Saint Cecilia of Rome
Saint Cecilia by Guido Reni, 1606[1]
Virgin and Martyr
Born	2nd century A.D. Rome
Died	Sicily
Major shrine	Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome
Feast	November 22 Patron saint of musicians and church music
Attributes	flute, organ, roses, violin, harp, harpsichord, singing
Patronage	Church music, great musicians, poets; Albi, France; Archdiocese of Omaha; Mar del Plata, Argentina

Saint Cecilia (Latin: Sancta Caecilia) is the patroness of musicians^[2] and Church music because, as she was dying, she sang to God. It is also written that as the musicians played at her wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord".^[2] St. Cecilia was an only child. Her feast day is celebrated in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches on November 22. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. It was long supposed that she was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian, his brother Tiburtius, and a Roman soldier Maximus, suffered martyrdom in about 230, under the Emperor Alexander Severus.^[3]

The research of Giovanni Battista de Rossi,^[4] however, appears to confirm the statement of Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers (d. 600), that she perished in Sicily under Emperor Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180. A church in her honor exists in Rome from about the 5th century, was rebuilt with much splendor by Pope Paschal I around the year 820, and again by Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati in 1599. It is situated in Trastevere, near the Ripa Grande quay, where in earlier days the ghetto was located, and is the titulus of a Cardinal Priest, currently Carlo Maria Martini.

The martyrdom of Cecilia is said to have followed that of her husband and his brother by the prefect Turcius Almachius.^[5] The officers of the prefect then sought to have Cecilia killed as well. She arranged to have her home preserved as a church before she was arrested. At that time, the officials attempted to kill her by smothering her by steam. However, the attempt failed, and she was to have her head chopped off. But they were unsuccessful three times, and she would not die until she received the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Cecilia survived another three days before succumbing. In the last three days of her life, she opened her eyes, gazed at her family and friends who crowded around her cell, closed them, and never opened them again. The people by her cell knew immediately that she was to become a saint in heaven.^[2] When her incorruptible body was found long after her death, it was found that on one hand she had three fingers outstretched and on the other hand just one finger, denoting her belief in the Holy Trinity.

The Sisters of Saint Cecilia are a group of women consecrated religious sisters. They are the ones who shear the lambs' wool used to make the palliums of new metropolitan archbishops. The lambs are raised by the Cistercian Trappist Fathers of the Tre Fontane (Three Fountains) Abbey in Rome. The lambs are blessed by the Pope every January 21, the Feast of the martyr Saint Agnes. The pallia are given by the Pope to the new metropolitan archbishops on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29.

Meaning of the name[link]

The name "Caecilia" was shared by all women of the Roman gens known as the Caecilii, whose name may be related to the root of 'caecus', blind. Legends and hagiographies, mistaking it for a personal name, suggest fanciful etymologies. Among those cited by Chaucer in The Second Nun's Tale are: lily of heaven; the way for the blind; contemplation of heaven and the active life; as if lacking in blindness; a heaven for people to gaze upon.^[6]

Patroness of musicians[link]

Cecilia's musical fame rests on a passing notice in her legend that she was beheaded and at the same time praised God, singing to Him, as she lay dying a martyr's death. She is frequently depicted playing an organ or other musical instrument. Musical societies and conservatories frequently have been named for St. Cecilia. Her feast day became an occasion for musical concerts and festivals that occasioned well-known poems by John Dryden and Alexander Pope,^[7] and music by Henry Purcell (Ode to St. Cecilia), George Frideric Handel (Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, Alexander's Feast) and Benjamin Britten, who was born on her feast day, (Hymn to St. Cecilia), as well as Herbert Howells with text from a poem by W. H. Auden. Gerald Finzi's "For Saint Cecilia", Op. 30, was set to verses written by Edmund Blunden, and Frederik Magle's Cantata to Saint Cecilia is based on the history of Cecilia.^[8]

Use in contemporary music[link]

The New York post-hardcore band Polar Bear Club refer to St. Cecilia in their song "Song to Persona". David Byrne and Brian Eno's song, The River, on the album, Everything that Happens Will Happen Today, also refers to St. Cecilia's Day. Paul Simon, of Simon and Garfunkel fame, wrote the song "The Coast" which references her when a family of musicians taking refuge in the Church of St. Cecilia.^[9] There is also evidence that another of Paul Simon's songs was also in her honor, as "Cecilia" can be interpreted to refer to her and the frustration of song writing.^[10] English lyrics were written for a Swedish popular song "Min soldat" and released as "The Shrine of Saint Cecilia". It was recorded by a number of American close harmony and doo-wop groups during the 20th century like Willie Winfield and the Harp-Tones. Others were the Bon Aires and The Andrews Sisters. The song was first released in the U.S. in 1941. Stalk-Forrest group (an early incarnation of Blue Öyster Cult) recorded a song called "St. Cecilia" on their album that was scrapped by Elektra Records. The album finally saw a limited release in 2003 through Rhino Handmade under the title St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings. Then in 2007 Radioactive Records released the album (on CD and vinyl) as St. Cecilia: The California Album – Remastered.

Use in contemporary poetry[link]

A poem by Australian poet A.D.Hope (1907–2000) "Moschus Moschiferus" is sub-titled 'A Song for St Cecilia's Day'. The poem is of 12 stanzas and was written in the 1960s.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saint Cecilia

• Albi Cathedral, Albi, France
• St. Cecilia Cathedral, Omaha, Nebraska
• St. Cäcilien, Cologne, Germany
• St. Cecilia Catholic School, Houston, Texas
• Incorruptibility

Gallery[link]

• 

  Saints Cecilia, Valerian, and Tiburtius by Botticini

• 

  Saint Cecilia and Saint Valerian

• 

  "In a clear walled city on the sea. Near gilded organ pipes – slept St. Cecily" (John William Waterhouse, 1895)

• 

  Domenichino, Saint Cecilia with an angel holding a musical score, (c. 1617–18).

• CeciliaCrownsItalianMaster.jpg

  An Angel Crowning Saints Cecilia and Valerian (1330s)

• StaCeciliaCeciliaStatue.jpg

  Statue from the porch of St. Cecilia, Trastevere

• 

  Stefano Maderno, "St. Cecilia," 1599

• 

  Stained glass in Little Wymondley church, Hertfordshire.

Domenichino's Fresco Cycle in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome (1614)

• CeciliaCrownsDomenichino.jpg

  The Crowns

• CeciliaTrialDomenichino.jpg

  Cecilia's Trial

• Cecilia2PoorDomenichino.jpg

  She distributes her goods to the poor

• CeciliaDeathDomenichino.jpg

  Her death

The apse fresco in the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere

• StaCeciliaApseMosaic.jpg

  The apse

• StaCeciliaApseMosaic.left.jpg

  Detail: left side

• ApseMosaic.right.jpg

  Detail: right side

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Life, Miracles and Martyrdom of St. Cecilia of Rome, Virgin and Martyr of the Christian Church
• The Golden Legend: The Life of Saint Cecilia
• Patron Saints Index: Saint Cecilia
• Catholic Online - Saints & Angels: St. Cecilia
• Order of Saint Cecilia
• Academy of Saint Cecilia
• St. Cecilia page at Christian Iconography

Photo by Yousuf Karsh, mid 1950s

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten,^[1] OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist; and one of the central figures of 20th century British classical music. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. For the next fifteen years he devoted much of his compositional attention to writing operas, establishing him as one of the leading 20th century figures in this genre.

Britten's interests as a composer were wide-ranging; he produced important music in such varied genres as orchestral, choral, solo vocal (much of it written for his life partner, tenor Peter Pears), chamber and instrumental, as well as film music. He also took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, and was an outstanding pianist and conductor.

Life[link]

Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 22 November 1913, the youngest of four children. His father, Robert, was a dentist, and his mother Edith, a talented amateur musician who gave Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He showed musical gifts very early in life, making his first attempts at composition aged five, and thereafter composing prolifically as a child.^[2] He started piano lessons with a teacher from his pre-prep school when aged 7, and viola lessons with Audrey Alston when 10 years old.

John Piper's Benjamin Britten memorial window in the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Aldeburgh

Britten heard Frank Bridge’s orchestral poem The Sea at a festival and was, as he put it, ‘knocked sideways’.^[2] Alston was a family friend of Frank Bridge and was able to arrange an introduction. After examining Britten's work, Bridge took him on as a composition pupil, and the first lesson took place on 10 January 1928, a few weeks after Britten's 14th birthday.^[3] One of the first pieces composed during the period of Bridge's tutelage was the Quatre Chansons françaises for soprano and orchestra, though it appears that Britten's abilities as an orchestrator were essentially self-taught rather than learned from Bridge.^[4]

He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt and then studied, 1930–33, at the Royal College of Music under John Ireland (composition) and Arthur Benjamin (piano). Britten also used his time in London to attend concerts and become better acquainted with the music of Igor Stravinsky, Gustav Mahler, and Dmitry Shostakovich. Although ultimately dissuaded by his parents (at the suggestion of College staff), Britten had also intended postgraduate study with Alban Berg in Vienna.

Britten was a prolific juvenile composer: some 800 works and fragments precede his early published works. His first compositions to attract wide attention were the Sinfonietta Op. 1, A Hymn to the Virgin (1930) and a set of choral variations A Boy was Born, written in 1934 for the BBC Singers. In this same period he wrote Friday Afternoons, a collection of 12 songs mostly for unison singing, for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn where Britten's brother, Robert, was headmaster.^[5]

Early professional life[link]

In April 1935 he was approached by the film director Alberto Cavalcanti to write the film score for the documentary The King's Stamp, produced by the GPO Film Unit.^[6] He subsequently met W. H. Auden, who was also working for the GPO Film Unit; together they worked on the films Coal Face and Night Mail.^[7] They also collaborated on the song cycle Our Hunting Fathers Op. 8, radical both in politics and musical treatment, and other works.

Of more lasting importance to Britten was his meeting in 1937 with the tenor Peter Pears, who was to become his musical collaborator and inspiration as well as his life partner. In the same year he composed a Pacifist March (words, Ronald Duncan) for the Peace Pledge Union, of which, as a pacifist, he had become an active member, but the work was not a success and soon withdrawn. One of Britten's most noteworthy works from the 1930s was Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge for string orchestra, Op. 10, written in 1937.

In April 1939 Britten and Pears followed Auden to America. There, in 1940, Britten composed Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, the first of many song cycles for Pears. Already friends with the composer Aaron Copland, Britten encountered his latest works Billy the Kid and An Outdoor Overture, both of which manifestly influenced his own music.^[8] While in America Britten wrote his first music drama, Paul Bunyan, an operetta (to a libretto by Auden). The period in America was also remarkable for a number of orchestral works, including the Violin Concerto Op. 15, and Sinfonia da Requiem Op. 20 (for full orchestra).

In the meantime, Britten had had his first encounter with Balinese gamelan music through the transcriptions for two pianos made by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee. Britten first met McPhee at Stanton Cottage in the summer of 1939, and the two subsequently performed a number of McPhee's transcriptions for a recording.^[9] This musical encounter was to bear fruit decades later in several Balinese-inspired works including The Prince of the Pagodas,^[10] Noye's Fludde^[11] and Death in Venice.^[12]

Return to England[link]

Britten and Pears returned to England in April 1942, and both applied for recognition as conscientious objectors; Britten was initially allowed only non-combatant service in the military, but gained unconditional exemption on appeal. He completed the choral works Hymn to St. Cecilia (his last large-scale collaboration with Auden) and A Ceremony of Carols during the long sea voyage. He had already begun work on his opera Peter Grimes based on the writings of Suffolk poet George Crabbe; its première at Sadler's Wells in 1945 was his greatest success thus far. However, Britten encountered opposition from sectors of the English musical establishment and gradually withdrew from the London scene, founding the English Opera Group in 1947 and the Aldeburgh Festival the following year, partly (though by no means solely) to perform his own works. From 1949 to 1951 he had his only private pupil, Arthur Oldham. One of Oldham's achievements was the setting for full orchestra of Britten's Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge, for the Frederick Ashton ballet Le Rêve de Léonor (1949).^[13]

Peter Grimes was the first in a series of English operas, of which Billy Budd (1951) and The Turn of the Screw (1954) were particularly admired. His Shakespeare opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream, followed in 1960. These operas share common themes. Even in his comic opera Albert Herring of 1947, all feature an 'outsider' character excluded or misunderstood by society. Often this is the eponymous protagonist, as in Peter Grimes and Owen Wingrave.

Britten was appointed a Companion of Honour (CH) in the Coronation Honours, 1953.^[14]

An increasingly important influence was the music of the East, an interest that was fostered by a tour with Pears in 1957, when Britten was struck by the music of the Balinese gamelan and by Japanese Noh plays. The fruits of this tour include the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and the series of semi-operatic "Parables for Church Performance": Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968). The greatest success of Britten's career was, however, the War Requiem, written for the 1962 consecration of the newly reconstructed Coventry Cathedral.

Britten developed close friendships with Russian musicians Dmitri Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich in the 1960s. He composed his Cello Suites, Cello Symphony and Cello Sonata for Mstislav Rostropovich, and conducted the first Western performance of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony. Shostakovich dedicated this score to Britten, and often spoke very highly of his music. Britten himself had previously dedicated The Prodigal Son (the third and last of the 'Church Parables') to Shostakovich. He was honoured again by appointment to the Order of Merit (OM) on 23 March 1965.^[15]

In his last decade, Britten's health deteriorated, and his later works became more and more sparse in texture. They include the operas Owen Wingrave (1970) and Death in Venice (1971–1973), the Suite on English Folk Tunes "A Time There Was" (1974) and Third String Quartet (1975)— which drew on material from Death in Venice— as well as the dramatic cantata Phaedra (1975), written for Janet Baker.

	Op92; A Birthday Hansel for high voice and harp (1975) Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Performance by Alexander Kaimbacher (Tenor) and Volker Kempf (Harp).
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Having previously declined a knighthood, Britten accepted a life peerage on 2 July 1976 as Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk.^[16] A few months later he died of heart failure at his house in Aldeburgh. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Peter and St. Paul's Church there, with a gravestone carved by Reynolds Stone. The grave of his partner, Sir Peter Pears, lies next to his, and near to that of Imogen Holst, a close friend. A memorial stone to him was unveiled in the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey in 1978.

The Red House in Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears lived and worked together for almost thirty years, is now the home of the Britten-Pears Foundation, established to promote their musical legacy.

Music[link]

Operas[link]

Britten's operas are firmly established in the international repertoire. According to Operabase, he has more operas played worldwide than any other composer born in the 20th century,^[17] and only Puccini and Richard Strauss come ahead of him if the list is extended to all operas composed after 1900.^[18]

Other genres[link]

Britten was an accomplished pianist, frequently performing chamber music and accompanying lieder and song recitals. However, apart from the Holiday Diary (1934), Piano Concerto (1938), Young Apollo (1939), Diversions (written for Paul Wittgenstein in 1940), Scottish Ballad (1941), he wrote relatively little music that puts the piano in the spotlight, and in a 1963 interview for the BBC said that he thought of it as "a background instrument".

One of Britten's best known works is The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1946), which was composed to accompany Instruments of the Orchestra, an educational film produced by the British government, narrated and conducted by Malcolm Sargent. Its subtitle is Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell; the theme is a melody from Henry Purcell's Abdelazar. Britten gives individual variations to each of the sections of the orchestra, starting with the woodwind, then the string instruments, the brass instruments and finally the percussion. Britten then brings the whole orchestra together again in a fugue before restating the theme to close the work. The original film's spoken commentary is often omitted in concert performances and recordings.

Britten's church music is also considerable: it contains frequently performed 'classics' such as Rejoice in the Lamb, composed for St Matthew's Northampton (where the Vicar was Revd Walter Hussey), as well as A Hymn to the Virgin, and Missa Brevis for boys' voices and organ.

As a conductor, Britten performed the music of many composers, as well as his own. Among his celebrated recordings are versions of Mozart's 40th Symphony and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (with Pears as Gerontius), and an album of works by Grainger in which Britten features as pianist as well as conductor.

Nocturnal after John Dowland for guitar (1963) has an indisputably central place in the repertoire of its instrument. This work is typically spare in his late style, and shows the depth of his lifelong admiration for Elizabethan lute songs. In each of the eight variations Britten focuses on a different feature of the work's theme, Dowland's song Come, Heavy Sleep, or its lute accompaniment, before the theme emerges complete at the close of the work.

In 2005, the Britten-Pears Foundation in partnership with the University of East Anglia was awarded funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to produce a thematic catalogue of Britten's works. The project is distinguished by being the first composer thematic catalogue to be published initially online. (All previous thematic catalogues have been print publications, though some have been published online later.) The work involves gathering and cataloguing manuscript and published notation and published recordings, producing a chronology, and assigning identifiers to Britten's works. These identifiers are in addition to Britten's own opus numbers and, after the style of preceding thematic catalogues such as BWV for J.S. Bach, comprise the letters 'BTC' followed by numbers assigned in chronological order. The catalogue includes numerous unpublished works and is expected, when completed in 2013, to include around 1,200 works. (Britten's published output includes around 200 works, of which 95 were assigned opus numbers.)

Reputation[link]

The Scallop by Maggi Hambling is a sculpture dedicated to Benjamin Britten on the beach at Aldeburgh. The edge of the shell is pierced with the words "I hear those voices that will not be drowned" from Peter Grimes.

Early in his career, Britten made a conscious effort to set himself apart from the English musical mainstream, which he regarded as complacent, insular and amateurish. Many contemporary critics distrusted his facility, cosmopolitanism and admiration for composers such as Mahler, Berg, and Stravinsky, not at the time considered appropriate models for a young English musician. Britten's status as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century is now secure among professional critics. However, criticism of his music is apt to become entangled with consideration of his personality, his politics (especially his pacifism in World War II) and his sexuality.^{[19][not in citation given]} Humphrey Carpenter's 1992 biography further described Britten's often fraught social, professional and sexual relationships, as did Alan Bennett's 2009 play The Habit of Art, set while Britten is composing the opera Death in Venice and centred on a fictional meeting between Britten and W. H. Auden (Britten was played in the premiere production by Alex Jennings).

In 2003, a selection of Britten's writings, edited by Paul Kildea, revealed other ways that he addressed such issues as his pacifism.^[20] A further study along the lines begun by Carpenter is John Bridcut's Britten's Children, 2006, which describes Britten’s infatuation with a series of pre-adolescent and adolescent boys throughout his life, most notably David Hemmings.^[21]

For many musicians, however, Britten's technique, broad musical and human sympathies and ability to treat the most traditional of musical forms with freshness and originality place him at the head of composers of his generation. A notable tribute is Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, an orchestral piece written in 1977 by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

Awards[link]

• UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers 1961, (for A Midsummer Night's Dream)
• Grammy Awards 1963 – Classical Album of the Year, Best Classical Composition by a Contemporary Composer, Best Classical Performance – Choral (Other Than Opera) (all for War Requiem)
• Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, 1964
• Sonning Award 1967 (Denmark)
• Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 1974
• BRIT Awards 1977 – Best Orchestral Album (of the past 25 years) (for War Requiem)
• Grammy Hall of Fame Award 1998 (for War Requiem)

Recordings by Britten[link]

• Facets of Benjamin Britten Pearl, Pavilion Records (0220 GEM)
• Benjamin Britten – Premiere recordings 1938–46 Pearl, Pavilion Records (0002 GEM)
• Britten the Performer (BBC Legends Music)
• Benjamin Britten: In Rehearsal and Performance with Peter Pears

See also[link]

Ballet portal

• Britten's Children
• List of compositions by Benjamin Britten

References[link]

Sources[link]

• F. Avellar de Aquino. "Song of Sorrow". in The Strad Magazine, London, v. 117, Vol. 1391, p. 52–57, 2006. (on Britten's 3rd. Cello Suite)
• Philip Brett. "Benjamin Britten", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 18 October 2004), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
• Bridcut, John, Britten's Children, Faber and Faber, 2006. ISBN 0-571-22839-9
• Britten, Benjamin (edited by Philip Reed, Mervyn Cooke and Donald Mitchell) Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Volume IV, 1952–1957 The Boydell Press, 633pp
• Britten, Benjamin (edited by John Evans) Journeying Boy: the Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten, 1928–1938 (London: Faber and Faber), 2009)
• Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten: a biography (London: Faber and Faber, 1992) ISBN 0-571-14324-5
• Peter Evans. The Music of Benjamin Britten (London: J. M. Dent, 1979) ISBN 0-460-04350-1
• Michael Kennedy, 1981. Britten (London: J. M. Dent, 1983) ISBN 0-460-02201-6
• Donald Mitchell, "Britten, (Edward) Benjamin, Baron Britten (1913–1976)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 18 October 2004: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30853
• Michael Oliver. Benjamin Britten (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) ISBN 0-7148-3277-4

External links[link]

• Britten-Pears Foundation: biographies of Britten and Pears, timelines, work lists and descriptions, performance schedules.
• Boosey & Hawkes (Britten's publishers up to 1963): biographies, work lists and descriptions, recordings, performance schedules
• Faber Music (Publishers set up by Britten for his works after 1963): biography, work lists, recordings, performance schedules

Biographies and profiles[link]

• MusicWeb International. Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), by Rob Barnett
• Gresham College. 'Britten and Bridge', lecture and performance investigating the relation between the two composers, 5 February 2008 (available for download as text, audio or video file).
• On An Overgrown Path (blog). Photo essay on Britten's childhood home, November 2008.
• BBC. Audio (.ram files) of 1957 and 1963 interviews

Portraits[link]

• National Portrait Gallery. Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (1913–1976), 109 portraits.

Worklists and performances[link]

• Scott Eric Smith. An extensive list of Benjamin Britten's works (archived / current)
• Britten-Pears Foundation/AHRC. A thematic catalogue of Britten's works (under development)
• Operabase. Recent and future performances of Britten operas.

Interpretations[link]

• Britten: A Ceremony of Carols (op. 28). Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge/ Harp: Frances Kelly/ Conductor: Richard Marlow (1997)
• Britten: On This Island, Kishani Jayasinghe
• Britten: Cello Symphony performed by cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
• University of Iowa. Audio recording of Lachrymae, Viola: Christine Rutledge, piano: Darlene Lawrence. Clapp Recital Hall (1998).

Marc Minkowski (born 4 October 1962)^[1][2] is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother, Mary Anne (Wade), is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology.^[3] Marc Minkowski is a Chevalier du Mérite.

Life and career[link]

Marc Minkowski was born in Paris. His maternal grandmother, Edith Wade, was a violinist.^[4] He began his musical career as a bassoonist for René Clemencic's Clemencic Consort and Philippe Pierlot's Ricercar Consort.^[5]

In 1982 Minkowski formed "Les Musiciens du Louvre", an orchestra dedicated to showcasing French Baroque music^[6][7] which has championed works by Marin Marais (opera Alcione), Jean-Joseph Mouret (opera Les amours de Ragonde), Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Jean-Baptiste Lully (opera Phaëton at Opéra National de Lyon) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (opera Hippolyte et Aricie). The ensemble has also revived lesser-known Handel operas, such as Teseo, Amadigi, Riccardo Primo and Ariodante, as well as several operas by Christoph Willibald Gluck including Armide (at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles), Alceste and Iphigénie en Tauride (at the English Bach Festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden).

Les Musiciens du Louvre relocated to Grenoble after 1996, where they are associates at the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble.^[8]

Minkowski's career focus has shifted from an initial specialized interest in the Baroque to a wider interest in opera. He conducted Mozart's Idomeneo in 1996 at the Opéra National de Paris and debuted his Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Salzburg Festival. He has since conducted Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Salzburg Festival, Handel's Giulio Cesare in Amsterdam, Paris and Zürich (with Cecilia Bartoli) and his Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in Zürich, Donizetti's La Favorite in Zürich, and Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, among others.

He has also performed and recorded critically acclaimed works by Jacques Offenbach: Orphée aux Enfers, La belle Hélène and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein.

As well as Les Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski is active in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Mozarteum Salzburg and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

The majority of his recordings have been issued by Deutsche Grammophon, but can also be found on Erato, EMI's Virgin Classics and Naïve Records.

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

• Minkowski at Deutsche Grammophon
• Les Musiciens du Louvre
• Marc Minkowski at the Internet Movie Database

Herbert Norman Howells CH (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.

Life[link]

Background and early education[link]

Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, the youngest of the six children of Oliver Howells, a plumber, painter, decorator and builder, and his wife Elizabeth^[1]. His father played the organ at the local Baptist church, and Herbert himself showed early musical promise, first deputising for his father, and then moving at the age of eleven to the local Church of England parish church as choirboy and unofficial deputy organist^[2].

The Howells family's financial position was always precarious and at some point in Howells' adolescence his father became bankrupt, a deep humiliation in a small community at the time and one from which Howells never fully recovered^[3]. Financially assisted by a member of the family of Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe who had taken an interest in the budding musician, Howells began music lessons in 1905 with Herbert Brewer, the organist of Gloucester Cathedral, and at sixteen became his articled pupil at the Cathedral alongside Ivor Novello and Ivor Gurney^[4]. The latter became a close friend, the pair going on long walks through the Gloucestershire countryside discussing their shared love of music and English literature^[5].

Another formative experience for the young Howells was the premiere in September 1910 at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. Howells liked to relate in after years how Vaughan Williams sat next to him for the remainder of the concert and shared his score of Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with the awestruck aspiring composer^[6]. Both Vaughan Williams and the Tudor composers of which Tallis was one profoundly influenced Howells' later work^[7].

Study at the Royal College of Music[link]

In 1912, following the example of Ivor Gurney^[8], Howells moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music. Here his teachers included Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Charles Wood^[9]. Among Howells' contemporaries in the student body were Gurney, Arthur Bliss and Arthur Benjamin.