by Jarrett Hoffman
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Two of the foremost performers of their time were born on this date in history: American violinist Joshua Bell in 1967, and German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in 1915.
Bell turns 53 today — nearly four decades after his orchestral debut at 14 with The Philadelphia Orchestra. In that time he’s won an Avery Fisher Prize, a Grammy for his recording of Nicholas Maw’s Violin Concerto (written for him — listen here), has made his mark in the world of film with his solo playing in The Red Violin (music by John Corigliano), and has stepped in front of an orchestra in a different way: as artistic director of The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, a post he’s held since 2011. He’s also performed incognito at a subway station in Washington, D.C.
Now, in these “uncertain times,” to quote all the commercials encouraging the purchase of a new car, Bell is still keeping active. His latest venture is a new salon series streaming on the Mandolin platform, beginning on December 19 in a recital with his longtime collaborator Jeremy Denk.
Another important date for Bell on the calendar this month: on December 17, he’ll help celebrate those on the frontlines of the battle with COVID-19 in a guest appearance with the National Virtual Medical Orchestra, presented by Carnegie Hall.
Schwarzkopf passed away in her sleep at age 90 in 2006. She was most celebrated for performing Lieder, and in that arena, she helped inaugurate Blossom Music Center — listen here to Strauss’s Four Last Songs performed live by Schwarzkopf, George Szell, and The Cleveland Orchestra in a radio broadcast from the venue’s first season. (Read more about the first season of Blossom here.) Or head to Spotify for those Strauss works in another Schwarzkopf-Szell pairing, this time in a recording with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin.
Complicating Schwarzkopf’s legacy is her involvement with the Nazi Party, including in ways that were far from routine at the time, as Michael H. Kater wrote in The Guardian in the weeks after the soprano’s death.
SPEAKING OF DEATH AND MUSICIANS…
Names like Frank Sinatra (left), John Lennon, and Whitney Houston have joined the video-sharing social network TikTok, though not exactly from the afterlife — rather, it’s the work of estates and record companies, as Kara Weisenstein writes for Mic.
That raises an important question: which performers from the deceased side of the classical world would you like to see digitally rise from the grave? Or from another perspective, which ones would you prefer to stay dead?