Obscure Music Mondays

Carl Bohm (Sept. 11, 1844 - April 4, 1920) was a German pianist and composer. Little is known about him, though during his day his works were very popular. He's considered one of the great German songwriters from the 19th century, and has many works that achieved worldwide recognition, such as Still as the Night, Twilight, Maybells, Enfant Cheri, and The Fountain. Bohm's publisher, N. Simrock, said that the profits from his compositions provided the capital for the publication of those of Brahms". That goes to show the popularity and salability of his works during his time. Continue reading →

William Mason (Jan. 24, 1829 - July 14, 1908) was a composer and pianist, born in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in a musical family; his father Lowell Mason was an important figure in church music, and his brother Henry Mason was a co-founder of the piano manufacturers Mason and Hamlin. Continue reading →

Hermann Gustav Goetz (Dec. 7, 1840 - Dec. 3, 1876) was a German critic, pianist, and composer. He didn't begin any formal music lessons until age seventeen, when he picked up the piano, but had begun composing a few years before that. He stared working towards a degree in mathematics at the end of the 1850s, but left to attend the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, where he studied piano, and composition with Hans von Bülow. He graduated in 1862. A year later he was appointed the city organist in Winterthur, Switzerland, and taught piano, and began to get his name out as a composer. He had the organist position until 1872, and from1870 - 74, he also wrote reviews for a music magazine. Continue reading →

Pauline Viardot (born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline Garcia, July 18, 1821 - May 18, 1910) was a pianist, mezzo soprano, and pedagogue.  Born in Paris in to a Spanish musical family, her father, Manuel Garcia, who was a tenor, teacher, and composer,  taught Viardot piano, in addition to giving her vocal lessons. By the age of six, she was fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, English, and later on, Russian. She was an incredible pianist, in addition to singing; she later on took lessons with Liszt and played duets with Chopin. She also studied counterpoint and harmony with Anton Reicha, who taught Liszt and Berlioz. Her career as a professional singer began around the age of twenty eight. She had a long and successful career, and later on taught at the Paris Conservatory, and afterward did much composing. Liszt considered her works genius. Continue reading →

Vítězslava Kaprálová (Jan. 24, 1915 - June 16, 1940) was a Czech composer and conductor. Born in to a musical family,  Kaprálová began studying composition and conducting at the age of fifteen at the Brno Conservatory, and later on studied with Bohuslav Martinu and Charles Munch. She conducted the Czech Philharmonic in 1937, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra just a year later. Continue reading →

Louise Farrenc (May 31, 1804 - Sept. 15, 1875) was a French pianist, teacher, and composer. Born in Paris, she started the piano at an early age, and later on also showed a knack for composition. At the age of fifteen, her parents let her study composition with Anton Reicha at the Paris Conservatory. Later on she embarked upon a successful concert career, started a publishing house with her husband, and eventually became a Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatory. Continue reading →

Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (Aug. 21, 1893 - March 15, 1918) was a French composer, and  the younger sister of the famed composition teacher/composer Nadia Boulanger. Born in Paris, Lili Boulanger was a child prodigy; at the age of two, it was discovered that she had perfect pitch. Her parents, both musicians, encouraged her musical education, and she would accompany her sister Nadia to classes at the Paris Conservatory, studying music theory and organ. Her sister Nadia was one of her teachers, and later on studied with Paul Vidal, George Caussade, and Gabriel Faure, who was particularly impressed by her abilities. Lili would go on to win the Prix de Rome at the age of 19; she was the first woman to ever win the composition prize. Continue reading →

Robert Nathaniel Dett (Oct. 11, 1882 - Oct. 2, 1943) was a composer, pianist, organist, and professor of music. Born in Ontario, Canada, he showed interest in music at a young age, and began piano lessons at five years old. The family moved to New York around the time Dett was ten years old, and a few years later he was playing piano for his church. He would later on study at the Oliver Willis Halstead Conservatory of Music, and continued studying piano at the Lockport Conservatory, before eventually attend the Curtis Institute of Music. At Curtis, Dett was introduced to the idea of using spirituals in classical music, like in the music of Antonin Dvorak. The music Dett heard reminded him of spirituals he'd learned from his grandmother, and he'd later on integrate folksongs and spirituals in to his music.   Continue reading →

Scott Joplin (c. 1867/68 - April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist, who came to be known as the "King of Ragtime Writers". Joplin was born in to a family of railroad laborers in Texas, but got as much musical knowledge as he could from local teachers, and ended up  forming a vocal quartet, and teaching mandolin and guitar. He later left for the south to work as a itinerant musician, and eventually found his way up  to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which contributed towards the ragtime craze. Continue reading →

Florence Beatrice Price (April 9, 1887 - June 3, 1953) was an African-American pianist and composer, and the first African-American woman to have a piece played by a major symphony orchestra. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price's first piano teacher was her mother, a music educator, and Price's first recital was at the age of 4. After high school (which she graduated top of her class), she studied piano and organ at the New England Conservatory, and pretended to be Mexican, due to the stigma that African-Americans faced during that era. She also studied composition and counterpoint with George Chadwick and Frederick Converse, and graduated in 1906 with Continue reading →