Musical Birthdays - Viotti and Moscheles

Fame is a fleeting thing – one minute you’re renowned and within a generation, you’re forgotten.  I often have this argument with friends about popular music.  My contention is that almost all of the rock, rap and other popular music gods that we celebrate today will be largely forgotten once their contemporaneous generation dies out.  Who really relates to the music of Rudy Valee anymore (a hugely popular singer from the 1920s)?  Within a few decades, most popular music becomes the province of historians and specialists.  This is also true of classical music.  Ask any guy on the street to name a classical composer, and you’ll probably get Beethoven; or perhaps Mozart or Bach (you can tell people who really listen to classical music, because they will have specialized choices like Bruckner or Rachmaninoff.)  But for every famous genius like Haydn or Brahms, there were hundreds of other composers churning out music that largely lies forgotten now (at least by the larger culture.)

Today is the birthday of two such composers, who were very famous in their day, but names are now footnotes in history, their music rarely played (although the advent of recording has made their work more accessible.)  That’s a shame - just because one isn’t a Beethoven, doesn’t mean that their music should be forgotten.  So, in that spirit, let me use the occasion of their birthday to introduce you to a couple of interesting composers and their beautiful music.

Born in 1753 in what was then the Kingdom of Sardinia, Giovanni Battista Viotti showed musical talent at an early age, having an affinity for the violin.  Brought under the patronage of a local nobleman, he received a musical education which prepared him to become a pupil of the renowned Italian violin virtuoso, Gaetano Pugnani (Pugnani himself was a pupil of Giuseppe Tartini, which put Viotti in the grand tradition of Italian violin playing, which stretched back to Vivaldi and Corelli, and would find its apogee in Paganini.)  After serving at the court of Turin, Viotti undertook many tours as a violin soloist, which secured his fame.

                                                             Giovanni Viotti

Viotti also held many important posts as an opera conductor; first in Paris (where he staged the operas of his friend, Cherubini); and later London, where his violin playing  made him a favorite with English audiences.  During the period of the French Revolution, there were intrigues around Viotti, who was suspected of having Jacobin sympathies, and he was forced to leave England briefly.  However, due to the intervention of the Duke of Cambridge, he was permitted to return to England, where he lived for the remainder of his life.  During his latter years, he retired as violin soloist, but remained active as a conductor.  He died in 1824.

Viotti’s claim to musical fame lies as a violinist.  As with most soloists of this era, Viotti performed mainly his own music.  It is a testament to his fame as a violinist and the demands of his solo tours, that the main bulk of Viotti’s compositional oeuvre consists of 29 violin concertos, composed between 1782 and 1817.  These concertos followed the nascent romanticism of the time (forms also being explored by Spohr and Viotti’s pupil, Rode); but were so individualistic that they even had an influence of Viotti’s contemporary, Beethoven.  No doubt Viotti’s highly virtuosic style of playing helped spread his music (he owned several Stradavari violins – several of which are still named after him today.)  Since Viotti’s concertos were written to reflect his technical expertise and musical sensibilities, we can get some idea of his playing by listening to them.  On his 260^th birthday, here is the first movement of his Violin Concerto No. 22 in A Minor, played by Itzhak Perlman.

Also celebrating a birthday today is the 19^th century pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles.  Moscheles was born in 1794 in Prague to Jewish parents, who wished their children to be musical.  Ignaz (who was originally named Issac) showed promise and was admitted to the Prague Conservatory, where he gained a reputation for embracing the new and revolutionary music of Beethoven (Moscheles was to retain a life-long affinity for Beethoven, meeting the great composer in 1814.)  Moscheles’ ability as piano virtuoso (he was a student of Clementi) quickly brought him fame and he studied composition under Albrechtsberger and Salieri.  He undertook many European tours which helped secure his reputation.

Moscheles’ talent as a pianist, conductor and composer brought him into contact with all the great musicians of the era.  He formed a particularly strong bond with Felix Mendelssohn, born, no doubt, of the common dilemma of Jewish musicians trying to make their way in Christian Europe.  Both men made nominal conversions to Christianity, but Moscheles never renounced his Jewish heritage.  Moscheles spent many productive years with Mendelssohn in Leipzig, where he became director on the Conservatory after Mendelssohn’s death.  Moscheles was firmly identified with the more traditional strain of classical music during this period (as exemplified by Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms) as opposed to the “New Music” of Liszt and Wagner.  Moscheles died in Leipzig in 1870.

One more anecdote and then some music.  Moscheles was active in England during the late 1820s as director of the Philharmonic Society.  Hearing that his idol, Beethoven, was in ill health and financial difficulties, Moscheles negotiated a commission for a symphony from Beethoven – alas, the never-to-be-completed Tenth Symphony (Beethoven died soon after.)  As with Viotti, we can get an idea of Moscheles as a pianist and conductor by listening to his music.  So, on his 219^th birthday, I have the finale to his Piano Concerto No. 5 in C Major.  Enjoy!

It’s fun and rewarding to find these little musical treasures from the past.  And unlike most popular music today, they not only still have something to say, but they say it quite beautifully.