Schubery, Mendelssohn, 2024

This Week in Classical Music: January 29, 2024.  Schubert, Mendelssohn and extra.  What an distinctive week: Franz Schubert was born on January 31^st of 1797, and February 3^rd is the anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn, born 12 years later, in 1809.  We simply celebrated Mozart’s birthday; he died very younger, at 35.  Schubert’s life was even shorter: he was 31 when he handed away, and Mendelssohn – solely 38.  All three might’ve lived twice as lengthy, and our tradition would’ve been a lot richer.  Schubert is one in all our perennial favorites (tastes and predilections change, Schubert stays) and we’ve written many entries about him (right here and right here, for instance), together with longer articles on his track cycles.  There are lots of of his items in our library – he stays one of the usually carried out composers.  His life was not eventful, his music was chic, so right here’s one in all his songs: An die Musik, that’s, To Music that Schubert composed in March of 1817 (he was twenty).  Nothing might be less complicated and extra stunning.  We couldn’t choose a favourite recording, there are too many glorious ones, so we current three, all sung by the Germans: soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with the nice pianist, Edwin Sicher, launched in 1958 (right here); the 1967 recording made by the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Roger Moore (right here); and Fritz Wunderlich, an incredible tenor who additionally died at 35, accompanied by Hubert Giesen in a 1967 recording (right here).  You’ll be able to resolve for your self which one you want higher. 

As for Mendelssohn, his most well-known “songs” were not vocal howeverfor piano solo:Songs with out Phrases.  Nonetheless, he additionally composed “actual” songs – not as many as Schubert, in fact, who wrote about 600 – and a few of them are great.  Right here, for instance, is Gruss (Greeting), a track from his op. 19a on a poem by Henrich Heine.  It’s carried out by the Irish tenor Robin Tritschler, accompanied by Malcolm Martineau.  When he wrote his songs op. 19a, Mendelssohn wasn’t a lot older than Schubert of An die Musik: he began the cycle on the age of 21.  

Three Italian composers had been additionally born this week: Alessandro Marcello, on February 1^st of 1673, Luigi Dallapiccola, on February 3^rd of 1904, and Luigi Nono, on January 29^th of 1924.  We’ve by no means written about Dallapiccola regardless that he was a really attention-grabbing composer; we’ll do it subsequent week. 

Additionally, yesterday was Arthur Rubinstein’s birthday (he was born in 1887, 137 years in the past, however his ever-popular recordings proof that he was one of many biggest pianists of the 20^th century).  Two great singers had been additionally born this week, the Italian soprano Renata Tebaldi on February 1^st of 1922, and the Swedish tenor Jussi Björling, one of many few non-Italians who might sing Italian operas in addition to one of the best of the locals, on February 5^th of 1911.