(Vocals, 1909–81) Helen Elizabeth Humes was born in Louisville, Kentucky and made her recording debut for OKeh in 1927. She spent 1938–41 in the Count Basie Orchestra, singing mostly ballads. She moved to California in 1945 and recorded for many different labels while working as a solo artist. She had solid hits with ‘Be Baba Leba’ in 1945 ...
(Cornet, trumpet, b. 1946) The Essex-born trumpeter worked as both a sideman and a leader in a wide variety of settings throughout the 1970s, before later branching out as a jazz educator, author and radio broadcaster. A key figure in establishing the jazz section of Britain’s Musician Union, he also founded the National Jazz Foundation Archive. ...
‘Fair Helen’ Composed: 1864 Premiered: 1864, Paris Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy Act I Since Pâris awarded Vénus the golden apple, her cult has become more popular than Jupiter’s. Hélène, wife of King Ménélas of Sparta, is waiting for Pâris to come and claim her. Disguised as a shepherd, Pâris enlists the help of ...
Janáček referred to this opera’s protagonist, Emilia Marty, as ‘the icy one’. Perhaps he was thinking of Kamila Stösslová, the opera singer in Capek’s comedy who so fascinated Janáček that he immediately requested the rights for a libretto. Capek was sceptical that the elderly composer could understand his play, yet the final result was superlative and Capek had ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–79, 1985–present) Not so much a premier folk rock ensemble as one of the most English of veteran rock bands, Fairport formed in London in 1967 in a vague image of Jefferson Airplane, but traditional folk pervaded a second LP, What We Did On Our Holidays (1969), on which singer Sandy Denny debuted, ...
1819–80, French Jacques Offenbach had an acute sense of theatre and an incisive understanding of how to cater for French tastes. He was 14 when his father sent him to Paris, where Jews were freer than they were in Germany. Offenbach became a cellist, performing in fashionable salons, and finally, in 1855, became famous. He ...
The Italian Giuseppe Verdi and the German Richard Wagner, the dominant composers of the High Romantic period, were very different personalities who shared the same operatic aim. Both saw opera as Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art in which all elements – singing, acting, orchestration, drama, poetry, stage design – merged into a ...
When Vassar Clements formed a band called Hillbilly Jazz in 1975, Bill Monroe’s former fiddler pulled the cover off the hidden connection between country music and jazz. The two genres had more in common than most people thought. After all, Jimmie Rodgers recorded with Louis Armstrong early in their careers; jazz legend Charlie Christian debuted on Bob Wills’ radio ...
A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who have come together to play music. In theory, an ensemble could contain any number of instruments in any combination, but in practice, certain combinations just don’t work very well, either for musical reasons or because of the sheer practicality of getting particular instruments and players ...
Musique concrète (‘concrete music’) was the term coined by Pierre Schaeffer (1910–95) in 1948 to describe his new approach to composition, based on tape recordings of natural and industrial sounds. The term was chosen to distinguish the new genre from pure, abstract music (musique abstrait). Schaeffer was a radio engineer and broadcaster. Having gained a qualification from L’École Polytechnique ...
It was Louis Armstrong (or Leadbelly, depending on whom you believe) who came up with the famous final word on the definition of folk music: ‘It’s ALL folk music … I ain’t never heard no horse sing.…’ The quote has been repeated ad nauseam throughout the years, but it has not prevented strenuous debate about the meaning of ...
Following Salome was no easy task, and Strauss felt strongly that he needed to tackle an entirely different subject – by preference a light, comic work. He had been in correspondence with the playwright Hofmannsthal and approached him with an idea for such a work. Hofmannsthal had other ideas, and was insistent that Strauss should take up his ...
Composed: 1958–61 Premiered: 1962, Coventry Libretto by the composer, after Homer’s Iliad Act I It is foretold that Paris will cause the death of his father, Priam, King of Troy. His mother, Hecuba, believes he should be killed. Priam orders this, but is troubled: he is both a father and a king. Priam and ...
‘The Marriage of Figaro’ The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote that Le nozze di Figaro offered ‘a new kind of spectacle … to a public of such assured taste and refined understanding’, and it would be fair to say that after Figaro’s premiere on 1 May 1786, opera buffa was never quite the same again. There were precedents, of ...
‘Mephistopheles’ Composed: 1866–67 Premiered: 1867, Venice Libretto by the composer after Goethe’s Faust Prologue Mefistofele wagers with God that he can win Faust’s soul. Act I Crowds celebrate Easter Sunday in Frankfurt. The aged Faust is bored and watches a mysterious friar, who follows him back to his study. When Faust opens his bible the friar reveals himself as ...
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