Shows
Music History MondayThe Evolution of Western Pop Music: USA (1960-2010)2024-05-0616 minMusic History MondayBob Dylan: Nobel Laureate2024-04-0126 minMusic History MondayAn Opera Profane and Controversial: Verdi’s Rigoletto2024-03-1120 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Some Myths Debunked2024-03-0421 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Too Late to Matter for Georges Bizet, though Better Late Than Never for the Rest of Us2024-02-2621 minMusic History MondayFrankie and Johnny, and Helen and Lee2024-02-1918 minMusic History MondayUnauthorized Use2024-02-1224 minMusic History MondayGetting Back to Work!2024-02-0519 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Idomeneo2024-01-2922 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Johannes Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 12024-01-2219 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: American Pie2024-01-1526 minMusic History MondayPianist, Conductor, Composer, and a Cuckold for the Ages2024-01-0829 minMusic History MondayShostakovich Symphony No. 132023-12-1822 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: The “Amusa”2023-12-1115 minMusic History MondayUnplayable2023-12-0413 minMusic History MondayRichard Strauss, Stanley Kubrick, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra2023-11-2721 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: The Great-Grandmother of All Concert Tours: Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour”2023-11-2018 minMusic History MondayGioachino Rossini and the Comedic Mind2023-11-1319 minMusic History MondayThe March King2023-11-0619 minMusic History MondayFranz Schubert: An Unfinished Symphony; An Unfinished Life2023-10-3024 minMusic History MondayAl Jolson and the Painful Legacy of Blackface2023-10-2321 minMusic History MondayMathilde Made Him Do It!2023-10-1629 minMusic History MondayThe Parrot2023-10-0917 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: 710 Ashbury Street, San Francisco, California2023-10-0217 minMusic History MondayIn a Class by Himself2023-09-2527 minMusic History MondayJimi Hendrix and the 27 Club2023-09-1824 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: They Did Not Go Gently…2023-09-1120 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: On the SpectrumWe mark the birth on September 4, 1824 – 199 years ago today – of the composer and organist Josef Anton Bruckner, in the Austrian village of Ansfelden, which today is a suburb of the city of Linz. He died in the Austrian capital of Vienna on October 11, 1896, at the age of 72. It was Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) who famously said that Bruckner was: “Half simpleton, half God.” Strangeness I would be so bold as to suggest that there is such a thing as a “strangeness spectrum,” a scale of personality oddness that stretches from the merely quirky to the genuinely weird. If we were to consider su...2023-09-0425 minMusic History MondayLohengrin2023-08-2821 minMusic History MondayWhere is the “Sin” in “Synthesizer?: Robert Moog and “Synthetic” Sound2023-08-2124 minMusic History MondayWorst. Timing. Ever.2023-08-1423 minMusic History MondayAll Hail The King!2023-08-0730 minMusic History MondayNepo Babies2023-07-3122 minMusic History MondayErnest Bloch2023-07-2425 minMusic History MondayElaine Stritch: An Appreciation2023-07-1722 minMusic History MondayWhen You Dance with the Devil2023-07-1026 minMusic History MondayLeoš Janáček: Composer, Patriot, and Patriot Composer!2023-07-0317 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: You’ve Got to be Kidding2023-06-2619 minMusic History MondayOur Kind of Musician2023-06-1920 minMusic History MondayArmando Anthony “Chick” Corea2023-06-1217 minMusic History MondayNever Eat Anything That Can Bite You Back!2023-06-0518 minMusic History MondayIsaac Albéniz2023-05-2920 minMusic History MondayGiuseppe Verdi and the Requiem for Alessandro Manzoni2023-05-2220 minMusic History MondayAll the Music That’s Fit to PrintOn May 15, 1501 – 522 years ago today – the first polyphonic (that is, multi-part) music printed using moveable type was released to the public by the Venice-based publisher Ottaviano dei Petrucci. (The publication features a dedication dated May 15, 1501, so we assume that this corresponds with its release date.) The publication was an anthology of works entitled Harmonice musices odhecaton A, meaning “One Hundred Pieces of Harmonic Music, Volume A”. (Volumes “B” and “C” followed in 1502 and 1503, respectively). In fact, “One Hundred Pieces of Harmonic Music, Volume A” consists of 96 (not “100”, as the title claims) instrumental works and French-language songs by some of the most famous composers o...2023-05-1519 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, or What Happens in Oakland Does Not Stay in Oakland2023-05-0826 minMusic History MondayThe Enduring Miracle2023-05-0119 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: A Voice Like Buttah!2023-04-2425 minMusic History MondayI Left My Nerve in San Francisco2023-04-1717 minMusic History MondayA Mama’s Boy, and Proud of It!2023-04-1025 minMusic History MondayThe Death of Johannes Brahms2023-04-0319 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Papa’s Last Appearance2023-03-2712 minMusic History MondayThe First Night: Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville2023-02-2022 minMusic History MondayA Man for All Symptoms: The Death of Wagner2023-02-1320 minMusic History MondayJohannes Ockeghem and the Oltremontani2023-02-0619 minMusic History MondayFrancis Poulenc: “a bit of monk and a bit of hooligan”2023-01-3021 minMusic History MondayPaul Robeson: Truly Larger Than Life2023-01-2325 minMusic History MondayThe Blockhead - Anton Felix Schindler - and Beethoven’s Conversation Books2023-01-1620 minMusic History MondayAn Impresario for the Ages: Rudolf Bing2023-01-0921 minMusic History MondayGetting Personal: Édith Piaf2022-12-1916 minMusic History MondayThe Garden State Hall of Fame2022-12-1217 minMusic History MondayMyths of Mayhem and Murder!2022-12-0526 minMusic History MondayAaron Copland in New York2022-11-2825 minMusic History MondayHenry Purcell and British Music Restored!2022-11-2123 minMusic History MondayThe Other Prodigious Mendelssohn: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel2022-11-1419 minMusic History MondayListening to the Thundah from Down Undah2022-11-0716 minMusic History MondayThe Grandmother of All Drop Parties!2022-10-3114 minMusic History MondayCarl Ruggles2022-10-2420 minMusic History MondayName the Composer/Pianist: in his lifetime considered one of the greats and in ours almost entirely forgotten?2022-10-1719 minMusic History MondayVladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky, AKA “Vernon Duke”2022-10-1015 minMusic History MondayCarl Nielsen2022-10-0318 minMusic History MondayBéla Bartók’s American Exile2022-09-2720 minMusic History MondayDay Gigs2022-09-1918 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Robert and Clara, Sittin’ in a Tree…2022-09-1219 minMusic History MondayFire2022-09-0518 min
Patreon | Robert Greenberg | Speaker, Composer, Author, Professor, HistorianMusic History Monday: Bird2022-08-2917 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Bird2022-08-2917 minMusic History MondayDebussyWe celebrate the birth on August 22, 1862 – 160 years ago today – of the French composer and pianist Claude Debussy. Born in the Paris suburb of St. Germain-en-Laye, he died in Paris on March 25, 1918, at the age of 55. Let’s tell it like it is: Monsieur Debussy was one of the great ones. For all of its sensual beauty – and Debussy did indeed compose some of the most gorgeous music ever written – his music is among the most original, revolutionary, and influential ever composed. At a time when young composers like Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Béla Bartók (1881-1945) were casting about for new mu...2022-08-2224 minMusic History MondayWoodstock: A Triumph of Locational Branding!2022-08-1520 minMusic History MondayAbbey Road, and This and That2022-08-0817 minMusic History MondayThe Wayward Bach, His Wayward Daughter, and the Bachs of Oklahoma2022-08-0120 minMusic History MondayUnder the Covers2022-07-2521 minMusic History MondayA Debussy Discovery!2022-07-1814 minMusic History MondayThe Death of George Gershwin2022-07-1120 minMusic History MondayAs American as tarte aux pommes! Celebrating the Fourth with some Real American Music! or Tampering with National Property2022-07-0417 minMusic History MondayThe Fabulous Hill Sisters!2022-06-2714 minMusic History MondayFyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky2022-06-2018 minMusic History MondayThe Ultimate Fanboy: The Mad King, Ludwig II2022-06-1322 minMusic History MondaySiegfried Wagner2022-06-0620 minMusic History MondayBenjamin Britten War Requiem2022-05-3018 minMusic History MondayBeethoven and the Human Voice2022-05-2314 minMusic History MondayThe Phoenix Rises!2022-05-1621 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Little Richard: The King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll2022-05-0924 minMusic History MondayGiacomo Meyerbeer and French PopOp2022-05-0220 minMusic History MondayMusic History Monday: Puccini’s Turandot: An Opera That Almost Wasn’t2022-04-2617 minMusic History MondayCharity Begins at Home2022-04-1823 minMusic History MondaySt. Matthew Passion2022-04-1121 minMusic History MondayMcKinley Morganfield, a.k.a. Muddy Waters2022-04-0421 minMusic History MondaySergei Rachmaninoff in California2022-03-2918 minMusic History MondayLudwig van Beethoven and the Legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach2022-03-2124 minMusic History MondayGeorg Philipp Telemann2022-03-1419 min