Zara Nelsova (born Sarah Nelson, December 23, 1918 – October 10, 2002) was a prominent cellist.

She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to parents of Russian descent, and first performed at the age of five in Winnipeg. She moved with her family to London, where she studied at the London Cello School with its principal, Herbert Walenn. She was heard by Sir John Barbirolli and introduced by him to Pablo Casals, from whom she received additional lessons. In 1932 she gave a London debut recital and appeared as soloist with Sir Malcolm Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra. During World War II she was principal cellist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and in 1942 she made her US solo debut at Town Hall in New York. From 1942-1944 she was cellist of the Conservatory String Quartet.

In 1949 Nelsova moved to London where she introduced to Britain new works by Samuel Barber, Paul Hindemith, Dmitri Shostakovich and Ernest Bloch, who dedicated his three suites for unaccompanied cello to her. She premiered Hugh Wood's concerto at the 1969 Promenade concerts. In 1955 she became an American citizen, and performed as a soloist for many major orchestras, including Boston, Winnipeg, Montreal and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She also toured extensively, becoming in 1966 the first North American cellist to play in the Soviet Union. From 1966 to 1973 she was married to the American pianist Grant Johannesen, with whom she often performed and recorded.^[1] Her renditions of Bloch's Schelomo and Barber's Cello Concerto were both recorded with the composers conducting. She played a Stradivari cello, the "Marquis de Corberon," dated 1726. She taught at the Juilliard School in New York City from 1962–2002. In 1978, Gerhard Samuel composed "In Memoriam DQ" for Solo Cello (copyright 1990 MMB Music), for Zara. The first performance occurred Jan 7, 1980. She died in New York City.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Canadian Encyclopedia entry
• allmusic.com Entry

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Emánuel Moór.

Emánuel Moór Pianoforte from around 1927 by Pleyel et Cie

Emánuel Moór (19 February 1863 – 20 October 1931) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and inventor of musical instruments.

Moór was born in Kecskemét, Hungary, and studied in Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Between 1885 and 1897 he toured Europe as a soloist and ventured as far afield as the United States. Besides five operas and eight symphonies his output also included: concertos for piano (4), violin (4), cello (2), viola, and harp; a triple concerto for violin, cello, and piano; chamber music; a requiem; and numerous lieder. He died, aged 68, in Chardonne, Switzerland.

His best-known invention was the Emánuel Moór Pianoforte^[1], which consisted of two keyboards lying one above each other and allowed, by means of a tracking device, one hand to play a spread of two octaves.^[2] The double keyboard pianoforte was promoted extensively in concerts throughout Europe and the United States by Moór's second wife, the British pianist Winifred Christie.

Maurice Ravel said that the Emánuel Moór Pianoforte produced the sounds he had really intended in some of his works, if only it had been possible to write them for two hands playing on a standard piano.^[3]

Moór and Christie also collaborated on a book of technical exercises for the instrument.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Biography and list of works (German)
• An article from the New York Times about the Duplex-Coupler Grand Pianoforte
• Emanuel und Henrik Moór foundation (German)
• Free scores by Emánuel Moór at the International Music Score Library Project
• Audio recording of Moór playing a "Hungarian Melody", probably from 1889 (Thomas Edison National Historical Park)

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Josef Alois Krips (8 April 1902 – 13 October 1974) was an Austrian conductor and violinist.

Life and career[link]

Krips was born in Vienna and went on to become a pupil of Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner. From 1921 to 1924, he served as Weingartner's assistant at the Vienna Volksoper and as répétiteur and chorus master. Afterwards he became conductor of several orchestras, including a period as music director of the orchestra in Karlsruhe from 1926 to 1933. In 1933 he returned to Vienna as a resident conductor of the Volksoper. He also became a professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1935. He conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival between 1935 and 1938.

In 1938, the Nazi annexation of Austria (or Anschluss) forced Krips to leave the country. (Krips was raised a Roman Catholic, but would have been excluded from musical activity because his father was born Jewish).^[1] Krips moved to Belgrade, where he worked for a year with the Belgrade Opera and Philharmonic, until Yugoslavia also became involved in World War II. For the rest of the war he worked in a food factory.

On his return to Austria at the end of the war in 1945 Krips was one of the few conductors who were allowed to work, since he had not worked under the Nazi régime. He was the first to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival in the post-war period.

From 1950 to 1954 Krips was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Afterwards he led the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony (from 1963 to 1970). He made his Covent Garden debut in 1947 and his Metropolitan Opera in 1966, becoming a frequent guest conductor from then on. In 1970, he became conductor of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Between 1970 and 1973, he was the principal conductor of the Vienna Symphony.

Krips died in Geneva, Switzerland in 1974 at seventy-two.^[2]

His brother was Henry Krips, who moved to Australia and was the chief conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for a record term of 23 years (1949-1972).

Recordings[link]

In 1955, Krips made a critically acclaimed recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Vienna State Opera featuring Cesare Siepi, Fernando Corena, Walter Berry, Suzanne Danco, Lisa Della Casa and Hilde Gueden.

In 1957, Krips conducted the Symphony of the Air in stereo recordings of the five Beethoven piano concertos with Arthur Rubinstein for RCA Victor.

In 1960, Krips recorded Beethoven's nine symphonies for Everest Records. For this set of recordings, Krips conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, and for the Symphony No. 9, the soloists included Donald Bell, baritone, Jennifer Vyvyan, soprano, Rudolf Petrak, tenor, and Shirley Carter (later known as Shirley Verrett), mezzo soprano. The BBC Chorus, under the chorusmaster Leslie Woodgate also performed. This series of recordings was popular with music critics and the public, and the recordings have been reissued several times in authorized and in bootleg editions.

During the 1970s, Krips recorded Mozart's late symphonies for Philips Records, conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra. These have been reissued over the years by Philips and latterly Decca.

Krips did not make any commercial recordings with the San Francisco Symphony, although many of his concerts were broadcast in stereo by San Francisco station KKHI.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Josef Krips at Allmusic
• Color photograph of Josef Krips conducting the Vienna Philharmonic
• Josef Krips' farewell letter to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

Julian Lloyd Webber (born 14 April 1951) is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".^[1]

Early life[link]

Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone (a piano teacher). He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber was a scholar at the Royal College of Music in London^[2] and completed his studies with Pierre Fournier in Geneva in 1973. He made his professional debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in September 1972 when he gave the first London performance of the cello concerto by Sir Arthur Bliss.^[3]

Work[link]

Lloyd Webber has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians, including Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Georg Solti and Esa-Pekka Salonen as well as Stéphane Grappelli, Elton John, Cleo Laine and Eric Whitacre.

Lloyd Webber has made many recordings, including his BRIT Award winning Elgar Cello Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine),^[4] the Dvořák Cello Concerto with Václav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the London Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich and a coupling of Britten's Cello Symphony and Walton's Cello Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which was described by Gramophone magazine as "beyond any rival". He has also recorded several CDs of short pieces for Universal Classics including Made in England, Cello Moods, Cradle Song and English Idyll: "It would be difficult to find better performances of this kind of repertoire anywhere on records of today or yesterday or tomorrow" - Gramophone.^[5]

Lloyd Webber has given more than 50 works their premiere recordings and has inspired new compositions for cello from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold (Fantasy for Cello, 1986, and Cello Concerto, 1989), Joaquín Rodrigo (Concierto como un divertimento, 1982) James MacMillan (Cello Sonata No. 2, 2001), and Philip Glass (Cello Concerto, 2001). Recent concert performances have included four further works composed for Julian - Michael Nyman's Double Concerto for Cello and Saxophone on BBC Television, Gavin Bryars's Concerto in Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Philip Glass's Cello Concerto at the Beijing International Festival and Eric Whitacre's The River Cam at the Southbank Centre. His recording of the Glass concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Gerard Schwarz was released on the Orange Mountain label in September 2005.

Lloyd Webber's more recent recordings include Phantasia, which is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and features the violinist Sarah Chang, The Art of Julian Lloyd Webber (2011) and Evening Songs (2012).

Instrument[link]

Lloyd Webber plays the Barjansky Stradivarius cello, dated c.1690.^[6]

Other[link]

Lloyd Webber is also greatly involved in music education and formed the "Music Education Consortium" with James Galway and Evelyn Glennie in 2003. On 21 November 2007, the UK government announced an infusion of £332 million for music education which resulted from successful lobbying by the Consortium.^[7] In 2008, the British Government invited Lloyd Webber to be Chairman of its In Harmony project which is based on the Venezuelan social programme El Sistema.^[8] The government- commissioned Henley Review of Music Education (2011) reported that “there is no doubt that they (the In Harmony projects) have delivered life-changing experiences”. In July 2011 maestro José Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema in Venezuela, recognised In Harmony as part of the El Sistema worldwide network. Since then, the programme is being called In Harmony • Sistema England. In November 2011 the British government announced it would roll out In Harmony across England by extending funding from the Department for Education and adding funding from Arts Council England from 2012 to 2015.

Lloyd Webber received the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in 1998 and a Classic FM Red Award for outstanding services to music in 2005. He was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 1994 and has received honorary doctorates from both the University of Hull and Thames Valley University.

In May 2001, he was granted the first busker's licence on the London Underground.^[9]

In May 2009, Lloyd Webber was elected President of the Elgar Society in succession to Sir Adrian Boult, Lord Menuhin (who conducted his Brit Award winning recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto) and Richard Hickox.^[10]

He is also a Vice President of the Delius Society and Patron of Music in Hospitals. He has been an ambassador for the Prince's Trust for more than twenty years.

In September 2009 he joined the Board of Governors of the Southbank Centre.^[11] He was the Foundling Museum's Handel Fellow for 2010.^[12] He is known to be a lifelong supporter of Leyton Orient football club.The composer Herbert Howells was his Godfather.

Personal life[link]

Lloyd Webber has one son, David (born 1992, Hammersmith, London)^[13] from his marriage to Zohra Mahmoud Ghazi, a great niece of the Afghan King Zahir Shah. He married fellow cellist Jiaxin Cheng in 2009.^[14] and they have one daughter, Jasmine Orienta, who was born on June 14, 2011.

Recordings[link]

Orchestral recordings[link]

• Frank Bridge - Oration (1976)
• Édouard Lalo - Cello Concerto (1982)
• Frederick Delius - Cello Concerto (1982)
• Joaquín Rodrigo - Concierto como un divertimento (1982)
• Joseph Haydn - Cello Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (1983)
• Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto (1985)
• Victor Herbert - Cello Concerto No. 2 (1986)
• Arthur Sullivan - Cello Concerto (1986)
• Antonín Dvořák - Cello Concerto (1988)
• Arthur Honegger - Cello Concerto (1990)
• Camille Saint-Saëns - Cello Concerto No. 1 (1990)
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Variations on a Rococo Theme (1991)
• Nikolai Myaskovsky - Cello Concerto (1991)
• Gavin Bryars - Cello Concerto (1994)
• Benjamin Britten - Cello Symphony (1995)
• William Walton - Cello Concerto (1995)
• Michael Nyman - Concerto for Cello, Saxophone and orchestra (1996)
• Granville Bantock - Sapphic Poem (1999)
• Philip Glass - Cello Concerto No. 1 (Glass) (2003)
• Andrew Lloyd Webber - Phantasia for violin, cello and orchestra (2004)
• Romantic Cello Concertos (2009)
• Eric Whitacre - "The River Cam" (2012)

Chamber recordings[link]

• Peter Racine Fricker - Cello Sonata (1976)
• John Ireland - Complete Piano Trios (1976)
• Andrew Lloyd Webber - Variations (1977)
• Benjamin Britten - Third Suite for Cello (1979)
• Claude Debussy- Cello Sonata (1979)
• John Ireland - Cello Sonata (1979)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff - Cello Sonata (1979)
• Malcolm Arnold - Fantasy for Cello (1986)
• Alan Rawsthorne - Cello Sonata (1986)
• Benjamin Britten - Cello Sonata (1988)
• Sergei Prokofiev - Ballade (1988)
• Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Sonata (1988)
• Gabriel Fauré - Elegie (1990)
• Charles Villiers Stanford - Cello Sonata No. 2 (1991)
• Frederick Delius - Caprice and Elegy (1993)
• Gustav Holst - Invocation (1993)
• Edvard Grieg - Cello Sonata (1995)
• Delius - Cello Sonata (1995)
• Max Bruch - Kol Nidrei (1998)

Semi-classical[link]

• Oasis (1984)
• Two Worlds (2000)

Collections[link]

• Travels with my Cello (1984)
• Pieces (1985)
• Encore! – Travels with my Cello Vol.2 (1986)
• Cello Song (1993)
• English Idyll (1994)
• Cradle Song (1995)
• Cello Moods (1998)
• Elegy (1999)
• Lloyd Webber Plays Lloyd Webber (2001)
• Celebration (2001)
• Made in England (2003)
• Unexpected Songs (2006)
• Romantic Cello Concertos (2009)
• Fair Albion - Music by Patrick Hawes (2009)
• The Art of Julian Lloyd Webber (2011)
• Evening Songs (2012)

First performances by Lloyd Webber[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• In Harmony
• Management Website
• Elgar Society site
• MySpace Website
• Performance of Fauré's Elegy
• Performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto 3rd Movement
• Excerpt from 'Evening Song' by John Ireland

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since August 2007. It is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Tagged since April 2010. It may contain original research. Tagged since February 2008. Its tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Tagged since April 2010.

Robert Lewis "Sam" Wetzel (born October 6, 1930)^[1] is an United States Army General.^[2]

Ancestry[link]

In colonial and early American times, a family of brothers named "Wetzel" ranged the American frontier, which was primarily located in today's West Virginia. The frontier at that time was a savage place of great terror and danger to the defenseless settlers. More than anyone else, the Wetzel brothers stood in the gap between the Indians and the settlers, protecting the early Americans. Over the years, the Wetzels became America's greatest frontiersmen and Indian fighters. The eldest and leader of the brothers was Martin, friend of Daniel Boone. Boone achieved more nods from historians than the Wetzels because he was not quite as ruthless and vicious a fighter as Martin and his younger brothers. The more famous of the Wetzels was the middle brother, Lewis Wetzel, famous as the man whose gun was always loaded. For reasons unknown, Martin preferred to kill his enemies with his bare hands and a tomahawk. At this he was extraordinarily effective, but his method of warfare caused less publicity than that of his younger brother, Lewis.

Education[link]

The year 1948 found Martin Wetzel's direct descendant, Robert Lewis "Sam" Wetzel, of Clarksburg, West Virginia graduating high school. The young Wetzel was on his way to Purdue University and a career as an engineer. Robert Lewis Wetzel's personality bore an uncanny resemblance to Martin's. It had always been said that Martin was a genial companion, a true friend, and a good citizen. No three phrases better described his direct descendant. And, as fate would have it, it would soon be learned whether or not young "Sam" Wetzel had likewise inherited Martin's warfighting abilities. A recently approved local candidate for the West Point Military Academy dropped out, and a search went out for a replacement. Although it was the last thing on his mind or in his sights, Wetzel ended up being picked as that replacement. He graduated from West Point in 1952 as an infantry officer.

Korean War[link]

He was immediately deployed to the Korean War, where he saw action as a young company commander. Under fire for the first time, his first and instinctive concern was for the lives of his soldiers. From that time through his retirement in 1986, Wetzel almost invariably served as a "field" commander, meaning an officer who leads men on the ground as opposed to working behind the scenes at a desk. He proved to be a true descendant of Martin Wetzel, with an immediate instinct for leading armies and inspiring soldiers.

Wetzel's leadership secret - "you get those soldiers to where they'd throw themselves in front of a tank for you" - was once laid out at a leadership discussion where Wetzel was not present. One participant at the meeting apparently did not believe that this concluded matters and responded, "Well, did Wetzel mention how exactly he managed to do that?".

Vietnam War[link]

Wetzel was deployed to Vietnam in 1968 as a Lieutenant Colonel leading a battalion. Wetzel was involved in various life-threatening war situations. At one point, after an enemy bullet struck him, he declined a purple heart for which he could have easily and successfully applied. He judged the wound too insignificant to mention, despite the fact that it left him with a permanent scar. Wetzel went on to lead his battalion in a successful textbook military battle to secure an important mountainous area.

Germany[link]

Returning from the front, Wetzel eventually married an American Vietnam widow with five young children. He was promoted to full Colonel and soon assumed command of a brigade in Fort Carson, Colorado. In 1975, he was promoted to Brigadier General and sent to West Germany.

He then began a rapid ascent as a "field general," again, one who wears combat boots and leads soldiers on the ground. He was given command of the coveted First Infantry Division (forward) in Goeppingen, Germany. When this command concluded, the commander of all European and American forces in Europe, General Alexander M. Haig, then personally pinned Wetzel's second star on him.

Haig's Chief-of-staff[link]

From 1978-79, Wetzel served as General Haig's chief-of-staff in Belgium. Wetzel accepted this assignment reluctantly, for it meant shedding his fatigues and working behind a desk - fifteen feet from Haig's desk, seven days per week. But the timing of the assignment was remarkable. Since the 1950s, NATO and American strategy had been to save money by maintaining conventional forces (tanks, planes and soldiers) in Europe that could not possibly withstand an invasion by Warsaw Pact forces. The front-line troops served as a trip-wire for a nuclear response. But just before Wetzel's arrival at Haig's office, the Soviets had deployed their infamous SS-20 theater nuclear missiles in Europe. This upset the entire balance of NATO deterrence and Western security. During this year together, Haig, Wetzel and the rest of the staff crafted what became the West's strategic response - deployment in Europe of the Pershing II missiles, which could hit Moscow in the event of war, with precious few minutes for the Soviets to react. During the next four years, the domestic political battles began in NATO countries as to whether the Pershing II missiles would actually be deployed.

After serving as Haig's Chief of Staff, Wetzel commanded the Third Infantry Division in Würzburg. Wetzel led his armies to victory in the annual war games staged in West Germany, where he revealed a marked preference for the surprise night attack.

Illness[link]

In 1981, Wetzel was diagnosed with life ending melanoma cancer. Although he bought a new suit and insisted he would "beat this thing", the army and four doctors did not agree. He was given less than a year to live, and offered a full medical disability in exchange for retirement. Wetzel refused. He later said he just wanted to get back to the troops. The army reluctantly permitted him to stay on, but only after he signed a full waiver. Judging Wetzel to be at death's door, the army stripped him of his command and sent him back to America to end his days. However, he recovered in compelling and dramatic fashion. He was soon placed in command of the famous infantry training center in Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1983, in the full bloom of an unbelievable comeback, Wetzel was awarded his third star, and he returned to the troops in Germany.

This section may stray from the topic of the article. Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (August 2010)

Wetzel's first position back in Germany was Deputy Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe. The NATO allies had finally approved the Pershing II plan. In an amazing twist of fate, immediately upon his arrival, it became Wetzel's job to receive and deploy the Pershing II missiles, and this in the midst of anti-war demonstrations all over Europe. Today, Cold War historians (relying on the candid confessions of defeated Russian leaders) credit the deployment of the Pershing II missiles as one of three key factors that broke the Soviets' back and ended the Cold War (the other two factors being the Reagan defense build-up and SDI specifically).

This section may stray from the topic of the article. Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (August 2010)

In the famous movie, Patton, at the end of the film, World War II has ended. Reporters ask Patton what he thinks of the new future of warfare, which will center on nuclear weapons and a nuclear deterrent. Patton responds "I'm glad I won't be around to see it", stating that he prefers the more honorable calling of armies and soldiers squaring off in battle. At a philosophical level, Patton had a point. Deploying a front line army in Europe with no chance to succeed against the invading Warsaw Pact armies seems a cruel betrayal of that army. And the strategy is even more problematic because its sole premise was cost. Relying on a nuclear deterrent was cheaper.

In the Cold War, the "trip-wire" army, the one deployed at the front line, was the American V Corps. The V Corps was deployed in the so called "Fulda Gap", which was the geographic invasion route for Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies. It can safely be said that this area was the American frontier during the 45 year time period of the Cold War. Wetzel was intimately familiar with the Fulda Gap, both privately and publicly. On a private level, with shotgun and rifle, Wetzel ranged this frontier many lonely years, sometimes accompanied by his stepsons, who he trained to hunt with him. On a public level, from 1984 through his retirement in 1986, Wetzel commanded the V Corps. Modern history thus records that the Wetzels remained in America's frontier during Cold War times.

References[link]