News archive – Musical anniversaries
Michael Altenburg in 1621
No fewer than three printed editions containing works solely by Michael Altenburg (1584-1640) were published in 1621. Tragically, this year was also a dramatic turning point in his life. But first things first. As the son of a village blacksmith, Altenburg first studied theology starting in 1598 in Erfurt. After...
1 November 2021
The Opera 'Orazio' by Pietro Auletta and its Transformation
Two-hundred and fifty years ago—sometime in September 1771—the composer Pietro Auletta died in Naples. Little is known about his youth and education. Even his date of birth is disputed, ranging from April 1693 or February 1694 in S. Angelo a Scala (Avellino) to 1698. Concrete biographical facts about Auletta are...
20 September 2021
A Wedding during the Thirty Years' War
Today, September 9 (9/9), is a is popular wedding date in Germany, so we are going to look at a very special wedding—one that took place in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War. On 1 April 1627 Georg II, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1605-1661) married Sophie Eleonore of Saxony (1609-1671),...
9 September 2021
The 200th Birthday of Pauline Viardot on 18 July 2021
This guest post is by Christin Heitmann (author of the Systematisch-bibliographischen Werkverzeichnisses Pauline Viardots), Beethoven-Haus Bonn. July 18, 2021, marks the 200th birthday of the French singer, pianist, and composer Pauline Viardot (1821–1910). It was a nice coincidence that just a few months before this anniversary, in November 2020, Pauline...
15 July 2021
The 450th Anniversary of Giovanni Animuccia's Death
Giovanni Animuccia is one of the many people whose musical anniversaries we are marking in 2021. He was likely born around 1510 in Florence, went to Rome in around 1550, and was chapel master of the Cappella Giulia beginning in 1555 at San Pietro. Animuccia held this position until his...
7 June 2021
Publishing Patriotism: The Napoleonic Wars in Musical Print
The following is by Dominic Bridge and originally appeared on the Music Blog of the British Library. We are reprinting it here to mark the 200th anniversary of Napoléon Bonaparte’s death (© British Library Board/Creative Commons). At the turn of the 19th century, British perceptions of revolutionary France and the...
5 May 2021
The 300th Anniversary of Joachim Gerstenbüttel’s Death
Gerstenbüttel is a locality in the district of Gifhorn (Lower Saxony, Germany) - but not only. The name Gerstenbüttel also stands for the composer and cantor Joachim Gerstenbüttel, who died on April 10, 1721 in Hamburg. Born in Wismar in 1647, he first studied theology in Rostock and Wittenberg, to...
8 April 2021
The 150th anniversary of the death of François-Joseph Fétis
The following is by Hugo Rodriguez (KBR - Bibliothèque royale de Belgique - Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België) and originally appeared on the KBR website. It is published here with kind permission. The 150th anniversary of the death of François-Joseph Fétis In 2021, Belgium and the musical world are commemorating the...
26 March 2021
The Library of the Landgravine Caroline Henriette von Hessen-Darmstadt (1721–1774)
We have received the following guest post from Beate Sorg: Goethe, who never knew her personally, called her “The Great Landgräfin.” Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, to whose entourage she belonged for a number of years, donated a marble urn for her grave in the Herrengarten in Darmstadt with...
11 March 2021
400 Years of the Florilegium Portense
Strictly speaking, the number in the title above only refers to the second part of the collection of motets published by Erhard Bodenschatz (ca. 1576-1636). The first part appeared in 1618 and contains 115 motets for four to eight voices. A further 150 motets by over 50 composers, from Agostino...
18 February 2021
