Elfriede Harden News
Last update
2024-03-29
Refresh
2021-12-15 08:18:32
Meyerbeer's first opera, written when he was just 21, is finally available in a modern recording that enables us to begin to appreciate what we've been missing
Meyerbeer Jephtas Gelübde; Sönke Tams Freier, Andrea Chudak, Markus Elsäßer, Laurence Kalaidjian, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Dario Salvi; Naxos Music Library Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 December 2021 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★) Meyerbeer's first opera, written when he had just turned twenty, finally recorded in a performance that allows us to appreciate the imagination of the workGiacomo Meyerbeer was talented young and coming from a wealthy Berlin Jewish family, the Beers [see my review of Elaine Thornton's book, Giacomo Meyerbeer and his family: Between two worlds], he received great encouragement and support from his family. Having studied with Antonio Salieri and Carl Friedrich Zelter, at the age of 19 in 1810 he went for formal lessons with Abbé Vogler at Darmstadt, where fellow students included Carl Maria von Weber (who would become a friend and supporter), some five years older then Meyerbeer. The time with Vogler was important for […]
2021-03-01 06:26:00
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez (SACD review)
Also, music by Coll, de Falla, Albeniz, Harden. Jacob Kellermann, guitar; Christian Karlsen, London Philharmonic Orchestra; Norrbotten NEO. BIS BIS-2485.By John J. PuccioAccording to Wikipedia, “The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German Gitarre, and the French guitare were all adopted from the Spanish guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic (qitharah) and the Latin cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek. Kithara appears in the Bible four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp.”So the origins of the modern guitar date back thousands of years. The surprise is that Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) didn’t write what has become quite possibly the most-popular guitar concerto of all time, the Concierto de Aranjuez, until 1939. What’s more, […]
2020-06-15 07:20:50
Richard Wagner's heir, innovative festival director, opera composer, homosexual; the complex tale of Siegfried Wagner,
[…] Papa did it in 1876?" (Siegfried was 14 when his father died in 1883). It was Siegfried who was responsible for introducing new staging and performance styles. Siegfried and Winifred Siegfried and Winifred Wagner Siegfried was bisexual, and for years, his mother urged him to marry and provide the Wagner dynasty with heirs, but he fought off her increasingly desperate urgings. But around 1913, pressure on him increased due to the Harden-Eulenburg Affair (1907–1909) where the journalist Maximilian Harden accused several public figures, most notably Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg-Hertefeld, a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II, of homosexuality. In this climate, the family found it suitable to arrange a marriage with a 17-year-old Englishwoman, Winifred Klindworth, and at the Bayreuth festival of 1914 she was introduced to the then-45-year-old Siegfried.Siegfried and Winifred married on 22 September 1915, and they would have four children. Though the marriage provided […]
2019-01-26 00:00:51
Thomas Beller describes the thrill of watching the Houston Rockets’ James Harden play and analyzes his remarkable, skillful step-back.
or
- timeline: Lyrical singers.
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): H...