‘Rock Me Amadeus’, 1986 Perhaps Austria’s great pop export, Falco (born Johann Hölzl) was a classically trained child prodigy who later fronted a jazz rock combo. His early career mixed a lot of techno-synths with German rap, and he even had a single, ‘Jenny’, banned. ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ played on his classical background, fusing synths with classical ...
was mooted in 1993, but it ultimately came to nothing after band member Patrick Waite died of natural causes while in police custody, aged just 30. Personalities | Falco | One-Hit Wonders | Rock ...
‘The Woman Without a Shadow’ Like Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten had a tempestuous genesis. The idea itself stemmed from the period immediately after the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, but Hofmannsthal’s continual flood of ideas compounded by Strauss’s curmudgeonliness ensured the project stalled regularly. The start of the First World War did nothing to help, and ...
Composed: 1846–47 Premiered: 1858, Warsaw Libretto by Włodzimierz Wolski Act I Guests are celebrating the betrothal of Janusz, a nobleman, to Stolnik’s daughter Zofia. They are interrupted by the voice of Halka, a serf whom Janusz promised to marry. She is now pregnant and yearns to be near him. Janusz fears that this news would ruin his ...
1639–82, Italian Alessandro Stradella was in his native Rome, writing intermezzi and other music for revivals of operas by Cavalli and Cesti, when he became embroiled in a quarrel with the Catholic authorities. He then had to leave Rome and decamped to Genoa, where he arrived in 1678. By that time, Stradella had composed several operas ...
1814–97, French Cornélie Falcon’s singing career was brief. At 18 she made her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1832, singing the role of Alice in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (1791–1864) Robert le diable. However, Falcon was a mezzo-soprano who wanted to be a soprano and ruined her full, resonant voice by forcing it too high. By 1838 her ...
One of the great chameleon figures in rock, David Bowie has also been among the most influential. Born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947, his earliest records with The King Bees, The Mannish Boys and The Lower Third were unsuccessful. In 1966 he changed his name to David Bowie and combined his songwriting with an interest in ...
(Vocals, b. 1935) Floyd first found fame with the 1950s gospel soulsters The Falcons. After going solo, he eventually migrated to Stax Records as writer and producer; with Steve Cropper he co-wrote ‘634-5789’, a No. 1 R&B hit for Wilson Pickett (who had replaced him in The Falcons). The pair also wrote ‘Knock On Wood’, originally meant for Otis ...
1806–96, French Gilbert Duprez, the French tenor, made his debut aged 19 as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. He went to Italy in 1829 to further his operatic studies, and remained there for six years. During this time, Duprez created the role of Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. He had arrived as ...
Hailed as one of hard rock’s greatest rhythm guitarists, Malcolm Young (b. 1953) was born in Glasgow, Scotland. When he was 10, the family emmigrated to Sydney, Australia, where Malcolm and younger brother Angus were taught to play guitar by elder sibling George, a member of The Easybeats. Malcolm founded AC/DC with Angus in 1973. ...
Canadian rock legend Neil Young (b. 1945) has become respected as much for his playing as for his composing and vocal work with his occasional partners Crosby, Stills & Nash. Born in Toronto, Canada, Young got a ukulele from his father for Christmas in 1958. In 1960, Young moved to Winnipeg with his mother. A poor student ...
Guitarist Pat Metheny emerged in the mid-1970s with a fully realized approach to his instrument that was wholly unique for its time, offering a refreshing alternative to both bop and fusion styles. His sweeping, warm-toned, reverb-soaked lines and liquid phrasing, once described by Down Beat magazine as ‘the sound of wind through the trees’, had a huge ...
(Vocals, 1941–2006) After an early career with the seminal R&B group The Falcons (he replaced Eddie Floyd as lead singer), Pickett signed with Atlantic in 1965, recording with Booker T. And The M.G.s at Stax in Memphis, and scored an early hit with ‘In The Midnight Hour’, first of many successes characterized by mighty horn stabs ...
Cajun emerged from a European tradition of contredanses, two-steps and waltzes; zydeco, the black equivalent, grew out of the work songs of the black farmers who had settled in Louisiana. Life in the poorest state is still hard, and cotton and crawfish still rule: at least there are some things the settlers of the eighteenth century would ...
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