The 13 Worst Things to Happen to a Classical Musician

A compendium of horrible things that can only happen to classical musicians. Because sometimes, reeds break. Prepare yourself. 

1. Well, that's the Five Bagatelles ruined.

Clarinettists of the world, we feel your pain. Nothing smarts like a busted reed on concert day. Any attempt to blow through this one is only going to end up with a split lip, animalistic squeaking and a weeping audience.

2. So close.

Come on oboe, everyone's watching! Everyone's waiting! Purse those lips a little tighter, you'll get it in tune.

3. That's fine, I didn't need my eardrums anyway.

That Wagner, he knew how to write a quiet, reflective passage, eh? This less-than-tranquil snapshot from the Ring Cycle suggests that if the brass section have to put their fingers in their ears then it's probably only measureable on the Richter scale.



4. Fiddlesticks.

The change in a violinist's facial expression as their faithful string pings back towards their chin is one of the scariest things that can happen in classical music. Hell hath no fury like a violinist with a broken E string.








(Violin Combustionality )

5. Oh that's nice, you've flattened a flat. Thanks a lot D flat minor.

Apparently Verdi was a fan of D flat minor. Both La Traviata and Rigoletto end in D flat minor, with its brain-melting array of confusing fingerings. Never liked him.




6. Just… why. Why would you do that.

  Good thing those bars are empty, otherwise we'd have to count. Just give us a wave when we're supposed to come in, yeah?

(Myriad online )

7. OK, so, from the… err… top?
Ah, Brian Ferneyhough, scourge of musicians who value their sanity. His piece 'La Terre est un Homme' is, by the composer's own admission, close to unplayable for most musicians. Which is nice when you have to perform it.

(Brian Ferneyhough )

8. You mean I just play it again? And then again? And again? Until the piece is over?
Seriously, what did the cellist ever do to Pachelbel? If you're being charitable you could say Pachelbel is just providing a solid anchor for one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever. But if you're a cellist, then Pachelbel's picture is on your dartboard.

(Pianoguitar.com )


9. Midi? For Mozart? Really?
Ah, YouTube. Always on hand to give us the classics whenever we want. So, you're mid-trawl and you happen upon a great little clip to enjoy, and it turns out to be the computerised ramblings of a Midi version. Because nothing says 'masterpiece' like synthetic, beeping versions of the classics. Seriously, why do people even make these?


10. What are you actually doing? Sit down, page-turner guy!
If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times - wait for the nod!



11. Great news - you're spending the next 6 weeks being deafened in a cramped underground hole!

Pit orchestras - because who wants to see a musician anyway? It's a staple of the jobbing musician's life, but working in a pit orchestra for a theatrical run has its drawbacks, namely DVT and a humped back from ducking to get to your seat.


12. Get comfortable, brass players.
Ten years of intense, academic study, practising for six hours a day and lip-busting physical exertion in countless ensembles. For this.












13. Seriously, that's my conducting face?
I thought I looked cool when I was on stage...

(Photo: Chris Christodolou)

(C) By Classic FM

Karl Goldmark - His Music and His Life

Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark ; May 18, 1830, Keszthely – January 2, 1915, Vienna) was a Hungarian composer. Life and career Goldmark came from a large Ashkenazi Jews|Jewish family, one of 20 children. His father, Ruben Goldmark, was a chazan to the Jewish congregation at Keszthely, Hungary. Karl Goldmark's older brother Joseph Goldmark became a physician and was later involved in the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire|Revolution of 1848, and forced to emigrate to the United States. Karl Goldmark's early training as a violinist was at the musical academy of Sopron (1842–44). He continued his music studies there and two years later was sent by his father to Vienna, where he was able to study for some eighteen months with Leopold Jansa before his money ran out. He prepared himself for entry first to the Vienna Technische Hochschule and then to the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna|Vienna Conservatory to study the violin with Joseph Böhm and harmony with Gottfried Preyer. The Revolutions of 1848|Revolution of 1848 forced the Conservatory to close down. He was largely self-taught as a composer. He supported himself in Vienna playing the violin in theatre orchestras, at the Carlstheater and the privately supported Viennese institution, the Theater in der Josefstadt, which gave him practical experience with orchestration, an art he more than mastered. He also gave lessons: Jean Sibelius studied with him briefly. Goldmark's first concert in Vienna (1858) met with hostility, and he returned to Budapest, returning to Vienna in 1860. To make ends meet, Goldmark also pursued a side career as a music journalist. "His writing is distinctive for his even-handed promotion of both Brahms and Wagner, at a time when audiences (and most critics) were solidly in one composer's camp or the other and viewed those on the opposing side with undisguised hostility." (Liebermann 1997) Johannes Brahms and Goldmark developed a friendship as Goldmark's prominence in Vienna grew. Goldmark, however would ultimately distance himself because of Brahms' prickly personality. Among the musical influences Goldmark absorbed was the inescapable one, for a musical colorist, of Richard Wagner, whose anti-semitism stood in the way of any genuine warmth between them; in 1872 Goldmark took a prominent role in the formation of the Vienna Wagner Society. He was made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, received an honorary doctorate from the Eötvös Loránd University|University of Budapest and shared with Richard Strauss an honorary membership in the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia|Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome. Goldmark's opera Die Königin von Saba ("The Queen of Sheba"), Op. 27 was celebrated during his lifetime and for some years thereafter. First performed in Vienna on 10 March 1875, the work proved so popular that it remained in the repertory of the Vienna State Opera|Vienna Staatsoper continuously until 1938. He wrote six other operas as well (see list). The Rustic Wedding Symphony ( Ländliche Hochzeit ), Op. 26 (premiered 1876), a work that was kept in the repertory by Thomas Beecham|Sir Thomas Beecham, includes five movements, like a suite composed of coloristic tone poems: a wedding march with variations depicting the wedding guests, a nuptial song, a serenade, a dialogue between the bride and groom in a garden, and a dance movement. His Violin Concerto No. 1 (Goldmark)|Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 28, was once his most frequently played piece. The concerto had its premiere in Bremen (city)|Bremen in 1877, initially enjoyed great popularity and then slid into obscurity. A very romantic work, it has a Magyars|Magyar march in the first movement and passages reminiscent of Antonín Dvorák|Dvorák and Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn in the second and third movements. It has started to re-enter the repertoire, through recordings by such prominent violin soloists as Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell. Nathan Milstein also championed the work and Milstein's recording of the Concerto (1963) is widely considered the definitive one. Goldmark wrote a second violin concerto, but it was never published. A second symphony in E-flat, Op. 35, is much less well-known. (Goldmark also wrote an early symphony in C major, between roughly 1858 and 1860. This work was never given an opus number, and only the scherzo seems to have ever been published.) Goldmark's chamber music, in which the influences of Robert Schumann|Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn are paramount, although critically well received in his lifetime, is now rarely heard. It includes the String Quintet in A minor Op. 9 that made his first reputation in Vienna, the Violin Sonata in D major Op. 25, two Piano Quintet s in B-flat major Opp. 30 and 54, the Cello Sonata Op. 39, and the work that first brought Goldmark's name into prominence in the Viennese musical world, the String Quartet in B-flat Op. 8 (his only work in that genre). Goldmark also composed choral music, two Suites for Violin and Piano (in D major, Op. 11, and in E-flat major, Op. 43), and numerous concert overture s, such as the Sakuntala Overture Op. 13 (a work which cemented his fame after his String Quartet), the Penthesilea Overture Op. 31, the In the Spring Overture Op. 36, the Prometheus Bound Overture Op. 38, the Sappho Overture Op. 44, the In Italy Overture Op. 49, and the Aus jungendtagen Overture, Op. 53. Other orchestral works include the symphonic poem Zrínyi, Op. 47, and two orchestral scherzos, in E minor, Op. 19, and in A major, Op. 45. Karl Goldmark's nephew Rubin Goldmark (1872–1936), a pupil of Antonín Dvorák|Dvorák, was also a composer, who spent his career in New York. Goldmark died in Vienna and is buried in the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), along with many other notable composers. Many of his autograph manuscripts are in the collection of the National Széchényi Library, with "G" catalogue numbers attached to various works (including those without opus number.)

Karl Goldmark - Sakuntala Overture, Op. 13 (1865)

Alexander Glassunoff - His Music and His Life

ALEXANDER KONSTANTINOVICH GLAZUNOV  

Born on August 10, 1865 in Saint Petersburg

Glazunov, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, received encouragement also from Belyayev, an influential patron and publisher, whose activities succeeded and largely replaced the earlier efforts of Balakirev to inspire the creation of national Russian music. Glazunov joined the teaching staff of the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1899 and after the student protests and turmoil of 1905 was elected director, a position he retained until 1930 (although from 1928 he had remained abroad, chiefly in Paris, where he died in 1936). His music represents a synthesis between the Russian and the so-called German—the technical assurance introduced by the Rubinstein brothers in the Conservatories of St Petersburg and of Moscow in the middle of the century.

Orchestral Music

In addition to his nine symphonies and a variety of other orchestral works, Glazunov wrote a Violin Concerto, completed in 1904, when he was at the height of his powers as a composer. The symphonies have won less popularity, but the symphonic poem Stenka Razin, written in 1885, retains a place in national repertoire.

Ballets

Glazunov’s ballets include Raymonda, first staged in St Petersburg in 1898, with choreography by Marius Petipa. Les Ruses d’amour followed in 1900, with The Seasons in the same year. He orchestrated music by Chopin for Les Sylphides. The choreographer Fokin also made use of Stenka Razin for a ballet of that name.

Chamber Music

Chamber music by Glazunov includes seven numbered string quartets, the last written in 1930, and a series of works for other instrumental ensembles, including a String Quintet and a Saxophone Quartet. 

Piano Music

Glazunov’s piano music includes, among more serious works, a number of quite pleasing examples of salon music, for which there was always a ready public in his day.

Passed away on March 21, 1936 in Paris/France.

Max Fiedler - His Music and His Life

The German Max Fiedler was born in Zittau on December 31, 1859. He studied at the College of Music in Leipzig, Eastern Germany and became later an oustanding conductor in Hamburg, then, from 1908 until 1912 in Boston, and 1916 as Urban Music Director in Essen/Germany.

Especially his chamber music compositions and his wonderful and impressive "Symphony d-minor" from 1885 remained as classical music highlights forever.

Max Fiedler felt very much connected and obliged to Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

Fiedler passed away on December 1, 1939 in Stockholm/Sweden.