issued June 5th,1984 Born as Rudolf Josef Frantisek Benatzky in Moravia,he joined the k.u.k. army with age of 15 as a cadet.For health-reasons he had to end his career in 1907 with the rank of a second lieutenant.He then went to university in Vienna and ended his studies as a Doctor of Philosophy. During the same time he also took music lessons.Antonin Dvorak was one of his teachers. From 1909 on he started composing popular songs.He later went to Berlin where he wrote songs for political cabarets. However he is best known as a composer of operettas.His most popular operetta is "Im weißen Rössl",what made him a wealthy man. In 1932 he left Germany for Switzerland,because he foresaw the rule of the Nazis.1938 he moved to the US,where he settled down permanently in 1940, when he was denied the swiss citizenship.However in 1948 he returned to his villa in Thun,Canton Bern,where he spent his final years. He is buried in St.Wolfgang im Salzkammergut,the scene of "Im weißen Rössel".
issued Feb.8th,1985 The Viennese Alban Berg was a modern classical composer. He is probably best known for his operas Wozzek and Lulu.Lulu remained unfinished due to his early dead from a sepsis.He also wrote different orchestrial pieces,like his violin-concert.
What can I say,Molokai ? Can you imagine that I have not heard a single piece of classical music during the last twelve years ? Apart from small sequences in films,watched in (german) television. Music was all those years a nuisance only,when people in the neighbourhood had fiestas with nerve-shattering Latin Pop and nothing but Latin Pop. Don´t ask for the radio... So,when we will be back in Germany,I will have a lot to make up for !
issued May 3rd,1985 Johann Joseph Fux (ca.1660-1741) born near Graz in Styria was a baroque composer and music-theoretician.He became musical director at the Stephansdom (St.Stephens Cathedral) in Vienna and musical director of the imperial court.He wrote about 30 operas,50 masses and many other compositions.His theoretical works about the "Kontrapunkt" (counterpoint) were important for the development of the classical music.
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger 1736-1809 was an composer,music-theoretican and organist.As music-teacher he had many composers as students.One of his students was a certain Ludwig van Beethoven.Albrechtsberger is said to have remarked about him: he will never get anywhere...
issued May 21st,1986,to commemorate The "International Wagner Congress" in Vienna. Richard Wagner 1813-1883 introduced a new form of opera,he called "Singspiel".Much of his music really is impressive.But for me his operas are a little bit too long.He was very successful and had and has many admirers. The most famous of them was King Ludwig II (the Fairy-Tale King) of Bavaria, who helped to build a custom-made opera-house for Wagner in Bayreuth. The "Hill in Bayreuth" is the venue of the "Richard-Wagner-Festspiele" every year.A meeting point of the powerful,rich and beautiful and of course the normal "Wagnerianer". In the background of the stamp there is a scene from Lohengrin. Another scene from this opera is shown on the stamp below,issued May 23rd, 1969 in a sheetlet of of 8 stamps.
175th birth anniversary of Franz Liszt. The young Liszt and his birthplace in Raiding (Burgenland). see post 27 in this thread !
Michael Haydn (1737-1806),the younger brother of Joseph Haydn was a composer and organist.He spent most of his life as a musician in Salzburg, where he was organist (from 1782) at the Dreifaltigkeits-Kirche.A position what held before him Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.Mozart and he were good friends.Haydn was very productive composing sacred music,but wrote more than forty symphonies and other "secular music" as well. His works never went into print during his lifetime,so he is a rather forgotten composer,who was "re-discovered" during the last decades only.
Christoph Willibald Gluck,born 1714 in Upper Palatine was a pre-classical composer.His father,a forester,who had moved the family to Bohemia,wanted Christoph Willibald to become a forester as well.Gluck left and made his way to Vienna and later to Milan,where he studied the Italian Opera.From there he started an international career.He is regarded as the most important opera composer of the second half of the 18th century.In the 1770th,with the help of Marie Antoinette,the french Queen,whoem he had given singing instructions, when a princess in Vienna,he changed from Italian Operas to French Operas. In those years he commuted between Vienna and Paris.After his first stroke in 1779 he withdraw from public life and lived his last years in Vienna.There he died,after a second stroke in 1787. Gluck wrote all his operas in Italian and French,but not one in German. His most played opera today is "Orpheus and Eurydike",as it is titled in German.
issued Nov.27th,1987 Josef Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber see post #10 in this thread. 1987 was the 200th birth anniversary of Gruber.
Richard Strauss 1864-1949 (no relation to the Strauß-dynasty of Austria) was born in Munic into a wealthy,musical family.His father,a professional hornist, fostered his Richard´s musical talent from early childhood.So his official opus no.1,was composed at the age of 12. He wrote an enormous number of compositions,being productive till his death. 15 operas,more than 200 Lieder and much,much more. His most famous (popular) theme is the beginning of his "symphonic poem" "Also sprach Zarathustra" (1896),one of the best known classical compositions worldwide. He was a "Wagnerianer" and performed many works of Wagner as a conductor. He was one of the great conductors of the 20th century. Much more to say about him.He was co-inventor of of a co-operative for musicians,who strengthened the copy-right laws and social welfare of musicians. During the Nazi-rule he was in high positions,but his relation to the Nazi-state was ambigious.Hitler admired him,but Goebbels did not trust him. stamp issued June 1st,1989 scene from Strauss´opera "Der Rosenkavalier" stamp issued May 23rd,1969
Born as Salomon Levi in Hohenems/Vorarlberg,Salomon Sulzer (since 1813), became cantor of Hohenems with the age of 13.This was possible,because Emperor Franz I decreed a dispensation under the condition,that Sulzer would take a musical education,lasting at least for three years. In 1838 Sulzer published a collection of lithurgical songs,the "Schir Zion". Till then the singing in synagogues was in the orthodox style.While Sulzers compositions were orientated at the contemporary classical music. "Schir Zion" was gradually introduced in most reformed synagogues of Western Europe. stamp issued Jan.17th,1990
The 200th anniversary of Mozart´s death. From a souvenir sheet,issued March 22nd,1991 Mozart´s opera "Die Zauberflöte" (The Magic Flute),issued May 23rd,1969, from a sheetlet of 8 stamps.(Papageno)
Franz von Suppé 1819-1895 was born as Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo von Suppé in Split/Dalmatia,then Hungary,today Croatia.He grew up in Zadar and moved,after the death of his father,to Vienna,the birthplace of his mother, when 16 years old.There he studied music. He was a proliferate composer.Three operas,26 operettas and the music for more than 200 stage plays,as well as songs,masses and symphonic pieces. Today his operetta "Boccaccio" (1879) is the only,what is performed quite often in Germany. The overture of his operetta "Leichte Kavallerie" (1866) is very popular and his best know piece of music. stamp isssued Sept.15th,1995
Nico Dostal 1895-1981 was a composer of more than 20 operettas. He also composed many film musics and other popular pieces. He woked as a conductor and musical director as well. stamp issued Sept.15th,1995
Anton von Webern 1883-1945 was a modern classical composer and conductor. After having studied musicolgy,he became a pupil of Arnold Schönberg. He wrote different types of compositions and "Lieder". Several of his compositions were atonal or set in twelve-tone-music. He died in 1945 by an "accident": he was shot by an US-soldier in front of his house in Mittersill.
Johannes Brahms (1833-97),composer,conductor and pianist was born and raised in Hamburg.His father was an orchestra-musician. In young years he composed mostly piano-music,using pseudonyms. When twenty he became acquainted with Robert and Clara Schumann in Düsseldorf.Schuman helped him to get his compositions published. When Robert Schumann fell ill and was hospitalized in a mental institution,Brahms got very close to Clara,who was sixteen years senior to him and was an international star-performer on the piano. He adored and loved her all his life. After engagements in Detmold,Hamburg and other places,he finally moved to Vienna in 1872.Himself a acclaimed pianist,he was regarded as an eminent composer,who even in his lifetime was hailed as the "legitimat successor of Beethoven".He was a classical composer of the Late Romantic periode.His works span over the whole range of classical music.Performing all over Europe,but centered in Germany, he became a kind of living musical legend. In 1889 he recorded on a phonograph a part of his "Hungarian Dance No.1".This is the only authentic peace of music, performed by Brahms,what still exists today. On April 3rd,1897 he died from cancer (not even a year after Clara Schumann´s dead) and was buried on the Vienna Central Cementary. Stamp issued May 9th,1997.
