News archive – Musical anniversaries
Stanisław Moniuszko (1819-1872) on his 200th Birthday
May 5, 2019 marks the 200th birthday of Stanisław Moniuszko. As a composer, he is considered one of the founders of Polish music at a time when the Polish state had long since ceased to exist. He was born in Ubiel, near Minsk, as a member of the Polish aristocracy....
29 April 2019
Friedrich Nicolas Manskopf and His Museum
Ann Kersting-Meuleman (Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main) has written this post in honor of the 150th birthday today of Friedrich Nicolas Manskopf: Jakob Friedrich Nicolas Manskopf (25 April 1869–2 July 1928) was a wine merchant by trade in Frankfurt but was best known for the museum of music and theater history...
25 April 2019
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim at 300
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803) was a German poet of the Enlightenment who has largely been forgotten today. This is mainly due to the fanciful, galant style of the poems that made Gleim a leading exponent of anacreontics. For composers of his time, though, as well as into the 19th...
4 April 2019
Musical Anniversaries in 2019
Happy New Year! As in past years, we would like to take a look at musical anniversaries for the next twelve months. The people whose birthdays or anniversaries of death we mark are not only composers but they can also be librettists, performers, dedicatees, or people who are in other...
14 January 2019
The 500th Anniversary of Pierre de la Rue's Death
Another musician celebrating a major anniversary in 2018 is Pierre de la Rue (ca. 1452, Tournai - 1518, Courtrai), who died 500 years ago today. Pierre de la Rue was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer, a leading composer at the Burgundian court, and undoubtedly one of the last great figures...
20 November 2018
Couperin 350
People have been celebrating the 350th birthday of François Couperin since January and the pinnacle of the celebrations will be reached this Saturday. We have chosen a few of the many events that will be taking place. The conference “François Couperin: A 350th Anniversary Symposium” at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire...
8 November 2018
Happy 200th Birthday to Alexander Dreyschock!
The following article was contributed by Kristina Krämer, who is currently writing her master’s thesis on Alexander Dreyschock at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz: Born on 15 October 1818 near Prague, pianist Alexander Dreyschock spent most of his life travelling throughout Europe and competing with the likes of Liszt...
15 October 2018
RISM—500 Years Ago
The year 1518 was in many respects shaped by important events, and particularly people, that you can find the RISM catalog relatively frequently. To name just two examples: In 1518, Martin Luther refused to revoke his 95 theses and the later Lutheran reformer Philipp Melanchthon held his inaugural speech as...
17 September 2018
Adriano Banchieri at 450
Tommaso Banchieri (1568-1624) is known today as having the first name Adriano, which he adopted in 1589 when he entered the Benedictine order, or more precisely the Olivetan order. He also used the pseudonyms Attabalibba dal Perù, Camillo Scaligeri della Fratta, and Il Dissonante. Banchieri was active as an organist...
3 September 2018
350 years ago today: Il pomo d'oro
On this day 350 years ago, the opera Il pomo d’oro (The Golden Apple) premiered in Vienna. The first performance of this opera, with music by Antonio Cesti (1623-1669) after a libretto by Francesco Sbarra (1611-1668), was originally intended for the wedding celebrations of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705)...
12 July 2018
