1751) George (1751–1760) George (1762–1820) Albert Edward (1841–1901) George (1901–1910) Edward (1910–1936) Charles (1958–present) See also: Prince of Wales's feathers

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2012)

Jessye Norman (born September 15, 1945) is an American opera singer.^[1] Norman is a well-known contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and is among some of the most highly successful performers in classical music.^[2] A dramatic soprano, Norman is associated in particular with the Wagnerian repertoire, and with the roles of Sieglinde, Ariadne, Alceste, and Leonore.^[3]

Life and career[link]

Early life and musical education[link]

Jessye Mae Norman was born on September 15, 1945 in Augusta, Georgia to Silas Norman, an insurance salesman, and Janie King-Norman, a school teacher.^[4] She was one of five children in a family of amateur musicians; her mother and grandmother were both pianists, her father a singer in a local choir. Norman's mother insisted that she start piano lessons at an early age.^[2] Norman attended Charles T. Walker Elementary School, A.R. Johnson Junior High School, and Lucy C. Laney Senior High School, all in downtown Augusta.^[3]

Norman proved to be a talented singer as a young child, singing gospel songs at Mount Calvary Baptist Church at the age of four.^[4] At the age of nine, Norman heard opera for the first time on the radio and was immediately an opera fan.^[5] She started listening to recordings of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price whom Norman credits as being inspiring figures in her career.^[4] At the age of 16, Norman entered the Marian Anderson Vocal Competition in Philadelphia which, although she did not win, led to an offer of a full scholarship at Howard University, in Washington, D.C.^[6] While at Howard, Norman sang in the university chorus and as a professional soloist at the Lincoln Temple United Church of Christ, while studying voice with Carolyn Grant. In 1965, along with 32 other female students and 4 female faculty, she became a founding member of the Delta Nu Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota. In 1966, she won the National Society of Arts and Letters singing competition.^[7] After graduating in 1967 with a degree in music, she began graduate-level studies at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and later at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from which she earned a Masters Degree in 1968. During this time Norman studied voice with Elizabeth Mannion and Pierre Bernac.^[5]

Early career (1969–1979)[link]

After graduating, Norman, like many young musicians at the time, moved to Europe to establish herself. In 1969 she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and landed a three-year contract with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She made her operatic début that same year as Elisabeth in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Critics at the time described Norman as having "the greatest voice since the German soprano Lotte Lehmann."^[8]

In subsequent years Norman performed with various German and Italian opera companies appearing often as princesses or other noble figures. Norman was exceptional at portraying a commanding and noble bearing. This ability was partly due to her uncommon height and size, but more so as a result of her unique, rich, and powerful voice. Norman's range was uncommonly wide, encompassing all female voice registers from contralto to high dramatic soprano.^[4] In 1970 she made her Italian début in Florence in Handel's Deborah. In 1971, Norman made her début at the Maggio Musicale in Florence appearing as Sélica in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine. That year she also sang the role of Countess Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Berlin Festival and recorded the role that same year with the BBC Orchestra under the direction of Colin Davis. The recording was a finalist for the Montreux International Record Award competition and brought Norman much exposure to music listeners in Europe and the United States.^[6]

In 1972, Norman debuted at La Scala, where she sang the title role in Verdi's Aida and at London's Royal Opera at Covent Garden, where she sang the role of Cassandra in Berlioz's Les Troyens. Norman appeared as Aida again in a concert version that same year in her first well-publicized American performance at the Hollywood Bowl. This was followed by an all-Wagner concert at the Tanglewood Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts, and a recital tour of the country, after which Norman went back to Europe for several engagements.^[6] Norman returned to the US briefly to make her first-ever New York City recital where she appeared as part of the "Great Performers" series at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in 1973.^[6]

In 1975 Norman moved to London and had no staged opera appearances for the next five years. While she gave as the reason for her withdrawal the need to fully develop her voice, others felt that this was a period of concern for her weight and thus her stage image.^{[unreliable source?][9]} However, Norman remained internationally active as a recitalist and soloist in works such as Mendelssohn's Elijah and Franck's Les Béatitudes. Norman returned to North America again in 1976 and 1977 to make an extensive concert tour, but it was not until many years later that she would make her US Opera début or appear frequently in the United States. Only after Norman had established herself in Europe's leading opera houses and festivals—including the Edinburgh Festival, Salzburg Festival, Aix-en-Provence Festival, and the Stuttgart Opera—did Norman set out to establish herself in the United States. Norman toured Europe throughout the 1970s, giving recitals of works by Schubert, Mahler, Wagner, Brahms, Satie, Messiaen, and several contemporary American composers, to great critical acclaim.^[10]

Mid-career (1980–89)[link]

In October 1980 Norman returned to the operatic stage in the title role of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Hamburg State Opera in Germany. Norman made her United States opera début in 1982 with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, appearing in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex as Jocasta and in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas as Dido.^[8] Norman followed these with her début at the Metropolitan Opera in 1983, appearing in Berlioz's Les Troyens as both Cassandra and Dido, a production which marked the company's 100th anniversary season. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "By the mid-1980s she was one of the most popular and highly regarded dramatic soprano singers in the world."^[10] She was invited to sing at the second inauguration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan on January 21, 1985, an invitation which she debated accepting, as an African American and a Democrat (as well as a nuclear disarmament activist). In the end, she did accept and sang the folk song "Simple Gifts". In 1986, Norman sang at Elizabeth II's sixtieth birthday celebration.^[1] That same year Norman appeared as a soloist in Strauss's Four Last Songs with the Berlin Philharmonic during its tour of the USA.^[11] In 1987, Norman joined the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Herbert von Karajan in possibly the greatest rendition of the Liebestod from "Tristan und Isolde" by Wagner in a historical concert (filmed and recorded audio by Deutsche Grammophone) at the Salzburg Festival. The concert was then repeated some weeks later in Berlin, with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Over the years Norman has not been afraid to expand her talent into less familiar areas. In 1988 she sang a concert performance of Poulenc's one-act opera La Voix Humaine ("The Human Voice"), based on Jean Cocteau's 1930 play of the same name.^[12] During the 1980s and early 1990s, Norman produced numerous award-winning recordings, and many of her performances were televised. In addition to opera, many of Norman's recordings and performances during this time focused upon art songs, lieder, oratorios, and orchestral works. Her interpretation of Strauss's Four Last Songs is especially acclaimed. Its slowness is controversial, but the tonal qualities of her voice are ideal for these final works of the Romantic German lieder tradition.^[4]

Norman is also known for the Gurre-Lieder of Arnold Schoenberg and for Schoenberg's one-woman opera Erwartung.^[4] In 1989 Norman appeared at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of Erwartung that marked the company's first single-character production. This opera was presented in a double bill with Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle with Norman playing the role of Judith. Both operas were broadcast nationally. That same year, Norman was the featured soloist with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in its opening concert of its 148th season, which was telecast live to the nation by PBS.^[11] Norman also performed at the Hong Kong Cultural Center opening and gave a recital at Taiwan's National Concert Hall.^[2]

Also in 1989, Norman was invited to sing the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution on July 14. Her rendition was delivered at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, in a costume designed by Azzedine Alaïa as part of an elaborate pageant orchestrated by avant-garde designer Jean-Paul Goude.^[6]

Later career (1990–present)[link]

Since the early 1990s Norman has lived in Croton-on-Hudson, New York in a secluded estate known as "The White Gates" which she purchased from television personality Allen Funt. In 1990, Norman performed at Tchaikovsky's 150th Birthday Gala in Leningrad and she made her Lyric Opera of Chicago début in the title role of Gluck's Alceste. In 1991 Norman sang for the 700th Celebration Party of Swiss National Day.^[2] That same year, she performed in a concert recorded live with Lawrence Foster and the Lyon Opera Orchestra amid the tantalizing acoustics at Paris's Notre Dame cathedral.^[6] In 1992 Norman sang Jocasta in Stravinsky's Oedipus rex at the opening operatic production at the new Saito Kinen Festival in the Japanese Alps near Matsumoto.^[11] In 1993, Norman sang the title role in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Ariadne auf Naxos. In 1994, Norman sang at the funeral of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In September 1995, she was again the featured soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, this time under Kurt Masur's direction, in a gala concert telecast live to the nation by PBS making the opening of the orchestra's 153rd season. In 1996 Norman gave a highly lauded performance as the title character in the Metropolitan Opera's premier production of Janáček's The Makropulos Case.

Starting in the mid 1990s, Norman began to move away from soprano stage-roles migrating heavily toward mezzo soprano roles.^[6] In January 1997, Norman performed at the second inauguration of U.S. President Bill Clinton.^[2] Jessye Norman's 1998–1999 performances included a recital at Carnegie Hall in New York City, which had an unusual program incorporating sacred music of Duke Ellington, scored for jazz combo, string quartet and piano, and featuring the Alvin Ailey Repertory Dance Ensemble. Other performances during the season included Das Lied von der Erde, with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a television special for Christmas filmed in her home town of Augusta, Georgia, as well as a spring recital tour, which included performances in Tel Aviv. The following season also brought performances of the sacred music of Duke Ellington to London and Vienna, together with a summer European tour, which included performances at the Salzburg Festival.^[11]

In 1999 Norman collaborated with choreographer-dancer Bill T. Jones in a project for New York City's Lincoln Center, called "How! Do! We! Do!" In 2000, Norman later released an album, I Was Born in Love with You, featuring the songs of Michel Legrand. The recording, reviewed as a jazz crossover project, featured Legrand on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Grady Tate on drums. In February and March 2001, Norman was featured at Carnegie Hall in a three-part concert series. With James Levine as her pianist, the concerts were a significant arts event, replete with an 80-page program booklet featuring a newly commissioned watercolor portrait of Norman by David Hockney. In 2002, Norman performed at the opening of Singapore's Esplanade Theatres on the bay.^[2]

On March 11, 2002, Norman performed "America the Beautiful" at a memorial service unveiling two monumental columns of light at the site of the former World Trade Center, as a memorial for the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City.^[6] In 2002 she returned to Augusta to announce that she would fund a pilot school of the arts for children in Richmond County. Classes commenced at St. John United Methodist Church in the fall of 2003. In November 2004, a documentary of Miss Norman's life and work to date, was created. This film, directed by André Heller, with Othmar Schmiderer as director of photography and produced by DOR-FILM of Vienna, chronicles the music, the social and political issues, the inspiration and dreams that have combined to make this singer unique in her profession.^[13] In 2006, Norman collaborated with the modern dance choreographer, Trey McIntyre, for a special performance during the summer at the Vail, Colorado Dance Festival.^[2]

In March 2009, Ms. Norman curated Honor!, a celebration of the African American cultural legacy. The festival honors the courageous African American trailblazers and artists of the past with concerts, recitals, lectures, panel discussions, and exhibitions hosted by Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and other sites around New York City.

After more than thirty years on stage, Norman no longer performs ensemble opera, concentrating instead on recitals and concerts.^[1] In addition to her busy performance schedule, Jessye Norman serves on the Boards of Directors for Carnegie Hall, the New York Public Library, the New York Botanical Garden, City-Meals-on-Wheels in New York City, Dance Theatre of Harlem, National Music Foundation, and Elton John AIDS Foundation. She is a member of the board as well as a National spokesperson for the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation, and spokesperson for Partnership for the Homeless. And in her home town of Augusta, Georgia, she serves on the Board of Trustees of Paine College and the Augusta Opera Association.^[11]

Opera roles[link]

These are notable opera roles that Norman has performed.^{[dead link][unreliable source?][14]}

Oratorio and orchestral parts performed[link]

These are among the notable oratorio and orchestral parts that Norman has performed.^[6]

Concert and recital work[link]

Throughout her career, Norman has spent much of her time giving recitals and concerts and continues to do so today. In addition to her operatic recitals, Norman has given regular recitals encompassing the classical German repertory as well as contemporary masterpieces, such as Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder and the French moderns, which she invariably performed in the original tongue.^[11]

This combination of scholarship and artistry contributed to her consistently successful career as one of the most versatile concert and operatic singers of her time. Often cited for her innovative programming and fervent advocacy of contemporary music, she has earned the recognition of "one of those once-in-a-generation singers who isn’t simply following in the footsteps of others, but is staking out her own niche in the history of singing."^[11]

Norman frequently collaborates with the world's best symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, and other classical solo artists in her recital work. She has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and Berlin Philharmonic to name a few.^[11]

Norman premiered the song cycle woman.life.song by composer Judith Weir, a work commissioned for her by Carnegie Hall, with texts by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Clarissa Pinkola Estés;^[1] performed a selection of sacred music of Duke Ellington; recorded a jazz album, Jessye Norman Sings Michel Legrand; and was the soprano co-lead in Vangelis' project Mythodea.Norman commended herself in Mussorgsky's songs, which she performed in Moscow in the original Russian.^[4] Other of Norman's diverse projects have included her 1984 album, With a Song in My Heart, which contains numbers from films and musical comedies, and a 1990 performance of American spirituals with soprano Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall.^[6]

Voice type[link]

Norman is most often referred to as a dramatic soprano but unlike most dramatic sopranos, Norman has become known for roles more traditionally sung by other types of voices. From her student days Norman had been selective about her repertoire, heeding her own instincts and interests more than the advice of her teachers or requests of her management. In the beginning of her career, this tendency put her at odds with the Deutsche Opera and compelled her to seek out musical works on her own that she felt were more suitable to her vocal skills. Norman told John Gruen of the New York Times, "As for my voice, it cannot be categorized—and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range. I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range."^[6]

Some vocal critics assert that Norman is not a dramatic soprano but has in fact a rare soprano voice type known as a Falcon. The Falcon voice is an intermediate voice type between the soprano and the mezzo soprano that is similar to the dramatic soprano.^expand Norman, however, refuses to place any labels on her voice. At the age of twenty-three, when asked by an interviewer in Germany, how she would characterize her voice, she replied that, "pigeonholes are only comfortable for pigeons."^[15]

Over the years Norman's technical expertise has been among her most critically praised attributes. In a review of one of her recitals at New York City's Carnegie Hall, New York Times contributor Allen Hughes wrote that Norman "has one of the most opulent voices before the public today, and, as discriminating listeners are aware, her performances are backed by extraordinary preparation, both musical and otherwise." Another Carnegie Hall appearance prompted these words from New York Times contributor Bernard Holland: "If one added up all the things that Jessye Norman does well as a singer, the total would assuredly exceed that of any other soprano before the public. At Miss Norman's recital ... tones were produced, colors manipulated, words projected and interpretive points made—all with fanatic finesse."^[6]

Lawsuits[link]

In March 1984 Norman filed a 15 million dollar lawsuit (in Manhattan Supreme Court) against two Manhattan record stores, Mr. Tape and Town Records Store, for distributing unauthorized recordings on both cassette tape and vinyl LP of her performances over the previous 13 years.^[16]

In 1995, Norman filed a 3 million dollar suit against Classic CD magazine claiming that an article in the November 1994 issue depicted her "in a grotesque and exaggerated manner." Norman said the article, entitled "Deadlier Than The Male", mocked her speech in an effort "to ridicule and caricature her and all persons of African-American background and descent."^[17] After a five year battle, Norman eventually lost the lawsuit.^[18]

Honors and awards[link]

• In 1966 she won the National Society of Arts and Letters singing competition.^[7]
• In 1968 took first prize at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.^[2]
• In 1982 won a Gramophone Award for her recording of Strauss' "Four Last Songs".^[2]
• In 1982 was named Musical America magazine's Musician of the Year.^[19]
• In 1982 was awarded honorary doctorate from Howard University.^[20]
• In 1984 was awarded honorary doctorate from the Boston Conservatory of Music and the University of the South.^[20]
• In 1984 won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist Performance for "Ravel: Songs of Maurice Ravel".^[2]
• In 1984 declared Commandeur de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, 1984^{[unreliable source?][dead link][unreliable source?][dead link][unreliable source?][dead link][21]}
• In 1984 France's National Museum of Natural History named an orchid for her.^[21]
• In 1998 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University.^[20]
• In 1988 won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for "Wagner: Lohengrin".^[2]
• In 1989 won Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for "Wagner: Die Walkuere".^[2]
• In 1989 awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Mitterrand.^[21]
• In 1990 named Honorary Ambassador to the United Nations by UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.^[21]
• In 1990 awarded an honorary Doctor in Music award from Juilliard School of Music.^[22]
• In 1991 her home town, Augusta, Georgia, dedicated Riverwalk Augusta's amphitheater, named in her honor.^[23]
• Norman was a featured performer during the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.^[1]
• Winner of the 1997 Radcliffe Medal, presented annually by the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association to honor individuals whose lives and work have had a significant impact on society.^[21]
• In March 1997, Jessye Norman was honored by New York's Associated Black Charities at the 11th Annual Black History Makers Awards Dinner for her contributions to the arts and to African American culture.^[24]
• In December 1997, Jessye Norman was invested with the USA's highest award in the performing arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, making history as the youngest recipient in the Honors' 20-year existence.^[11]
• In 1998 won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for "Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle".^[2]
• In 1999 inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.^[1]
• In 2000 was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal for her work in the fight against lupus, breast cancer, AIDS, and hunger.^[1]
• In 2000 was awarded the Outstanding Alumnae by Howard University.^[2]
• In 2006 she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[2]
• On September 22, 2006 the city of Pasadena, California, named September 22 "Jessye Norman Day" after she gave a performance at Blair IB Magnet High School.^[25]
• She is a lifelong member of the Girls Scouts of America as well as of Great Britain's Royal Academy of Music.^[2]
• Awarded France's Grand Prix du Disque for albums of lieder by Wagner, Schumann, Mahler and Schubert.^[26]
• Won Amsterdam's Edison Award; and recording honors in Belgium, Spain, and Germany.
• She was winner of an Ace Award from the National Cable Television Association for "Jessye Norman at Notre Dame."^[26]
• Jessye Norman has received honorary doctorates from more than 30 colleges, universities, and conservatories including Jesus College, Cambridge, the Manhattan School of Music, University of Michigan, Yale University, Northwestern University and Brandeis University.^[27]
• In 2009, Jessye Norman was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.^[28]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Gates, Henry Louis and Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks (eds.) (2004) "Norman, Jessye" African American Lives Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 629–631, ISBN 0-19-516024-X

External links[link]

• Jessye Norman discography at Discogs

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms (pronounced [joːˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms]; 7 May 1833  – 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable; following a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the Three Bs.

Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and for voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works; he also worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed many of his works and left some of them unpublished.^[1]

Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. He was a master of counterpoint, the complex and highly disciplined art for which Johann Sebastian Bach is famous, and also of development, a compositional ethos pioneered by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Brahms aimed to honour the "purity" of these venerable "German" structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.

Life[link]

Early years[link]

Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms (1806–72), came to Hamburg from Dithmarschen, seeking a career as a town musician. He was proficient in several instruments, but found employment mostly playing the horn and double bass. In 1830, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen (1789–1865), a seamstress never previously married, who was seventeen years older than he was. Johannes Brahms had an older sister and a younger brother. Initially, they lived near the city docks, in the Gängeviertel quarter of Hamburg, for six months, before moving to a small house on the Dammtorwall, a small city in the Inner Alster.

Photograph from 1891 of the building in Hamburg where Brahms was born. Brahms's family occupied part of the first floor, behind the two double windows on the left hand side. The building was destroyed by bombing in 1943.

Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training. He studied piano from the age of seven with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Owing to the family's poverty, as a boy Brahms played in dance halls and brothels – some of the seediest places in Hamburg – surrounded by drunken sailors and prostitutes that often fondled the boy as he played.^{[citation needed]} Early biographers found this shocking and played down this portion of his life. Modern writers have pointed to this as a reason for Brahms's later inability to have a successful relationship for marriage, etc., his view of women being warped by his experiences.^[2] Recently, Brahms scholars Styra Avins^[3] and Kurt Hoffman have suggested that this legend is false. Since Brahms himself clearly originated the story, however, some have questioned Hoffman's theory.^[4][5]

For a time, Brahms also learned the cello.^[6] After his early piano lessons with Otto Cossel, Brahms studied piano with Eduard Marxsen, who had studied in Vienna with Ignaz von Seyfried (a pupil of Mozart) and Carl Maria von Bocklet (a close friend of Schubert). The young Brahms gave a few public concerts in Hamburg, but did not become well known as a pianist until he made a concert tour at the age of nineteen. (In later life, he frequently took part in the performance of his own works, whether as soloist, accompanist, or participant in chamber music.) He conducted choirs from his early teens, and became a proficient choral and orchestral conductor.

Meeting Joachim and Liszt[link]

Brahms in 1853

He began to compose quite early in life, but later destroyed most copies of his first works; for instance, Louise Japha, a fellow-pupil of Marxsen, reported a piano sonata, that Brahms had played or improvised at the age of 11, had been destroyed. His compositions did not receive public acclaim until he went on a concert tour as accompanist to the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi in April and May 1853. On this tour he met Joseph Joachim at Hanover, and went on to the Court of Weimar where he met Franz Liszt, Peter Cornelius, and Joachim Raff. According to several witnesses of Brahms's meeting with Liszt (at which Liszt performed Brahms's Scherzo, Op. 4, at sight), Reményi was offended by Brahms's failure to praise Liszt's Sonata in B minor wholeheartedly (Brahms supposedly fell asleep during a performance of the recently composed work), and they parted company shortly afterwards. Brahms later excused himself, saying that he could not help it, having been exhausted by his travels.

Brahms and Schumann[link]

Joachim had given Brahms a letter of introduction to Robert Schumann, and after a walking tour in the Rhineland, Brahms took the train to Düsseldorf, and was welcomed into the Schumann family on arrival there. Schumann, amazed by the 20-year-old's talent, published an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" (New Paths) in the 28 October 1853 issue of the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik alerting the public to the young man, who, he claimed, was "destined to give ideal expression to the times."^[7] This pronouncement was received with some scepticism outside of Schumann's immediate circle, and may have increased Brahms's naturally self-critical need to perfect his works and technique. While he was in Düsseldorf, Brahms participated with Schumann and Albert Dietrich in writing a sonata for Joachim; this is known as the "F–A–E Sonata" (German: Frei aber einsam). He became very attached to Schumann's wife, the composer and pianist Clara, fourteen years his senior, with whom he would carry on a lifelong, emotionally passionate relationship. Brahms never married, despite strong feelings for several women and despite entering into an engagement, soon broken off, with Agathe von Siebold in Göttingen in 1859. After Schumann's attempted suicide and subsequent confinement in a mental sanatorium near Bonn in February 1854, Brahms was the main intercessor between Clara and her husband, and found himself virtually head of the household.

After Schumann's death, Brahms hurried to Düsseldorf and for the next two years lived in an apartment above the Schumann's house, and sacrificed his career and his art for Clara's sake. The question of Brahms and Clara Schumann is perhaps the most mysterious in music history, alongside that of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved". Whether they were actually lovers is unknown, but their destruction of their letters to each other may point to something beyond mere privacy.^[8]

Detmold and Hamburg[link]

After Schumann's death at the sanatorium in 1856, Brahms divided his time between Hamburg, where he formed and conducted a ladies' choir, and Detmold in the Principality of Lippe, where he was court music-teacher and conductor. He was the soloist at the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1859. He first visited Vienna in 1862, staying there over the winter, and, in 1863, was appointed conductor of the Vienna Singakademie. Though he resigned the position the following year, and entertained the idea of taking up conducting posts elsewhere, he based himself increasingly in Vienna and soon made his home there. From 1872 to 1875, he was director of the concerts of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde; afterwards, he accepted no formal position. He declined an honorary doctorate of music from University of Cambridge in 1877, but accepted one from the University of Breslau in 1879, and composed the Academic Festival Overture as a gesture of appreciation.

He had been composing steadily throughout the 1850s and 60s, but his music had evoked divided critical responses, and the Piano Concerto No. 1 had been badly received in some of its early performances. His works were labelled old-fashioned by the 'New German School' whose principal figures included Liszt and Richard Wagner. Brahms admired some of Wagner's music and admired Liszt as a great pianist, but the conflict between the two schools, known as the War of the Romantics, soon embroiled all of musical Europe. In the Brahms camp were his close friends: Clara Schumann, the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick, and the leading Viennese surgeon Theodor Billroth. In 1860, Brahms attempted to organise a public protest against some of the wilder excesses of the Wagnerians' music. This took the form of a manifesto, written by Brahms and Joachim jointly. The manifesto, which was published prematurely with only three supporting signatures, was a failure, and he never engaged in public polemics again.^[9]

Years of popularity[link]

It was the premiere of A German Requiem, his largest choral work, in Bremen, in 1868, that confirmed Brahms's European reputation and led many to accept that he had conquered Beethoven and the symphony. This may have given him the confidence finally to complete a number of works that he had wrestled with over many years, such as the cantata Rinaldo, his first string quartet, third piano quartet, and most notably his first symphony. This appeared in 1876, though it had been begun (and a version of the first movement seen by some of his friends) in the early 1860s. The other three symphonies then followed in 1877, 1883, and 1885. From 1881, he was able to try out his new orchestral works with the court orchestra of the Duke of Meiningen, whose conductor was Hans von Bülow. He was the soloist at the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1881, in Pest.

Brahms frequently travelled, both for business (concert tours) and pleasure. From 1878 onwards, he often visited Italy in the springtime, and he usually sought out a pleasant rural location in which to compose during the summer. He was a great walker and especially enjoyed spending time in the open air, where he felt that he could think more clearly.

Brahms's grave in the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), Vienna.

In 1889, one Theo Wangemann, a representative of American inventor Thomas Edison, visited the composer in Vienna and invited him to make an experimental recording. Brahms played an abbreviated version of his first Hungarian dance on the piano. The recording was later issued on an LP of early piano performances (compiled by Gregor Benko). Although the spoken introduction to the short piece of music is quite clear, the piano playing is largely inaudible due to heavy surface noise. Nevertheless, this remains the earliest recording made by a major composer. Analysts and scholars remain divided, however, as to whether the voice that introduces the piece is that of Wangemann or of Brahms.^[10] Several attempts have been made to improve the quality of this historic recording; a "denoised" version was produced at Stanford University which claims to solve the mystery.^[11]

In 1889, Brahms was named an honorary citizen of Hamburg, until 1948 the only one born in Hamburg.^[12]

Later years[link]

In 1890, the 57-year-old Brahms resolved to give up composing. However, as it turned out, he was unable to abide by his decision, and in the years before his death he produced a number of acknowledged masterpieces. His admiration for Richard Mühlfeld, clarinetist with the Meiningen orchestra, moved him to compose the Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115 (1891), and the two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120 (1894). He also wrote several cycles of piano pieces, Opp. 116–119, the Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op. 121 (1896), and the Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, Op. 122 (1896).

While completing the Op. 121 songs, Brahms developed cancer (sources differ on whether this was of the liver or pancreas). His condition gradually worsened and he died on 3 April 1897, aged 63. Brahms is buried in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.

Tributes[link]

Later that year, the British composer Hubert Parry, who considered Brahms the greatest artist of the time, wrote an orchestral Elegy for Brahms. This was never played in Parry's lifetime, receiving its first performance at a memorial concert for Parry himself in 1918.

Music of Brahms[link]

	Intermezzo, Op. 116, No. 4 Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 1 Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 2 Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 3 Intermezzo, Op. 76, No. 7
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Double Concerto in A minor, 2nd movement Double Concerto in A minor, 3rd movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 1st movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 2nd movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 3rd movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 4th movement Wiegenlied (Op. 49) Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1915)

Brahms plays his Hungarian Dance No. 1 Hungarian Dance No. 1 Recorded on 2 December 1889

Works[link]

Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including two serenades, four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 in D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and two companion orchestral overtures, the Academic Festival Overture and the Tragic Overture.

His large choral work A German Requiem is not a setting of the liturgical Missa pro defunctis but a setting of texts which Brahms selected from the Lutheran Bible. The work was composed in three major periods of his life. An early version of the second movement was first composed in 1854, not long after Robert Schumann's attempted suicide, and this was later used in his first piano concerto. The majority of the Requiem was composed after his mother's death in 1865. The fifth movement was added after the official premiere in 1868, and the work was published in 1869.

Brahms's works in variation form include, among others, the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel and the Paganini Variations, both for solo piano, and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn (now sometimes called the Saint Anthony Variations) in versions for two pianos and for orchestra. The final movement of the Fourth Symphony, Op. 98, is formally a passacaglia.

His chamber works include three string quartets, two string quintets, two string sextets, a clarinet quintet, a clarinet trio, a horn trio, a piano quintet, three piano quartets, and four piano trios (the fourth being published posthumously). He composed several instrumental sonatas with piano, including three for violin, two for cello, and two for clarinet (which were subsequently arranged for viola by the composer). His solo piano works range from his early piano sonatas and ballades to his late sets of character pieces. Brahms was a significant lieder composer, who wrote over 200 songs. His chorale preludes for organ, Op. 122, which he wrote shortly before his death, have become an important part of the organist's repertoire.

Brahms strongly preferred writing absolute music that does not refer to an explicit scene or narrative, and he never wrote an opera or a symphonic poem.

Despite his reputation as a serious composer of large, complex musical structures, some of Brahms's most widely known and most commercially successful compositions during his life were small-scale works of popular intent aimed at the thriving contemporary market for domestic music-making; indeed, during the 20th century, the influential American critic B. H. Haggin, rejecting more mainstream views, argued in his various guides to recorded music that Brahms was at his best in such works and much less successful in larger forms. Among the most cherished of these lighter works by Brahms are his sets of popular dances—the Hungarian Dances, the Waltzes, Op. 39, for piano duet, and the Liebeslieder Waltzes for vocal quartet and piano—and some of his many songs, notably the Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4 (published in 1868). This last was written (to a folk text) to celebrate the birth of a son to Brahms's friend Bertha Faber and is universally known as Brahms's Lullaby.

Style and influences[link]

Brahms in mid-career

Brahms maintained a Classical sense of form and order in his works – in contrast to the opulence of the music of many of his contemporaries. Thus many admirers (though not necessarily Brahms himself) saw him as the champion of traditional forms and "pure music", as opposed to the "New German" embrace of programme music.

Brahms venerated Beethoven: in the composer's home, a marble bust of Beethoven looked down on the spot where he composed, and some passages in his works are reminiscent of Beethoven's style. Brahms's First Symphony bears strongly the influence of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as the two works are both in a formidable C minor, and end in the struggle towards a C major triumph. The main theme of the finale of the First Symphony is also reminiscent of the main theme of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth, and when this resemblance was pointed out to Brahms, he replied that any ass – jeder Esel – could see that. In 1876, when the work was premiered in Vienna, it was immediately hailed as "Beethoven's Tenth". However, the similarity of Brahms's music to that of late Beethoven had first been noted as early as November 1853, in a letter from Albert Dietrich to Ernst Naumann.^[13][14]

A German Requiem was partially inspired by his mother's death in 1865 (at which time he composed a funeral march that was to become the basis of Part Two, Denn alles Fleisch), but it also incorporates material from a symphony which he started in 1854 but abandoned following Schumann's suicide attempt. He once wrote that the Requiem "belonged to Schumann". The first movement of this abandoned Symphony was re-worked as the first movement of the First Piano Concerto.

Brahms also loved the Classical composers Mozart and Haydn. He collected first editions and autographs of their works, and edited performing editions. He studied the music of pre-classical composers, including Giovanni Gabrieli, Johann Adolph Hasse, Heinrich Schütz, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, and, especially, Johann Sebastian Bach. His friends included leading musicologists, and, with Friedrich Chrysander, he edited an edition of the works of François Couperin. Brahms also edited works by C. P. E. and W. F. Bach. He looked to older music for inspiration in the art of counterpoint; the themes of some of his works are modelled on Baroque sources such as Bach's The Art of Fugue in the fugal finale of Cello Sonata No. 1 or the same composer's Cantata No. 150 in the passacaglia theme of the Fourth Symphony's finale.

The early Romantic composers also had a major influence on Brahms, particularly Schumann, who encouraged Brahms as a young composer. During his stay in Vienna in 1862–63, Brahms became particularly interested in the music of Franz Schubert.^[15] The latter's influence may be identified in works by Brahms dating from the period, such as the two piano quartets Op. 25 and Op. 26, and the Piano Quintet which alludes to Schubert's String Quintet and Grand Duo for piano four hands.^[15][16] The influence of Chopin and Mendelssohn on Brahms is less obvious, although occasionally one can find in his works what seems to be an allusion to one of theirs (for example, Brahms's Scherzo, Op. 4, alludes to Chopin's Scherzo in B-flat minor;^[17] the scherzo movement in Brahms's Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, alludes to the finale of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in C minor).^[18]

Brahms considered giving up composition when it seemed that other composers' innovations in extended tonality would result in the rule of tonality being broken altogether. Although Wagner became fiercely critical of Brahms as the latter grew in stature and popularity, he was enthusiastically receptive of the early Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel; Brahms himself, according to many sources (Swafford, 1999), deeply admired Wagner's music, confining his ambivalence only to the dramaturgical precepts of Wagner's theory.

Brahms wrote settings for piano and voice of 144 German folk songs, and many of his lieder reflect folk themes or depict scenes of rural life. His Hungarian Dances were among his most profitable compositions.

Brahms and religion[link]

Brahms's personal views tended to be humanistic and sceptical, though one of his musical influences was undoubtedly the Bible as rendered in German by Martin Luther. His Requiem employs biblical texts to speak words of comfort to the bereaved while generally omitting statements concerning salvation or immortality. Composer Walter Niemann declared "The fact that Brahms began his creative activity with the German folk song and closed with the Bible reveals... the true religious creed of this great man of the people." Biographers and critics more often understand Brahms's appreciation of Lutheran tradition as cultural more than existential.^[19] When asked by conductor Karl Reinthaler to add additional sectarian text to his German Requiem, Brahms responded, "As far as the text is concerned, I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and instead use Human; also with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John 3:16. On the other hand, I have chosen one thing or another because I am a musician, because I needed it, and because with my venerable authors I can't delete or dispute anything. But I had better stop before I say too much."

There is reason to believe that Brahms was a religious freethinker. Being a star of his age, he would frequently say deceptive things to the public. This means that the most reliable accounts on Brahms's innermost feelings may come from the people in the close circle around him. Among these was the devout Catholic Antonín Dvořák, the closest Brahms ever came to having a protégé. In a letter, Dvořák disclosed his concerns regarding Brahms's religious views: "Such a man, such a fine soul—and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!"^[20]