Best Diaghilev Podcasts (2025)

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Music History Monday: An American in Paris 20:08

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1y ago20:08

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We mark the London premiere on August 26, 1952 – 72 years ago today – of the film “An American in Paris.” With music by George Gershwin (1898-1937), directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, and Oscar Levant, the flick won six Academy Awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture. While the film actually opened in New York Ci…

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Music History Monday: Serge Pavlovich Diaghilev 18:59

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Serge (or Sergei) Diaghilev (1872-1929) in 1916 We mark the death on August 19, 1929 – 95 years ago today – of the Russian impresario, patron, art critic, and founder of the Ballets Russes Serge (or “Sergei”) Pavlovich Diaghilev, in Venice. Born in the village of Selishchi roughly 75 miles southeast of St. Petersburg on March 31, 1872, he was 57 ye…

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Music History Monday: Giovanni Gabrieli and the Miracle That is Venice! 22:29

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Giovanni Gabrieli (circa 1555-1612) We mark the death on August 12, 1612 – 412 years ago today – of the composer Giovanni Gabrieli. Born in Venice circa 1555, he grew up and spent his professional life in that glorious city, and died there as a result of complications from a kidney stone. Gabrieli’s magnificent, soul-stirring music went a long way …

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Music History Monday: The First Professional Composer 22:32

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Easy Times! We’ve been having a good time, an easy time here at Music History Monday these last few weeks. Five of our last six MHM posts have featured fairly recent musical events from the “popular” side of the musical aisle. Music History Monday for June 24 focused on Disco; on July 1, the invention and marketing of Sony’s Walkman; on July 8, the…

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Music History Monday: Cass Elliot and the Making of an Urban Legend 18:10

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We mark the death of Cass Elliot on July 29, 1974 – 50 years ago today – in an apartment at No. 9 Curzon Street in London’s Mayfair District. Born on September 19, 1941, she was just 32 years old at the time of her death. Cass Elliot (born Ellen Naomi Cohen); 1941-1974 Brief Biography Cass Elliot was born Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore, Maryland. A…

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Music History Monday: Shake, Rattle, and Roll 10:49

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Taylor Swift (born 1989) Only July 22, 2023 – one year ago today – Taylor Swift (born 1989; she has, according to Forbes, a present net worth of $1.3 billion) literally “shook up” Seattle: her concerts in that city shook the ground with such violence that it registered as a magnitude 2.3 earthquake. (As if to prove that the “Swiftquake” at her firs…

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Music History Monday: An Indispensable Person 24:01

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Indispensability The title of this blog – “An Indispensable Person” – might be considered controversial. That’s because any number of very smart people would argue that there is, in fact, so such thing as an “indispensable person.” According to both Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt: “There is no indispensable man.” Said President Jo…

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Music History Monday: What’s in a Name? 17:41

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We mark the birth on July 8, 1935 – 89 years ago today – of the American Grammy and Emmy Award-winning singer, actor, and comedian Steve Lawrence, in Brooklyn, New York. He died just four months ago, on March 7, 2024, in Los Angeles. Steve Lawrence (1935-2024) Steve Lawrence, one might ask? Have potential topics for Music History Monday become so d…

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Music History Monday: The Sony Walkman: A Triumph and a Tragedy! 17:57

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The original Sony Walkman, model TPS-L2 We mark the introduction on July 1, 1979 – 45 years ago today – of the Sony Walkman. The Walkman was the first entirely portable, high-fidelity (or at least fairly high-fidelity) audio cassette player, a revolutionary device that allowed a user to listen to entire albums anywhere, anytime. Introduced initiall…

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Music History Monday: Boogie Fever 11:58

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One sort of Boogie Fever: Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989) cuttin’ the rug at New York’s Studio 54, circa 1978 On June 24, 1374 – 650 years ago today – the men, women, and children of the Rhineland city of Aachen began to dash out of their houses and into the streets, where – inexplicably, compulsively, and uncontrollably – they began to twist and twi…

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Music History Monday: Unsung Heroes

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We mark the death on June 17, 2014 – an even 10 years ago today – of the Grammy Award winning American record producer and Director of Columbia Masterworks Recordings John Taylor McClure. McClure was born in Rahway, New Jersey on June 28, 1929, and died in Belmont Vermont at the age of 84, 11 days short of his 85th birthday. Record Producers The ti…

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Music History Monday: Let Us Quaff from the Cup: Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde

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On June 10, 1865 – 159 years ago today – Richard Wagner’s magnificent and groundbreaking music drama Tristan und Isolde received its premiere in Munich under the baton of Hans von Bülow (whose wife, Cosima Liszt von Bülow, Wagner was enthusiastically shtupping at the same time). Oh Goodness; Did I Just Write That? I did. I know, right? Here I am, i…

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Music History Monday: Ludwig von Köchel and the Seemingly Impossible Task

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We mark the death on June 3, 1877 – 147 years ago today – of the Austrian lawyer, botanist, geologist, teacher, writer, publisher, composer, and “musicologist” Ludwig Alois Friedrich Ritter (“Ritter” meaning “Knight”) von Köchel, of cancer, in Vienna. Born on January 14, 1800, he was 77 years old at the time of his death. Ludwig Köchel and the Arch…

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Music History Monday: “Inappropriate”

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There Must Be Something in the Air Have any of you done – or anticipate doing – anything particularly foolish today, anything particularly inappropriate? If you do, know that you will be in good company. Perhaps it’s the angle of the sun; perhaps it’s something in the air or water, because as dates go, May 27 is ripe with musical stories and action…

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Music History Monday: A Difficult Life 20:22

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Before we get to the principal topic of today’s post, we must note an operatic disaster that had nothing to do with singers or the opera being performed on stage. Rather, it was a disaster that inspired Gaston Leroux to write the novel The Phantom of the Opera, which was published in 1909. On May 20, 1896 – 128 years ago today – a counterweight hel…

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Music History Monday: What Day is Today? 20:39

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We recognize May 13th as being, among other “days” here in the United States, National Frog Jumping Day, Leprechaun Day, International Hummus Day, National Crouton Day, and – wait for it – World Cocktail Day! National Days, Weeks, and Months! Who creates these damned things? We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, let’s distinguish between a nati…

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Music History Monday: The Evolution of Western Pop Music: USA (1960-2010) 16:04

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We mark the public release, on May 6, 2015 – nine years ago today – of a scientific/statistical study published by The Royal Society Open Science Journal, a study entitled “The Evolution of Western Pop Music: USA (1960-2010).” Scoff not, my friends: this was, in fact, a high-end study conducted (and written up) by four high-end scientists: Dr. Matt…

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Music History Monday: The Duke 15:45

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We mark the birth of The Duke on April 29, 1899 – 125 years ago today – in Washington D.C. By “The Duke,” we are not here referring to the actor John Wayne (who was born on May 26, 1907, in Winterset, Iowa), but rather, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, one of the greatest songwriters and composers ever to be born in the United States. Aside from th…

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Music History Monday Replay: “The Empress” – Bessie Smith 20:34

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I am writing this post from my hotel room in what is presently (but sadly, not for long) warm and sunny Vienna. As I mentioned last week, I will be here for eight days acting as “color commentator” for a musical tour of the city sponsored by Wondrium (a.k.a. The Teaching Company/The Great Courses). I also indicated, one, that I would keep you up-to…

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Music History Monday: The Guy Who Wrote the “Waltz” 19:47

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We mark the death on April 8, 1858 – 166 years ago today – of the Austrian composer, editor, and music publisher Anton Diabelli in Vienna, at the age of 76. Born on September 5, 1781, his enduring fame is based on a waltz of his composition that became the basis for Beethoven’s epic Diabelli Variations for piano. Quick Work We are, fairly or unfair…

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Music History Monday: Bob Dylan: Nobel Laureate 26:45

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On April 1, 2017 – 7 years ago today – Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, 1941) was awarded his Nobel Prize in Literature in a private ceremony held at an undisclosed location in Stockholm, Sweden. At the ceremony, Dylan received his gold Nobel Prize medal and his Nobel diploma. The cash prize of eight million Swedish kronor (837,000 euros, or…

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Music History Monday: The Towering Inferno 21:30

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We mark the birth on March 25, 1867 – 157 years ago today – of the cellist and conductor Arturo Toscanini, in the city of Parma, in what was then the Kingdom of Italy. He died, at the age of 89, on January 16, 1957, at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, in New York City. (Properly embalmed and, we trust, adequately chilled, his no-doub…

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Music History Monday: Fake It ‘til You Make It 24:07

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We mark the birth of the Russian composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov on March 18, 1844: 180 years ago today. Born in the Russian town of Tikhvin – roughly 120 miles east of St. Petersburg – Rimsky-Korsakov died at the age of 64, on June 21, 1908, on his estate near the Russian town of Luga, about 85 miles south of St. Petersburg Fake It ‘t…

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Music History Monday: An Opera Profane and Controversial: Verdi’s Rigoletto 20:10

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We mark the first performance on March 11, 1851 – 173 years ago today – of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto at Venice’s storied Teatro la Fenice: The Phoenix Theater. We set the scene. The year was 1849. Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (1813-1901) was – at the age of 36 – the most famous and popular composer of opera living and working in Italy.…

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Music History Monday: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Some Myths Debunked 21:42

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We mark the first performance of the ballet Swan Lake on March 4, 1877: 147 years ago today. Premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, with music by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), choreography by the Czech-born dance master Julius Reisinger (1828-1892), and its music performed by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, the first performance of Swan…

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Music History Monday: Too Late to Matter for Georges Bizet, though Better Late Than Never for the Rest of Us 21:07

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We mark the premiere on February 26, 1935 – 89 years ago today – of Georges Bizet’s Symphony in C. The premiere took place in Basel, Switzerland, in a performance conducted by Felix Weingartner (1863-1942). Bizet (1838-1875) never heard the symphony performed; he had died in the Paris suburbs in 1875 at the age of 36, a full 60 years before Weingar…

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Music History Monday: Frankie and Johnny, and Helen and Lee 18:43

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I am aware that Valentine’s Day is already 5 days past, but darned if the romantic warm ‘n’ fuzzies aren’t still lingering with me like a rash from poison oak. As such, I will be excused for offering up what I will admit is a belated, but nevertheless Valentine’s Day-related post. Gratitude We should all be grateful that the following Valentine’s D…

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Music History Monday: Unauthorized Use 24:53

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February 12 is one of those remarkable days in music history, remarkable for all the notable events that took place on this day. So: before getting to our featured topic, let us acknowledge some of those events and share some links to previous Music History Monday and Dr. Bob Prescribes posts that dealt with those events. On this day in 1812, Beeth…

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Music History Monday: Getting Back to Work! 19:37

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On February 5, 1887 – 137 years ago today – Giuseppe Verdi’s 25th and second-to-last opera, Otello, received its premiere at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The premiere was the single greatest triumph in Verdi’s sensational career. But it was a premiere – and an opera – that was a long time coming. Background He was born on October 10, 1813, in th…

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Music History Monday: Idomeneo 22:12

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We mark the premiere on January 29, 1781 – 243 years ago today – of Wolfgang Mozart’s opera Idomeneo, Re di Creta (“Idomeneo, King of Crete”). With a libretto by Giambattista Varesco (1735-1805), which was adapted from a French story by Antoine Danchet (1671-1748), itself based on a play written in 1705 by the French tragedian Prosper Jolyot de Cré…

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Music History Monday: Johannes Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 1 19:14

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We mark the premiere on January 22, 1859 – 165 years ago today – of Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1, in the German city of Hanover. No other work by Brahms caused him such effort; never before or after did he so agonize over a piece, working and reworking it over and over again. Background On October 1, 1853, the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms s…

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Music History Monday: American Pie 26:24

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On January 15, 1972 – 52 years ago today – Don McLean’s folk-rock song American Pie began what would eventually be a four-week stay at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song made the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Don McLean (born 1945) very famous and very rich, and it is considered by many to be one of the greatest songs ever writte…

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Music History Monday: Pianist, Conductor, Composer, and a Cuckold for the Ages 29:56

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We mark the birth on January 8, 1830 – 196 years ago today – of the German pianist, conductor, composer, and cuckold, Hans Guido von Bülow. Born in the Saxon capital of Dresden, he died in a hotel in Cairo, Egypt, on February 12, 1894, at the age of 64. Poor Hans von Bülow. He was one of the top pianists and conductors of his time. His career was c…

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Music History Monday: Shostakovich Symphony No. 13 22:47

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On December 18, 1962 – 61 years ago today – Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 received its premiere in Moscow. The symphony stirred up a proverbial hornet’s nest of controversy, and we’re not talking here about your everyday hornet, but rather, those gnarly ‘n’ gnasty Asian Giant Hornets! It was a symphonic premiere that almost didn’t take plac…

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Music History Monday: The “Amusa” 15:49

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On December 11, 1721 – 302 years ago today – Johann Sebastian Bach’s employer, the 27-year-old Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen (1694-1728), married the 19-year-old Friederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg (1702-1723). She was the fourth daughter (and youngest child) of Charles Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg (1668-1721) and his first wife, Soph…

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Music History Monday: Unplayable 13:49

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We mark the premiere on December 4, 1881 – 142 years ago today – of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s one-and-only violin concerto, his Violin Concerto in D major. It received its premiere in Vienna, where it was performed by the violinist Adolf Brodsky and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hans Richter. The concerto is, in my humble opinion…

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Music History Monday: Richard Strauss, Stanley Kubrick, Friedrich Nietzsche, and “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” 21:35

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On November 27, 1896 – 127 years ago today – Richard Strauss conducted the premiere performance of his sprawling orchestral tone poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the German city of Frankfurt. Requests A momentary and applicable (if gratuitous) diversion. Over the course of the first half of my musical life I played a lot of gigs, both in bands and as…

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Music History Monday: The Great-Grandmother of All Concert Tours: Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour” 18:01

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We mark the conclusion on November 20, 2022 – one year ago today – of the North American leg of Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour.” The concert took place at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles; it was the third of three “farewell” concerts held at Dodgers Stadium. The three concerts (on November 17, 19, and 20) saw a total attend…

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Music History Monday: Gioachino Rossini and the Comedic Mind 19:54

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We mark the death on November 13, 1868 – 155 years ago today – of the opera composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini, in Paris, at the age of 76. He was one of the most famous and beloved artists of his time, and he remains no less so today. It is my humble opinion that anyone who does not like Rossini’s operas – and, believe it or not, I have met any nu…

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Music History Monday: The March King 19:26

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We mark the birth on November 6, 1854 – 169 years ago today – of the American composer, conductor, and violinist John Philip Sousa. Born in Washington, D.C., Sousa died in Reading, Pennsylvania on March 6, 1932, at the age of 77. Timing, Location, Life Experience, and Talent We are told that talent – be it athletic, musical, artistic, culinary, wha…

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Music History Monday: Franz Schubert: An Unfinished Symphony; An Unfinished Life 24:59

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We mark October 30, 1822 – 201 years ago today – as being the day on which Franz Schubert began what is now known as his Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the “Unfinished Symphony.” Lost just months after Schubert completed the two movements that make up the “Unfinished,” the symphony was heard for the first time in 1865, 43 years after its composition an…

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Music History Monday: Al Jolson and the Painful Legacy of Blackface 21:33

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We mark the death on October 23, 1950 – 73 years ago today – of the Lithuanian-American singer and actor Al Jolson. Born “Asa Yoelson” on May 26, 1886, in the village of Srednik, in what was then the Russian Empire and what is today Lithuania, he died of a massive heart attack in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco at the age of 64.…

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Music History Monday: Mathilde Made Him Do It! 29:59

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A few, necessary words before moving on to today’s post. Our hearts bleed for the events currently playing out in Israel and Gaza. Frankly, there are no words. Today is also the 14th anniversary of my wife Diane’s death; she died at the age of 35 on October 16, 2009. Again, there are no words. Our grief notwithstanding, we soldier on – as we must –…

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Music History Monday: The Parrot 17:52

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We mark the birth on October 9, 1835 – 188 years ago today – of Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns, in Paris. He died in that magnificent city on Beethoven’s 151st birthday – on December 16, 1921 – at the age of 86. The Nose Physically, the adult Camille Saint-Saëns was – literally – an odd bird. The music critic Pierre Lalo has left us with this descript…

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Music History Monday: 710 Ashbury Street, San Francisco, California 17:52

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Before we get to the central topic of today’s post – that being a particular address in San Francisco – we would wish a most happy birthday to someone we only know by his nickname. Please: no looking ahead and peeking! Today we wish a happy 71st birthday to the English singer, songwriter, bassist, and actor Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, CBE (“Comma…

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Music History Monday: In a Class by Himself 27:00

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We mark the birth on September 25, 1932 – 91 years ago today – of the pianist Glenn Herbert Gold, in Toronto, Canada. (Yes, the surname on “Glenn Gould’s” birth certificate is “Gold.” When the young guy was seven years old his family began informally using the surname “Gould,” though Glenn himself never formally changed his name from “Gold” to “Gou…

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Music History Monday: Jimi Hendrix and the 27 Club 24:26

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We mark the death on September 18, 1970 – 53 years ago today – of the American guitarist, singer, and songwriter James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, at St. Mary Abbots Hospital in London. He was born in Seattle, Washington on November 27, 1942, making him 27 years old at the time of his death, something we will discuss later in this post. Creating and M…

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Music History Monday: They Did Not Go Gently… 20:08

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9-11; a somber day for us all. A day for reflection, contemplation and perhaps, still, after 22 years, a day to grieve. Far more often than not, Music History Monday is about celebrating the life and accomplishments of a musician or identifying and exploring some great (or small) event in music history. If I chose to, today’s post could celebrate t…

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Music History Monday: On the Spectrum 25:59

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We mark the birth on September 4, 1824 – 199 years ago today – of the composer and organist Josef Anton Bruckner, in the Austrian village of Ansfelden, which today is a suburb of the city of Linz. He died in the Austrian capital of Vienna on October 11, 1896, at the age of 72. It was Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) who famously said that Bruckner was: “H…

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Music History Monday: Lohengrin 21:11

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We mark the premiere performance on August 28, 1850 – 173 years ago today – of Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, in the central German city of Weimar. The premiere was conducted by none-other-than Wagner’s friend and supporter (and future father-in-law!) Franz Liszt (1811-1886). Liszt had chosen the premiere date of August 28 in honor of Weimar’s m…