Pianophilia

Goodbye Earl.... RIP.
http://www.earlwild.com/

Aggelos wrote:Goodbye Earl.... RIP.
http://www.earlwild.com/

Sorry to hear about his passing away. But he had a very long life living up to the age of 94.

P.S.: I took the liberty to move this post to this more approprate thread.

This link is useful for composers' dates of birth and death:-
http://www.classical.net/music/composer/lists.php

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davida march wrote:http://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatr ... -2010.html

Philip Langridge, Tenor 6/3/10.

Sad loss. A good friend studied with him. I must have dozens of his recordings.

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davida march wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/arts/ ... tml?src=tp

I found this interesting one about Patricia Travers and the psychology of child prodigies.
dm

This quote from the article gives the most likely explanation for why she (and other prodigies) drop from sight in adulthood:

"perhaps [she] went in quest of the proverbial lost childhood.”

Kids who are pressured to perform and live like little adults are rooked out of their childhoods - there's a lot of emotional/intellectual/socializing development that kids experience in childhood that's absolutely essential to their well-being as people. Some adults view kids playing and goofing off as pointless and "childish" but steering children into regimes that immerse them too quickly and deeply into adult pursuits has a big price. The children who don't get a fair shot at a real childhood pay for it later.

This article also brings to mind John Stuart Mill who had big emotional problems as an adult after an academically precocious childhood that was rigidly controlled by his father.

Elisabeth Söderström dies aged 82

"News has just broken that the great Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström, died on Friday morning due to a stroke. Her professional debut was as Bastienne in Mozart's rarely performed Bastien et Bastienne at the Drottningholm Court Theatre in 1947. Although closely associated with the Royal Swedish Opera, she performed at all the major opera houses around the world. Her UK debut was at Glyndebourne in 1957, where she would return to sing numerous Strauss and Mozart roles, with which she was to become so closely identifable, including Octavian, the Composer, the Countess in Capriccio and Susanna. She was also famous for her interpretation of some of Janacek's female heroines, not least Kat'a and Jenufa, where in both cases she made distinguished recordings with Sir Charles Mackerras that have remained unsurpassable in the recording catalogue. Her first appearance at Covent Garden was with the Royal Swedish Opera as Daisy Dodd in Blomdahl’s Aniara in 1960. Söderström was an astonishingly versatile artist, who brought great commitment and beauty of voice to everything she did."

(From: http://www.opera-britannia.com/)

Although not to everyone's taste, for me, her Rachmaninov complete cycle of songs with Ashkenazy has never been matched. The sheer musicality of every phrase and her ability to point emotions with the tiniest gestures made her singing such a joy for me.

One particular moment in her recorded career will remain with me forever, where as the heroine of Janacek's eponymous opera, toward the end of the last act she reveals her true name as Elina Makropoulos, and with those last two syllables you realise she is now breathing her last having revealed her secret that she is over 300 years old.

For these wonders, Söderström is unforgettable.

Rob

Robert Muczynski

http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries ... 28.article