Tag Archives: Pianist

Erik Satie~ Born May 17, 1866

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Portrait of Erik Satie Playing the Harmonium by Santiago Rusiñol

Erik Satie, original name in full Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born May 17, 1866, Honfleur, Calvados, France—died July 1, 1925, Paris), French composer whose spare, unconventional, often witty style exerted a major influence on 20th-century music, particularly in France.
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During his last 10 years Satie’s best friends were painters, many of whom he had met while a café pianist. Satie was nonetheless deeply admired by composers of the rank of Darius Milhaud, Maurice Ravel, and, in particular, Claude Debussy—of whom he was an intimate friend for close to 30 years.
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His ballet Parade (1917; choreographed by Léonide Massine, scenario by Jean Cocteau, stage design and costumes by Pablo Picasso) was scored for typewriters, sirens, airplane propellers, ticker tape, and a lottery wheel and anticipated the use of jazz materials by Igor Stravinsky and others. The word Surrealism was used for the first time in Guillaume Apollinaire’s program notes for Parade.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-Satie

Watch the 1917 Ballet “Parade”: Created by Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso & Jean Cocteau,
It Provoked a Riot and Inspired the Word “Surrealism” (from Open Culture)
http://www.openculture.com/2017/05/the-1917-ballet-parade-created-by-erik-satie-pablo-picasso-jean-cocteau.html

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Van Cliburn: Born July 12, 1934

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…But if the Tchaikovsky competition represented Mr. Cliburn’s breakthrough, it also turned out to be his undoing. Relying inordinately on his keen musical instincts, he was not an especially probing artist, and his growth was stalled by his early success. Audiences everywhere wanted to hear him in his prizewinning pieces, the Tchaikovsky First Concerto and the Rachmaninoff Third. Every American town with a community concert series wanted him to come play a recital.
“When I won the Tchaikovsky I was only 23, and everyone talked about that,” Mr. Cliburn said in 2008. “But I felt like I had been at this thing for 20 years already. It was thrilling to be wanted. But it was pressure, too.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/arts/music/van-cliburn-pianist-dies-at-78.html

TickerTape

 

March 22~

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Théo Ysaÿe (1865-1918)
art:  Detail, caricature of Theo Ysaÿe and brother Eugène Ysaÿe
bio: https://musopen.org/composer/theo-ysaye/
video: https://youtu.be/7eHXRCuHtyQ

 

 

 

 


Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916)
art: Sketch of Hamish MacCunn by J.B.B., after John Pettie, National Portrait Gallery, London
bio: http://musicofyesterday.com/biographies/biographies-m/hamish-maccunn/
video: https://youtu.be/c4p7SLbWdGg

Frédéric Chopin: Born March 1, 1810 (?)

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ChopinFryderyk Franciszek Chopin…and his family held his date of birth to be 1 March 1810, yet the certificate of baptism signed in the parish church of Brochów is dated 22 February. That discrepancy has still not been entirely resolved, although today it is the date celebrated by Chopin and his family that is more often used. http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/life/biography/page/1