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After Beethoven died, many Viennese music fans were able to clip a keepsake of a lock of his hair, but only one has been preserved with all the proper provenance to show it as authentic. The story of that lock of hair is the backbone of a riveting slice of history in _Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved_ (Broadway Books) by Russell Martin. Martin has told three stories in his book, intercalating them in chapters that come to a pleasing whole. The first story is a fine capsule biography of Beethoven himself. Within the biography, Martin tells us much about the composer's medical problems, increasing our wonder of how such an afflicted man could have produced works of such profound concentration and joy. The second story within the book is about the fate of the wandering lock of hair as it passed to the heirs of the young musician who clipped it, and how it formed part of the story of the Holocaust, turning up in Denmark in 1943. Eventually it was sold at Sothebys in 1994, to a couple of non-musician fans of Beethoven, one of whom donated his share to the university Beethoven center he had started, and one who made his strands available for medical testing. The hair snipped by Beethoven's young friend was able to tell its story a hundred and seventy years later, giving a probable explanation for Beethoven's ailments.BUY Beethoven's Hair
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced on April 9 the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel, 26, as the orchestra's next music director, beginning in 2009. The news was a bombshell, and the global media went into astonishing high gear. India called. Al Jazeera requested an interview. "60 Minutes" insisted upon its 20 minutes with the fastest-rising star in classical music. But after a Philharmonic news conference, the fastest-rising star in classical music was nowhere to be found......MORE...
NEW YORK - The remains of Czech-born American pianist Rudolf Firkusny are to be laid to rest in a cemetery in the Czech Republic 10 years after his death. Firkusny, known for his fiery artistic temperament coupled with a brilliant technique, died in 1994 at age 82 in Staatsburg, N.Y. His wife, Tatiana Nevole Firkusny, died in 2005 at age 60 in New York. They were cremated and their ashes mixed. The family held the urn until they could arrange the burial in their native land, according to Veronique Firkusny-Callegari, their daughter. The burial will be Sept. 10 2007 at the central cemetery in Brno, Tatiana Nevole Firkusny's birthplace ......MORE... | BIO
Ludwig van Beethoven may have died accidentally at the hands of his own physician. The Austrian composer died in 1827 at age 56, probably of pneumonia and complications of abdominal problems. But scientists think he suffered from lead poisoning.......MORE...
Pianist, composer and teacher Clifford Benson died on August 10, 2007 from an inoperable brain tumor. He was 60. Benson is remembered as a collaborative musician of great versatility, spirit and sensitivity. Among those with whom he had worked are violinists Levon Chilingirian, Shlomo Mintz and Lydia Mordkovitch, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, clarinetist Thea King and flutists William Bennett, Marcel Moyse and Trevor Wye. ...MORE...
Pianist Horacio Gutiérrez has cancelled all his engagements through January 2008 due to a diagnosis of primary gastric lymphoma. "[It] is 90% curable with chemotherapy, which he is undergoing now," his manager, Seldy Cramer, told Playbill Arts. "He plans to return to the stage in January." ...MORE... | BUY Horacio Gutiérrez
As the Met's fortunes began to recover in the late 1930s, the young singer established a distinctive and distinguished career, anchored by her rigorous interpretive standards and unfailingly honest musicianship and abetted by her tall, slim figure, graceful deportment and genial stage presence.
The prolific Swindon-born composer Graham Whettam, who was known for his futuristic piano works, has died, aged 79. He passed away on Friday [18 AUG 2007] at his home in Gloucestershire and since then tributes have been paid to a man known as one of Britain's elder statesmen of music.
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