EarlyMusicNews.Org

Organist, choir director and founder of The Renaissance Society

“In a musical career spanning over four decades Michael Howard influenced many hundreds of musicians, both amateur and professional. He holds a significant place in the history of the twentieth century revival of interest in pre-Baroque music.

Michael Howard was born in 1922 the son of Frank Howard a distinguished viola player who had been a founding member of Beecham's Philharmonic orchestra and player in Andre Mangeot's International String Quartet. His lifelong love of steam traction was sparked by the family home's proximity to the GWR ("God's Wonderful Railway") and to Walpole Park in Ealing which was used by the travelling fairgrounds. …
           

In these two Mignarda blog posts, Ron & Don lay tribute to John Milton Ward who recently passed away on December 21, 2012. 

“… The world of the lute has attracted people who share in common a fascination with trivial details concerning the geometry of the instrument, specialized playing techniques, string materials and the surviving historical sources of lute music.  For the latter, we should all bow down and thank the brilliant 20th century scholars who have spent endless hours researching, analyzing, and codifying this surviving music in order to make it available to those of us who are inclined, with many drops of sweat, to reconstitute the dessicated old manuscript pages back into living, breathing music. …” (21 jan 2012, blog post)
                

From a recent blog post on the Semibrevity website.

“I mentioned in my post on Thurston Dart that I couldn’t find out much about Arnold Goldsbrough, who had been his teacher at the Royal College of Music 1938–9.

Since then I’ve tracked down Arnold’s son, now in his eighties, who has put me onto his dad’s surviving cronies and told me some stories. Through him, one way or another, I now have a great deal of previously unpublished material.
     

I first heard him, partnered by Frans Brüggen in a concert in St Albans. Since then, I’ve seen him many times and, apart from the extraordinary playing, have often been struck by the fact that he mostly used his own elegant manuscript scores, presumably copied from ancient tomes during his early years in Vienna.

(News of the passing of Gustav Leonhardt, yesterday, on 17 Jan 2012. He will be missed by all.  -- All of our condolences to the family from all of us at EarlyMusicNews.org. -- Marc Paré, Editor)

Gustav Leonhardt (30 May 1928-17 Jan 2012)

“Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Gustav Leonhardt, who has died aged 83, was a pioneer and pillar of the early music movement. ”