Classical music: Find out what eight famous composers were doing on Christmas Day. Plus, UW-Madison piano virtuoso Christopher Taylor performs Messiaen on WORT FM early on Christmas morning.

ALERT: Blog fan and WORT 89.9 FM radio host Rich Samuels, who also documents the local music scene, writes:

Jake:

My Christmas Day 5-8 a.m. show on WORT will include a complete performance of Olivier Messiaen‘s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus” by University of Wisconsin-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor, as well as an interview that I recorded with Taylor about the piece and its composer.

The performance was recorded December 11, 2012 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Taylor performs this two-hour work from memory.)

Here’s a link to the New York Times review of the performance:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/arts/music/messiaens-vingt-regards-sur-lenfant-jesus-at-met-museum.html

All the best in 2015.

By Jacob Stockinger

Here is an unexpected Christmas gift I stumbled across.

It consists of Christmas Day excerpts from letters and diaries by and about eight Romantic and modern composers. They include Felix Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner (see the YouTube video at the bottom), Claude Debussy, Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev.

I like that the various writings demystify the lives of composers, and artists in general, and shows their ordinary human side through what they thought, felt and did on a special day, even on a holiday.

Happy reading and Merry Christmas!

http://www.classical-music.com/article/8-composers-at-christmas-through-letters

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Posted in Classical music
Tags: Arts, Bach, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Chamber music, Christmas, Christmas and holiday season, Christmas Day, Christopher Taylor, Christopher Taylor (pianist), Classical music, Debussy, diary, Edward Elgar, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, letters, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Messiaen, Olivier Messiaen, Orchestra, Piano, Prokofiev, Radio, Richard Wagner, Siegfried Idyll, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wagner, WORT, WORT FM 88.9, YouTube