Anthony Princiotti

Telemann: Fantasia No. 4 in D Major, TWV 40:17 Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

For those interested in hearing what my Vuillaume "Il Canone" Guarneri model sounds like, here's a cut from a recording I made of Telemann's 12 Fantasias for Violin:

loom.ly/N8-Y8HA

Speaking of Guarneri''s "Il Canone", I happen to have one of the many violins Vuillaume made from that model (below). My father bought it for $1000 in the 1950s from a top luthier in New York who threw in a Sartory bow for free. Their current value is uh, higher.

When Paganini brought his legendary Guarneri violin "Il Cannone" to Vuillaume for repair, the luthier made a copy. When the work was done, Vuillaume invited Paganini back to his shop, Looking at the two violins, Paganini struggled to tell the copy from the original.

More than 3000 instruments came out of Vuillaume's shop. With the instruments of Stradivari and Guarneri being in such demand, he produced multiple copies. It was long believed that he "antiqued' his instruments by - believe it or not - baking them! HIGHLY unlikely.

227 years ago today, the renowned string instrument maker Jean-Baptist Vuillaume was born in Northeastern France. A meticulous craftsmen, his replicas of violins by the great Italian masters were often indistinguishable from the originals. I have one of his Guarneri copies.

“Jenny Lind’s first American concert is over; and all doubts are at an end. She is the greatest singer we have ever heard."

- New York Tribune

In the 2017 film "The Greatest Showman", the relationship between Lind and Barnum is distorted in ways that make her a wholly unsympathetic figure. Whereas Barnum is depicted in almost noble terms, Lind is presented as a greedy, vengeful lover. Utter misogynistic nonsense.

For all her fame, judgements regarding the quality of Lind's singing were extremely mixed. As mentioned previously, she was particularly admired by early Romantic composers in Germany and France. But some critics thought her reputation was a confection of aggressive marketing.

In 1850, Lind accepted a proposal from P.T. Barman to travel across the U.S. giving recitals. The tour earned the singer $350,000, while her sponsor took in $500,000. Lind donated her money to charity. Barnum did not.

205 years ago today, the Swedish operatic soprano Jenny Lind was born in Stockholm. Known as "The Swedish Nightingale", her popularity was so great that she was likely the most internationally renowned singer of the 19th century.

In this Week's Edition of "The Refuge":

A Commentary on the Illusion of Artistic Progress
When Igor met JFK
The Intimate Mahler
It Seemed Like a Such a Good Idea...

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"When Offenbach tried to be serious, he met with no success."

- Claude Debussy

Among his many other accomplishments, Offenbach was the only-known Wolf-Human Hybrid to become a composer of significance.

The most well-known piece of music Offenbach ever wrote was the "Infernal Galop" from his satirical opera "Orpheus in Hell." It was so popular that Parisian cabarets began using it as the accompaniment for the Can-can, a dance performed by a chorus-line of young women.

Offenbach was born in Cologne, Germany. He began playing the cello when he was 9, 5 years later, he enrolled at the Paris Conservatory, where he developed into a virtuoso player. He began composing in his 30s; by the time he died at the age of 61, he'd written 98(!) operettas.

The German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach died on this date in 1880. The author of dozens of wildly-popular operettas, he was considered a hack by metaphysically-oriented composers like Berlioz and Wagner. But Debussy, Bizet and others loved the directness of his style.

"One does not play the piano with one's fingers: one plays the piano with one's mind."

- Glenn Gould

There was an irony in Gould's enthusiasm for the recording studio. He abhorred the notion of the Romantic virtuoso, and didn't care much for music of the Romantic era either. But the sheer egotism of his insistence on total artistic control certainly reflected an Romantic ethos.

Gould's decision to stop concertizing also reflected his interest in the aesthetic possibilities available to him in the recording studio. By editing and choosing from multiple takes, he controlled the musical "product" to an extent that was unattainable in a live performance.

On April 10, 1964, Gould gave a recital in Los Angeles that included music by Beethoven, Bach and Hindemith. It would be his final public performance. He'd tired of performing when he was in his early 20s, and had continued simply to make money. He was 32 when he retired.

42 years ago today, the Canadian pianist, writer (and occasional composer and conductor) Glenn Gould died in Toronto at 50 after suffering a stroke. His relentless intellectual curiosity made him one of the most controversial musicians of the mid-to-late 20th century.

Ostensibly, although I assume that by the time he was working on that last movement he was probably more interested in creating a satisfying conclusion to the Symphony's quasi-literary narrative than his infatuation with her.

We followed the hearse down the hill to the new vault in the larger Montmartre Cemetery. There the dead sleep tranquilly, awaiting the time when my own corruption shall be brought to the same charnel-house.”

- Berlioz, describing the reburial of Harriet Smithson in 1864.

Louis Berlioz was the only child produced by the Berlioz-Smithson marriage. A sailor, he rose to the rank of Commander in the French Merchant Navy. A victim of Yellow Fever, his death at the age of 33 in Havana absolutely devastated his father, who died less than two years later.

Berlioz' marriage to the soprano Marie Recio (his long-time mistress) was equally unhappy, if not as turbulent. As his sexual interest in her declined, so do his initial high regard for her talent. In later years, he'd describe her singing as “the sound of a dozen howling cats.”

If the Berlioz-Smithson marriage was a questionable idea from the start, a variety of circumstances made it unsustainable. While Harriet's career was declining, Hector's was on the ascent. She soon lapsed into alcoholism, leading to their permanent separation in 1843.

On this date in 1833, Hector Berlioz married the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, the inspiration for his "Symphonie Fantastique", in a ceremony at the British Embassy in Paris. He spoke no English; she didn't speak French. Although the marriage failed, it produced a son, Louis.

So on the one hand, being the world's leader of mass shootings is simply the cost of our 2nd Amendment freedoms, but an inch of space in an American city where a person feels unsafe makes it essential to call out the military.

Progressivism is about building government structures that encourage human flourishing, while conservatism is about limiting or nullifying them. The internet, with its ability to spread misinformation and generate conflict, greatly advantages the latter. Destroying is easier than building.

“Beethoven exploded over Vienna. His playing was overwhelming, not so much because he was a great virtuoso, but because he had an ocean-like surge and depth that made all other playing sound like the trickle of a rivulet."

- Harold C. Schonberg, "The Great Pianists"