Classical music deaths of the decade
main2010 Singers Philip Langridge, Blanche Thebom, Bass Cesare Siepi, Anthony Rolfe Johnson,Giuseppi Taddei, Maureen Forrester, Joan Sutherland
Pianist Earl Wild
Conductors Charles Mackerras, Rudolf Barshai
Composer Henry Mikolai Gorecki
2011 Composer Milton Babbitt
Conductor Yakov Kreizberg
Pianist George Shearing
Singers Amy Winehouse, Dame Margaret Price, Robert Tear, Salvatore Licitra, Sena Jurinac
Violinist Josef Suk
2012 Soprano Lisa Connell
Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Sopranos Evelyn Lear, Galina Vishnevskaya, Lisa Della Casa
Organist Carlo Curley
Composers Hans Werner Henze, Jonathan Harvey, Dave Brubeck, Richard Rodney Bennett, Elliott Carter, Jonathan Harvey
Sitar player Ravi Shankar
Conductor Gustav Leonhardt
Violinist Ruggiero Ricci
2013 Conductors Wolfgang Sawallisch, Colin Davis
Pianist Van Cliburn,
Composers Henri Dutilleix, Steve Martland, John Tavener, Wojech Kilar
Organist Marie-Claire Alain
Director Patrice Chereau
2014 Conductors Claudio Abbado, Christopher Hogwood, Julius Rudel, Frans Brüggen, Lorin Maazel
Composer Peter Sculthorpe
2015 Composers John McCabe, Ezra Laderman, Gunther Schuller, Ronald Stevenson
Conductors Kurt Masur, David Willcocks, Walter Weller
Tenor Jon Vickers
Violinist Joseph Silverstein
2o16 Pierre Boulez
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Composers Steven Stucky, Pauline Oliveros, Einojuhani Rautavara, Peter Maxwell Davies
Conductor Neville Marriner
Cellist Heinrich Schiff
Pianist Zoltan Kocsis
Singers Daniela Dessi, Johan Botha
2017 Conductors George Pretre, Stanislaw Skrowacewski, Louis Fremaux, Jiri Belohlavek,
Singers Nicolai Gedda, Dmitry Hvorostovsky
Director Peter Hall
Harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková
2018 Activist: José Antonio Abreu
Conductors Jean-Claude Malgoire, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Jesus Lopez Cobos
Violinists Wanda Wilkomirska, Hermann KrebbersComposers Oliver Knussen, Noam Sherriff
Soprano Montserrat Caballé
Cellist Aldo Parisot
A detailed list of 2019 losses follows here.
Soprano Lisa Della Casa (1919 – 2012)
“Classical music deaths of the decade” – Amy Winehouse? (not saying she wasn’t a talent or a loss…)
2012
Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichordist, organist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor
2017
Aloys Kontarsky, pianist, teacher
2019
Anner Bylsma, violoncellist who mastered both modern and period instruments
Actually the decade closes at the end of next year – 2020. This century’s first year was 2001, and the current decade’s first year was therefore 2011.
No. Decades aren’t named the same way centuries are. They’re defined by the tens place of the year.
You wouldn’t say about a 20-year-old that she’s in her late teens. She’d be perceived now to have moved into her twenties, which will end when she turns 30.
You are wrong. Teens is a term related to the end of the numbers. It ends with Nine-TEEN.
A decade starts always with the year 1 of it. So the next decade starts 2021.
Unless you can prove, that the counting of years started with living in a year ZERO.
«Ondes specialist» was Jeanne Loriod, who died in 2001. As for her sister Yvonne, well, maybe you remember who she was? !!
Why Amy Winehouse? And not Whitney Houston (2012) or Dolores O’Riordan (2018)? All significant deaths in the POP music world.
The latter at least sang with Pavarotti. Though that may be Department of Who Didn’t.
Exactly. Winehouse might be closer to England and Mr. Lebrecht, but Whitney Houston was closer to a source of true classical relevance: black gospel music.
2017 – Harry Sparnaay. Bass Clarinet
Surely Jeanne Loriod was the ondes martenot specialist. I recall Yvonne Loriod only as a pianist (but what a pianist!)
I know it is impractical to attempt a complete list, or maybe because I only tend to get sad about fiddle players, but I’d add violinists Israel Baker (1919-2011), Ruggiero Ricci (1918-2012), Roman Totenberg (1911-2012), Zvi Zeitlin (1922-2012), Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014), Dénes Zsigmondy (1922-2014), Mark Sokol (1946-2014), Ida Levin (1963-2016), Anahid Ajemian (1924 -2016), Paul Zukovsky (1943-2017), Fredell Lack (1922-2017), Robert Mann (1920-2018), Nina Beilina (1937-2018).
And I bet I have left someone out that I’ll regret.
How sad that Mr. Totenberg’s stolen violin was only recovered after he passed away.
Classical music critic Claude Gingras: Dec.30/2018
The decade has another year to run!
Yvonne Loriod was a pianist – the ondes specialist was his sister Jeanne (1928-2001).
You left out Elliott Carter among the composers who left us in 2012.
Let’s not forget composer Elliott Carter, who died in 2012, and conductor James DePreist, who died in 2013.
2011 Yakov Kreizberg
2012 Elliott Carter
2013 Janos Starker
2014 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
2015 Aldo Ciccolini
2016 Peter Maxwell Davies
2017 Kurt Moll
2017 Jeffrey Tate
2017 Pierre Henry
2018 Jesus Lopez Cobos
Yvonne Loriod was a pianist. Jeanne Loriod, her sister, was the ondiste.
Can’t believe it’s been nearly a decade without Charles Mackerras.
A truly wonderful conductor, too often denied the accolades his artistry deserved in my view.
2015, Jouni Kaipainen. (Composer of 4 symphonies, 10 concertos, 7 string quartets.)
Internationally lesser-known colleague of Saariaho, Lindberg & Salonen, but nevertheless from the ‘same classroom’.
At least as much merit as Amy Winehouse:
2010 Shirley Verrett, mezzo, Hugues Cuénod, high tenor; Hilde Rössel-Majdan, contralto
2011 Margaret Price, soprano; Sena Jurinac, soprano; Yakov Kreizberg, conductor; Josef Suk, violinist
2012 Ruggiero Ricci, violinist; Elliott Carter, composer; Jonathan Harvey, composer
2013 John Tavener, composer; Rafael Puyana, harpsichordist; Janos Starker, cellist; Winton Dean, musicologist
2014 Carlo Bergonzi, tenor; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, composer and conductor
2015 Alan Curtis, harpsichordist and conductor; Aafje Heynis, soprano; Ivan Moravec, pianist
2016 André Isoir, organist; Russell Oberlin, high tenor
2017 Roberta Peters, soprano
2018 Blandine Verlet, harpsichordist; Livia Rev, pianist; Claudio Scimone, conductor
Dmitry Hvorostovsky: this was the cruelest of all.
My goodness, I actually agree with you for once.
2011 Malcolm Forsyth.
Gustav Leonhardt was first and foremost a harpsichord player, reviving the use of old instruments! But he certainly deserves to be mentioned here.
Also worth remembering: Marie-Claire Alain (1926-2013), one of best and most influential organ players of her generation.
2013, that’s John Tavener, not Taverner.
Frank Comstock May 21, 2013, 90yo. Not classical but he was responsible for the arrangements and orchestrations in the film musical Calamity Jane – think of the backing on the songs “Secret Love” and “The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away!)”, and also worked on Hello Dolly.
I should add too that Frank Comstock wrote the arrangement of I wanna be loved by you seen in Some Like it hot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDHlgnRuaM
Abbado, Pretre, Harnoncourt, Janson 4 men fantastics in Vienna the first of January
And what about David Bowie?
2012: Lisa Connell
Never heard Soprano Elizabeth Connell referred to as “Lisa”…
Also in 2015, Canadian soprano Clarice Carson (1929-2015) passed
I forgot that it was a decade ago that Charles Mackerras passed away. Despite the knighthood, I’ve always thought he is one of the conductors largely overlooked in a profession populated by a number of overhyped mediocres. I purchased tickets to a Mackerras/BSO Berlioz concert but he was forced to cancel, one of the above-mentioned JAC’s (just another conductor) stepped in and the BSO played from memory. CM was largely associated with good to very good orchestras but rarely the top tier and I would appreciate if anyone can explain why?
I totally agree with Amos’ comments about Mackerras. He was a great conductor in many respects. He did have an association with many major orchestras, although more often in Principal Guest positions than as MD, and conducted many more including the Vienna Philharmonic. And he surely did more than any other conductor to champion the works of Janacek.
Perhaps it was his long association with opera that denied him a greater symphonic heritage. His association with the D’Oyly Carte company and then directorships at Hamburg, the ENO and Welsh National companies as well as his regular operatic guest engagements will have taken up a great deal of his time. Later in life he was especially associated with smaller scale orchestras, lending his authority in particular to the young Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
I only heard him twice, both times in opera. A marvelous Die Walkure as part of the ENO’s Ring in English, and Dido and Aeneas with Dame Janet Baker for Scottish Opera with the SCO at the Aix en Provence Festival. I treasure those memories.
I have not seen a notice of the death of composer, Elliott Schwartz, this past decade, I believe.
So, since she wasn’t an Ondiste, poor Yvonne Loriod just vanished off Norman’s list for 2010. What a recognition for her work…
Elena Obraztsova, mezzosoprano 1939-2015
Inge Borkh, soprano 1921-2018
Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund 1929 – 2012
TIMPANISTS VIC FIRTH 2015 AND RICHARD HOROWITZ 2015
Baritone Dan Iordachescu
So many giants of the concert platform, opera stage and recording studio. How many of us now regret that great artists like Earl Wild, Maureen Forrester and even Dame Margaret Price chose to limit their careers to just a few countries and a few cities?
Claude Frank, a wonderful pianist and professor
Giorgio Tozzi (January 8, 1923 – May 30, 2011)
Other conductors: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Bruno Bartoletti, Berislav Klobučar, Elio Boncompagni, sopranos Magda Olivero, Licia Albanese, tenor Carlo Bergonzi, bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk, cellist Alexander Ivashkin…