Mescellanea, June 2025
This Week in Classical Music: June 23, 2025. Miscellanea. Two composers have been born this week: Benedetto Macello on June 24th (however perhaps July 24th) of 1686 in Venice, and Gustave Charpentier on June 25th of 1860 within the French city of Dieuze. Marcello, a nobleman and newbie composer, was identified for a setting of fifty psalms known as “Estro Poetico-Armonico.” Apparently, a number of the psalms seem like based mostly on conventional Jewish tunes. Contemplating that Venice was the primary metropolis to segregate its Jews in a ghetto, this appears reasonably uncommon. We’ll look into this and report again. Within the meantime, right here’s our earlier entry about Benedetto Marcello.
Gustave Charpentier was a French composer famous for his opera Louise (and shouldn’t be confused with the French composer of the Baroque period, Marc-Antoine Charpentier). Luise isn’t staged usually lately, however one aria, Depuis le jour, is sung often as a live performance piece. Right here’s Anna Netrebko in her higher years, doing a superb job of it.
Three conductors have been additionally born this week: James Levine on June 23rd of 1943 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Claudio Abbado on June 26th of 1933 in Milan, and Rafael Kubelik on June 29th of 1914 in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, now within the Czech Republic. The phenomenally proficient Levine was the music director of the Metropolitan Opera for 40 years, from 1976 to 2016, when he was terminated over allegations of sexual misconduct. Levine made the Met orchestra right into a world-class ensemble, was instrumental in creating the careers of many singers, and presided over some outstanding performances, together with an ideal staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. For a number of years, he was additionally the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (and the primary American-born particular person in that place). Although the rumors of Levine’s sexual misconduct persevered for years, they have been ignored (and suppressed) by the Met administration until publicly revealed in 2016. The allegations have been so damaging that the Met had no selection however to let Levine go. In an overreaction, the Met additionally determined to wipe out all Levine’s recordings from the Met’s historical past. Quickly it grew to become apparent that, with out Levine, there weren’t many issues to broadcast, and his recordings have been restored.
Claudio Abbado is one among our all-time favourite conductors; we’ve written about him and quoted his performances too many instances to say right here.
Rafael Kubelik was born at some point after the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. A month and a half later, the world descended into the Nice Warfare, and in one other 4 years, the nation of his delivery was gone. After graduating from the Prague Conservatory, Kubelik, on the age of 25, grew to become the music director of the Brno Opera. Because the Nazis took over the Czech a part of Czechoslovakia (Slovakia remained formally impartial underneath a puppet regime), they closed the opera however allowed the Czech Philharmonic to proceed working. Kubelik grew to become the principal conductor. It is mentioned that he refused to present the Hitler salute to excessive Nazi officers (that might have value him his life). He additionally didn’t carry out Wagner’s music, so beloved by Hitler. In 1948, because the Czech Communists, organized and supported by Stalin’s Soviet Union, took over, Kubelik escaped to the UK. In 1950, he grew to become the Music Director of the Chicago Symphony however left three years later. He then led the Covent Backyard opera and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO). He stayed in Munich for 18 years, until 1979. Underneath his baton, BRSO made a number of wonderful recordings (he recorded all of Mahler’s symphonies with them). Throughout his profession, Kubelik guest-conducted all main symphony orchestras. Right here’s the second motion of Bruckner’s Symphony no 3. Rafael Kubelik conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
