May 31 - Alfred Deller (The Musical Birthday Series)

Alfred Deller (31 May 1912 – 16 July 1979) was one of the first countertenors to achieve genuine stardom.  

 Old Deller

Alfred Deller

Had a stellar

  Countertenor voice.

Quite a rebel

Singing treble

   As his vocal choice.

Pioneering,

Onward steering!

   This is my high five now:

No more ghetto

Of falsetto, 

    Countertenors thrive now.

May 30 - Benny Goodman (The Musical Birthday Series)

Benny Goodman (30 May 1909 – 13 June 1986) was a clarinetist and band leader.

Molto Benny

Benny Goodman, you played venues

With a variety of menus,

    Sometimes jazz and sometimes longhair.

Either genre appertaining,

You could play at ease, unstraining,

    Playing like you know you belong there.

May 29 - Isaac Albéniz (The Musical Birthday Series)

Isaac Albéniz (29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was one of the most important composers and pianists of the turn of the last century.

Cantos de España

By composing with old Spanish dances

Albéniz improved his finances.

He paused to explain

That the music of Spain

Is much more commercial than France’s.

May 28 - György Ligeti (The Musical Birthday Series)

Hungarian composer György Ligeti (28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was one of the dominating figures of the late twentieth century avant-garde.

Atmospherics

In the 60s his work was renowned

For the dazzling new textures he found.

In short, the epiphany

Of micropolyphony

Created the Ligeti sound

Hollywood Redux 1

As Ligeti laid down his pen

He thought, “This is now, that was then.

Of course it was groovy

To be used in that movie,

But it likely won’t happen again.”

Hollywood Redux 2

When Ligeti finished a score

He mused on what happened before:

2001

Was bundles of fun,

But he felt like a bit of a whore.

Études pour piano de György Ligeti

His études are ultra-demanding,

And need a technique that’s commanding,

But be not dismayed

They’re quite often played,

The fingering snags notwithstanding.

May 27 - Celius Dougherty (The Musical Birthday Series)

Celius Dougherty (27 May 1902 – 22 December 1986) was a composer of songs, a few of which are still heard in voice teaching studios.  He was a distinguished accompanist and worked with singers such as such as Maggie Teyte, Jennie Tourel, Marian Anderson, and Alexander Kipnis. He attended my alma mater, the University of Minnesota.

These are double dactyls, a genre of biographically inspired humorous poem with very strict structural rules.  Here are links to two definitions for those who are curious.  The first from the Poetry Foundation is clearer but less accurate than the second, from Wikipedia.  Take your pick.  The classic statement is the book Jiggery-Pokery:  A Compendium of Double Dactyls by Anthony Hecht and John Hollander (New York, 1967).

Two Double Dactyls for Celius Dougherty

I.

Higgledy-piggledy,

Celius Dougherty,

Kept a dark secret from

Those who’d condemn —

Once he had lived as a

Minneapolitan,

Learning his trade at our

Own U of M.

II.

Higgledy-piggledy,

Celius Dougherty,

Worked as pianist for

Singers of note.

Often he asked of them,

Self-referentially,

“Would you please program some

Songs that I wrote?”

May 26 - William Bolcom (The Musical Birthday Series)

William Bolcom (b. 26 May 1938) is an important and eclectic composer, but today we celebrate his skill as an idiomatic accompanist in the popular songs of the early part of the last century.

Piano Bench Music

William Bolcom and Joan Morris

Loved the songs that came before us.

Music from the USA,

Parlor, Broadway, cabaret;

Songs of pathos, songs of charm

From the city, from the farm;

Older songs, by now exotic,

In our grandpapá’s demotic;

Songs that once were all the rage

From the parlor, from the stage.

Even songs he newly wrote

Had a retrospective note.

Envoi

Introduction, verse, and chorus

Their recordings never bore us

William Bolcom and Joan Morris

May 25 - Beverly Sills (The Musical Birthday Series)

Beverly Sills (25 May 1929 – 2 July 2007) was one of the dominant sopranos of her time.

A gifted soprano named Sills

Was practicing scales and her trills.
It's thus you ensure a

Coloratura

Has mad pyrotechnical skills.

May 24 - Bob Dylan (The Musical Birthday Series)

Bob Dylan (b. 24 May 1941) is from my home state of Minnesota and needs no introduction.

How Many Times?

Everyone does

A Dylan impression.

This is because

There’s an obsession

To explain just how

His raspy sound

Would ever allow

The fame he found.

They sing his rhymes

Of flowers gone,

Of changin’ times,

And on and on.

And so it goes,

Sincere or jokey,

The wind still blows

At karaoke.

May 23 - Robert Moog (The Musical Birthday Series)

Robert Moog (23  May 1934 – 21 August 2005) invented and marketed the famous Moog synthesizer.

Ode to Synthesis

I sing in praise of Robert Moog

Whose synthesizer had a vogue

With rockers and the avant-garde.

He’s easy now to disregard

When basic apps on any phone

Can conjure up a world of tone.

But let’s remember, he’s the one,

Who, if his work had not been done,

We couldn’t have GarageBand fun.

He showed the way, this engineer,

Inventor, seer, pioneer.

So celebrate a maverick rogue,

And sing the praise of Robert Moog!

May 22 - Richard Wagner (The Musical Birthday Series)

Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) revolutionized opera in the last half of the nineteenth century.

The Limericks of the Nibelung

Das Rheingold

It starts with a ring in the Rhine,

Then Alberich says “Now it’s mine!”

It’s given to giants

For building compliance,

And the gods cross a bridge in a line.

Die Walküre

Siegmund! Sieglinde! (In myth

It’s OK to elope with your kith.)

Then watch Wotan build a

Big rock for Brunnhilde

And surround it with fire forthwith.

Siegfried

Siegfried, a boy of the woods,

Had all of the physical goods.

He had abs, he had pecs,

But in matters of sex

He didn’t know shouldn’ts from shoulds.

Götterdämmerung

The Norns drop their rope with a thud

(The plot by this point, clear as mud),

There are potions, disguises,

And oaths, and surprises,

Until it all ends in a flood.

May 21 - Fats Waller (The Musical Birthday Series)

Fats Waller (21 May 1904 – 15 December 1943) was an innovative and virtuosic jazz pianist and composer.

Tenths Situation

The leaps and the stretches are wide

If you play in the style called stride,

And hands that are smaller

Can’t play like Fats Waller --

You can take it from me, ‘cause I’ve tried.

May 20 - Felix Arndt (The Musical Birthday Series)

Felix Arndt (20 May 1889 – 16 October 1918) was short-lived, and had one enormous hit.

Domestic Scene 1920; or, It Arndt Necessarily So

If your grandparents had a Victrola,

They owned a recording of "Nola";

The tune was just right

On a warm summer night

With a one nickel bottle of cola.

May 19 - Albert Hay Malotte (The Musical Birthday Series)

Surprising, Albert Hay Malotte (19 May 1895 – 16 November 1964) wrote music for Disney cartoons, but he will be forever known for his effective, if bombastic, setting of the Lord's Prayer. 

Deliver Us

Of the numerous songs by Malotte,

There’s one that is heard quite a lot.

And while the “Lord's Prayer”

Is sung everywhere,

The rest, thank the heavens, are not.

May 18 - Perry Como (The Musical Birthday Series)

The amiable stylings of Perry Como (18 May 1912 – 12 May 2001) was an inevitable presence in record collections in the 50s and 60s. 

 

A Clerihew for PC

Perry Como,

Smooth as slow mo,

Retained popularity

With simple sincerity.

Stanza

Perry Como learned to croon

 By listening to Bing

 Sing.

Selling millions of a tune,

 Hyped the RCA

 Way.

May 17 - Erik Satie (The Musical Birthday Series)

Erik Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) has influenced and inspired composers for more than a century, perhaps more for his attitude than the intrinsic worth of his music.

Erik Satie,

Rather twee,

   Strolled the boulevard,

Knowing he,

For all Paree,

   Defined the avant-garde.

May 16 - Liberace (The Musical Birthday Series)

Liberace (16 May 1919 – 4 February 1987) was a popular pianist who used a classical technique for arrangements of light and popular songs, all of which was overshadowed by his flamboyant showmanship.

Fashion Statement

Fashions worn by Liberace

Made designs by George Versace

   Seem both tame and subtle.

Each performance was a sermon

On the joys of wearing ermine

   Brooking no rebuttal.

May 15 - Claudio Monteverdi (The Musical Birthday Series)

As is sometimes the case with earlier composers we do not know Claudio Monteverdi's (bapt. 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) actual birth date.  However he was baptized on May 15th and that will have to do.  He was, by any measure, one of the greatest composers of all time.  The three verses below cover (loosely) three phases of his long career. 

Tre scherzi biografici per Monteverdi

I.

In his youth he composed for a while

In traditional madrigal style,

But when he was beckoned

By practice the second

Artusi declared it was vile.

II.

When he worked at the Mantuan court

He was irked and was heard to retort,

“They’ll pay me what they owe

Or my new Orfeo

Will be nasty, and brutish, and short.”

III.

There is no lament or a dirge in

The Vespers he wrote for the Virgin,

And no one would quarrel

With things polychoral,

And the grandeur the forces converge in.