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Anthony Princiotti

@tonyprinciotti.bsky.social

280 followers 16 following 2K posts

Conductor, Violinist, Teacher; Longtime Producer of Digital Engagement Materials for @BostonSymphony. Juilliard/Yale grad. E-mail: [email protected] Newsletter: http://therefuge.substack.com (new editions on Wednesdays and Sundays)

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4h

In this Week's Edition of "The Refuge":

Lully's Bizarre End: The Full Story
Murphy's Law and the Opera
Johan Strauss Heals a Political Divide
A Missed Opportunity

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4h

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20h

Emperor Franz Joseph II:
"Herr Bruckner, I bestow upon you the Imperial Order of the Austrian Crown. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Bruckner:
"Oh yes, Your Majesty! Would you ask that critic Mr. Hanslick to stop writing such awful things about my Symphonies?!?"

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20h

Anton Bruckner, in younger days.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20h

Bruckner had pronounced necrophiliac tendencies. When his mom died, he had a photo taken; he kept it on his desk. When Beethoven and Schubert were exhumed for reburial in a different cemetery, he jumped in the graves and kissed their skulls. He even left instructions for his own embalming.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20h

Bruckner's sarcophagus in the crypt of the St. Florian monastery, which is located beneath the organ he played during his long tenure as the cathedral's organist. Those objects at the back are skulls.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 21h

On this date in 1896, the Austrian composer and organist Anton Bruckner died in Vienna at the age of 72. After many years of struggle, he'd recently begun to develop a following in the German-speaking world. International recognition would require an additional 6 to 7 decades.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

Trumpites reflexively reframe even the most obvious facts as opinions. They consider a decent respect for empirical reality as evidence of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Truth is whatever The Dear Leader says it is.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

"You may have the universe if I may have Italy."

- Giuseppe Verdi

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

Verdi in Russia in 1861, clearly enjoying the climate.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

Although the operas of Verdi have long been associated with La Scala in Milan, the composer and the opera house had a fraught relationship. In fact, the house's low standards and the sharp business practices of its management led him to boycott the place for 24(!) years

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

While Verdi eventually morphed into the stereotypically avuncular, modest Italian peasant, he was quite an artistic tyrant during his younger days. In one instance, he made a soprano and a baritone rehearse a major duet from his opera "MacBeth" more than 150 times.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

On this date in 1813, the composer Giuseppi Verdi was born in the northern Italian village of Le Roncole. His 28 operas filled the vacuum created by Rossini's early retirement, making him the dominant force in Italian opera for the better part of 50 years.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 2d

The Supreme Court's conservative majority allowed Trump to escape legal accountability for inciting an insurrection; hell, they halted the case in its tracks, ultimately killing it. As proponents of the Unitary Executive Theory, they'd certainly greenlight his invoking the Insurrection Act.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 2d

"He certainly knows everything. Unfortunately, he lacks inexperience."

- Hector Berlioz, on the doubled edged nature of Saint-Saéns' incredible facility.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 2d

Camille Saint-Saëns, thoroughly content with his belief that it's YOU who look silly.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 2d

Over the course of his long career, Saint-Saëns evolved rather conventionally from a musical progressive who championed Wagner to a particularly acidulous critic of new music. The elderly Saint-Saëns described Debussy as "lacking common sense", and called Stravinsky "insane."

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 2d

When Saint-Saëns' was born in 1835, Beethoven and Schubert had recently passed away , Mendelssohn was just gaining fame and Schumann was unknown. When he died in 1921, the premiere of "The Rite of Spring" was 8 years in the past and Schoenberg was codifying his 12-tone technique.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 2d

On this date in 1835, the French composer, pianist and conductor Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris. The remarkable facility displayed in his music has led some to dismiss him as more competent than inspired. But musicians like Ravel and Faure insisted that he was a genius.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

It occurs to me that the vision of authoritarianism Aldous Huxley laid out in "A Brave New World" (1932), in which the people willingly give up their collective agency in exchange for pointless amusements and distractions, is closer to what we're experiencing than what Orwell described in "1984."

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

"It is in the nature of things—and it is this which determines the march of evolution in art as much as in other branches of human activity—that epochs which immediately precede us are temporarily farther away from us than others which are more remote in time."

- Igor Stravinsky

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

When Stravinsky finished his Requiem Canticles, he was 84 years old. He died a little less than five years later in New York. His body was transported for burial to Venice, where the work was performed at his funeral.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

In the music of his final creative period, Stravinsky embraced Schoenberg's 12-tone technique, which may explain the relative unpopularity of his later works. Here are the 4 tone-rows he used for his "Requiem Canticles":

P=Prime
R=Retrograde
I=Inversion
IR=Inverted Retrograde

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

Stravinsky's carefully-curated image of himself as an intellectually-ruthless disrupter of norms obscured the fact that he was a passionately devoted member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Indeed, sacred works dominated his output during his final years.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

On the date in 1966, Stravinsky's "Requiem Canticles" for vocal soloists, large chorus and orchestra was premiered in Princeton, NJ. The composer's final major work, it's a Latin setting of 6 excerpts from the Requiem Mass. Stravinsky liked calling it "the first Mini- Requiem."

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4d

For those interested in hearing what my Vuillaume "Il Canone" Guarneri model sounds like, here's a cut from a recording I made of Telemann's 12 Fantasias for Violin:

loom.ly/N8-Y8HA

Telemann: Fantasia No. 4 in D Major, TWV 40:17

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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