Classical music anniversaries in November span practically 4 centuries, from Jean-Baptiste Lully’s delivery in 1632 to Nelson Freire’s loss of life in 2021.
This month gave us the births of Bellini, Borodin, Falla, Joplin, and Hindemith; the deaths of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, and Schubert; and premieres starting from Brahms’s second piano concerto to a Schumann violin concerto that spent practically a century locked away by the individuals who beloved him most.
Beneath is a day-by-day information to the month’s important dates, deaths, and debuts – and the drama behind each.
November 1, 2021
Loss of life of Nelson Freire
Freire performs Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2
The nice Brazilian pianist died at his residence in Rio de Janeiro, simply two weeks after his 77th birthday.
Often known as “the kid with golden palms,” Freire gave his first public recital at 4. At fourteen he went to Vienna to check with Bruno Seidlhofer, alongside fellow college students Martha Argerich and Friedrich Gulda. He went on to document a lot of the piano duo repertoire with Argerich and have become a celebrated Chopin interpreter.
Away from the stage, he was famously reserved and gave few interviews, letting his taking part in converse for him.
We revisited the documentary that captured this famously personal musician right here: https://interlude.hk/nelson-freire-born-on-october-18-1944when-music-speaks/.
November 2, 1739
Delivery of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf
Dittersdorf’s Double Bass Concerto
Dittersdorf was a fixture within the Classical-era Viennese music scene, and he counted Haydn and Mozart amongst his chamber music companions.
He was additionally a prolific composer, writing roughly 120 symphonies over his profession.
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf
His double bass concerto is among the uncommon Classical-era showcases for the instrument, requiring solo virtuosity from gamers normally caught in orchestral sections.
We wrote an introduction to 6 of Dittersdorf’s enjoyable and fanciful symphonies: https://interlude.hk/fanciful-stories-in-music-dittersdorf-ovid-symphonies-i/.
November 3, 1801
Delivery of Vincenzo Bellini
Bellini’s “Casta Diva” from Norma
Bellini was born in Catania, Sicily, right into a household {of professional} musicians; his father and grandfather have been composers, organists, and academics.
He grew as much as turn out to be considered one of opera’s nice melodists. His “Casta Diva” from Norma is among the most beloved soprano arias within the repertoire.
We dug into the story of Bellini’s childhood right here – together with how, in accordance with household legend, he may sing arias by the point he was eighteen months previous: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-3-november-vincenzo-bellini-was-born/.
November 4, 1847
Loss of life of Felix Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 6
Mendelssohn died at 38 within the aftermath of a stroke – simply months after the devastating loss of life of his sister Fanny from the identical trigger.
His String Quartet No. 6, written after her loss of life, is commonly heard as a musical response to his grief; its urgency and turbulence depart from the polished model normally related to him.
Eduard Magnus: Felix Mendelssohn, 1846 (Berlin State Library)
We informed the horrifying story of Mendelssohn’s loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-4-november-felix-mendelssohn-died/.
November 5, 1989
Loss of life of Vladimir Horowitz
Horowitz taking part in Schumann’s “Träumerei”
Horowitz died of a coronary heart assault at his New York townhouse on the finish of a decades-long worldwide profession.
He had a particular affinity with Romantic-era music, and his late-in-life interpretations of Schumann’s “Träumerei” are particularly legendary.
We answered the fifteen most often requested questions on Horowitz right here: https://interlude.hk/the-fifteen-most-faqs-about-vladimir-horowitz-stage-fright-flat-fingers-and-more/.
November 6, 1893
Loss of life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6
Tchaikovsky died simply 9 days after conducting the premiere of his Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique,” a piece he known as the perfect factor he’d ever written.
The official trigger was cholera, contracted from a glass of unboiled water at a restaurant. Nonetheless, generations of biographers have proposed options – that the loss of life was suicide or tied to an rising scandal over his attraction to males.
We informed the story of Tchaikovsky’s tragic sickness and loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-6-november-pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovsky-died/.
November 7, 1934
Premiere of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Rachmaninoff wrote the Rhapsody in simply six weeks, creating twenty-four variations out of the Paganini caprice that had already impressed Liszt and Brahms.
He premiered it himself with the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Leopold Stokowski, throughout a live performance in Baltimore.
The work is particularly well-known for its eighteenth variation, a hovering, upside-down model of the theme that turned considered one of his most beloved melodies.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1892
We explored the background of the Rhapsody right here – and why Rachmaninoff is commonly quoted as saying of the eighteenth variation, “This piece is for my agent.”: https://interlude.hk/creme-de-menthe-variationssergei-rachmaninoff-rhapsody-on-a-theme-of-paganini/.
November 8, 1883
Delivery of Sir Arnold Bax
Bax’s Tintagel
Bax grew up in a rich London family, taught himself to improvise on the piano as a baby earlier than he ever had formal classes, and later studied on the Royal Academy of Music.
He was particularly impressed by Irish and Celtic fantasy. That inspiration produced Tintagel, his tone poem evoking a ruined fort on the Cornish coast.
We known as Arnold Bax “far and away essentially the most uncared for British composer who flourished within the first half of the twentieth century.” Discover out why right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-8-november-arnold-bax-was-born/.
November 9, 1881
Premiere of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2
Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2
Brahms wryly described this concerto to a good friend as “a tiny little piano concerto with a wisp of a scherzo.” In truth, it’s a mammoth four-movement work that redefined what a piano concerto could possibly be.
Its uncommon scherzo motion started life as a discarded center motion for his violin concerto, however Brahms determined it didn’t match and reworked it right here as an alternative.
We dug into the concerto’s historical past right here: https://interlude.hk/when-the-symphony-embraces-the-concerto-brahms-piano-concerto-no-2-op-83/.
November 10, 1928
Delivery of Ennio Morricone
Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission
Morricone was born in Rome to knowledgeable trumpeter and began composing at six. He entered the Rome Conservatory at twelve, constructing a classical basis earlier than turning into one of the recognisable movie composers of the twentieth century.
He scored greater than 500 motion pictures, and his unconventional instrumentation – his use of whistling, cracking whips, and jaw harp – turned central to these movies’ identification.
After Morricone died in 2020, we wrote a tribute: https://interlude.hk/in-memoriam-ennio-morricone-1928-2020/.
November 11, 1994
Loss of life of Elisabeth Maconchy
Maconchy’s String Quartet No. 1
Together with Bax, Maconchy was one of the underrated British composers of the twentieth century.
She studied on the Royal Faculty of Music underneath Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Though she confronted sexism working in interwar Britain, she constructed a big physique of labor marked by taut development and emotional depth.
In the present day her best-known works are her 13 string quartets.
November 12, 1833
Delivery of Alexander Borodin
Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor
Borodin was born in St. Petersburg, the illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian prince and a a lot youthful Russian girl.
Regardless of that precarious begin, he confirmed a expertise for each music and chemistry, coaching as a doctor and analysis chemist whereas composing on the aspect.
That double life makes the “Polovtsian Dances” from his opera Prince Igor particularly outstanding. It’s a number of the most vivid, exoticist orchestral writing of the Russian nationalist college – and it was written by a person who by no means thought of composing his day job.
We dug into Borodin’s childhood right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-12-november-alexander-borodin-was-born/.
November 13, 1868
Loss of life of Gioachino Rossini
Rossini’s Overture from Wilhelm Inform
Rossini spent a lot of his life managing the fallout from a gonorrhea an infection, which triggered many years of problems together with most cancers, the illness that killed him after two operations in Paris.
He retired from opera in 1829, on the peak of his fame, instantly after composing the wildly profitable opera Wilhelm Inform.
His funeral in Paris drew 1000’s. Fittingly for Rossini, newspapers on the time famous the temper was nearer to a festive live performance than a sombre service.
We wrote about Rossini’s power well being points and funeral right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-13-november-gioachino-rossini-died/.
November 14, 1805
Delivery of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet
Fanny and her youthful brother Felix have been educated by the identical academics from childhood, and each have been prodigies.
Nevertheless, Fanny couldn’t pursue the identical form of public music profession Felix had due to expectations round her gender and her household’s social standing.
Regardless of this, she wrote greater than 450 works, most of them unpublished in her lifetime. She’d lately determined to start out publishing extra when she died all of a sudden of a stroke in Might 1847.
Felix was devastated; his closing string quartet was privately subtitled “Requiem for Fanny.”
We wrote an article about Fanny and Felix’s profound musical bond right here: https://interlude.hk/felix-and-fanny-mendelssohn-compared-nine-works-that-reveal-their-intertwined-genius/.
November 15, 1787
Loss of life of Christoph von Gluck
Gluck’s “Che farò senza Euridice?” from Orfeo ed Euridice
Gluck spent the 1760s dismantling considered one of opera’s most entrenched conventions: the da capo aria, which paused the story’s drama so singers may exhibit improvised ornamentation throughout a repeated part.
Joseph Siffred Duplessis: Christoph Willibald von Gluck, 1775 (Kunsthistorisches Museum)
Orfeo ed Euridice, his first reform opera, turned well-known for its lack of showy arias. Its lamenting aria “Che farò senza Euridice?” has been sung by everybody from contraltos to baritones to countertenors ever since.
Gluck died in 1787 as one of many best reformers in operatic historical past.
We gathered 75 years of recordings of Gluck’s well-known opera Orfeo ed Euridice right here: https://interlude.hk/christoph-willibald-gluck-born-on-july-2-1714-75-years-of-recordings-of-orfeo-ed-euridice/.
November 16, 1895
Delivery of Paul Hindemith
Hindemith’s Symphonie Mathis der Maler
After World Battle I, Paul Hindemith emerged as a number one voice of the German avant-garde.
He educated as a violinist earlier than specializing in composition, ultimately growing his muscular, contrapuntally dense model.
That model reached its pinnacle in his Mathis der Maler (Matthias the Painter) symphony, drawn from his opera in regards to the painter Matthias Grünewald.
The opera follows Grünewald as he struggles to grasp the aim of artwork in a time of political violence – a topic that resonated notably strongly for Hindemith, given his more and more fraught place in Nazi Germany.
We wrote about Hindemith’s childhood right here – and why his father compelled Paul and his siblings to check music: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-16-november-paul-hindemith-was-born/.
November 17, 1888
Premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5
Tchaikovsky was initially anxious about his fifth symphony, writing to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that he sensed one thing insincere and overworked in it, regardless of its heat reception from critics and audiences.
Luckily, he fell again in love with it when he carried out it on tour. In the present day, it’s one of the beloved symphonies of the nineteenth century.
We seemed on the symphony’s historical past right here: https://interlude.hk/darkness-and-light-tchaikovskys-symphony-no-5/.
November 18, 1953
Loss of life of Ruth Crawford Seeger
Seeger’s Suite for Wind Quintet
Ruth Crawford Seeger died of intestinal most cancers shortly after composing her Suite for Wind Quintet. This work marked a short, hopeful return to composition after twenty years away.
Throughout the Nineteen Twenties and early Nineteen Thirties, she’d been considered one of American ultramodernism’s most strident voices, and her 1931 String Quartet is among the period’s most influential works.
However after the mid-Nineteen Thirties, she got here to see composing ultramodern music for its personal sake as indefensible amid the Melancholy’s grinding poverty. She centered on elevating her youngsters and transcribing American folks songs for songbooks like American Folks Songs for Kids – work that formed how generations of People first encountered folks music.
We wrote about Seeger’s life through the Nice Melancholy right here: https://interlude.hk/ruth-crawford-seeger-depressing/.
November 19, 1828
Loss of life of Franz Schubert
Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 21
Schubert died at thirty-one in his brother’s Vienna condominium of a years-long syphilis an infection.
Between spring and autumn of his closing 12 months, he accomplished his final three piano sonatas, works so thematically and structurally intertwined that students usually deal with them as a trilogy.
The Sonata No. 21 in B-flat is the final of the three and is commonly thought of their fruits.
We wrote about Schubert’s closing months, together with his battle with syphilis and his loss of life: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-19-november-franz-schubert-died/.
November 20, 1894
Loss of life of Anton Rubinstein
Rubinstein’s Romance in E-flat main
Composer Anton Rubinstein died at residence exterior St. Petersburg at age 64. Historian Philip S. Taylor wrote, “The composer’s physique lay in an open coffin. Two rows of troopers lined the route from the railing surrounding the catafalque to the church pulpit, and the western entrance to Trinity Church in St. Petersburg was filled with police.”
Anton Rubinstein silhouette
Throughout Rubinstein’s lifetime, he was most well-known for his piano taking part in and compositions.
His music could have fallen out of style right this moment, however his affect on Russian music was profound.
We wrote about Rubinstein’s loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-20-november-anton-rubinstein-died/.
November 21, 1695
Loss of life of Henry Purcell
Purcell’s Rondeau from Abdelazer
Purcell died in Westminster at age 36, having spent his brief profession navigating the twin position of church and courtroom composer.
His anthems for the Chapel Royal ranged from intimate “full anthems” for unaccompanied voices to lavish “symphony anthems” constructed for orchestra and soloists.
One in all Purcell’s personal funeral anthems, “Thou Knowest, Lord,” was carried out at his burial in Westminster Abbey – then, centuries later, on the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
We wrote about Purcell’s legacy of church and courtroom music right here: https://interlude.hk/henry-purcells-sacred-legacy-the-art-of-the-anthem/.
November 22, 1710
Delivery of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Bach’s Sinfonia in D minor
Wilhelm Friedemann was Johann Sebastian Bach’s second little one and eldest son – and by most up to date accounts, his most naturally gifted.
His father wrote the Clavier-Büchlein partly as a instructing software, personally guiding a lot of his early coaching.
Wilhelm held prestigious organist posts in Dresden and Halle for over twenty years, however his profession steadily unravelled as a result of monetary mismanagement and a popularity for unreliability.
He died in poverty in Berlin in 1784, largely unpublished and depending on his college students for earnings.
We checked out Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s life right here: https://interlude.hk/bach-babies-in-music-wilhelm-friedemann-bach-1710-1784/.
November 23, 1876
Delivery of Manuel de Falla
de Falla’s Nights within the Gardens of Spain
Falla was born in Cádiz to a service provider father and a pianist mom. As a baby, he deliberate to turn out to be a author earlier than deciding at seventeen to give attention to composition as an alternative.
His decisive affect was his instructor Felipe Pedrell, a scholar dedicated to reviving Spanish music by way of folks music. That inspiration exhibits all through Noches en los jardines de España (“Nights within the Gardens of Spain”), which mixes impressionistic orchestral color with Andalusian environment.
We wrote about de Falla’s childhood right here – and the story of the imaginary utopian metropolis he ruled as a baby: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-23-november-manuel-de-falla-is-born/.
November 24, 1868
Delivery of Scott Joplin
Joplin’s “The Entertainer”
Scott Joplin’s delivery date is commonly given as 24 November 1868, although students have lately questioned it, together with the precise location of his delivery. His father was previously enslaved, and information are scarce.
Though his “Maple Leaf Rag” made him wealthy and well-known, Joplin aimed for much more formidable objectives. He spent the latter a part of his life writing and attempting, in useless, to stage his opera Treemonisha – a piece that wouldn’t attain the stage till many years after he died.
We wrote about how Joplin was the king of ragtime and an opera pioneer right here: https://interlude.hk/scott-joplin-1868-1917-king-of-ragtime-and-opera-pioneer/.
November 25, 1965
Loss of life of Dame Myra Hess
Hess taking part in her association of “Jesu, Pleasure of Man’s Needing”
Hess was a beloved pianist within the first half of the twentieth century, however she is greatest remembered for what she did through the Blitz. Fairly than let the battle silence London’s musical life, she organised practically 1,700 lunchtime live shows on the Nationwide Gallery, performing in 150 of them herself.
Londoners queued round Trafalgar Sq. for the primary live performance, and the crowds saved coming all through the battle. She was finally made a Dame for her efforts to enhance wartime morale.
We informed her outstanding story right here: https://interlude.hk/great-women-artists-shaped-music-iv-dame-myra-hess/.
November 26, 1937
Premiere of Schumann’s Violin Concerto
Schumann wrote this concerto in a feverish three-week burst in 1853, shortly earlier than a suicide try led to his admittance to the asylum the place he’d die.
Joseph Joachim, the violinist it was devoted to, thought the piece betrayed Schumann’s declining psychological state, and he satisfied Clara Schumann and Brahms to assist him suppress it.
Joachim ultimately willed the manuscript to the Prussian State Library with directions that it keep sealed for a century.
It resurfaced by chance in 1933, when Joachim’s violinist grandniece, Jelly d’Arányi, discovered the rating, claiming her great-uncle’s spirit had led her to it.
We informed the otherworldly story of rediscovering Schumann’s violin concerto right here: https://interlude.hk/unsung-concertos-robert-schumann-violin-concerto-woo-23/.
November 27, 1955
Loss of life of Arthur Honegger
Honegger’s Pacific 231
Honegger was a member of Les Six, a unfastened collective of French composers lively within the Nineteen Twenties and Nineteen Thirties who embraced a lean, trendy model.
He’s greatest remembered right this moment for “Pacific 231,” an orchestral work with relentless rhythms that has reminded many listeners of a steam prepare. (For his half, Honegger denied the connection.)
We checked out “Pacific 231” and its two companion items right here: https://interlude.hk/world-captured-music/.
November 28, 1632
Delivery of Jean-Baptiste Lully
Lully’s Suite from “Le Bourgeois gentilhomme”
The Italian-born Lully arrived in France at age fourteen and took a job as a tutor, instructing Italian to a French princess.
He educated as a dancer, and through one royal ballet rehearsal, sped up music he discovered too gradual and carried out a number of roles himself. The teenage Louis XIV was impressed and named him courtroom composer.
He dominated French music for many years, specialising in overtures and full of life courtroom dances.
We wrote in regards to the starting of Lully’s turbulent life journey right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-28-november-jean-baptiste-lully-was-born/.
November 29, 1924
Loss of life of Giacomo Puccini
Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi
Puccini died in Brussels after an aggressive, experimental remedy for throat most cancers. He’d travelled to Belgium particularly to bear a brutal process involving crystal needles implanted instantly into the tumour.
Initially, he gave the impression to be recovering, however he died and collapsed from coronary heart failure on 29 November 1924.
We wrote an article about his sickness and loss of life right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-29-november-giacomo-puccini-died/.
November 30, 1813
Delivery of Charles-Valentin Alkan
Alkan’s “Le Festin d’Esope”
Alkan was top-of-the-line pianists of his technology: a rival of Liszt and Chopin.
Regardless of that popularity, his profession stalled dramatically in his thirties. Handed over for a coveted instructing put up on the Paris Conservatoire after which devastated by Chopin’s loss of life in 1849, he withdrew from public musical life for practically twenty years, retreating into Biblical scholarship as an alternative.
A lot of his output stays genuinely obscure even now, overshadowed by the reclusiveness that outlined the second half of his profession.
We informed the story of how Alkan grew as much as turn out to be one of many century’s most profitable pianists right here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-30-november-charles-valentin-alkan-was-born/.
Conclusion
Thirty days, thirty tales: courtroom composers and ragtime pioneers, prodigies and late bloomers, symphonies completed in triumph, and concertos suppressed out of affection.
What’s your favorite November classical music anniversary to look at?
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