Previous posts for March 9 are found here: Martin Shaw (2019), Samuel Barber (2020) and Ornette Coleman; Samuel Barber (2021)
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Samuel Barber (9 March 1910 – 23 January 1981) was an American composer in all the major classical genres.
"Knoxville: Summer of 1915"
Barber’s setting of James Agee
Wasn’t grandiose or stagey;
Instead he quietly evokes
The evening of some Knoxville folks.
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Josef Mysliveček (9 March 1737 – 4 February 1781) was a Czech composer, who was a friend of and influence on the young Mozart.
Means and Ends
A letter of Leopold Mozart to his son refers to the illness as something shameful for which Mysliveček was deserving of social ostracism. Mysliveček's reputation for sexual promiscuity, Leopold's insinuations, and the reference to facial disfigurement in Wolfgang's letter hint unmistakably at the symptoms of tertiary syphilis. -- adapted from Wikipedia
Financially irresponsible throughout his life, he died destitute in Rome in 1781. -- Wikipedia
Josek Mysliveček had once had it all,
And musical Europe was held in his thrall.
Indeed, he had influenced musical trends,
And he counted the Mozarts among his close friends.
But sadly, what rises, by nature descends,
Which sums up the way his biography ends,
Though opera houses had bowed to his skill
He was left as a pauper, disfigured and ill.
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