tidbits vernon 228 june 26 2015 classical composers online

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June 26 - July 2, 2015 Issue 00228

TIDBITS® MAKES MUSIC WITH SOME CLASSICAL COMPOSERS

by Kathy WolfeThis week, Tidbits is tuning into the facts on several famous composers who brought us some of the world’s favorite music. • Although many folks lump all of “classical

music” together, there are actually four main periods of classification based on the time frame and characteristics of the music. The music of each period has traits that distinguish it from another. The Baroque Period is considered from 1600-1750, with its complex melodies composed by Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi, among others. During the Classical Period from 1750-1825, composers such as Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven wrote music with well-defined form, for example, the sonata, symphony, and concerto. Music composed during the Romantic Period from 1825 to the early 20th century became more expressive and emotional. Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, and Schumann were some of the main composers during this era. The music of the 20th century abandoned structural rules and introduced news styles and ideas, composed by such geniuses as Ravel, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Shostakovich.

• Ludwig von Beethoven was becoming a well-known composer at age 30 and was already experiencing the disastrous indications of deafness.

• Beethoven experienced severe tinnitus, conveying his feelings in his writings,” My ears whistle and roar incessantly, night and day. I can say that I am leading a miserable life.” By age 31, he had lost 60% of his hearing, and by 46, he was completely deaf. Several causes have been suggested including lead poisoning or typhus. An autopsy revealed that

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three small bones of his inner ear were fused together, as well as being covered in lesions. Although Beethoven’s public performances lessened due to his deafness, his composing continued, writing his breathtaking Ninth Symphony after completely losing his hearing.

• Beethoven composed nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, 32 piano sonatas, five piano concertos, a violin concerto, and an opera. This doesn’t begin to include the enormous amount of his chamber music and piano compositions. Careful listeners to his music can detect his intense emotions and love of nature. Various instruments create the sound of a wind and rain storm in the country, following by the serenity of the storm’s end. His use of trills on the violin imitate the chirping of insects and birds, while soft instrumental sounds mimic a flowing brook.

• Even folks who are not classical music fans will most likely recognize compositions by Peter Tchaikovsky, the composer of The Nutcracker Suite, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, and Swan Lake. This Russian composer was able to read French and German by the age of six. He entered law school and worked as a clerk but took music lessons on the side, beginning to compose. He married in his mid-30s, but left his wife after a few weeks, claiming she “possessed little intelligence.”

• Tchaikovsky was befriended by an anonymous benefactor, a very wealthy widow who financed him while he composed. The pair exchanged more than 1,000 letters over the next 13 years, but, upon her insistence, never met face to face. The widow abruptly terminated the relationship, claiming she was broke, an unfounded claim. Tchaikovsky never heard from her again. His death remains a mystery,

with some claiming he killed himself. The more accepted explanation is death from cholera after drinking contaminated drinking water. His death came just one week after the premiere of his Symphony Pathetique, considered by many to be his greatest work.

• Considered the world’s first real child prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began studying violin and harpsichord at age 3. At 5, he was performing at the University of Salzburg and before Vienna’s Imperial Court the following year. He was 6 when he began composing minuets and other short pieces. His first symphony came along at age 8 and an opera at 12. Mozart received all of his education from his father, and never attended a school. He frequently experienced anxiety, loneliness, and sadness, and occasionally exhibited the symptoms of Tourette’s Syndrome and bipolarism. Although he only lived to age 35, he composed more than 600 pieces, including 68 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, horn concertos, violin and piano sonatas, and many volumes of string quartet music.

• The cause of Mozart’s death has never been definitely determined. It’s been hypothesized as everything from “severe miliary fever” to trichinosis, mercury poisoning, and rheumatic fever. In all, researchers have speculated on

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nearly 120 different causes of death.

• Robert Schumann unintentionally ruined his chance at a career as a pianist when he experimented with a device claiming to strengthen fingers. Johann Logier had designed a contraption, the “Chiroplast” that pulled the fingers toward the back of the hand, stating that it would increase finger flexibility and strength. Permanently debilitated by the invention, Schumann diverted his efforts toward composing and became one of the greatest composers of the Romantic Period. However, the artist was plagued throughout much of his life by anxiety, panic attacks, and fits of rage and violence. Two years before his death, he attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine River. Rescued by passing fishermen, Schumann was admitted to an asylum, where he died two years later at 46.

• The eccentric French composer Erik Satie wore nothing but identical gray velvet suits and called himself The Velvet Gentleman. He walked across Paris each day, a round trip of about 10 miles, carrying a hammer in his pocket for protection. As a youth, he was enrolled in the Paris Conservatory, but had nothing but scorn for the institution. He remained there only to avoid military service, and was labeled “untalented” and “worthless” by his teacher, receiving the nickname of “laziest student in the Conservatory.” Students were allowed to serve just one year in the military rather than the normal five. When Satie was drafted, he served less than a year, deliberately contracting bronchitis to obtain a release. He went on to become a popular composer, with his most famous compositions Trois Gymnopedies. When he died of cirrhosis of the liver, there was so much garbage in his apartment that friends threw out two carloads before his papers and manuscripts could be located.


nearly lost his right arm, but doctors were able to set it to a 90-degree angle with seven screws which enabled him to play the guitar.

• In his 90s, Les Paul still hadn’t give up inventing. Having to wear two hearing aids, he was dissatisfied with their quality. He was still playing weekly gigs in New York City, but spent his free time working on improving hearing aids. He passed away in 2009 at age 94.

MORE COMPOSERS• You may have never heard of Richard Wagner,

but you’ve undoubtedly heard his most famous composition from the 1850 opera Lohengrin. The opera’s “Bridal Chorus” has been used at weddings since 1858 when Queen Victoria’s daughter chose the piece for her procession into the church. Today, we call it “Here Comes the Bride.” Another familiar Wagner tune is “Ride of the Valkyries,” which you may know better as “Kill the Wabbit,” a song Elmer Fudd sings in a 1957 Warner Brothers cartoon. History’s longest opera, The Ring Cycle, was also composed by Wagner, a production that takes well over 15 hours to perform. He began the opera in 1848, composing the text over the next four years. However, it took until 1874 for all of the music to

NOTEWORTHY INVENTORS:

LES PAUL Eric Clapton, Bob Marley, and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page are just a few of the thousands of musicians who have chosen to play a Les Paul guitar. But Les Paul wasn’t just the inventor of a phenomenal electric guitar. Follow along and learn about his many accomplishments.

• Les Paul was 8 when he began playing the harmonica, followed by the guitar. At age 9, he had already built a crystal radio. Wanting to play the harmonica and guitar at the same time, as a teenager he fashioned a holder from a metal coat hanger, shaping it to go over his shoulders, and soon he had his first patent.

• Soon afterward, Paul stuck the needle of his parents’ record player into the surface of his acoustic guitar, and was struck with the idea of an electric guitar. Before long, he had wired a phonograph needle to his guitar and connected it to a radio speaker to amplify his acoustic guitar. However, Paul was unhappy with the hollow-body guitar, and determined to make a solid-body one that would have less feedback and a richer sound because of the wood’s mass.

• He happened to live across from a railroad track where workers would throw defective rails under a bridge. Retrieving a cast-off, Paul whittled it down to a 4x4 piece, with a neck, bridge, pickup, and tuners attached, naming it “The Log.” In 1940, the Epiphone guitar factory helped produce a more attractive version with curved sides and an Epiphone fretboard.

• Paul’s work was slowed down in 1941 when he was experimenting with improvements to his guitar and was severely electrocuted, an injury that required two years of recuperation.

• Unhappy with the way his own recordings sounded, at the suggestion of crooner Bing Crosby, Paul built his own recording studio. It was here that he perfected multi-tracked recordings. His method was to first record a track onto a disc, then record himself playing another part with the first, both of which were mixed together onto a new track. The process was repeated adding a third layer, then another and another, each time mixing it with all the previous layers on a fresh disc. Paul also experimented with playing some of the parts at half speed, then playing them back at the actual rate. He fabricated his disc-cutter assembly using auto parts, including a flywheel from a Cadillac. His recording of “Lover, When You’re Near Me” required about 500 acetate discs to complete, on which he played eight different electric guitar parts. He later switched to magnetic tape, commissioning Ampex to build the first eight-track recorder. Les Paul was also responsible for the invention of echo, delay, and reverb.

• In 1948, Paul was in a near-fatal auto accident, which sent his Buick convertible off the side of an overpass and 20 feet (6.1 m) into a ravine. He

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* Avoid calling the pediatrician’s office on Mon-day mornings for routine business. Wait until the afternoon. All the parents with mildly sick chil-dren over the weekend will be calling to consult with the doctor and nurses first thing when the office opens.

* If you drop an egg, sprinkle with salt before you attempt to clean it up. The salt binds the whites, which will not spread, making pickup easier!

* “My kids had kind of an obsession with col-orful Duck tape in the past year, and we made some “beach bags” to keep our electronics safe at the pool, lake and beach. We carefully covered a variety of sizes of zipper-top self-sealing bags with the tape, creating tough, colorful pouches in which we can store cellphones, etc., to keep them safe from water damage.” -- W.L. in North Carolina

* You can sharpen scissors by cutting folded alu-minum foil into small strips.

* The best time of day to water your lawn is the evening. The cooler temperatures allow the wa-ter to sink into the soil instead of evaporating with the heat of the day. Always follow your city or county guidelines on watering times for your area.(c) 2015 King Features Synd., Inc.

the head ended up at the University of Vienna. It was not until 1895 that the head came to the Society, where it sat on a pedestal until 1954. Finally, in July of that year, it was given back to the Esterhazy family, who reunited it with Haydn’s remains in a new copper coffin, and laid him to rest in a Mausoleum at Eisenstadt City Church.


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be composed.

• We almost didn’t have the glorious music of George Frederic Handel, composer of “The Messiah.” His father wanted him to become a lawyer, and prevented George from playing musical instruments. Handel practiced secretly on a clavichord hidden in his home’s attic. Finally, when he was nine, his father heard him playing and allowed him to study music. By the time he was 10, Handel was composing for the organ, oboe, and violin, and a year later began composing church cantatas and chamber music. At 19, he had composed the first of his 50 operas. A stroke at age 52 impaired the movement of his right hand, but after just six weeks, he had fully recuperated. Even a second stroke and complete blindness in the ensuing years couldn’t keep Handel from his love of composition. He continued to write music until his death at 74 in 1759.

• Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach fathered 20 children in his two marriages, only 10 of whom survived to adulthood. Five out of his six sons became professional musicians and/or composers.

• The story of the head of Franz Josef Haydn is a complicated one. Haydn, who composed more than 100 symphonies, was employed as a court musician by Hungary’s wealthiest nobility, the Esterhazy family, living on their vast estate outside Vienna. When he died in 1809, Prince Esterhazy buried Haydn in the city’s Hundestrum Cemetery. A pair of individuals (including Esterhazy’s former assistant, Joseph Rosenbaum) believed that the shape and bumps of a skull could give insight into a person’s intelligence and they schemed to steal Haydn’s head. They bribed the cemetery caretaker who broke open the casket and cut off the head. Rosenbaum had it dissected, the brain removed, and the skull bleached. He kept it in a special display case in his home. Eleven years later, when the Prince desired to transfer Haydn’s remains to his estate cemetery, he discovered the head was missing, with only a wig resting in its place. Rosenbaum’s home was searched but

his wife hid the skull in bed with her, claiming to be ill. Rosenbaum gave police a different skull from his collection, which was then buried with Haydn.

• In 1829, Joseph Rosenbaum died and bequeathed the skull to his fellow thief with the provision that it must be turned over to Vienna’s Society of the Friends of Music. The will was not respected and

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photo by Steve


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1 (15-ounce) can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained1 (15-ounce) can cut green beans, rinsed and drained1 (15-ounce) can cut yellow wax beans, rinsed and drained1 cup grated carrots1 cup chopped red onion1/2 cup stuffed green olives, halved2 tablespoons vegetable oil1/4 cup apple cider vinegarSugar substitute to equal 1/2 cup sugar

1. In a large bowl, combine kidney beans, green beans, wax beans, carrots, onion and olives. In a small bowl, combine vegetable oil, vinegar and sugar substitute. Drizzle dressing mixture evenly over vegetable mixture. Mix gently to combine.2. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Gently stir again just before serving. Makes 8 servings.

* Each serving equals: 120 calories, 4g fat, 4g protein, 17g carb., 334mg sodium, 5g fiber; Diabetic Exchanges: 1 1/2 Vegetable, 1 Fat, 1/2 Starch.(c) 2015 King Features Synd., Inc.

Volunteer IdeasDEAR PAW’S CORNER: I would love to help pets in some way, but the local animal shelter doesn’t need volunteers, and there isn’t much else going on in my area. Do you have any suggestions? -- Kara in Idaho

DEAR KARA: Check your local newspapers (or their websites) and your town’s website for volunteer opportunities. There may not be anything right now, but needs change throughout the year for many nonprofits.So, what if there really are no opportunities near you? Consider creating one. Organizing a fundraiser for a pet charity (or your local animal shelter) is one fast way to do something positive. Or, if you spot a need that isn’t being met in the local pet community, create a way to fulfill that need. For example, a military couple created “Dogs On Deployment,” a website that helps military members find temporary homes for their pets (not just dogs) before they leave for overseas assignments. What if senior citizens in your area need help keeping their pets’ shots up to date? You could talk to local vets and perhaps the local shelter about ways to help them.Perhaps your town has no facilities for pets, such as a dog park or even pet zones in local parks. Start exploring the possibility of getting a park built.You could even start with something as small as an awareness campaign that educates store owners about the many types of service dogs (and other service animals) that are helping disabled people these days. Keep your eyes open for inventive opportunities to contribute positively to pet care, and you may find yourself overwhelmed with choices.Send your questions about pet care to [email protected].(c) 2015 King Features Synd., Inc.

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by Samantha Weaver

* It was Nora Joyce, wife to the Irish novelist James Joyce, who wrote the notoriously difficult -- and influential -- stream-of-consciousness novel “Ulysses,” who asked her husband, “Why don’t you write books people can read?”

* You might be surprised to learn that contemporary model and actress Brooke Shields is descended from that notorious figure of the Italian Renaissance, Lucretia Borgia, who was suspected of such crimes as adultery, incest and murder.

* In this era of helicopter parenting, some are shocked to learn that in the 1960s, nearly half of all children in America walked to and from school by themselves.

* What do “Where’s Waldo,” “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “My Friend Flicka,” “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” and “Harriet the Spy” have in common? Aside from being books meant for a young audience, all of these titles have been banned at one time or another.

* There are about the same number of chickens as there are humans on the planet.

* If you’re like 83 percent of pet owners who responded to a recent survey, you feel that you receive more unconditional love from your pet than from your kids, your best friend or even your romantic partner.

* I’m sure you’ve heard the term “Podunk” used to describe a small, unimportant town, but you might not know where the word came from. It seems that a Native American tribe in Connecticut was known as the Podunk, and a nearby river was called by the same name. Local small towns on the river were referred to as “Podunk,” too, and so the word entered the lexicon.***Thought for the Day: “I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.” -- Josh Billings(c) 2015 King Features Synd., Inc.

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tidbits vernon 228 june 26 2015 classical composers online

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