11-28: Steppenwolf Fillmore West 1968 - Lennie Tristano Toronto 1952 - Havergal Brian Symphony 1 Gothic / Lenard 1989 - Haydn Symphony 93 94 Surprise 95 / Bernstein 1971-1972

1585 – Hernando Franco (Spanish composer, active in Guatemala & Mexico)
1695 – Giovanni Paolo Colonna (Italian organist & composer)
1815 – Johann Peter Salomon (German violinist, impresario, composer & conductor, active in London, associate of Haydn)
1860 – Ludwig Rellstab (German poet & music critic)
1861 – Robert Führer (Czech composer)
1878 – Marco Aurelio Zani de Ferranti (Italian guitarist & composer)
1907 – Ricardo Castro Herrera (Mexican pianist & composer)
1918 – Alexis Contant (Canadian composer, organist, pianist & teacher)
1935 – Erich von Hornbostel (Austrian ethnomusicologist, musical psychologist & co-author of Sachs-Hornbostel system)
1966 – Vittorio Giannini (American composer & violinist)
1972 – Havergal Brian (English composer of 32 symphonies, including the largest-scale ever performed)
1972 – Gustave Frederic Soderlund (Swedish composer, music theorist, author & teacher)
1976 – Robert Fleming (Canadian composer, pianist, organist, choirmaster & teacher)
1987 – Paul Arma [Amrusz Pál] (Hungarian-born French pianist, composer & ethnomusicologist)
1989 – Jo Vincent (Dutch soprano)
1993 – Jerry Edmonton (Canadian rock drummer, Steppenwolf)
1994 – Al Levitt (American jazz drummer, active also in France & the Canary Islands)
1996 – Anna Pollak (Austrian-born British mezzo-soprano)
2002 – Dave "Snaker" Ray (American blues singer, songwriter & guitarist)
2007 – Gudrun Wagner (German co-director of Bayreuth Festival along with husband Wolfgang, grandson of Richard)

Today, we get two very different looks at that most elevated instrumental genre of them all - the symphony!

First, thanks to Johann Peter Salomon, the impresario who brought Franz Joseph Haydn to London between 1791 and 1795 to regale the English public with what would turn out to be his last twelve symphonic statements - we have works which represent, along with the last few of Mozart, the ones that are definitive of the genre during the Classical period (at least until Beethoven got to it and transformed what it meant for all time). These symphonies of Haydn (nos. 93 thru 104), usually called his "London Symphonies," are sometimes instead called the "Salomon Symphonies" in honor of the man without whom they likely would never have been written.

Then, we have a very different product - what the symphony had grown into by a century or more later. No longer is it merely the vehicle for the composer's loftiest philosophical ideas. After Berlioz, and Liszt, and Bruckner, it's become something of a monstrosity, a paean to the cult of the gigantic, at least among late-Romantic composers with "progressive" or "modernist" tendencies. And in Havergal Brian's Symphony No. 1, "The Gothic" (completed in 1927), we find the sine qua non of this development, a work that surpasses even Gustav Mahler's largest creations (his 2nd, 3rd, and 8th symphonies) in its length (close to 2 hours) and in the performing forces it requires (nearly 200 instrumentalists, plus several hundred singers).

Brian's "Gothic" has even won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "largest-scale symphony" ever written. However, some claim that the Symphony No. 3 by Kaikhosru Sorabji is even longer - a believable claim, if you know anything about Sorabji. However, that symphony (like many of Sorabji's more humungous creations) has yet to be performed by anyone, so it's difficult to say. 

Oh, symphony... how far you've come, since the early 18th century when you were just a multi-sectional overture to an opera or oratorio! Baby symphony done all growed up and ever'thang.

09-15: Crumb DeGaetani 1974 - Pink Floyd LA 1975 - Bill Evans Umbria 1978 - Ramones San Francisco 1979 - Webern Complete Robert Craft 1957 - Willie Bobo Bobo Motion 1967 - Sayed Darwish / Beirut Oriental Ensemble

1747 – Johann Gotthilf Ziegler (German composer)
1841 – Alessandro Rolla (Italian violist, violinist & composer, teacher of Paganini)
1915 – Ernest Gagnon (Canadian folk music collector, composer & organist)
1923 – Sayed Darwish (Egyptian singer & oud player, considered Egypt's greatest composer)
1924 – Anthony Johnson Showalter (American hymn composer, teacher & publisher)
1945 – Anton Webern (Austrian composer)
1950 – Vojtěch Říhovský (Czech composer & pianist)
1951 – Jacinto Guerrero (Spanish composer of zarzuelas & orchestral music)
1965 – Steve Brown (American jazz bassist, New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Paul Whiteman)
1972 – Ulvi Cemal Erkin (Turkish composer, one of the "Turkish Five")
1980 – Bill Evans (American jazz pianist & composer)
1983 – Willie Bobo (American Latin jazz percussionist)
1985 – Cootie Williams (American jazz & blues trumpeter, Duke Ellington)
1989 – Jan DeGaetani (American mezzo-soprano, known for 20th-century repertoire)
1993 – Frits Noske (Dutch musicologist, music editor & writer)
1994 – Haywood Henry (American jazz baritone saxophonist)
2003 – Jack Brymer (English classical & jazz clarinetist)
2004 – Johnny Ramone (American punk guitarist, The Ramones)
2007 – Aldemaro Romero (Venezuelan pop & classical pianist, composer, arranger & conductor)
2008 – Richard Wright (English rock keyboardist, Pink Floyd)

Well, I've been thinking... if it takes 2 or 3 posts just to fit in all the labels for these multi-day posts, I might as well just do a separate post for each day! But I'll also need to be making at least 2 posts per day if I ever hope to get caught up.

Some real stars of the music world today. It's hard to imagine what jazz of the past 55 years or so would have been like without Bill Evans. Easily one of the most influential pianists of the second half of the 20th century, his impressionistic, probing style of improvisation can still be heard in the work of many artists, including Keith Jarrett, Steve Kuhn, and Paul Bley. And there's also Cootie Williams, and Willie Bobo, and Haywood Henry. Those guys get major jazz props just for their names. You don't even have to hear one note - which is exactly what you might hear from Cootie (he was something of a minimalist when it came to trumpet solos).

Speaking of minimalists, Anton Webern. He was accidentally shot to death at the end of WWII by an American soldier. Webern had some nervous tics, and apparently one of them was mistaken for... I dunno, reaching for something? A hand-grenade? Anyway, Webern - a musical miniaturist who reveled in symmetries and subtleties of expression - was, among those from the Second Viennese School, the one who had the most influence on those composers of integral serialism who dominated the classical avant-garde in the post-war period.

Sayed (or Sayyed) Darwish (but really of course it's سيد درويش‎) is one of the single most prominent figures in the history of Egyptian music. He's considered to be not only Egypt's greatest composer, but also the father of Egyptian popular music. Thus Darwish enjoys a status in his home country that is unparalleled for a musician from just about any other country.

Also there's Turkish composer Ulvi Cemal Erkin, who was one of the major figures to bring original homegrown Western-style classical music to Turkey in the early-to-mid 20th century, following the important reforms of modernization initiated by the heroic Mustafa Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey and its first president.

Dan JeGaetani, er, Jan DeGaetani was one of those great, great mezzos who ya just want to hug. You know what I mean? Wouldn't you just love to give Jan, and Cathy Berberian, and Christa Ludwig, and Janet Baker, and Marilyn Horne and Risë Stevens and Teresa Berganza a big old hug? Probably still could with Cecilia Bartoli or Frederica von Stade... not dead! That's an important criterion when it comes to hugging. Anyway, Jan DeGaetani made some pretty sick recordings of modern music. Such as her Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire, still considered the reference recording of that very difficult-to-sing-and-speak-and-something-in-between work. And who could ever forget the original LP cover of that sweet baby?

DeGaetani also did some important work with living composers, in particular George Crumb...