'There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.'

- Sir Thomas Beecham

This advertisement for the famed Beecham's Pills appeared in the July 20, 1893 edition of the Los Angeles Herald. They contained nothing but Aloe, Ginger, and, uh, Soap.

Dept. of Pet Peeves: Memo #2

Violinists treat their first entrance in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto as a 100% out-of-tempo indulgence. But he could've discontinued the bar lines if he wanted that. And lingering while outlining one modulatory chord stalls the harmonic momentum.

From the Dept. of Pet Peeves, Inside Baseball Edition:

I've never understood why Schubert didn't give the scale passage in the opening of his 5th Symphony to the 2nd Violins. As it is, the 1st Violins have to do a clumsy, asymmetrical minor 7th leap to begin the melody in bar 5.

145 years ago today, the British conductor and impresario Thomas Beecham was born in St. Helens, a suburb of Liverpool. The son of a wealthy pharmaceutical manufacturer, he was the first English conductor to establish an international reputation.

“Those who create music deal with a roar rising from a void, imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And this triumph becomes ours.”

- James Baldwin

There have been many ticker-tape parades down Manhattan's 'Canyon of Heroes', but only one for a classical musician, a then-unknown young pianist from Texas named Van Cliburn who had - at the height of the Cold War - won the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Christoph Willibald Gluck, once the most important operatic composer of the early Classical period, is now largely overlooked. And yet his belief that text and narrative should determine an opera's content and form essentially made the works of Berlioz and Wagner possible.

Closely following Beethoven's metronome markings has become a sign of musical virtue. But a paper (linked within article) published in The Journal of The American Mathematical Society presents evidence that his metronome was damaged, limiting their value.

loom.ly/e3AxBhM

118 years ago today, the Swiss conductor, patron and impresario Paul Sacher was born. After marrying a pharmaceutical company heiress, he became a devoted sponsor of new music, commissioning works by Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith, Henze, Boulez, Lutoslawski and many others.

'I must say that I find Wagner personally impossible. My God, the man never stops talking! How can anyone talk that much?'

- Robert Schumann

Igor Stravinsky, listening to Tucker Carlson explain that he was 'just asking questions.'

This is John Taylor, a quack traveling eye surgeon who treated Bach and Handel. His specialty was 'couching', i.e. pushing the clouded lens down so light could get to the retina. After illusory improvement, total blindness would ensue due to scar tissue. By then, he'd fled town.

Dynamic markings - indications of how loud/soft to play/sing - didn't appear in printed music until the late 1500s, and then only sparingly until the late-18th century. This reflected a longstanding norm in which performers and composers were of equivalent creative importance.

On this date in 1749, Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks was premiered in London's Green Park. Famously, rainy weather caused a number of 'strays', variously setting a woman's clothes on fire, burning two soldiers, blinding a third and starting a blaze on a pavilion roof.

“I am petted, honored, and entertained here in every way. I'm apparently 10 times more renowned in America than in Europe. When people told me this, I thought it was an exaggeration. But it seems to be the truth. Here I am a ‘big shot’! Isn’t that curious?!!”

- Tchaikovsky

A conversation between a wealthy patron and Fritz Kreisler after one of his recitals.

P: 'Mr. Kreisler, I'd like you to play at one of my parties.'
K: 'The fee will be $15,000.'
P: 'Uh...fine; but you're NOT to mingle with my guests.'
K: 'Splendid! Then it'll be $2500.'

If time travel was possible, I'd go watch/listen to composer-led/supervised performances of classical masterworks written before ca. 1910. The two parameters I'd want to learn about most are:1) tempo; 2) steadiness vs. flexibility of pulse.

I'd expect the playing to be awful.

One of the tragedies of Mozart's early death is that it cut short the development of his art at a time when it was gaining new layers of depth and complexity. His harmonic language was becoming richer, and his study of Bach and Handel had given his own music a new rigor.

133 years ago today, Tchaikovsky arrived in New York to conduct his music at concerts connected with the opening of Andrew Carnegie's new Music Hall. His American tour would include performances in Philadelphia and Baltimore and visits to Washington, DC and Niagara Falls.