Tchaikovsky’s house destroyed by Russian army in north-east Ukraine

6 April 2022, 15:02 | Updated: 6 April 2022, 16:23

Tchaikovsky stayed in Trostyanets in his 20s; the city is now destroyed. Picture: Getty

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

One of Russia’s most famous composers once called Trostyanets home. Now the city lies in ruin. 

Trostyanets is a city in the north-east of Ukraine, which once played host to Russian composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Aged 24, the famed 19th-century Romantic composer stayed in a villa in the city of Trostyanets, then a part of the Russian Empire. It was here he composed his first symphonic work - the overture ‘The Storm’ (1864).

The villa, like the rest of Trostyanets, now lies in ruin following the capture of the city on 1 March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

After a month of occupation, where civilians were reportedly killed by Russian hand grenades, Ukrainian forces used heavy shelling to gain back control of Trostyanets.

Though the Russian army have now left after a brutal month, reminders of their occupation can be seen everywhere; buildings – including the villa – have been destroyed, and the letter ‘Z’ has been graffitied on ruins and cars across the city.

Since the invasion began in February, food and water have become dangerously scarce in Trostyanets, which has a population of 25,000.

Residents now have to line up in front of the Tchaikovsky Music School for Children, next to the museum of the same name, in order to collect food.

During the first days of the Russian invasion, the concert hall at the Tchaikovsky Music School for Children was used to register Ukrainian volunteers for the Territorial Defense Forces.

While waiting in line to collect food, citizens spotted reporters from international outlets in their city and ran to them. A cacophony of testimonies were given all at once to the reporters.

“They smashed my place up.” “They stole everything, even my underwear.” “They killed a guy on my street.” “The f*****s stole my laptop and my aftershave.”

The mayor of Trostyanets has said it is too early to give an estimate as to how many of his city’s citizens were killed.

Civilians in Trostyanets were reportedly targeted by hand grenades when they protested Russian occupation, which killed two.

Due to the harrowing testimonies from the city’s residents, and other parts of Ukraine, on Monday the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, backed an investigation into reported Russian war crimes in the country.

After a call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, von der Leyen said that EU investigators will help Kyiv to probe reports from Ukrainian officials and NGOs that Russian forces massacred and sexually assaulted civilians in towns near the Ukrainian capital.

Statue of Tchaikovsky in Trostyanets central park. Picture: Wikimedia Commons

How COVID-19 made Germany’s classical music industry more sustainable

By Gaby Reucher

The pandemic prompted many German classical music festivals and orchestras to adopt more sustainable practices.

How COVID-19 made Germany’s classical music industry more sustainable

    

The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on the classical music industry in Germany, and around the world — yet there are lessons to be learned from the crisis. At least that's how Christian Höppner, Secretary General of the German Music Council, sees it: "We should now view the pandemic period as an opportunity and make cultural life fit for the future; from the point of view of sustainability, as well." It's not just about protecting nature and the environment, but also about sustainably promoting young musicians, he added.

The financial aid provided by Germany during the pandemic has been exemplary, according to Höppner. Nevertheless, many musicians have given up their profession and sought more crisis-proof work. Some prospective students who had passed notoriously difficult entrance exam even chose not to start studying music. "That would have been unthinkable before COVID-19. Then, passing an entrance exam was like winning the lottery. There has since been a very strong reorientation," says Höppner in an interview with DW.

Christian Höppner in a blue suit with a red bow tie and glasses.

Christian Höppner of the German Music Council says the pandemic has provided an opportunity for change

Sustainability from the office to the orchestra

A number of German festivals and orchestras are leading the way when it comes to how they treat both the environment and their artists. The entire staff of the Dresden Music Festival, for example, is participating in the city's "Culture for Future" pilot project on sustainability in cultural enterprises. "It starts with our attitude. We have to keep sustainability in mind in every planning process," explains artistic director Jan Vogler in an interview with DW. This is done in the office, in marketing initiatives and even in concert design.

More tickets are being sent out digitally, as are newsletters, brochures, program booklets and the festival magazine. The buffets for the artists feature regional cuisine, and glass bottles are used instead of plastic ones. The festival also relies on electric vehicles to transport artists and their instruments. It's still early in the process, says Vogler, but the team is enthusiastic about the new green steps.

A reduced carbon footprint

When air traffic came to a near global standstill in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, orchestras were forced to cancel their tours. The question arose as to whether ensembles actually needed to do so much jet-setting.

Naturally, following the loosening of coronavirus restrictions, many people are longing to hear live music again, says Höppner. "But no one can avoid asking themselves how sustainable what we're actually doing is anymore" he adds.

The fact that the music touring industry needed a reboot was apparent before the pandemic, says Steven Walter, artistic director of the Beethovenfest Bonn. He would like to move away from having large orchestras go on tour and also have musicians travel less and instead spend more time at a destination — for example staying at a festival for one or two weeks and leaving their mark. "For us, this is also interesting artistically — to develop specific projects and ideas for a unique profile for the festival," says Walter.

Compensating for CO2 emissions

Yet avoiding air travel isn't always possible for the Dresden Festival or the Rheingau Music Festival, which aim to bring international artists to audiences around the world. Nevertheless, it is possible to make artists' travel more sustainable, says Dresden Music Festival artistic director Jan Vogler. "We try to take advantage of Dresden's location: Berlin, Prague and even Vienna are nearby," he adds.

Orchestras are also scheduling tours so that distances between venues are as short as possible. Recently, the Berlin Philharmonic toured Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, taking a bus between destinations. "In fact, artists also prefer this," says Vogler, "Before, they were often sent zigzagging nonsensically around the world. As long as it was feasible, no one thought about the fact that it was often an ordeal for them to manage these travel routes and the concerts."

A forest for Bach

Offsetting CO2 emissions is one way of compensating for distances driven and flown. The money goes to environmental protection projects. This allowed the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen to be certified as climate neutral in 2020, even before the pandemic. Now, the ensemble only travels by train within Germany.

The Leipzig Bach Festival, which prior to the pandemic attracted a large international audience of 73,000 visitors to Leipzig, has also made environmental commitments. Director Michael Maul is raising funds to support the "Forest for Saxony" project and to have a "Johann Sebastian Bach Forest" planted near a former lignite mining area.

Music streaming as a solution?

Streaming and videoconferencing have been a major part of the current digital transformation, which was accelerated by the pandemic. Many industries, including the music industry, turned to streaming. Together with the Thuringia Bach Festival and the Köthener Bach Festival, the Leipzig Bach Festival founded their own platform last year to present selected concert streams that will continue after the coronavirus pandemic.

In the longer term, however, streaming, with its high energy consumption, is not all that sustainable either. Jan Vogler of the Dresden festival tries to combine meetings with concerts. "It's almost no longer conceivable for me to leave directly after a London or Paris concert. I usually stay an extra day and meet the partners we work with there."

COVID-19 restrictions in the arts industry inevitably raised the question: What is the value of culture?

"Is the music business dominated by a few big stars who make millions from it, or is culture really the daily bread one needs to live?" If the latter is true, then musical life has all the more reason to be underpinned by sustainable structures, says Christian Höppner. This is also done in relation to educating musicians.

Currently, music lessons are often substituted for short-term projects done at many schools, and funding for up-and-coming artists also tends to flow into temporary projects that are not sustainable. The pandemic, however, has shown how quickly young talent is lost.

"As an organizer, you have a responsibility in terms of human resources to protect the artists," says Beethovenfest Bonn director Steven Walter. This also applies to dealing with talent. "You can't burn them out and then drop them. It's about investing in their careers in a sustainable way, even when things aren't going so well at the moment."

This article was originally written in German.

After the tragic death of a 12-year-old pianist...

... musicians are deciphering his unfinished composition

Kyan Pennell was a young pianist and composer. Picture: Courtesy of Amanda Brierley

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Kyan Pennell wanted to be a concert pianist, but sadly that dream was never realised.

Seven months ago, 12-year-old Kyan Pennell from Brisbane, Australia, began teaching himself music theory, performance and composition.

He scrimped and saved in order to buy his first piano, and by using YouTube tutorials, he had soon learned to play 30 pieces of classical music by memory, including Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, and Beethoven’s Für Elise.

Kyan tragically died in a freak accident caused by a gate closure on his family’s property in Mary Valley on 31 January 2022.

Kyan was neurodiverse, and his family described his diagnosis as a ‘superpower’ which helped him to focus on and achieve whatever he put his mind to. He loved classical music, and Brierley shared on Facebook that he even learned non-classical pieces just so he could “bring a crowd in, and then educate them [with] the beauty of classical music”.

Unbeknownst to his parents, Kyan had also begun composing classical music prior to his death. When his parents were going through their late son’s belongings, they were surprised to discover an unfinished composition in the middle of a blank exercise book.

“I never heard what he was composing.” Kyan’s mother Amanda Brierley posted on Facebook, sharing a copy of his manuscript, “Is there anyone that can read music and play it and send it to us?

“It would mean the world to us to hear his composition.” It didn’t take long before musicians began responding to the post, which has now received over 150 comments, and 115 shares, with renditions of Kyan’s composition.

In her post, Brierley also explained, “he wasn’t formally trained in reading/writing music, [Kyan was] all self taught so [the notation] could be wrong, I don’t know.

“If I remember rightly he told me about this and there were bits that repeated, and changed tempo, with light and shade, but he didn’t write that down.

“This was just the intro, it is unfinished, he was building up to a grand midsection and then would do an ending, but he never got to complete what was in his mind’s eye.

“He imagined it to be performed by wind and string instruments, and of course his beloved piano.”

Kyan Pennell’s composition. Picture: Amanda Brierley

So far Kyan’s piece has received video performances on the piano, cello, and on various music softwares. And now members of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra are meeting to record the piece in time for Kyan's funeral on Sunday 13th February.

“I am extremely humbled by the responses of people,” Amanda told ClassicFM.com. “It makes me see beauty through adversity.”

On Facebook, Amanda also responded to the musicians saying, “[Kyan] would have been so chuffed that all these wonderful people are now playing his music.

“He was so full of life, with a beautiful mind, and passion for classical music. Little did he know he was actually composing his own funeral song.

“He did tell me that many people have to die to become famous, well my beautiful boy, here we are.”

How Beethoven’s iconic ‘da-da-da-dum’ motif was almost lost in a forgotten piano piece

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony started life as a piano work. Picture: Alamy

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM London

@sophiassocials

 

The UK’s leading scholar on Beethoven has found that the famous opening of the Fifth Symphony began life with a totally different purpose...

Classical connoisseur, and music novice alike will recognise the famous four-note opening motif of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

The ominous introductory theme appears in modern media, such as movies, and was also used during the Second World War as a symbol for Victory. The famed ‘da-da-da-dumm’ motif mirrored the rhythm used for the letter V in Morse code (short-short-short-long).

However, the origins of the opening theme have remained relatively unexplored, or understood; until now.

Thanks to the investigations of Professor Barry Cooper, the UK’s leading scholar on the German composer, it’s been revealed that classical music’s most iconic motif was almost simply a subsidiary theme meant for a forgotten piano piece.

In 1804, four years before the Fifth Symphony’s first performance, Beethoven wrote out the sketches of the opening theme of his next symphony.

Scholars have used this manuscript as a source of sketches for the Fifth Symphony however, thanks to Cooper’s further investigation into the score, it is clear that Beethoven was not in fact sketching a symphony – but a piano fantasia.

“It became abundantly clear to me that [these sketches were] part of the projected piano fantasia, which was being sketched immediately above the sketch in question,” explained Cooper. “I studied the page in detail as I am writing a book on ‘The Creation of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies’.”

Cooper, who is a professor at the University of Manchester, is best known for his books on Beethoven, as well as a completion and realisation of Beethoven’s fragmentary Symphony No. 10.

Musicologist Professor Barry Cooper. Picture: Wikimedia Commons

“The fantasia (so-called in the sketch) is in C minor, like the [fifth] symphony. Like most fantasias of the period, it would be based on contrasting sections and ideas, so the opening section is in a slow 3/8, contrasting with the later 2/4 that uses the motif that ended up in the symphony.

“The motif is then developed in the 2/4 section in a symphonic manner – which may be why Beethoven concluded it would work better in a symphony – but using piano textures rather than orchestral ones, and in a different way from how it is developed in the symphony.”

Professor Cooper notes that the find gives us a deeper understanding of how Beethoven worked as a composer.

“The sketch shows that he was prepared to transfer ideas intended for one composition into a completely different one, if it would work better there.”

Cooper surmises that Beethoven felt exactly that way about this motif, and adds the composer “strengthened the motif by placing it at the head of a symphony, and then strengthened it still further by adding dramatic pauses in later sketches and the final version”.

97-year-old pianist, and last surviving pupil of Rachmaninov, signs landmark record deal

97-year-old Ruth Slenczynska is the last-living pupil of Sergei Rachmaninov

Credit: Decca Classics

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM London

@sophiassocials

On Saturday January 15 2022, American pianist Ruth Slenczynska will celebrate her 97th birthday.

At this landmark age, Slenczynska has achieved an astonishing nine-decade long career, having begun performing as a child prodigy in the 1920s.

To mark the occasion, Slenczynska has announced her resigning with the record label, Decca Classics for her first album with the company since the 1960s; Slenczynska’s new solo piano album, My Life in Music is due to be released later this year.

When asked about the album Slenczynska responded, “Whoever heard of a pianist my age making another album?

“Music is meant to bring joy. If mine still brings joy to people, then it is doing what it is supposed to do”.

Ruth Slenczynska. Picture: Meredith Truax

Born in California in 1925, Slenczynska was the daughter of Polish immigrants. She made her concert debut at the age of just four years old, and one year later, performed a work of Beethoven on television (watch below).

At six, Slenczynska made her European concert debut in Berlin, and now 92 years later, this legendary performer is still enchanting audiences across the globe with her piano skills.

Notably, Slenczynska is considered to be composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninov’s last living pupil.

It is thought that the young pianist even once stepped in for the great Russian musician at the last minute when he was unable to perform due to an injury.

According to sources, the two would often drink tea together and to this day, Slenczynska wears a Fabergé egg necklace which Rachmaninov is said to have gifted her.

Slenczynska also had connections with another prominent composer, American Samuel Barber, and heard his famed Adagio for Strings before the work even had a title.

Slenczynska has performed for four United States Presidents, including playing a Mozart duet with President Harry S. Truman, and performing at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.

During lockdown, Slenczynska uploaded videos of herself performing Beethoven sonatas to YouTube, to celebrate the German composer’s 250th anniversary.

Despite her age, the pianist is still an active performer and most recently played at Chopin International Festival and Friends in October 2021 in the Polish Embassy in New York. Next month she will be celebrating her 97th birthday with a recital at Lebanon Valley College, Pennsylvania, on 6 February.

Slenczynska’s album, My Life in Music, explores the music of Chopin, a composer who had a heavy influence on the young pianist’s childhood.

According to her memoir, Forbidden Childhood, Slenczynska was made to practise all 24 Études before breakfast every morning by her father, Josef Slenczynski, who was a skilled violinist.

She would subsequently earn a reputation as one of the most celebrated Chopin interpreters of her time.

The album also features music from composers such as Debussy, Grieg and Bach, who all provide memories of her beloved piano mentors and teachers.

4 Hands 4 More Piano Fun

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Marie and Karoline Esterházy

It is certainly telling that the earliest surviving music by Franz Schubert is the extended Fantasie D. 48 for piano duet. Composed at the age of thirteen, Schubert composed prolifically for the medium until his untimely death at the age of 31. For Schubert and his friends, four-hand piano music was a natural part of convivial evenings. Since this repertoire was almost exclusively destined for the private amateur salon market, however, a large number of these genial and charming works are still virtually unknown. Presumably written in 1818 or 1824, Schubert’s Variations D. 968a for piano four hands is one of series of compositions written for the two daughters of Count Johann Karl Esterházy. Schubert was engaged as music tutor to the two girls and spent two summers at the Count’s estate at Zseliz in Hungary. Schubert wrote to his friend Moritz von Schwind, “I have composed a big sonata and variations for four hands; the latter are enjoying great applause here, but since I don’t quite trust the taste of the Hungarians I’ll let you and the Viennese decide about them.” 

Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, 1952

Sketched in 1952 and completed in the spring of 1953, Poulenc’s Sonata for two pianos is dedicated to pianists Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale “as much with friendship as with admiration.” Considered one of the most important piano duos of the 20th century, Gold and Fizdale commissioned and premiered a number of important works in the second half of the 20th century, including works by John Cage, Virgil Thomson, and Ned Rorem. As part of the tsunami of American artists, musicians and writers, the Duo traveled to Europe and arrived in Paris in 1948 with a letter of introduction to Germaine Tailleferre. A lunch with Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric was quickly arranged, which in turn lead to a number of works dedicated and composed for the Duo. Tailleferre wrote her Toccata for two Pianos and her Sonata for Two Pianos for Gold and Fizdale, while Poulenc contributed his own Sonata for Two Pianos for “the Boyz,” as he called them. The work was first introduced to the public on 2 November 1953 at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Francis Poulenc: Sonata for Two Pianos (François Chaplin, piano; Alexandre Tharaud, piano)

Chansons de Bilitis

Claude Debussy’s friend Pierre Louÿs published his Chansons de Bilitis in 1894. Louÿs claimed that the 143 prose poems were the work of a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, and originally found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus. Although this amiable case of literary fraud was quickly uncovered, his contemporaries were greatly impressed with the poems skillful and evocative blending of the antique and the modern, and the erotic with the spiritual. In fact, Louÿs sympathetic celebration of “lesbian sexuality earned him sensation and historic significance.” These poems not only inspired 3 operas, but also a number of settings for voice and piano. And Debussy added his three exquisite setting in 1897. To accompany a reading of twelve Bilits poems in 1900, Debussy wrote incidental music scored for two flutes, two harps and celesta. Soon after returning home from a trip to London, which would sadly be his last journey abroad, Debussy returned to his 1900 Bilitis music and reworked it into his Six Épigraphes Antiques for piano four hands. Critics have noted that these, “six pieces capture well the spirit of classical antiquity in cold, marmoreal and simultaneously sensual whole tone scales, modal structures and short repetitive motifs.”

Claude Debussy: Six Épigraphes Antiques (Genevieve Joy, piano; Jacqueline Bonneau, piano)

Brahms Pavillon on Lake Starnberg in Tutzing

Johannes Brahms spent his summer holidays of 1873 on the shores of Lake Starnberg in southern Bavaria. Here he managed to complete a key work in his development towards his first symphony. The Variations on a theme by Joseph Haydn Op. 56 might not actually have been based on a Haydn theme, but they are at the pinnacle of Brahms’s variations craft. In eight dense variations Brahms manages to liberate compositional rationality from any kind of effectual aesthetics. “One cannot just wait for inspiration to turn up,” Brahms once remarked, “but it needs to be earned legitimately, thanks to incessant work.” The original version called for two pianos with Brahms gradually envisioning the work as an orchestral piece. The reason was entirely practical and musical, as the counterpoint eventually becomes so intricate and pervasive that it requires orchestral forces to be heard clearly.

The young Beethoven, c. 1780

Craer’s Magazine of Music dated 2 March 1783 contains the first ever-printed notice pertaining to Ludwig van Beethoven. The correspondent writes, “Louis van Beethoven, son of the tenor singer already mentioned, a boy of 11 years and of most promising talent. He plays the piano very skillfully and with power, reads at sight very well, and I need say no more than that the chief piece he plays is Das wohltemperirte Clavier of Sebastian Bach…. This youthful genius is deserving of help to enable him to travel. He would surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart if he were to continue as he has begun.” In 1787 Beethoven was sent to Vienna by the Archbishop of Cologne to take lessons with Mozart. However, the illness of his mother immediately forced his return home to Bonn. Finally in 1792, Beethoven relocated to Vienna to seek his fortunes in the imperial capital. He soon attracted a number of piano students, and he published the didactic Sonata for Piano four hands as Op. 6 with Artaria. It might come as a surprise that Maurice Ravel originally composed relatively few of his works for orchestra. In fact, some of his most recognized pieces are rearrangements of original piano versions. It has been suggested that Ravel approached composition like a painter approaches a canvas. The piano originals, it has been argued, became the equivalent of a charcoal outline to be colored at a later stage. This is certainly the case with Ravel’s major orchestral tribute to Spain, the Rapsodie espagnole, composed between 1907 and 1908. The origin of this composition was a “Habanera” for two pianos, which Ravel wrote in 1895. It was the first Ravel composition to be performed publicly, and it made a strong impression on Claude Debussy. In 1907, Ravel composed three companion pieces, and by October of that year, the two-piano version was completed. It took Ravel a further 4 months before he had fully orchestrated the work by February 1908.

Eleonor Bindman and Jenny Lin

With the piano taking center stage in the salons and living rooms of the 19th century, music became a widely accepted form of home entertainment. Realizing the full sonorities and orchestral potential of the instrument, it was also a way to actively make and hear music that would otherwise not be accessible. Reductions of chamber music and orchestral works allowed musicians and their audiences to experience a broad range of music. And when two people sit at one instrument sharing space and often the same notes, the interactive side of music making is elevated to a physical level. Composers ranging from Schubert and Brahms and from Rachmaninoff to Debussy made various piano 4 hands arrangements of their own music. Although J.S. Bach also produced a number of arrangements, the time had not yet come to explore the full potential of the piano. As such, a substantial number of composers and performers have taken up this delightful and satisfying task.

Scriabin

At the age of 16, Alexander Scriabin enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory. His musical talents developed rapidly, and he was mainly regarded as a pianist. A review of a concert on 28 February 1891 reads, “Henselt’s Piano concerto, whose unconventional virtuosic techniques make it one of the most difficult piano compositions, was played by Scriabin, student of Professor Safonov, with such calm and self-assurance that can only be expected from an experienced virtuoso. Scriabin definitely makes huge progress and not only with his technique; his playing is extremely charismatic, having all signs of purely artistic talent.” In addition, Scriabin made his first forays into composition, and that included a Fantasy in A minor for two pianos. Published only after his death, the work is described as “a dazzling exercise in ornated melody built upon a rock-solid harmonic base.”

(C) 2021 by Interlude

ABBA give an unexpected nod to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in new ‘Voyage’ album

ABBA in 1974 after winning Eurovision. Picture: Alamy

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM London

@sophiassocials

 

While an ABBA x Tchaikovsky collaboration wasn’t on our bingo cards for 2021, we’re kind of here for it...

Swedish pop group sensation ABBA are back after a 40-year hiatus with their ninth and final studio album, Voyage.

And fans have noticed that the final track on the album, Ode To Freedom, has a familiar tune.

Not because it contains a call-back to a previous song composed by the band, but rather because the song references the the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake.

Written by the Russian composer between 1875-76, Swan Lake is one of the most popular ballets of all time, and the Waltz in A flat major is one of the most recognisable melodies from the work.

Twitter was quick to pick up on the reference to the tune in ABBA’s final Voyage track, with listeners desperately trying to find the piece of classical music they were reminded of...

Despite its references to the waltz, Ode to Freedom is written in a time signature of 4/4, instead of the expected 3/4 found in Swan Lake, and the majority of other waltz forms.

Thus, the theme is pulled into a more conventional pop song format, while maintaining the low swelling string holding the melody similar to the original Tchaikovsky.

The vocals enter towards the end of the song, joining in on a typical ABBA-esque harmonic build on the main melody with the following lyrics.

The foursome sing about writing an ‘Ode to Freedom’, a piece of music ‘not pretentious, but with dignity’. In the ballet, the waltz underscores Prince Siegfried’s birthday; it is a moment of celebration for our principal dancer as he celebrates with his friends and villagers from his kingdom.

It seems fitting that Abba’s final album should end with an epic orchestral, albeit gentle, celebratory theme.

The band has achieved so much since forming in 1972, and they have every right to celebrate a long and successful career where they changed the face of the pop music industry forever.