La Marseillaise

Happy Bastille Day! This is the 220th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille Prison in Paris during the French revolution. In France, today is a day of national celebration. The storming of the Bastille was an important marker in the development of the modern French nation.

The storming of the Bastille predates the composition of the Marseillaise by three years. The song was written by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a supporter of the monarchy, at the behest of the mayor of Strasbourg after France declared war on Prussia and Austria. War song for the Rhine army was written on April 25, 1792. The song was soon published as Border armies' war song. A group of revolutionaries who had gathered in Marseille adapted the march and sang it as they entered Paris on July 30, 1792. It was called La Marseillaise by Parisians after those revolutionaries from Marseille.

On July 14, 1795, La Marseillaise became a national song of France. It was banned during the Empire, but came back with the July revolution of 1830. Berlioz made a well-known arrangement of the song. An "official version" was adopted in 1887. La Marseillaise was recognized as the national anthem in the constitutions of the 4th and 5th Republics.

Like the American national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, La Marseillaise celebrates war. But the French anthem also celebrates a citizen's call to arms in defense of the nation. The two anthems also share a sometimes call for a less bellicose song to replace each one. But both songs represent important parts of the nations' histories.

Harry Partch

American composer Harry Partch was born in Oakland, California on June 24, 1901, and died in San Diego, California in 1974. As a musician and innovative composer, he stretched the boundaries of music and worked outside the mainstream of "classical music." He is best known for the creation of musical instruments that were capable of fractional differences in pitch and could play music based on the 43 tone scale he developed. Clips from a BBC program about Partch are available on YouTube.

Happy 90th birthday, Pete Seeger

American folk singer Pete Seeger turns 90 years old today. But he hasn't just sung the old folk songs, he's written songs that speak to the issues of the times -- like If I had a Hammer, and Where have all the Flowers Gone? and Turn! Turn! Turn! He was instrumental in the folk music revival of the 50's and 60's. In 1964, his version of Malvina Reynold's song, Little Boxes, made number one on the Billboard charts. Many of the songs he wrote were chart hits for other performers. Pete Seeger recognized that music is a powerful tool -- some might say, weapon -- and he used it in the fight for social justice. He normally performs with a banjo, helping to keep that traditional American instrument alive, too. Thanks, and Happy birthday, Pete.

To celebrate Pete's 90th birthday, watch Little Boxes or the many other video clips of Pete Seeger's performances made throughout his career.

Haydn's Later Years

Sunday, May 31, 2009, was the 200th anniversary of the death of Franz Joseph Haydn. The Austrian composer is frequently called the "father of the symphony," but he wrote much more than just those 100 or so symphonies.

Joseph Haydn lived to a ripe old age of 77. The last 15 years of his life were spent back at the Esterhazy court. From 1794 on, there was a new prince, Nikolaus, who wanted Haydn to focus on church music. Six of Haydn's masses come from this period. His Mass in the Time of War referred to Napoleon's march on Vienna. The Nelson Mass celebrated Lord Nelson's defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile. The Theresa Mass was written in honor of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. Haydn also composed his oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons in these years. In 1796, Haydn composed the Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major, now a standard part of the trumpet repertoire. And then there was the hymn tune written to be the Austrian national anthem, which he then used in the Emperor Quartet.

Ill health forced Haydn to resign his court post in 1802. Haydn's health continued to deteriorate over the following years, but he is reputed to have joked about it. His last public appearance was at a concert in his honor in 1808, at which his friend Antonio Salieri conducted Haydn's The Creation. Haydn died May 31, 1809 in Vienna and buried there, later to be reinterred in 1820 at Eisenstadt somehow without his skull. The skull and body were finally reunited at Eisenstadt in 1954.

Abraham Lincoln's Music

All this month, an exhibit from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has been on display at Bennett Martin Public Library (where the Polley Music Library is located). The only musical example in the exhibit, Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America, is a copy of an 1864 songsheet, How Sherman's Veterans Took Atlanta. I decided to do a little research to see if Lincoln had any interest in music, since I was pretty sure that he did not make music himself, unlike Presidents Jefferson and Truman. A few of the things I learned are below.

• Lincoln loved opera and attended something like 19 performances during his presidency.



• The play Lincoln was watching at the time of his assasination was Our American Cousin, a play with music starring Laura Keene, at Ford's Theater.



• He loved sentimental ballads, but was strongly affected by them. He also sometimes wanted to hear happy music to cheer himself up.



• Lincoln especially enjoyed concerts by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the pianist from New Orleans.



• At the White House, Mrs. Lincoln traded in an older piano for a new one built in 1860 by the Schomacker Company of Philadelphia. That grand piano was prominently placed in Mrs. Lincoln's favorite sitting room, the Red Room. Willie and Tad Lincoln took piano lessons from Professor Alexander Wolowski on that piano.



• The Lincolns hosted many performances at the White House, including the Native American singer Larooqua, Venezuelan child prodigy pianist Teresa Carreno, the Hutchinsons, and the tiny circus performer Commodore Nutt.



• Lincoln enjoyed the popular songs of the day, including Dixie.



• President Lincoln particularly enjoyed the Marine Band. There were band concerts on the White House grounds except for the couple of years when Mrs. Lincoln would not allow them after the death of Willie.



• Lincoln's funeral ceremony itself did not have music. The Marine Band played to send off the cortege complete with drum corps. As Lincoln lay in state at the Springfield City Hall, a thousand singers were there. A large choir sang as the funeral train arrived in Chicago. And for the burial ceremony, George F. Root composed a tribute to Lincoln.

Are Bike Horns Musical Instruments?

On a rainy Thursday at the end of April, a little humor brightens up the day. A friend shared the video of "bike horn guy" with me. It's definitely entertainment. Is it music? That's up to each listener/viewer to decide. Don't worry if your French is rusty. Just listen and watch the amazing performance.

Trees

It's Arbor Day, on Friday, April 24, 2009. A day to plant trees here in Nebraska and other places the day is celebrated. Lincoln, Nebraska, has been a participant in the Tree City USA program for many years, and trees are important to the quality of city life here.

Joyce Kilmer's poem, Trees, has been set to music by many composers. The best known version is the 1922 setting by Oscar Rasbach (1888-1975), a composer of art songs. The poem begins:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

Here's a lovely version by Julian Lloyd Webber for cello, and another for girls choir.