Today we're going to talk about classical composers and some things that happened to them that were kind of interesting, and we'll start with George Frederick Handel.
In 1704, when Handel became harpist for the Hamburg Orchestra, he befriended a young musician named Johan Matheson.
Something of a show off, Matheson at age 23 produced operas for which he wrote the score, conducted the orchestra, played the harpsichord, and sang some of the solos. Matheson's opera, 'Cleopatra,' was on stage with the composer himself singing the part of Antonius. Since Antonius killed himself a good half hour before the end of the opera, Matheson liked to slip down to the orchestra pit and take over at the harpsichord.
However, at this performance, Handel refused to give up his seat at the instrument. An outraged Matheson challenged Handel to a dual, and the two came to blows outside the stage door. Matheson nearly did in his rival when he landed a blow on Handel's chest, except that either a large metal coat button or the opera score stashed in Handel's coat pocket stopped the blade.
Matheson liked to brag in later years that he taught Handel everything he knew about composing. Unlike Handel who became an international celebrity, Matheson never left his native Germany and is now largely forgotten.
Our next story is about J. S Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach. As inevitable as a music career was the name Johan for the young Johan Sebastian Bach, who was born in 1685.
His father, great-grandfather, seven uncles, and four of his five brothers carried the name Johan, along with his sister, whose name was Johanna, and another brother Christened Johannes.
Bach was very, very talented and is said to have invented a sophisticated form of counterpoint. The counterpoint is a form of music that dominated the Baroque period. In counterpoint, rather than supporting one melody with harmony, two or more melodies are played over and over again against one another.
There are four American songs that fit together if you sing them simultaneously. When the Saints Go Marching In,' 'Goodnight, Ladies,' Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen,' and 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.' If you start 'em at the beginning and you sing them in the same key, they fit together. Try that at your next party; not late in the party. Try it when you're still sober.
Okay, let's go to Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn had such a great memory that it amazed fellow musicians. In 1844, when he was asked to play this solo in Beethoven's fourth piano concerto, he arrived at the concert hall to find that no one had the piano score. Despite not having seen the score for at least two years, he played the piece perfectly from memory.
Many years earlier, he performed an even more impressive feat at his monumental revival performance of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. In addition to conducting the event, he planned to play the piano. But when he took his seat the night of the performance, he realized that the score before him was not that of the Passion, but one that looked similar.
Mendelssohn could have delayed the performance to get the right score. Instead, he kept the score open, seemed to refer to it periodically, and regularly turned the pages as he conducted and performed. And no one knew the whole thing was an act.
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