Today, March 1, we are celebrating Chopin’s birthday. (Actually, not all musicologists agree on the date, with two earlier dates proposed by some). Although we may know Chopin as a composer and George Sand’s lover, we often forget that he was an outstanding teacher. Yet, the facts are there: Chopin, who was self-taught (his only piano teacher, Zywny, was a violinist!), spent nearly a quarter of his life teaching, which clearly shows the importance he attributed to that profession. As shown by many testimonies from his pupils, collected in Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger’s incomparable reference book, Chopin did not teach merely to make a little money on the side, but because he had a real passion for teaching.

“In his lessons, Chopin worked with both music and words. He didn’t just play a few fragments over his pupils’ shoulders, but often performed the entire piece for them, even repeating it several times while varying his interpretation, continually seeking perfection. Yet he insisted on having the formal structure of the studied pieces analysed and often had recourse to metaphor or comparison to make the atmosphere perceptible, as if to arouse in the student the right musical impulse. Whereas the young Liszt (1832) tried to stimulate the imagination of a student using a freshly acquired bit of culture by reading a page from Chateaubriand or a poem by Hugo, all that was needed for Chopin was a formula with imagery, preferably of a lapidary style, because he was intensely penetrated by the reality of his vision at the very moment that he translated it into words. These spontaneous creations that made a multitude of imaginary spirits spring before his eyes – here a house of the dead, elsewhere the dialogue between an oppressor and his victim – do not bear witness so much to a literary temperament as much as to a visionary imagination and a poetical feeling finding its roots in popular Slavic legends.” (Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger,Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by his Pupils J

To listen to his Third Sonata, performed by Anton Kuerti…

Violinist, then violist, proud herald of avant garde music, Paul Hindemith seems to be one of those composers we don’t know much about.

It is in1922 that some of his pieces were heard for the first time in the International Society for Contemporary Music festival at Salzburg and brought him to the attention of an international audience. The following year, he began to work as an organizer of the Donaueschingen Festival, where he programmed works by several avant garde composers, including Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg.

While some condemned his music as “degenerate” ans Joseph Goebbels publicly denounced Hindemith as an “atonal noisemaker”, others thought that he might provide Germany with an example of a modern German composer. He finally emigrated to Switzerland in 1938, then to the USA in 1940 and taught composition at the prestigious Yale University where he had such notable pupils as Lukas Foss, Norman Dello Joio, Mel Powell, Harold Shapero, Hans Otte, Ruth Schonthal, and Oscar-winning film director George Roy Hill. He became an American citizen in 1946, but returned to Europe in 1953, living in Zürich and teaching musicology at the university there.

Here are some famous quotes by the composer.

“My God, how can anyone ever be a master of music?”

“People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.”

“There are only twelve tones and they need to be treated carefully.”

“There are only two things worth aiming for, good music and a clean conscience.”

I invite you to discover his wonderful Sonata for Harp, as performed by Valérie Milot on her Revelation album…

As a child, I plunged in the music of Schumann, head first so to speak, way before knowing anything about Eusebius, Florestan, Raro, the Philistines, Clara. The Album for the Young was invested, one piece at a time, as Schumann would have liked it to be, as a guide for the beginner that I was. A few years after that, I would discover his Romanza in F sharp major. (I must have thought the work was too beautiful to pass on, despite the six sharps taunting me as key signature.) I also played many Novelettes at that time. When I was 17, it was “the” chamber music revelation of my (then) short life: his Piano Quintet. I since then added to my list of favourites the sublime Dichterliebe (The love of the poet), the Papillons, the Fantasy, the Concerto, the Carnaval, that contains all the germs of this great composer’s genius. (more…)

Through the years, he also became diplomatic correspondent, Kapellmeister of the courts of Duke Ernst of Gotha and eventually Kantor of the Hamburg Johanneum, a position that required  him to compose two cantatas a week, to produce a new Passion annually, and to provide occasional works for church and civil ceremonies. But it wasn’t enough for Telemann who also wanted to have his hand at opera, despite the opposition of the city fathers. Fed up with their attitude, he threatened to resign and applied for the post of Kantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche, and in 1722 was chosen over Bach, Graupner and three other candidates. Since the Hamburg City Council refused to grant his release, they were nevertheless obliged to improve his salary and withdraw their objections to his association with the Hamburg Opera. Telemann remained in Hamburg until his death in 1767, being succeeded in that position by his godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, son of Johann Sebastian.

Considered the most famous musician in Germany, Telemann was an extremely prolific composer, and wrote more than 3000 works (some sources mention 3600), including more than 1500 church cantatas, 600 suites for orchestra and 46 settings of the Passion! Handel, a lifelong friend, would jokingly relate that Telemann “could write a church piece in eight parts with the same expedition another would write a letter”.

Listen to Telemann and the Baroque Gypsies, Ensemble Caprice’s latest album…

Born in Magdeburg in 1681, Georg Philipp Telemann showed considerable musical talent as a child and played the violin, the flute, the zither and keyboard. By the age of twelve, he had already composed an opera (Sigismundus), much to the dismay of his family who strongly disapproved of music. Georg Philipp’s will was stronger than all the negative energy surrounding his musical practice though and he relentlessly perfected his playing and his compositional skills, partly by transcribing works by Agostino Steffani, Johann Rosenmüller, Corelli and Antonio Caldara.

To his mother’s insistence, Telemann studied law at Leipzig University but, soon enough a career in music became the only possible path. While at the University, he founded the student Collegium Musicum with which he gave public concerts, an ensemble that Johann Sebastian Bach was later to direct. He also wrote operas for the Leipzig Theater, and in 1703 became musical director of the Leipzig Opera.

Two years later, he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau (now Zary). The proximity of the court to Berlin and contact with Polish folk music all proved very stimulating for the young composer but Telemann’s tenure was cut short by the imminent prospect of invasion by the Swedish army.

He then moved to Eisenach and his appointment there just overlapped with the presence of Bach. After his wife’s sudden death in 1711, he took up duties as Director of Municipal Music and also as Kapellmeister of the Barfüßerkirche in Frankfurt-am-Main. He composed occasional music for civic ceremonies, church cantatas, oratorios, orchestral music and a wealth of chamber music.

To listen to Telemann’s music…