Music History Monday16 Jan 2023

Music History Monday: The Blockhead – Anton Felix Schindler – and Beethoven’s Conversation Books

We mark the death on January 16, 1864 – 159 years ago today – of Anton Felix Schindler, in Frankfurt, at the age of 68. Born on June 13, 1795, in the town of Medlov in today’s Czech Republic, Schindler was, for a time, Beethoven’s “factotum”: his secretary and general assistant. He was also a scoundrel and a profiteer, who after Beethoven’s death lied about his relationship with Beethoven, stole irreplaceable objects and documents from Beethoven’s estate, and falsified and destroyed many of those documents (some of which he later sold off) in order to make himself look better in the eyes of history. Boo-hoo for Schindler: the “making-himself-look-better-in-the-eyes-of-history” thing didn’t work, and today he is regarded as the patron saint of lying and thieving employees. Among the Beethovenian documents Anton Schindler took upon himself to “remove for safekeeping” were Beethoven’s so-called “Conversation Books.” Beethoven’s Conversation Books It took an agonizingly long time for Beethoven to go completely deaf. His hearing loss began in 1796, in his 26th year: a buzzing in his ears and a slow but progressive loss of high frequency hearing. By the fall of 1802, Beethoven had cut himself off from much of his world out […]

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Episoder(120)

Music History Monday: An American in Paris

We mark the London premiere on August 26, 1952 – 72 years ago today – of the film “An American in Paris.” With music by George Gershwin (1898-1937), directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Gene Kelly,...

26 Aug 202420min

Music History Monday: Serge Pavlovich Diaghilev

Serge (or Sergei) Diaghilev (1872-1929) in 1916 We mark the death on August 19, 1929 – 95 years ago today – of the Russian impresario, patron, art critic, and founder of the Ballets Russes Serge (o...

19 Aug 202418min

Music History Monday: Giovanni Gabrieli and the Miracle That is Venice!

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12 Aug 202422min

Music History Monday: The First Professional Composer

Easy Times! We’ve been having a good time, an easy time here at Music History Monday these last few weeks. Five of our last six MHM posts have featured fairly recent musical events from the “popula...

5 Aug 202422min

Music History Monday: Cass Elliot and the Making of an Urban Legend

We mark the death of Cass Elliot on July 29, 1974 – 50 years ago today – in an apartment at No. 9 Curzon Street in London’s Mayfair District. Born on September 19, 1941, she was just 32 years old at ...

29 Jul 202418min

Music History Monday: Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Taylor Swift (born 1989) Only July 22, 2023 – one year ago today – Taylor Swift (born 1989; she has, according to Forbes, a present net worth of $1.3 billion) literally “shook up” Seattle: her conc...

22 Jul 202410min

Music History Monday: An Indispensable Person

Indispensability The title of this blog – “An Indispensable Person” – might be considered controversial. That’s because any number of very smart people would argue that there is, in fact, so such t...

15 Jul 202424min

Music History Monday: What’s in a Name?

We mark the birth on July 8, 1935 – 89 years ago today – of the American Grammy and Emmy Award-winning singer, actor, and comedian Steve Lawrence, in Brooklyn, New York. He died just four months ago,...

8 Jul 202417min