Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Ferencz Liszt, in modern usage also Ferenc Liszt, from 1859 to 1865 officially Franz Ritter von Liszt) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher.
Liszt became renowned throughout Europe during the 19th century for his great skill as a performer. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps the greatest pianist of all time. He was also an important and influential composer, a notable piano teacher, a conductor who contributed significantly to the modern development of the art, and a benefactor to other composers and performers, notably Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin.
As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the "Neudeutsche Schule" ("New German School"). He left behind a huge and diverse body of work, in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some 20th-century ideas and trends. Some of his most notable contributions were the invention of the symphonic poem, developing the concept of thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form and making radical departures in harmony.
When your mother steps in through the door and I turn my head to see at her, falling on her face my gaze does not first fall, but at the place nearer the doorstep, there, where your dear little face would be, when you with bright joy step inside, as you used to, my little daughter. When your mother steps in through the door with the glowing candle, it seems to me, always you came in too, hurrying behind her, as you used to come into the room. Oh you, a father's cell, ah too quickly bright joy lost too soon!
This is Mahler's famous funeral march written in the form of a canon and based upon the children's song, Frère Jacques, played in the minor. It is also famous for opening with a contrabass solo.
Michael Tilson Thomas; San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Sibelius achieved his greatest popularity with Valse triste, a sad waltz which he composed for a play called Death, written by his brother-in-law Arvid Järnefelt. But Sibelius’s immediate circle feared that he was dancing a real Waltz of Death because of his way of living. "Janne, you must give up alcohol. You must," his brother Christian wrote to him on 19th November 1903.
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - Herbert von Karajan, 1983
This is probably the most magnificent performance ever of The Queen of the Night's most famous aria I've ever heard. The German soprano, Diana Damrau sings with conviction, expression, and confidence. A most chilling and terrifying experience!
Purcell is among the Baroque composers who has had a direct influence on modern rock and roll; according to Pete Townshend of The Who, Purcell was among his influences, particularly evident in the opening bars of The Who's "Pinball Wizard". The song "Procession" by British rock band Queen is obviously inspired by the processional section from Purcell's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary," which was also adapted for the synthesizer by Wendy Carlos to serve as the theme music for the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. Meanwhile, noted cult New Wave artist Klaus Nomi regularly performed "The Cold Song" from King Arthur during his career, including a version on his debut self-titled album, Klaus Nomi, from 1981; his last public performance before his untimely death was an interpretation of the piece done with a full orchestra in December 1982 in Munich. Purcell wrote the song for a bass, but numerous countertenors have performed the piece in homage to Nomi. In the 21st century, the soundtrack to the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice features a dance titled "A Postcard to Henry Purcell," which is a version by composer Dario Marianelli of the Abdelazar theme.
Act III Dido and Belinda enter, shocked at Aeneas’ disappearance. Dido is distraught and Belinda comforts her. Suddenly Aeneas returns, but Dido is full of fear before Aeneas speaks, and his words only serve to confirm her suspicions. She derides his reasons for leaving, and even when Aeneas says he will defy the gods and not leave Carthage, Dido rejects him for having once thought of leaving her. After Dido forces Aeneas to leave, she states that "Death must come when he is gone." The opera and Dido's life both slowly come to a conclusion, as the Queen of Carthage sings her last aria, "When I am laid in Earth", also known as "Dido's Lament." The chorus and orchestra then conclude the opera once Dido is dead by ordering the "cupids to scatter roses on her tomb, soft and gentle as her heart. Keep here your watch, and never never never part."
Dido's lament from Purcell's Dido&Aeneas, by the mezzo Xenia Meijer. She teaches Singing in the conservatory of Tilburg, The Netherlands.
The Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791, during the last year of the composer's life. The requiem was Mozart's last composition and is one of his most popular and respected works, although the question of how much of the music Mozart managed to complete before his death and how much was later composed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr or others is still debated.
The Requiem is scored for 2 basset-horns in F, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones (alto, tenor & bass), timpani (2 drums), violins, viola and basso continuo (cello, double bass, and organ or harpsichord). The vocal forces include soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists and an SATB mixed chorus.
You don't even know how hard I worked to find this one! When I was a teenager I used to listen to this waltz on the stereo all the time, but I couldn't remember it's name or who composed it. Then I remembered that out in the garage I had the collection of 33 LP's that it was on, stored in a box. So I dug through and I found it! This has always been one of my very favorites, so today I'm featuring it in honor of the 2nd Annual Willow Manor Ball.
Dr. Grenvil tells Annina that Violetta will not live long since her tuberculosis has worsened. Alone in her room, Violetta reads a letter from Alfredo’s father telling her that the Baron was only wounded in his duel with Alfredo; that he has informed Alfredo of the sacrifice she has made for him and his sister; and that he is sending his son to see her as quickly as possible to ask for her forgiveness. But Violetta senses it is too late (Violetta: Addio del passato – "So closes my sad story").
Annina rushes in the room to tell Violetta of Alfredo's arrival. The lovers are reunited and Alfredo suggests that they leave Paris (Alfredo, Violetta: Parigi, o cara , noi lasceremo – "Dearest, we’ll leave Paris" ).
But it is too late: she knows her time is up (Alfredo, Violetta: Gran Dio! morir si giovane – "O, God! to die so young"). Alfredo's father enters with the doctor, regretting what he has done. Very quickly, Violetta dies in Alfredo’s arms.
Renée Fleming as Violeta, Rollando Villázon as Alfredo and Renato Bruson as Germont singing the last scene of Verdi's La Traviata. Conductor James Conlon, Los Angeles Opera, 2006
Gloomy Sunday is a song composed by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress in 1933 to a Hungarian poem written by László Jávor (original Hungarian title of both song and poem "Szomorú vasárnap") in which the singer mourns the untimely death of a lover and contemplates suicide.
Though recorded and performed by many singers, Gloomy Sunday is closely associated with Billie Holiday, who scored a hit version of the song in 1941. Due to unsubstantiated urban legends about its inspiring hundreds of suicides, "Gloomy Sunday" was dubbed the "Hungarian suicide song" in the United States. Seress did commit suicide in 1968, but most other rumors of the song being banned from radio, or sparking suicides, are unsubstantiated, and were partly propagated as a deliberate marketing campaign. Possibly due to the context of the Second World War, Billie Holiday's version was, however, banned by the BBC.
Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...
In one of the darkest scenes in all of opera, Mozart brings forth an apparition to judge the lecherous Don Giovanni and drag from him a confession and repentance or cast him into hell. Thrilling and terrifying.
Don Giovanni - Rodney Gilfry
Leporello - László Polgár
Commendatore - Matti Salminen
Der Erlkönig (often called just Erlkönig) is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking or "Erlkönig" (suggesting the literal translation "alder king", but see below). It was originally composed by Goethe as part of a 1782 ballad opera entitled Die Fischerin.
The poem has been used as the text for lieder (art songs for voice and piano) by many classical composers, the most famous undoubtedly being that of Franz Schubert, his Opus 1 (D. 328).
Goethe's poem begins with a young boy being brought home by his father. The meaning is somewhat ambiguous, as the word "Hof" has the rather generic meaning of "yard" or "court". In this case, however, it is a short form of "farmyard" (though the long form "Bauernhof" is more common for this sense). The ambiguity about the father's social rank is quite acceptable because any father would have similar feelings about a son or daughter so ill and in pain.
The poem begins by giving the impression that the child is simply dying from a vague, unspecified ailment and sees death as a figment of his imagination. As it proceeds, the poem takes an ever darker twist and ends with the child's death.
One story has it that Goethe was visiting a friend when, late one night, a dark figure carrying a bundle in its arms was seen riding past the gate at high speed. The next day Goethe and his friend were told that they had seen a farmer taking his sick son to the doctor. This incident, along with the legend, is said to have been the main inspiration for the poem.
Some readers, visualising the father's embrace of his ailing son, may assume that the child is sick and in need of medical attention. However, the poem's characterisation of the child's condition is ambiguous.
Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He holds the boy in the crook of his arm
He holds him safe, he keeps him warm.
"My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?"
"Father, do you not see the Elfking?
The Elfking with crown and tail?"
"My son, it's a wisp of fog."
"You lovely child, come, go with me!
Many a beautiful game I'll play with you;
Some colourful flowers are on the shore,
My mother has many golden robes."
"My father, my father, can't you hear,
What the Elfking quietly promised me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
The wind rustles through dry leaves."
"Do you want to come with me, dear boy?
My daughters shall wait on you fine;
My daughters lead the nightly dances
And will rock and dance and sing you to sleep."
"My father, my father, can't you see there,
The Elfking's daughters in the gloomy place?"
"My son, my son, I see it well:
The old willows they shimmer so grey."
"I love you, your beautiful form entices me;
And if you're not willing, I shall use force."
"My father, my father, he's grabbing me now!
The Elfking has done me harm!"
The father shudders; he rides swiftly,
He holds the moaning child in his arms.
He can hardly manage to reach his farm;
In his arms, the child was dead.
Franz Schubert : Erlkönig (D328) (from Goethe's Ballade): the incomparable performance of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a famous thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano. It is a medieval Latin poem, differing from classical Latin by its accentual (non-quantitative) stress and its rhymed lines. The meter is trochaic. The poem describes the day of judgment, the last trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames.
The hymn is best known from its use as a sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. It was removed from the Catholic liturgy in the liturgical reform of 1969-1970, but can still be heard when the older form of the Mass is used. An English version of it is found in various missals used in the Anglican Communion.
I don't know about you, but when I read Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series when I was a teenager, the mere description of the Ringwraiths or Black Riders sent me hiding under my bed covers, but when I saw the movie, they scared the caa-caa out of me! I'm convinced that a great deal of that terrifying effect came from Howard Shore's amazing film score.
Act III Scene 3: The graveyard of the Ravenswood family
Edgardo is resolved to kill himself on Enrico's sword. He learns that Lucia is dying and then Raimondo comes to tell him that she has already died. Edgardo stabs himself with a dagger, hoping to be re-unified with Lucia in heaven.
This scene features the fabulous Polish tenor, Piotr Beczala, as Edgardo.
Unless you're an avid student of Mozart, you've probably never heard this piece nor did you know that it existed. However, I would rank it as one of his best due to the tonal imagery that he used to create the sounds of death. As you listen to the first bars you can actually hear the labored "breathing in and breathing out", followed by the final breath as the soul passes through the veil. You will also hear his use of the trombones, an instrument that in Mozart's day was only used in funeral music and/or Requiem masses.
Between the gorgeous music by Gabriel Fauré and the riveting images of the Staglieno cemetery in Genoa, Italy, this video has become one of my very favorites on YouTube. I go back to it often to reflect, to listen, to cry, to ponder. It's a beautiful tribute to humanity's ever-constant struggle with death.
I thought it entirely appropriate for my "Thirty-one days of Halloween" series. If you watch it, you'll see why.
One of my favorite early Baroque operas, Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, contains a scene which introduces the antagonist, the Sorceress. I hesitate to call her a villain, for in the original Greek version, she is merely a goddess who controls the fates. However, for Purcell's tale, she takes on the disguise of a witch and the fates, her demon minions.
I sang this role several years ago and fell in love with it. If you ever get the rare opportunity to see a production of this piece, I highly recommend it. It's well worth it.
Danse Macabre (first performed in 1875) is the name of opus 40 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
The composition is based upon a poem by Henri Cazalis, on an old French superstition: Zig, zig, zig, Death in a cadence, Striking with his heel a tomb, Death at midnight plays a dance-tune, Zig, zig, zig, on his violin. The winter wind blows and the night is dark; Moans are heard in the linden trees. Through the gloom, white skeletons pass, Running and leaping in their shrouds. Zig, zig, zig, each one is frisking, The bones of the dancers are heard to crack— But hist! of a sudden they quit the round, They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed.
According to the ancient superstition, "Death" appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death has the power to call forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays his fiddle (represented by a solo violin with its E-string tuned to an E-flat in an example of scordatura tuning). His skeletons dance for him until the first break of dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year.
The piece opens with a harp playing a single note, D, twelve times to signify the clock striking midnight, accompanied by soft chords from the string section. This then leads to the eerie E flat and A chords (also known as a tritone or the "Devil's chord") played by a solo violin, representing death on his fiddle. After which the main theme is heard on a solo flute and is followed by a descending scale on the solo violin. The rest of the orchestra, particularly the lower instruments of the string section, then joins in on the descending scale. The main theme and the scale is then heard throughout the various sections of the orchestra until it breaks to the solo violin and the harp playing the scale. The piece becomes more energetic and climaxes at this point; the full orchestra playing with strong dynamics.Towards the end of the piece, there is another violin solo, now modulating, which is then joined by the rest of the orchestra. The final section, a pianissimo, represents the dawn breaking and the skeletons returning to their graves.
The piece makes particular use of the xylophone in a particular theme to imitate the sounds of rattling bones. Saint-Saëns uses a similar motif in the Fossils part of his Carnival of the Animals.
Steph and I just returned from a recital given at Oklahoma State University by University of Missouri piano professor, Janice Wenger, on an exact reproduction of a Viennese instrument built by Anton Walter in about 1802. The fortepiano was created in 2006 by Paul McNulty, an American working in the Czech Republic. The concert featured two pieces by Haydn, a Mozart and the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata. I have to admit that the Beethoven was my favorite, as I've never heard this piece played on the instrument for which it was composed. What a thrilling experience!
This is from a Manhattan School of Music performance of the finale of Mozart's Symphony no 40 in G minor. The young conductor's name is Brett Mitchell. And notice the orchestra. Some of them look like they couldn't be much older than 10 or 11 years old. Fantastic performance by any standard! Bravo, kids!
It wasn't until nearly five years after her death of a malignant brain tumor that I discovered this incredible soprano, Arleen Auger, however, since then I've listened to a number of her recordings and she is by far and away my favorite Mozart soprano. I own two recordings of her, 1) Singing the Mozart Mass in C minor and on the same recording, the Mozart Exultate Jubilate, and 2) her last public performance, singing the soprano solo in Mozart's Requiem at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna on the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death, December 5th, 1991.
The recording I have posted here, isn't of Auger singing Mozart, but of her singing Bach's "Bist du bei mir". Never have I heard such grace, warmth, and elegance combined in one voice as in Auger's.
I heard this for the first time in the film "French Kiss" starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline and I fell in love with it. Thank goodness for YouTube or I would have never found it. Great stuff! Makes me want to sit in a Parisian cafe and drink wine.
Here's the English translation of the Italian lyrics:
Away with me
Away, away, get away with me
Nothing more binds you to these places
Not even these blue flowers
Let's get away, let's get away, not even this grey time
Full of musics and people that you liked
It's wonderful...
Away Away, let's get away
Enter this dark love, don't get lost for anything in the world
away, away, don't get lost for anything in the world
The art spectacle differs depending on someone who is in love with you
It's wonderfull ...
Away , away, let's get away.
Enter this dark love full of people
Away, away, enter and take a warm bath
There s a blue bath gown (nearby),
it rains a cold world outside
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed this concerto in Salzburg, 1777. Though only 21 years old, he displayed great maturity and originality in what is regarded by many as his first great masterpiece. Renowned pianist Alfred Brendel has referred to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9, known as the Jeunehomme, as a "wonder of the world," going so far as to assert that Mozart "did not surpass this piece in the later piano concertos."
Countless beloved pieces of so-called classical music have a nickname, often one not given by the composer. Mozart would have no idea what the "Jupiter" Symphony is, Beethoven the "Emperor" Concerto or "Moonlight" Sonata, or Schubert the "Unfinished" Symphony. The names sometimes come from savvy publishers who know they can improve sales, or from impresarios, critics, or performers. The case of the Concerto we hear today is particularly interesting, and only recently explained. Little is known of the genesis or first performance of the E-flat Concerto. Twentieth-century accounts usually stated that Mozart composed it for a French keyboard virtuoso named Mademoiselle Jeunehomme, who visited Salzburg in the winter of 1777. Nothing else was known, not even the woman's first name.
In 2006, the Viennese musicologist Michael Lorenz, a specialist in the music of Mozart's and Schubert's time and a brilliant archival detective, figured out the mystery. The nickname was coined by the French scholars Théodore de Wyzewa and Georges de Saint-Foix in their classic early-20th-century study of the composer. As Lorenz explains, "Since one of their favorite names for Mozart was 'jeune homme' (young man), they presented this person as 'Mademoiselle Jeunehomme.'"
In a September 1778 letter Mozart wrote to his father, he referred to three recent concertos, "one for the jenomy [K. 271], litzau [K. 246], and one in B-flat [K. 238]" that he was selling to a publisher. Leopold later called the first pianist "Madame genomai." (Spellings were often variable and phonetic at the time.) Lorenz has identified her as Victoire Jenamy, born in Strasbourg in 1749 and married to a rich merchant, Joseph Jenamy, in 1768. Victoire was the daughter of the celebrated dancer and choreographer Jean Georges Noverre (1727-1810), who was a good friend of Mozart's. He had choreographed a 1772 Milan production of Mozart's opera Lucio Silla and later commissioned the ballet Les Petits Riens for Paris. Although we still know little about Victoire Jenamy—she does not appear to have been a professional musician, though clearly Mozart admired her playing—Mozart's first great piano concerto can now rightly be called by its proper name: "Jenamy."
Mitsuko Uchida plays piano and Jeffrey Tate conducts the Mozarteum Orchestra in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 "Jeunehomme", in E flat major, K. 271. A Salzburg Festival performance, recorded in the Mozarteum, Salzburg, 1989
Josepha Barbara Auernhammer (also Aurnhammer) was born in Vienna on September 25, 1758 to Johann Michael Auernhammer and Elizabeth Timmer. Her first music teachers were Georg Friedrich Richter (or Joseph Richter) and the Bohemian pianist Leopold Anton Kozeluch. In 1781 her family took in a border, newly arrived in Vienna, named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and she became one of his first students in this city. In Mozart’s many letters to his father this year he frequently mentioned her. It seems that she had a sound technical facility, but he noted “in cantabile playing she has not got the real delicate singing style”. Soon, though, he declared that he was thoroughly pleased with her progress and delighted with her keyboard skills.
During the summer of 1781 Mozart prepared for publication a set of six sonatas for piano and violin, what he called his “Opus 2” and are now labeled K.376, 296, and 377-380. These he dedicated to Josepha and they have become known as the “Auernhammer sonatas”.
This morning I awakened wishing that I was in Vienna as Steph and I were four years ago today beginning the first on-location shoots for Mozartballs. I think I will never get over that beautiful city, nor do I ever wish to.
I've fallen in love all over again. And although the object of my affection still has a large, prominent nose and wears a red coat and a powdered wig, I've made some new discoveries. Several weeks ago I posted Mozart's violin sonata, K. 304. Today I'm posting K. 303, and am every bit as enamored with this one as I was that one. Listen and fall in love, too.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sonata for Piano and Violin K303 Gil Shaham, Violin, Orli Shaha, Piano.
I've always loved this gorgeous piece, but never more than when it is played by the incomparable Yo Yo Ma. Sit back, close your eyes and breathe it in.
The move is over and we're settling in to our new home. It's been a difficult transition to say the least, but we're starting to recover. In the meantime, I'm posting one of my very favorite Mozart trios, "Soave sia il vento" from Cosi fan tutte, because it's just the kind of soothing music I need today.
Here are Sir Thomas Allen, Susanne Mentzer, and Carol Vaness in a 1996 Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte.
I've done this several times before: I present three different performances of a piece, and you choose the performance you like best. Here are three very well-known and loved artists performing the beautiful and haunting Rachmaninoff Vocalise. Choose your favorite and tell us why you prefer that particular performance.
I made a new discovery as I was painting the house yesterday. Although I have owned a recording of Mozart's marvelous sonatas for piano and violin, for several years now, I hadn't paid much attention to it. But yesterday, as I painted the trim over the archway to the dining room of our new house, I was given the opportunity to really listen to and fall in love with these uncelebrated works. I realized then, that it is in Mozart's chamber works that much of his true genius is found.
I've heard several people, upon listening to the chamber works of Mozart, exclaim, "That sounds like Schubert", to which I usually reply, "No, Schubert sounds like Mozart. Mozart did come first, you know."
Today Steph, Joel, and I are piling into the van with our painting clothes on to begin painting the interior of our new home! Whenever Steph and I engage in activities such as painting, cleaning, etc. we like to listen to Baroque music, for the steady, constant, dance tempo keeps one stimulated and moving. So today I'll be armed with my paint brush and a good collection of music by Handel!
Today I'm featuring the Hornpipe from Handel's Watermusic Suite, an all-time favorite of mine!
We've been experiencing some extremely hot temperatures over the last several days. Over the past week our temps have been jumping as high as 109°, (Fahrenheit), with heat indexes as high as 115°! There have been heat advisories all over the southwestern part of the country, including most of the entire state of Oklahoma.
This wonderful clip seems entirely appropriate for such days as these. I've always loved Gershwin and Porgy and Bess is among my favorite of Gershwin's works. Here is the unforgettable Summertime from Porgy and Bess.
Gotta love this 1930's version of Britney Spears' early hit, Oops! I did it again, by the German singer Max Raabe & Palatsorchester. It's straight out of 1930's Berlin!
I looked up the comps on the little cottage that we're moving into and found out that it was built in 1930. Yesterday we signed the lease and were given the key to do a walk-through. It still has the original casement windows and retains all of its early 1930's charm.
For some historical perspective: 1930 was the year Hitler was elected as the supreme leader in Germany.
The clip I've chosen for today is from a 1930 film starring Bebe Daniels and Everett Marshall.
Edward Rutledge, delegate from South Carolina, is unhappy with the passage in the Declaration of Independence concerning slavery. A very provoking and powerful scene, it refers to the Triangular Trade Route. Triangular trade, or Triangle trade, is a historical term indicating trade among three ports or regions. The trade evolved where a region had an export commodity that was required in the region from which its major imports came. Triangular trade thus provided a mechanism for rectifying trade imbalances. The Transatlantic Triangular Trade operated during the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, carrying slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between West Africa, the Caribbean or American colonies and the European colonial powers, with the northern colonies of British North America, especially New England, sometimes taking over the role of Europe.
The use of African slaves was fundamental to growing colonial cash crops, which were exported to Europe. European goods, in turn, were used to purchase African slaves, which were then brought on the sea lane west from Africa to the Americas, the so called middle passage.
A classic example would be the trade of sugar (often in its liquid form, molasses) from the Caribbean to Europe or New England, where it was distilled into rum, some of which was then used to purchase new slaves in West Africa.
1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. It is based on the events leading to the writing and signing of the United States Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1776.
The musical was produced on Broadway in 1969, running for 1,217 performances, and was made into a film of the same name in 1972. The show was nominated for five Tony Awards and won three, including Best Musical.
Information source: Wikipedia
The following is from the 1972 film version of the musical starring William Daniels as John Adams, Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin, and Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson. If you've not seen this film I highly recommend it!
I must confess that I only just discovered this little gem of a baritone this last weekend when Lauren gave me the DVD recording of the 2003 Covent Garden production of Die Zauberflöte. Who knew that a guy who did his major studies in zoology could sing like that? Simon Keenlyside (born August 3, 1959, London, England), is a British baritone opera singer. He is the son of Raymond and Ann Keenlyside. His father played second violin in the Aeolian Quartet, and his grandfather was also a professional violinist. Keenlyside has said: "Where other children would have nursery rhymes, I’d go to bed to the sounds of Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert." As a child, Keenlyside was a chorister under Dr George Guest in the choir of St John's College, Cambridge.
Keenlyside read zoology at Cambridge University, returning to St John's as a choral scholar, before studying singing at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. After graduation, he won a Peter Moore Foundation Scholarship (1985) and chose to join the Royal Northern College of Music to study voice with John Cameron, who opened up the world of German Lieder to him. He says "I wanted to learn to sing, and earning money at that point would have been, I'm sure, detrimental to learning how to sing". “…when I was in my mid-twenties my voice wasn’t ready for opera. John was rightly concerned that I should not force my natural vocal weight, like some singers do – a Faustian pact you pay for later with wobble and nodules.”
Here's Keenlyside as a very 18th century and I'm sure Mozart-approved Count Almaviva in a 2001 Vienna Staatsoper production of Le Nozze di Figaro.
