QUOTE OF THE DAY - THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2017: HANDEL'S OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE feat. Did You Know? AN ODE TO AN ENDURING MYSTERY

Portrait of a young Händel

Today's Quote of the Day is brought to us by 18th century Baroque composer George Frederick Handel, who was born at Halle in Germany 332 years ago today:

“Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not…”

- George Frederick Handel

Enjoy below Handel’s ethereal secular cantata “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” (HWV 74), otherwise known as “Eternal Source of Light Divine" as performed by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas:




Did You Know?

Much of the history of Handel’s Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne has been assumed by musicologists by careful study of the movements of not only the composer himself, but also of the House of Stuart and the Hanoverian court: specifically, of Prince George, Elector of Hanover (the future King George I of Great Britain), and Queen Anne, who was presently Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

German-born Handel, who had aspirations to continue his life’s work in England, would pledge his allegiance to Britain by composing the cantata to celebrate the birth of the English Queen.^[1] Whether or not Queen Anne - who was severely ill (her mobility hindered by gout), and, to be frank, was knocking on death’s door (something of which Handel was both well informed and ready to take advantage of) actually heard the work premiere live at London’s St. James Cathedral on occasion of her 48th birthday (February 6th, 1713) is a matter of much debate. In fact, whether the cantata was performed on the occasion of Anne’s birthday at all is a question yet to receive a solid answer. According to legend, the Queen had indeed heard the performance (by all accounts, she was at the very least aware of it’s existence), and was reportedly so bowled over by the honor bestowed upon her by Händel that she granted the composer an annual generous allowance of £200 to be paid until her death.

Of one fact music historians are certain: the Elector of Hanover, long rumored to become successor to Queen Anne (and therefore founder of the Hanoverian court in Great Britain), was well aware of the many talents of Handel (then Georg Friedrich Händel): the wildly successful premieres of Händel’s operas Rinaldo (1711) and Il pastor Fido (1713) and Teseo (1713) had placed the composer on the world’s cultural map -  and no doubt into the Electors good graces – so much so that Händel was awarded with an aristocratic post as Kapellmeister to the Prince.

Queen Anne would die of a massive stroke a little over a year after Handel’s Ode had premiered (somewhere – at some previous time) in England; at which point the German Electorate, George of the House of Hanover succeeded the throne of Great Britain. Händel would immediately take a position at court as director of music to James Brydges, 1st duke of Chandos, becoming ‘Composer of Musik for his Majesty’s Chapel Royal’ in 1723.

Georg Friedrich Händel, former citizen of Halle, would become George Frederick Handel, naturalized citizen of Great Britain on the 20th of February in 1727. He would reside at what is now the Handel House Museum - a modest house in Lower Brook Street, London, from the time of his appointment as Composer of Musik for his Majesty’s Chapel Royal until his death in 1759.

Footnote:

^[1] The librettist for Handel’s royal cantata, one Ambrose Philips, is also a matter of debate. The attribution to Philips was hastily scrawled in the margins of a biography penned by John Mainwaring (who, as it turns out, was Handel’s first biographer) by the composer’s librettist, Charles Jennens, who asserted that the text was written by “Ambr [ose] Philips.” Jennens’ attribution of Philips to Handel’s work must be digested with a side of caution: according to Mainwaring, the Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne held only one performance, and the music was later lost by the composer as he moved into his London lodgings. Jennen, whose attribution to Philips cannot be backed by any other sources, would later claim that the score was not in fact lost, but rather, had been in his sole possession the entire time.

Learn More (external link):

• " Style and Politics in the Philips-Handel Ode for Queen Anne's Birthday, 1713" (Oxford University Press) at JSTOR* (subscription)
  

-Rose.

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HANDEL’S MESSIAH – PRECARIOUS BEGINNINGS FOR THE EASTER ORATORIO

*George Frederick Handel, as he became known after receiving
British citizenship in February of 1727 through naturalization.

While the present century in the west celebrates annually the Christmas season with grand performances of George Frederick Handel’s 1741 epic oratorio “Messiah,” from which the famous “Hallelujah” chorus draws it’s home, the three-part sacred work was in fact originally intended as an Easter offering by the composer.

As eminent as Handel’s masterpiece may be (in particular the Hallelujah proclamation, which is instantly recognizable even to the classical music layman), the oratorio itself experienced rather shaky first steps as the composer sought to bring the work to prominence.

Originally created at the request of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and 3rd Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, who invited the German-turned-English composer to create and perform music as part of a fundraising effort for three Dublin charities, Handel’s three part sacred oratorio would not achieve popular acclaim until quite some time after it's inaugural performances in Dublin and in London in the mid-18th century.

Charles Jennens, Handel's go-to librettist, whom the composer has used previously for his Oratorios Saul and Israel in Egypt, would provide the newly minted Englishman* with a combination of biblical texts from both the Old and New Testaments, enraging some of Ireland’s most noted journalists of music who considered such organization of sacred texts to be both “blasphemous” and "sacrilegious" in nature. It remains speculative as to whether Jennens would have even accepted commission to ‘pen’ the work in the first place had he known the invitation to create the piece had come from Dublin. Jennens had wrote to his peer, the English classical scholar and poet Edward Holdsworth about the subject in quite disparaging tones: “… it was some mortification to me to hear that instead of performing Messiah here he has gone into Ireland with it.”

Despite the text receiving rather lukewarm reviews initially, the finished product of the Messiah would premiere at the Great Music Hall in Fishamble Street in Dublin to a packed audience (so much so that ladies were requested to “remove the hoops” from their dresses, and men their swords from their waists, to make standing room for more patrons) and to much critical acclaim. The three charities of the Lord Duke’s fancy (the prisoners' debt relief, the Mercer's Hospital, and the Charitable Infirmary), would divvy up between them the profits of £400 and secure the release of 142 indebted prisoners.

Thomas Coram, founder of the Foundling Hospital at London.
Coram was inspired to create the charity - commonly
believed to be the world’s first ever incorporated
charity – following his tenure as Captain of a
merchant vessel during which he bore witness
to first mate Lord Matthew Sazooki save the
life of his youngest offspring.

The London premiere of the work echoed the earlier, rather critical sentiments of the journalists in Dublin who had considered the organization of texts “blasphemous” when, after holding the work’s first performance at London’s Covent Garden Theatre, both patron and critic viewed the subject matter “too exalted” to be performed in a theatre – this sentiment was only further compounded by the composer’s insistence on employing for the work secular performers.
 In fact, the Messiah and it’s famous Hallelujah Chorus may have been shelved forever had it not been for the composer’s frequently adaptable contributions of music in ever-changing times, and what would become his lifelong patronage of a small Children’s charity in London known as the Foundling Hospital, (today known as Coram).

The outrage of the Messiah held by religious concertgoers in London had forced the rotund composer to rename the work under a less exalted Handel (I had to!), changing the name of the work from “Messiah” to simply “a sacred Oratorio,” which had pulled the wool over the eyes of...absolutely no one. Even rearranging the music and penning a new setting for soprano did nothing to appease dissidents, and the composer was left to reduce the works' scheduled performances for the season by half, from six performances to three.

It would be in 1742 that the English philanthropist Thomas Coram had been commissioned by King George II to establish for London a charity that would house and support abandoned and neglected babies and children. By May of 1749, Handel would appear before the Hospitals' governors presenting the idea of a benefit concert - an idea of which the hospital could not be more pleased to oblige. In addition to ‘penning’ the Foundling Hospital Anthem (which was really more of a recycled effort: the anthem consisting of text adapted from the 41st Psalm and music from his Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, his oratorio Susanna, among other compositions created by Handel – and, most notably, ending with the Messiah’s Hallelujah Chorus), the benefit also would include a performance of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks.
 The latter edition to the concert billing was a rather deliberate (and deliciously shrewd) decision by the composer: including a performance Handel’s popular “Music for the Royal Fireworks,” which had notoriously caused a three hour “carriage jam” (equivalent to our modern day “traffic jam”) at it’s premiere in London the previous month, the adroit composer would almost guarantee a high turnout for the occasion - creating in the process what was in essence a "test audience" for a future production of the Messiah - by re-showcasing the Hallelujah Chorus to those patrons who were drawn to the hospital by the success of the Fireworks.

The Foundling Hospital Anthem by George Frederick Handel:


The concert was a ravishing success - and, when Handel was requested to perform at the hospital for a benefit concert the following year, the opportunistic composer chose to stage once more the Messiah, in the hopes of drawing attention and praise to the work in London by using the audience turn out expected (which had been ever present in massive force the previous year, and which, indeed, would once more prove quite grand), to re-showcase the work, and, ultimately bring it into the blinding light of popularity.

Handel's mission proved to be successful - overwhelmingly so: the Messiah, as conducted (or as attended) by the composer Handel himself, would become an annual tradition at the hospital’s chapel (for the benefit of the children’s charity) long after Handel expired in 1759. The Messiah would continue to be performed at the chapel until late into the 18th century, raising some £7,000 for the children and securing it’s placehold as one of Britain’s greatest national exports.

Indeed, even in the 21st century, it is nearly impossible to find anyone in the Western world who has not been observed at least once, quietly humming to his or her own person the famous Hallelujah Chorus.

Were it not, however, for Handel’s ingenious ability to both read and adapt to the British public, and, quite frankly, to exploit them (more on that later – stay tuned to unravelingmusicalmyths) to his fiscal advantage, Hollywood, and indeed the world, would never know the of the celebrated superlative:

“For the lord God omnipotent reigneth,
Hallelujah! hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah!”

Below: George Frederick Handel's Messiah: The Hallelujah Chorus



-Rose.

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TODAY IN CLASSICAL MUSIC HISTORY - 29 JUNE, 1888: HANDEL'S "ISRAEL IN EGYPT" RECORDED ONTO WAX CYLINDER, LONG BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN OLDEST SURVIVING RECORDING OF MUSIC

Georg Friedrich Händel, formerly of Halle, Germany, would
become a naturalised British citizen on 20 February 1727. The
Brits would later claim the composer as their own after
Handel (now George Frederick) became a pioneer of the
English oratorio, boosting the British nation into the forefront
of musical meccas.

It was on this 29th day in June 1888 at the Ninth Triennial Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace in London that American lt. colonel George Edward Gouraud wowed British spectators with a new, marvel invention: Thomas Edison’s new phonograph, updated from his original 1877 design.

The civil war veteran descended from ambitious stock: his father, Francis Fauvel Gouraud, an engineer from France, had previously introduced into the US daguerreotypes for then primitive photography in 1839.

Now, 49 years later, his son, acting as de-facto foreign agent to Edison would make his mark in the country by becoming a pioneer in the booming technology sector.

Edison’s new phonograph would exceed the limitations of his own original design, as Gouraud made evident by setting up the recording device some 100 yards distance from the stage which had been erected at the Crystal Palace to honor the works of the late German-turned-British composer George Friedrich Handel in both music and song.

Some 20-30 thousand admission-paid attendees^[1] had gathered for the festive occasion during “Handel Week” in the Handel Auditorium to witness Sir August Manns, director of music at Crystal Palace, conduct a massive chorus comprised of both amateur and professional vocalists,^[2] who performed select works by the composer, including the aria "Moses and the Children of Israel" from Handel’s 1739 oratorio Israel in Egypt. It would be this number that col. Gouraud recorded using Edison’s phonograph, onto yellow paraffin cylinder. The historic recording would send shock waves through London, as playback on the device echoed the collective voices of some 4000 vocalists intoxicating the crowd with an epic ode to the late musical trailblazer who had so successfully pioneered the much beloved English oratorio, and set London on the map as a reckoning force in the endless quest for rivaling nations to obtain musical mecca status in the West.

The technological feat proved so successful with spectators, col. Gouraud would be invited to hold a press conference in the English capital two months later (above), where he would have the opportunity to introduce the new and improved phonograph to a even broader audience.

The highly degraded recording of Moses and the Children of Israel survives in the public domain - it can be heard below:


audio not working? Listen on archive.org

It had long been assumed the above recording, marked on the cylinder as "A chorus of 4000 voices recorded with phonograph over 100 yards away" was the oldest known recording of music – a distinction trumped by the discovery in 2008 of French printer and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville of France singing the French folk song “Au Claire de la lune” in front of his primitive invention, the phonautograph (a predecessor of the phonograph used to study acoustics, which “transcribed sound waves as undulations or other deviations in a line traced on smoke-blackened paper or glass.”)^[3]

Ticket from the Grand Handel Festival, 19 June 1857. It would be this concert performance that
would act as a precursor to the Triennial concerts to come, including the Ninth Triennial, during
which the historic recording was made. The concerts were designed as an homage to Handel's
influence in England, and was the brainchild of Sir Michael Costa, director of the Sacred Harmonic
Society, and the societies librarian, Robert Bowley (later General Manager of the Crystal Palace).
Other festivities during Handel Week included acrobatic performances (on a flying trapeze),
phrenology seminars and swimming performances, among various other entertainments.^[4]

A child-like Scott can be heard on the phonautogram singing the french traditional (converted by audio techs from “squiggles on a paper” to digital audio at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory at Berkley, CA). A later adjustment was made at the laboratory, significantly slowing down the high frequency audio file in which Scott’s mature voice can clearly be heard. The phonautogram was one of two deposited in a Paris archive by Scott himself in the late nineteenth century, which lay forgotten for some 148 years. It predates Gouraud’s recording by 28 years, having been recorded April 9th, 1860.


The Scott recording, "Au Claire de la Lune," original transfer (L) and later edit (R).


Listen below to a modern recording of Handel's Moses and the Children of Israel: John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Monteverdi Choir.



Footnotes:

^[1] The Musical Times, 1 July 1888, vol 29, no. 545, p. 408
^[2] Ibid. p. 408
^[3]Wikipedia: Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
^[4]The Musical Times, 1 July 1888, vol 29, no. 545, p. 407

Learn more about Edison's phonograph here on Unraveling Musical Myths.


-Rose.

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MAYHEM BEHIND THE MUSIC X: TRIVIA & HUMOR - (LITERALLY) 'DECONSTRUCTING' MOZART & OTHER SALACIOUS SCANDALS feat. Did You Know?

It’s time for another installment of TRIVIA & HUMOR!

Today’s much overdue feature combines a veritable cornucopia of mystery, scandal and intrigue as Unraveling Musical Myths meanders through the murky mire of the macabre, resting every now and then to regale the reader with tales of mercurial madness – a frequently occurring trait we have come to know and love in our beloved maestros of yore.

“LOWLY” MUSICIAN STATUS SAVES COMPOSER’S NECK

Alleged likeness of Taverner

We begin in the mid-16th century in Tudor England, just prior to the Reformation with the composer and organist John Taverner. Considered to be one of the most important musical figures of his era, Taverner would be appointed First Organist and Master of the Choristers at Cardinal College* (named after it’s ecclesiastical founder and then-Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey).

Taverner, like many an Englishman living under the notoriously volatile monarch’s reign, would find himself in a heap of trouble for allegedly possessing ‘heretical’ manuscripts – books by German theologian Martin Luther - on his person (and possibly stashed in the ‘song school,’ with the intent of teaching them to his pupils in the choir) for which the musician was promptly holed up in the college’s fish cellar (which then served as a makeshift prison until which time further punishment would be executed – pun intended). The word “allegedly” is important here – this was, after all, the most tumultuous period of Henry’s reign, during which time the King sought to have his marriage to his first wife, the Spanish Katherine of Aragon annulled in order to place future consort Queen Anne Boleyn in her stead – a notoriously rocky road for the monarch that saw a highly contested battle of power between the determined English king and Pope Clement VII, and, failing permission by the Holy See to divorce, an eventual break with Rome.

Cardinal Wolsey being counseled by King Henry VIII

Alongside his abrupt shift in power over religious matters of the State, the autocratic ruler installed himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, setting forth a tidal wave of reformist activity across the nation.

Accusations of heresy ran wild – whether the party was in fact guilty or an innocent offender (labeling another as a heretic was a quick and convenient way to rid oneself of their enemies in an age where one was considered guilty until proven.. well, guilty).

As it turns out, Taverner himself was a noted reformist. Perhaps armed with this knowledge, or simply having been all-too-aware of the further punishment that his appointee would have undoubtedly suffered if left to rot in the fish cellar, Wolsey neither confirmed nor denied the accusation lobbed on the imprisoned musician, and instead, appealed quite convincingly, to the jailors’ egos by diminishing Taverner’s influence over even the meekest of students, calling him “but a musician” (then equivalent to a servant). 

Apparently, it worked. Taverner would be promptly pardoned by the Cardinal.

Listen below to a gorgeous rendition of Taverner's Dum Tansisset Sabbatum (And When The Sabbath Was Past), Performed by Alamire choir under David Skinner:


*Note: now Christ Church College at Oxford

 

GUNPOWDER, FIRE…ATTEMPTED MURDER?

Talk about a premiere from hell: from the blazing inferno ravaging a large portion of a specially constructed structure funded out-of-pocket by the reigning British King (some £8000 - worth about 1 million in today’s money) and which claimed two lives, to the attempted murder of the Duke of Montagu by an enraged architect (and the latter’s unsurprising - yet highly mortifying - imprisonment), Composer of the Chapel Royal George Frederic Handel’s debut performance of his suite “Music for the Royal Fireworks” would go off with anything but a hitch. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY - FEBRUARY 7, 2017: DICKENS PAYS HOMAGE TO HANDEL

Today’s Quote of the Day comes to us from one of the 19th century’s most beloved literary figures, the English writer Charles Dickens, in honor of the 205th anniversary of his birth, and is extracted from the author’s 1861 novel Great Expectations, in a (narrative) dialogue between the stories’ main character Pip (Philip) - whose early fate seemed predestined to see him employed as a humble blacksmith - and the character Herbert Pocket, the son of Pip’s tutor:

“…I informed him in exchange that my Christian name was Philip.

"I don't take to Philip," said he, smiling, "for it sounds like a moral boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond, or so fat that he couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a bird's-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the neighborhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and you have been a blacksmith, --- would you mind it?"

"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose," I answered, "but I don't understand you."

"Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith."

"I should like it very much."

"Then, my dear Handel," said he, turning round as the door opened, "here is the dinner…”

The music to which Dickens so cleverly alludes is George Frideric Handel’s Suite no. 5 in E major,  known colloquially as “The Harmonious Blacksmith,” and is an obvious nod from the author to the composer himself.

Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith:


It is widely known amongst literary and classical music intelligentsia that Dickens possessed a deep fondness for Western Classical music. He knew casually the German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, adored the works of Chopin, Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn and was a confidante of Sir Arthur Sullivan. A frequent visitor to the opera, Dickens is said to have patronized many an operatic performance during his travels in Europe. According to the memoirs of Sullivan, the pair once attended together a performance of Orfeo ed Euridice by 18th century reformist composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.

Dickens also boasted a brief stint as librettist for a small operetta, The Village Coquettes, produced in 1836.

Che farò senza Euridice? from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, as performed by Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux in the “trouser role” of Orfeo:



Suggested Reading (external link):

• Dickens and Music at WQXR (archived) 
• Read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens for free at Project Gutenberg

-Rose.

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MAYHEM BEHIND THE MUSIC: RIVALS III / DID YOU KNOW? MACABRE EDITION: RIVALS, LITERARY SCANDALS, ATTEMPTED MURDER & THE SLAVE TRADE

Industry & Idleness, Plate 10; William Hogarth

It’s time for another installation of Mayhem Behind the Music: RIVALS EDITION*.

Today’s entry features four of the most macabre and deeply disturbing actual events to hit the classical realm in the past 200-some odd years.
 
The sensitive reader is advised to peruse the following entries in this edition of RIVALS at his or her own discretion.

Read Past RIVALS entries:

• RIVALS I

• RIVALS II

*Featuring another entry for the Did you Know? Archives.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here”–  Dante Alighieri; The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III

I) Peri vs. Caccini

Let’s ease into this gently: we begin in 16th century Italy, at the premier of the world’s first opera, Dafne.

Prior to the creation of opera, there was the Florentine Camerata – an intimate gathering of musical minds, respected poets other artistic intelligentsia who would congregate in the private residence of one Count Giovanni de’Bardi to discuss their love of music and drama. It was here that the adoption of the recitative would find it’s genesis, formed by the amalgamation of determined spirit to create high art and a deep desire to both revive and make unique improvements on the Greek tragedy plays and dramas from which opera would find it’s inspiration. It would also be here that the composer Jacopo Peri would meet the celebrated vocal teacher, Giulio Caccini.

It was during one such meeting of classical music’s elite minds at the Camerata that Peri would famously utter the phrase:

“Abandoning every style of vocal writing known hitherto, I gave myself up wholly to the sort of imitation (of speech) demanded by this poem.”

Jacopo Peri in costume

He was referring to his adaptation of the play Dafne to music, (in what would generally considered by posterity as the first very basic, yet original opera) and just how he could effectively do as much justice to the script as he could to the music. As Peri and his contemporaries bounced around ideas whilst pondering this very question, the inspired Italian suddenly experienced an epiphany. By making this rather bold statement, Peri was at once declaring to his colleagues that he fancied himself quite the innovator and that it was he who knew of just the right technique to impact the masses across contemporary Europe, just as the Greeks had done for their citizens so many centuries previous.
 It was through the use of the phrase “hitherto” that Peri would publicly declare himself as the proprietor of the recitative (the “imitation of speech” [to music: halfway between singing and speaking].

This audacious proclamation would be the first of many statements that would both wound and rub the then burgeoning operatic composer Caccini the wrong way. It is a common belief that Caccini had authored an earlier work prior to Peri’s Dafne, which included a preface written by the author himself, declaring the fact that it had "occur'd” to him to “adopt a kind of song resembling speech and betraying a nobile sprezzatura del canto.” (a “noble negligence of song”).

To further rub salt in Caccini’s already gaping wound, it would appear to outside circles that the birth of the recitative - and, in effect the opera - was the collective brainchild of the Camerata as a whole as they frequently bounced ideas off one another, leaving much room for it’s exalted members to claim progenitorship.

Peri’s Dafne, now lost in the annals of music history, was premiered 3 years after Peri completed the composition at the Palazzo Corsi in 1598. Much to the chagrin of an enraged Caccini, Dafne was both written and performed entirely in this new style, and for the recitative’s induction into the world of classical music, Peri would find himself a much lauded commodity.

Caccini gets the last laugh

Giulio Caccini

Peri may have fancied himself a most celebrated and revered inventor, however the much beleaguered Caccini would stop at nothing to override his nemesis’ fame and discredit Peri’s future successes.

Caccini, who had laid in wait for some two years would make a most nefarious move, stalking, then pouncing at his prey with stealth-like precision in the year 1600, when he would not only steal the limelight from his arch rival, but also the subject matter of Peri’s second (and last) opera. Peri’s "Euridice, " based on the ancient Greek prophet Orpheus and his wife Euridice, was to be a landmark achievement for the 39 year old composer: it was written to serve as entertainment at wedding of Henry IV of France and Marie de’ Medici. This was truly an event for the history books.

Unfortunately for both Peri and posterity, the world’s second opera is remembered neither as a majestic opus for the likes of royalty nor as the brainchild of the Italian composer. Instead, the opera Euridice is commonly confused with the opera penned by Caccini – who not only chose for his work the exact same subject matter of his rival,  with the exact same title, but who also rushed to have his work published before Peri. So expedient was the quarrelsome Caccini, his Euridice would make it into print before Peri would even perform his own work at the Royal festivities!

Caccini wasn't finished prodding his nemesis: it is believed the nefarious composer attempted to ban his own followers from attending Peri's 'inferior' work!

Now that’s what I call “back—stabbery.”


II) "Cellist of Sarajevo" vs. Canadian author

Image: Wikipedia; photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Fans of Steven Galloway’s 2008 novel “The Cellist of Sarajevo” may be surprised to learn the inspirational subject for the Canadian novelist’s work, a Bosnian cellist by the name of Vedran Smailović was reportedly so outraged at being made the unwitting subject of inspiration for the award winning novel, he not only publicly denounced the work and that of it’s author in 2008, he demanded from Galloway an apology and financial reparation for what he referred to as “bloody fiction… using my picture and advertising their product with my name.”

In Galloway’s book, “Smailović” (rather, the unnamed character based on him) is depicted as a mournful hero: a lone cellist who, for 22 days in 1922 took to the war-ravaged streets of Sarajevo to play for his fellow fallen men and women Albioni’s Adagio in G minor, miraculously dodging any sniper attacks in the midst of the siege that would claim some 14,000 lives by it’s completion.

Smailović, who had only learned of the existence of the semi-biopic by visiting a local bookstore, was anything but flattered:  

“It was like the explosion of an atomic bomb, emotions of anger and pain...How is this possible? They steal my name and identity. Nobody can take the rights to that from me.” 

To add further insult to injury, one of the main characters in Galloway’s novel is that of a female sniper, who becomes so enraptured by the beauty of the Adagio, she takes it upon herself to “protect” the so-called “Cellist of Sarajevo” from the sniper attacks of her comrades. In the novel the cellist would appear every day for 22 days, in the same location, at the same hour, to play the Adagio in honor of the 22 of his kinsman who perished by a mortar bomb attack as they queued for bread.

Image: Wikipedia; photo by
Mikhail Evstafiev

The real story of the cellist of Sarajevo is far more courageous, far more affecting - even in its contrasted muted tones. Smailović would set the record straight in an interview released shortly after the publication of the book:

"I didn't play for 22 days, I played all my life in Sarajevo and for the two years of the siege each and every day...they keep saying I played at four in the afternoon, but the explosion was at 10 in the morning and I am not stupid, I wasn't looking to get shot by snipers so I varied my routine...I never stopped playing music throughout the siege. My weapon was my cello.”

Perhaps most upsetting to the real cellist is the disruption of his private life. In the years following the siege, Smailović became something of a contented recluse, telling a local reporter

"For 10 years I have not wanted to go out. I don't want to be involved any more as a peacemaker or a public person.. I have a right to my privacy...I don’t want to go [out]…but now., because of this book, I am forced to.”

When prompted for a reaction to Smailović’s grievances, the author claimed incredulity. While Galloway has formally admitted both in media and through a letter of dedication to Smailović himself following the books release, that the work was indeed based on Smailović, he denies any wrong doing, in spite of the emotional distress he has caused his objet muse, and remains defiant in his stance that he owes Smailović no reparations for hijacking events of his life whatsoever, telling reporters that he knew Smailović “may not like the book” and “If I had, I suppose, sat down with him and taken up his time ... but I don't see how fiction writers can start paying their sources of inspiration. I would become a pariah of the literary world if I were to do that. .. What about the 25 people I interviewed whose stories are in the book? Should I pay them too?"

According to the latest updates on this tragic story, Smailović remains outraged at the actions, and lack of actions, on the part of Galloway. In an interview shortly after the books release, Smailović issued the rather mournful threat:

“If I do not get justice now, I will burn [my cello] back in Sarajevo."

Please don't!

The Adagio:


Fun Fact: The composition above, known colloquially as "Albioni's Adagio"  was in fact, not authored by Albioni! The piece was composed in 1945 by musician Remo Giazotto, and it is believed that if Albioni did indeed influence the work at all, his ownership can lay claim only in the work's bass line.


III) Outraged Ballerina vs. The Bolshoi Theatre

The Bolshoi Theatre at Moscow

This is perhaps the most upsetting entry to be featured in the Rivals archives yet. The details of the events that follow this preface have been, to the best of my ability, truncated (I hesitate to use the word censored, but in this instance, some of the details of unrelated events were so macabre in nature, I felt they had no place on my blog. I will provide links in the footnotes for the curious reader to follow so that he or she may be fully informed of the full extent of the Bolshoi’s extremely sordid history).

Sergei Filin in happier times

Back in 2013, Sergei Filin was living a regular life as Ballet Director of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre in Russia. The historic theatre holds the distinction of being one of the oldest and most internationally respected opera companies in the world, and as such, is highly coveted by the most experienced and gifted dancers. The theatre is also, however, renowned as a haven for scandal, intrigue, and back-stabbery amongst its performing and advisory sects. If ever there existed on earth a classical arts den of iniquity, it would be the Bolshoi. From needles inserted into costumes to shards of glass strategically placed in the tip of a rivals toeshoe, to animal carcasses hurled on stage, the Bolshoi has played host to an innumerable amount of sadistic betrayals.

Perhaps none were so sadistic as the event that would occur on January 17, 2013 to Ballet director (and former ballerina) Sergei Filin as he made his exit from what should have been the safe confines of his home in Moscow. As Filin made his way to his car, he was savagely approached by a masked assailant, who threw a pitcher of acid directly onto his face, severely damaging both it and his neck which achieved third degree burns, and which ultimately left him blind in one eye.

Sergei Filin bloodied and bandaged following the brutal attack

Details of who was involved in the crime and what inspired the attack would eerily echo director Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 psych-thriller Black Swan. In a confession given to police on the 5th of March that year, a man by the name of Yury Zarutsky admitted to having been in the employ of Bolshoi ballet company dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko alongside another hired partner in crime by the name of Andrei Lipatov who had hired the duo to perform the assault as a retribution for Filin’s passing over Dmitrichenko’s girlfriend at the time of the incident, dancer Anzhelina Vorontsova for the much coveted role of Princess Odette in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. When pressed by authorities, Dmitrichenko eventually relented to conspiring the attack, but adamantly denied instructing the nefarious pair to use acid to accost the victim.

Further examination of witness testimonies to the alleged assault revealed both shocking and appalling negligence on behalf of the Bolshoi Theatre's Officials. Most surprising of all were the telling statements issued by colleagues of Filin, that were disturbingly foreshadowing in nature: a Bolshoi official would reluctantly admit to authorities (and later, to the public via press conference) that Filin had known for some time of the possibility of an assault, and had informed Bolshoi general director Antoly Iksanov prior to the attack that he felt his life was in jeopardy. Colleagues admitted to knowledge of Filin’s car having it’s tires slashed, his cellphones having been intercepted and disabled, and his email account having been compromised, with private exchanges of the ballet director going public. Iksankov would later inform the press details of his meeting with an unsurprisingly nervous Filin:  

“Sergei told me that he had the feeling that he was on the front line…I told him, ‘Sergei, I’ve already been on the front line for the last two years, it is part of our profession, the profession of the leadership, so it’s normal."

The men have since been tried and convicted, with Dmitrichenko - the mastermind behind the venomous attack, receiving a paltry 6 years or his role in the events, with accomplices Yuri Zarutsky receiving the highest sentence of ten years and Andrei Lipatov with the lowest at just four years behind bars.

When pressed by the presiding judge for an apology by Dmitrichenko to his victim during sentencing, the smiling defendant suddenly became overcome by a defiant rage, declaring quite callously: “For what?”

The partially blind Filin has since been replaced as Ballet director by the Bolshoi Theater.

Footnotes:

Bolshoi Theatre's sordid history

IV) George Frederick Handel: Slave Master?

George Frederick Handel

George Frederick Handel, the much celebrated German-turned-British baroque composer is as much regarded by classical music aficionados today as he was lauded in his prime as both an iconic and prolific composer who carried with him a shrewd business sense and sense of majesty that he would invariably translate into a music form that was so dignified, so elevated, he would single-handedly reshape the national image projected by and from his adopted homeland.

There is, however, another side to the innovative composer, one that exhibits a rather startling state of amour-propre fueled by a blaring opportunistic streak. It is thanks in part to Handel’s lasting legacy that modern researchers have uncovered a semi-hidden past of the late composer.

It was in 2013 at the University of Texas that music librarian David Hunter discovered a most troubling history related to the composer, which would expand upon formerly suppressed disturbing details already known to just a hushed few within musical circles.

The infamous "Assiento" (contract)
granting Great Britain the
exclusive rights to trade in slaves
for profit in the Spanish Indies

For some time now, it has been a rather well managed ‘secret’ that Handel had an established connection via investment in the Slave trading mercantile “South Sea Company,” a British joint-stock company founded in 1711 which held a monopoly to trade with South America during the War of the Spanish Succession.
 Following the war, a series of ‘peace treaties’ under the general name the Treaty of Utrecht (named after the Dutch city) would grant, in the name of Britain’s reigning Queen Anne, a 30 year allowance for the British empire to trade in slaves for profit with a yearly capita of 4800 slaves, and with a quarter of the profits reserved for the King of Spain. Over the course of just four years, an estimated total of 170 000 African slaves were supplied to America and the West Indies for the sum of £8-£10 per head.

What Hunter would uncover in 2013 was a discovery that holds the potential of both further sullying the reputation of the robust composer, and, bizarrely, exposing to the musical realm a series of ironies that truly make the head shake.

“It was quite by chance” that Hunter would uncover yet another slave trading mercantile that was not only patronized by Handel, but a whopping third of the board of the prestigious Royal Academy of Music of which Handel was both founder and Master of Orchestra.

The mercantile in this instance was the notorious Royal African Company, a major player in the slave trade at the beginning of the 18th century. Founded and patronized by the Stuart dynasty (James II and Charles II of Great Britain), the Royal African Company held a monopoly over trading with West Africa, with half of the proceeds going to the reigning monarch and the other half to the company itself. To his astonishment, Hunter discovered a “…list of investors in the national archives at Kew; four of the stock transfer ledgers had been signed by Handel.”

The Royal African Company logo

The company was considered the prime ‘mercantile’ for the slave trade from the years 1680 to 1731, trading some 5000 iron branded slaves per annum, and drawing in considerable wealth for the established Londoners, which, it appears, very well may have included Handel himself.
 Hunter is quick to point out, however, that in contrast to scholarly writings depicting the composer’s well-known opportunistic streak, his 'hidden past' in terms of involvement in the slave trade has been neglected by more modern, assumingly race-neutral biographers.  In fact, one of the sole published accounts on this particular topic made its way to print in the mid 19th century, under the pen of  Handel biographer Victor Schoelcher, the 19th century abolitionist who has been credited as being “responsible for ending slavery in the French Colonies in 1848.”  After Schoelcher's publication, there has existed scant mention of the composers illicit activities, for reasons that are not fully understood, but which certainly make the mind ponder.

Did you know?

The unexpected death of Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt last month at the age of 86 had ultimately spurned on officials of the annual Salzburg Festival at Austria to finally admit to what classical music aficionados had long suspected: in a carefully worded statement issued shortly after the maestro’s demise, Festival officials effectively admitted to banning Harnoncourt from conducting or appearing at its festivities during the duration of rival conductor Herbert von Karajan’s lifetime. Karajan was no stranger to controversy and was once himself excised by the same festival many decades earlier, when a defiant Wilhelm Furtwängler orchestrated a 14-year ban on his nemesis beginning at the height of the second world war. It seemed Karajan took nothing away from the humiliating experience. By banning Harnoncourt from the Festival, the dynamic conductor would prove to Salzburg that he could give as well as he got!

THE STATEMENT:

“The Mozarteum Foundation was also responsible for his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic. After all, Herbert von Karajan did not want him to appear at the Festival during his lifetime. Karajan and Harnoncourt – those were separate musical worlds. However, they did have one thing in common: they were both after truthfulness in music. Both remained seekers throughout their entire lifetimes, but their searches took radically different paths.”

-Rose.

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TODAY IN MUSIC HISTORY: Georg Frideric Händel becomes British, becomes George Frederick Handel

At the beginning of the 18th century, German-born icon of the late baroque Georg Händel could arguably be called a British composer. The young 25 year old citizen of Halle would make a move to the English capital in in the years following his first visit to the country in 1710 – a move that would become a most prosperous and fateful decision for the master of the oratorio and opera.

 Georg Frideric Händel

Within two years of his first arrival at London, Händel, finding much success in England following the premieres of his operas Rinaldo and Il Pastor Fido decided the Scepter’d Isle is where he was meant to flourish to his full potential, and the iconic composer made plans to set up permanent residency in the English capital.

Händel’s official move to London in 1718 was prefaced by an assumed position at the English court via the composer’s connection to the Elector of Hanover, the German Prince George, who had appointed Georg Frideric with an aristocratic post as Kapellmeister to his court in 1710, and who was strongly favored to become the future King and founder of the House of Hanover on the throne of Great Britain – which he became, in 1714, as King George I.

King George I of Great Britain and Ireland

George I was an ardent admirer and generous patron of the prolific composer, appointing Händel ‘Composer of Musik for his Majesty’s Chappel Royal’ in 1723 and moving him into what is now the Handel House Museum - a modest house in Lower Brook Street, London, where the composer resided until his death in 1759. Händel’s compositional talents and allegiance to Britain most probably first garnered the King’s full attention in the brief span between 1711 and 1713, following the wildly successful premieres of Händel’s opera Rinaldo in 1711, Il pastor Fido, and Teseo in 1713; and later that same year, the stalwart German boldly composed an Ode for the Queen’s Birthday (the queen at the time, being British: Queen Anne of England) and the Utrecht Te Deum. Queen Anne, being no lover of music, was reportedly so bowled over by the honor bestowed upon her by Händel, she granted the composer an annual generous allowance of £200. Upon her death the following year and the succession of the Elector George to the British throne, Georg Frideric had already sealed the deal for a position at court. He would become director of music to James Brydges, 1st duke of Chandos, under whose patronage the composer would begin his foray into the creation of the English oratorio, and, by 1723, Händel would become composer of music for the King's Chapel Royal.
 
Händel’s influence on the classical music sphere was incalculable. Ever attuned to the needs of the British, Georg Frideric, at the height of his career, would shape his compositional oeuvre to answer to the social demands of the day, creating large scale choral works and oratorio (the most famous of which is the Messiah, from which the wildly popular Hallelujah Chorus draws it’s home) that were specifically British (such as in the case of the secular oratorio Dettingen Te Deum, which celebrated English victory over the ever troublesome French at the battle of Dettingen) and sensitively democratic (appealing to the oft-ignored religious middle classes who had grown tired of Italian works and their frequent bans, often campy and fantastical story lines and foreign tongue). 

By presenting librettos in the English language, Händel was systematically setting in motion a small class warfare of sorts by elevating the middle classes from textual obscurity by presenting them with both a language and subject matter which they not only freely understood, but which they also could instill in themselves a sense of English pride by sharing the contents of the libretti - which showcased their beliefs, their victories - with other potential fans and patrons. Indeed, it was a win-win situation for both composer and audience. 

Händel's prestigious masterpiece, Music for the Royal Fireworks, commissioned by King George II in 1749 for an all night celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle - disaster aside (there was a sizable fire caused by explosion in one of the pavilions that would leave at least three persons dead) - was most celebrated throughout posterity, and his royal coronation anthem Zadok the Priest continues to be the royal anthem for any and all succeeding British monarchs.

View of the display at London's Green Park on the occasion of the premiere for Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.

These were just but the tip of the monumental mountain of artistic refinement the former German brought to England – and none of it would have been possible were it not for the events that occurred on this day of the 20th of February in 1727, just prior to the death of King George I and the succession of his son, King George II. It was on this day nearly 300 years ago that Georg Frideric^[1] Händel, citizen of Germany became George Frederick Handel, naturalized British subject, exactly one week after applying for citizenship to the land, which, to Händel, had already become home. This would be a necessary step for the foreign-born composer to obtain and secure his status as a true Briton, and one in which the ailing George I fully supported, granting George Frederick Handel royal assent exactly 279 years ago today, ensuring the now British subject would continue on as Composer of the Chapel Royal, and of the hearts and ears of generations to come.


THE MOST CELEBRATED THREE: Hallelujah, from Messiah; Zadok the Priest, coronation anthem to King George II (and every British monarch since); and Music for the Royal Fireworks, in celebration of the ending of the War of the Austrian Succession by the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1729.

 
                   Hallelujah Chorus                              Zadok the Priest                       Music for the Royal Fireworks

Footnotes:

^[1]Some contemporary reports use the Friedrich spelling. This was not at all unusual for the period. For many centuries previous, surnames (or in this instance, middle names) were spelled phonetically, and, as a result, one can often find vast and varied spellings of the same name and individual. This method of sounding out a name would often affect even one's forename.

-Rose.

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