Obscure Non-Prog Music Facts

The.Crimson.King wrote: presdoug wrote: German conductor Ernst Praetorius, who fell from favor in Nazi Germany for conducting so called "degenerate music", landed in Turkey. He became an important musical figure there, conducting the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the country. Back in Germany, he was renowned for conducting the first recording of Bruckner's Second Symphony in 1937. I recommend an excellent book titled "The Devil's Muse".  It tells the story of Nazi persecution of musicians beginning when they achieved power in the early 1930's.  I have this book to thank for my discovery of Arnold Schoenberg.  When I read that the Nazi's determined his music was "degenerate" I decided that I just had to hear it!  Later, when I connected the dots between Schoenberg's creation of 12 tone serial music, Anton Webern, and Frank Zappa, Zappa's orchestral music finally made sense to me.  If interested, I'd also highly recommend hearing Schoenberg's 12 tone based opera "Moses and Aron" (he purposely misspelled "Aron" that way so the title would have 12 letters...he was one clever man and a brilliant composer)

Thanks, that sounds like a very interesting book, i will hunt for a copy. I like Schoenberg a lot,especially his Gurrelieder, Ode to Napoleon, and Pierrot Lunaire. I will investigate this opera as well. I had not known he influenced Zappa.
           I would suggest to you a book called Trial of Strength by Fred K. Preiberg, about the rocky course the career of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler took when his genius collided with Nazi Germany.

Edited by presdoug - July 24 2013 at 07:34

German conductor Ernst Praetorius, who fell from favor in Nazi Germany for conducting so called "degenerate music", landed in Turkey. He became an important musical figure there, conducting the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the country. Back in Germany, he was renowned for conducting the first recording of Bruckner's Second Symphony in 1937.

In the DRA (Deutsche Rundfunk Archiv) are the very first recordings made of Bruckner's first three numbered symphonies.

Famous singer Lotte Lehmann's brother Fritz Lehmann was a conductor.



Edited by presdoug - July 23 2013 at 16:29

One hundred years ago, in 1913, the first complete recording of a symphony was made-Beethoven's Fifth, conducted by Artur Nikisch with the Berlin Philharmonic. It has been issued on CD on the Dutton label.

Nikisch was considered by many to be THE conductor of his day, until his death in the early 1920s. He conducted the world premiere of Bruckner's 7th Symphony in Leipzig, and the composer was present.

Nikisch was also interested in Mahler's music, and even conducted the first music from his 3rd Symphony, the inner movements, before the composer conducted the whole symphony later on.

Professor Hans Richter, another celebrated conductor, became very important in the late 19th, and first decade of the 20th Centuries. He conducted the world premieres of Bruckner's 4th and 8th Symphonies, and Elgar's First Symphony.
He retired around 1911, and unfortunately left no recordings.

American conductor Theodore Thomas, who died in the first decade of the 20th Century, was enormously important, being the director of many US concert premieres, including Bruckner's 4th and 7th Symphonies. He sometimes premiered musical works even before they had been done in Europe.

Leopold Stokowski had also a giant list of world premiere performances under his direction, including the American premieres of Elgar's Second Symphony, and Mahler's 8th Symphony and Das Lied Von Der Erde.

Edited by presdoug - April 23 2013 at 19:27

Back to Chas & Dave - Chas wrote a gardening book

The original cover for Heart's Magazine album was different than the one that became known

One of my cousins went to a school and had as a teacher, a brother of the Wilson sisters, years ago.

The riff sampled on Eminem's "My Name Is" was taken from a Labi Siffre song on which Chas & Dave played.  Before they formed their famous duo, Chas had worked with Joe Meek, and Dave had been in a band called The Rolling Stones.

^Must have succeeded in getting the ball rolling.  I believe the sign looks tip top now. 


The cover of Heart's Little Queen was not taken in some picturesque rural village in Wales or Canada, but rather in the city park right next to Dodger Stadium in LA.   Ann said there were 1000 other better shots taken of her that day where she was smiling, but they chose the one pic she didn't like, where she was "pouting". 

Gustav Mahler's symphonies were performed with great frequency in Germany in the 1920s, to the point where some critics complained about what they called the "Mahler fever".

German pianist Elly Ney, who was a specialist in Beethoven, toured all over America in the 1920s, giving speeches at her concerts saying how great National Socialism was. At one point later in her career, she claimed troubles due to interference by Jewish people. Obviously, she was wrong on both accounts.

German conductor Hermann Abendroth was referred to in some circles as "the other Furtwangler". Furtwangler and Abendroth admired each other as conductors, and when Furtwangler died in 1954, Abendroth stated "It's as if my world has stopped turning."

After WW2, when the Munich Philharmonic got back on it's feet and in operation and with conductor Hans Knappertsbusch directing things again, during the opening concert, Knappertsbusch said-"The "Thousand Year Reich" is over, and now we can hear Beethoven as he was meant to be heard."

Knappertsbusch was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis, one time it is recorded that he hurled an ashtray at a speaker during a Nazi speech.

Knappertsbusch was difficult for Hitler to deal with, as he was physically speaking an "Aryan German", and also a very endearing personality in the German's music world of the day, so the Nazis could not do away with him. They did push him around a bit, though, having prevented him from going to Britain in '36 to conduct.

Knappertsbusch's final concert with the Vienna Philharmonic in April of 1964, was done when the old man was quite ill with emphysema, having been a smoker, but the result was a fantastic recording of Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony. Sadly, the following October of '65 Knappertsbusch was dead.


Edited by presdoug - February 13 2013 at 15:31

Dubstep musician Burial, electronic musician Four Tet (Kieran Hebden), post-rock band Fridge (who Hebden happened to be a member of) synthpop band Hot Chip, and indie pop/dream pop band The xx all attended the same school at the same time.