December 8 - James Galway (The Musical Birthday Series, 3rd Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for December 8th are here: Bohuslav Martinů; Jean Sibelius (2019) and Gérard Souzay (2020)

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James Galway (b. 8 December 1939) is a much-recorded Irish classical flutist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Say Flautist, I Say Flutist

There was a time when any concert hall

Was thrilled to schedule Jean-Pierre Rampal;

And now it’s safe to say that very hall may

Be just as thrilled at scheduling James Galway.

 

 

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August 2 - Jacob Collier (The Musical Birthday Series, 3rd Annual Cycle)

Previous posts of August 2nd are here: Helen Morgan (2019) and Arthur Bliss (2020)

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Jacob Collier (b. 2 August 1994) is a British musician and producer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jacob’s Ladder

Jacob Collier sang and played

All the parts in vids he made,

Piling up impressive stacks

Of blended pre-recorded tracks.

As his “likes” began to spiral

Soon he, as they say, went viral.

Perhaps he yields to the seduction

Of the joys of post-production,

And it's true that, at their core,

In his arrangements more is more.

Still, we shouldn’t second guess

The art behind his huge success,

When from that start with his own cam, he’s

Gone to winning at the Grammys.

 

 

 

If you enjoy these posts, please help me, and consider sharing.  [Also, please visit my other blog: Alternate Takes: Great Art Repurposed.] 

 

 

April 2 - Franz Asplmayr (The Musical Birthday Series, 3rd Annual Cycle)

Previous postings for April 2nd may be found here: EmmyLou Harris (2019) and Marvin Gaye (2020)

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Franz Asplmayr [Aspelmeyr, Aspelmayer, Asplmayr, Appelmeyer] (bapt. 2 April 1728 – 29 July 1786) was an Austrian composer and violinist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Rounds (Heroic Couplets For a Non-Hero)

He is best known for ...a few symphonies and string trios of his which were attributed to Joseph Haydn at one time. Among the few scholars who have studied his music, … J. Murray Barbour, deems Asplmayr's 80 minuets "extremely boring, as if written between beers."  --- Wikipedia

Some Asplmayr pieces, by a quirk,

Were listed for a time as Haydn’s work.

Except for this I’d surely be ignoring

His birthday, since his music was so boring.

He scribbled out his music, it appears,

While waiting for another round of beers,

(At least that’s what a leading expert hears.)

 

 

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December 20 - František Xaver Pokorný (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

František Xaver Pokorný (20 December 1729 – 2 July 1794) was a Czech composer and violinist. 

[For last year's verse on Henry Hadley click here.] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Czeching In

“He wrote some 100 symphonies…” Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (8th ed.)

František Xaver Pokorný, whose name

  Was resonant, formal, and stately,

Never achieved international fame,

  A thing he accepted sedately.

With all of those symphonies, is it a shame

  That we haven’t encountered him lately?

They are there in the archives for us to reclaim,

  But I doubt that we’d benefit greatly.

 

 

 

 

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November 12 - Gustav Nottebohm (The Musical Birthday Series, 2nd Annual Cycle)

Gustav Nottebohm (12 November 1817 – 29 October 1882) was a musical scholar, pianist, collector, music editor, and composer. 

[For last year's posts on Richard Whiting and Alexander Borodin click here.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sketchy Behavior

Praeludium

How does a genius conceive of their pieces?

By serious study or careless caprices?

Perhaps we can learn how their plans were refined

By reading the notebooks that they left behind.

Argumentum

Herr Gustav Nottebohm founded the field

Of looking at sketches to see what they’d yield.

He studied the scrawlings that Beethoven drafted

And hoped to discover how each note was crafted,

Deciphering piles of inscrutable pages

To follow ideas through developing stages.

Postludium

The field of “sketch studies” became for a time

The thing of the moment, a dozen a dime,

Perhaps it’s too bad that this brand of polemics

Became such a fad among young academics,

For hundreds of talented scholarly wretches

Padded their resumés writing on sketches,

And though dissertations were duly defended

The result of this labor was largely dead-ended.

 

 

If you enjoy these posts, please help me, and consider sharing.  [Also, please visit my other blog: Alternate Tales: Great Art Repurposed.]