Composers Datebook: Recent Episodes
American Public Media
Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1967, Aaron Copland’s final orchestra work, titled Inscape, was premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Copland said the work’s title Inscape was borrowed from the 19th century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Its compositional technique was borrowed from the serial or 12-tone models of Arnold Schoenberg and the some of the late works of one of Copland’s favorite composers, Igor Stravinsky. Bernstein himself was no great fan of 12-tone music, but he exclaimed to Copland following the premiere, “Aaron, it’s amazing how, even when you compose in a completely foreign idiom, the music STILL comes out sounding like you!”
Beyond the technical challenge involved, Inscapes, said Copland, reflected what he called “the tenseness of the times in which we live.”
Copland’s experiments with 12-tone pieces like Inscape didn’t impress the avant-garde composers of the day, and only baffled audiences who expected him to produce more works in the style of his popular ballet scores of the 1930s and 40s.
By 1970, Copland stopped composing altogether, and claimed not to miss it very much. “I must have expressed myself sufficiently,” he said.
Music Played in Today's Program
Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990) Inscape New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond. Sony 47236
Synopsis
For decades many of the 20th century’s greatest composers routinely visited Venice’s famous canals and churches during a biennial music festival that showcased brand-new works by the likes of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten, and others.
The French composer Darius Milhaud describes sharing space with several of his composer-colleagues in a cramped Festival “green room.” “It was a normal sight to see Stravinsky’s rain-coat and Constant Lambert’s tweed overcoat hanging near my two walking sticks,” writes Milhaud. “Meanwhile, the Italian composer Hildebrando Pizetti would be putting up a mirror, opening a silver toilet-case, and arranging flowers, his wife’s photograph and a sheaf of telegrams.”
On today’s date in 1937, Milhaud conducted the first performance of his Suite Provencale at the Venice Festival. This jaunty score proved to be one of his most popular orchestral works. In 1954, it was Leonard Bernstein’s turn. On today’s date that year, he conducted in Venice the premiere performance of his Serenade for violin and orchestra, with Isaac Stern the featured soloist.
Despite its admirable track record for picking winners, the Venice Festival shut down operations in 1973, although its impact lives on in the number of modern masterworks it helped launch in its day.
Music Played in Today's Program
Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) Suite provençale, Op. 152b Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos 7031
Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) Serenade (after Plato's "Symposium") Zino Francescatti, violin; NY Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond. Sony 60559
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1573, Queen Elizabeth the First celebrated her 40th birthday.
According to SOME musicologists, the music-loving monarch received as a birthday gift a Latin motet for 40 voices by Thomas Tallis titled Spem in alium, which translates as “Hope in All Things.” Elisabeth was certainly fond of Tallis, awarding him special gifts and privileges —despite his remaining a steadfast Roman Catholic throughout her reign, when being a Catholic in Protestant England was very risky business, indeed!
In fact, other musicologists contend that this famous motet was ACTUALLY written for the coronation of Elizabeth’s predecessor, the CATHOLIC queen Mary Tudor. Still others say: “No, no—the motet was commissioned by a patriotic British nobleman, who challenged Tallis to write a work as good as—or better—than a contemporary Italian composer’s 40-voice motet.”
The truth is we just don’t know for sure why Tallis composed this intricate and glorious music. We do know that in a dangerous time for ANYONE with strong religious convictions, Tallis lived to the ripe old age of 80. His epitaph reads: “As he did live, so he did die—in mild and quiet sort (O happy Man!)”
Music Played in Today's Program
Thomas Tallis (c.1505 - 1585) Spem in alium Huelgas Ensemble; Paul Van Nevel, cond. Sony 60992
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1948, at a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall, the London Symphony gave the premiere performance of the Serenade in G Major by the British composer Ernest John Moeran. Moeran was born in 1894 in London, but Ireland became his adopted home and musical inspiration during the last decades of his life.
Moeran was fascinated by folksongs, and his method of collecting them was to sit in a country pub and wait until an old man started singing. He would note down the song and ask for more. In the 1920s, Moeran became drinking companion of another British composer, music critic, and fellow folk song aficionado Peter Warlock, a talented but rather notorious character who was the model for the outrageously Bohemian composer depicted in Anthony Powell’s string of novels collectively titled A Dance to the Music of Time.
Warlock’s most famous work was his Capriol Suite, an affectionate reworking of Renaissance tunes, and Moeran’s Serenade, similar in tone, was perhaps a tribute to his old boon companion. Moeran’s 1948 Serenade proved to be last major work, as he died suddenly two years later, at 55, in his beloved Ireland.
Music Played in Today's Program
E. J. Moeran (1894 - 1950) Serenade in G Northern Sinfonietta of England;Richard Hickox, cond. EMI 74991-2
Synopsis
Angel Fire is a village in the New Mexico Rockies that hosts an annual chamber music festival. To celebrate their 25th anniversary, Music from Angel Fire commissioned the American composer Joan Tower to write them a new work, which she titled Angels – a virtuosic String Quartet, her fourth, which received its premiere performance by the Miami String Quartet on today’s date in 2008.
“Having written three prior quartets and gotten to travel extensively around the world of quartets,” wrote Tower, “I have come to love the way [they] are so deeply creative and passionate about the music they play. They are really like four ‘composers’ at work.”
The title given the new piece is a nod to Angel Fire, New Mexico, of course, but Tower made it clear she had some other special angels in mind: six people who helped her younger brother George survive a major stroke. These were her sister, a former student named Erin, a doctor , a nurse, and a pair of real estate agents.
All six appear on the score’s front page beneath her dedication, “to the ‘Angels’ who took care of my brother.”
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1933, the Philadelphia Orchestra was performing at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell. Conductor Alexander Smallens led the world premiere performance of a new work by a 23-year-old composer named Samuel Barber. It was his first orchestral composition to have a major public hearing, but oddly enough, young Mr. Barber himself was not in attendance.
He was in Europe that summer, and so missed the premiere of his Overture to The School for Scandal, a musical romp inspired by the 18th century English Restoration comedy of the same name by Richard Sheridan.
Synopsis
Say the phrase “BBC Proms” to most music lovers, and they’ll conjure up a mental image of the rowdy “Last Night of the Proms” at which normally staid and reserved Britons don funny hats and make rude noises during Sir Henry Wood’s arrangement of British sailor songs. But the raucous “Last Night of the Proms” is only the festive finale of several weeks of fairly serious music making: dozens of concerts covering a wide range of old and new music
From the very beginning of the Proms in 1895, Sir Henry, who started the whole thing, had this specific agenda: “I am going to run nightly concerts to train the public in easy stages,” he explained. “Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music.”
On today’s date in 1996, for example, violinist Gidon Kremer premiered a brand-new violin concerto by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho at a Proms concert. The work had an unusual title—Grail Theater. “I like the unusual combination of these two words,” explained Saariaho, “because it represents two such different things. One is the search for the Grail, and the other the theatrical aspect.”
Music Played in Today's Program
J.S. Bach (1685 – 1750) arr. Henry Wood Toccata and Fugue in D minor BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. Teldec 97868
Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) Graal Theatre Gidon Kremer, violin; BBC Symphony; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony Classical 60817
Synopsis
The life story of George Gershwin usually runs something like this: an incredible string of successes cut short by Gershwin’s tragically early death. But on today’s date in 1922, Gershwin suffered one of his rare flops when his one-act opera Blue Monday opened and closed on the same day.
For five years, beginning in 1920, Gershwin had provided the music for an annual Broadway review entitled The George White Scandals. The impresario Mr. White provided the money and the leggy showgirls, Mr. Gershwin the catchy tunes and light-hearted dances.
But in 1922, Gershwin was eager to try something different: a modern, jazz-age version of an Italian verismo opera. The plot was simple: he does her wrong, and then she shoots him. The reviews were devastatingly bad—one critic suggesting the soprano with the pistol should have shot the rest of the cast before anyone had a chance to sing.
Synopsis
Around this time in 1956, the hot ticket on Broadway was for a musical based on the old Greek legend of Pygmalion, a sculptor so good that he fell in love with one of his beautiful female statues. The playwright, George Bernard Shaw, had updated the legend to modern-day London, and in 1956, the Broadway team of Lerner and Loewe had in turn transformed Shaw’s stage play into the smash Broadway musical, My Fair Lady.
But 208 years before all that, on today’s date in the year 1748, ANOTHER very successful musical adaptation of the Pygmalion legend opened in Paris. This Pygmalion was an opera-ballet by the great French Baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Rameau was born in 1683, two years earlier than Bach and Handel, but unlike them, was something of a late bloomer. He was 50 before he became famous, and his opera-ballet Pygmalion opened shortly before his 65th birthday.
Rameau was famous for imitating natural sounds and noises in his music. One of Rameau’s contemporaries, in praising the overture to Pygmalion, even suggested the repeated notes of Rameau’s theme represented the chipping of Pygmalion’s chisel as he worked on his lovely creation.
Music Played in Today's Program
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 – 1764) Pygmalion La Petite Bande; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor. BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77143
Synopsis
Piero della Francesca was a 15th century Renaissance painter, whose series of frescoes entitled Legend of the True Cross inspired one of the best orchestral works of a 20th-century Czech composer named Bohuslav Martinu.
In 1952, Martinu made a trip to the Tuscan hill town of Arezzo, where he saw the frescoes and got the idea for a new symphonic work that would attempt to capture in music what Piero had captured in painting.
What Martinu sought to replicate was, as he put it, “a kind of solemn, frozen silence and opaque, colored atmosphere… a strange, peaceful, and moving poetry.”
Martinu linked the first movement of his score to one Tuscan fresco showing the Queen of Sheba and some women kneeling by a river; and the second to another depicting the dream of the Emperor Constantine. The third movement was intended, in Martinu’s words, as “a kind of general view of the frescoes.”
Martinu’s orchestral triptych, entitled The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca, received its premiere performance on today’s date at the 1956 Salzburg Festival in Austria, with the Vienna Philharmonic led by the eminent Czech conductor, Rafael Kubelik.
Music Played in Today's Program
Bohuslav Martinu (1890 – 1950) Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca Vienna Philharmonic;Rafael Kubelik, conductor. Orfeo C521-991 (recorded August 26, 1956)
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1959, Leonard Bernstein celebrated his 41st birthday in Moscow. The New York Philharmonic was embarked on an extensive world tour, which included three weeks in the Soviet Union.
Their August 25th concert proved controversial, offering two works of Igor Stravinsky, a composer still condemned in the Soviet Union as “bourgeois” and “decadent.” Even more daring, Bernstein opened his concert with “The Unanswered Question,” a short piece by the American composer, Charles Ives.
Even worse, Bernstein broke traditional Soviet protocol by talking directly to the audience through an interpreter, explaining Ives’ unusual philosophy of music. The enthusiastic audience response after the Ives led to it being encored.
This really upset the Soviet authorities, and the music critic of the Ministry of Culture wrote, “Before this four-minute piece Bernstein spoke for six minutes. Only the good manners of the hospitable public resulted in a ripple of cool applause. Nevertheless, the conductor, setting modesty aside, himself suggested that the piece be repeated.”
Bernstein, although furious at what he called “an unforgivable lie,” was persuaded to forgo any further controversial lectures from the podium for the remainder of the Soviet tour.
Music Played in Today's Program
Charles Ives (1874 – 1954) The Unanswered Question New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Sony Classical 46701
Synopsis
We tend to think our time has had a monopoly on bitter religious conflicts, but on today’s date in 1572, which happened to be St. Bartholomew’s Day, the Catholic queen dowager of France, Catherine de Medici, and her son, King Charles IX, decided that the best way to rid their kingdom of troublesome Protestants would be simply to kill them off.
A few days earlier, Catholic and Protestant nobles from across France had come to Paris to attend a noble wedding which, ironically, was intended to bring the rival religious factions closer together.
Things quickly turned ugly, and on the 24th of August the infamous “Massacre of St. Bartholomew” began and quickly spread across the entire country. Among those who perished was a French Protestant composer named Claude Goudimel, who was killed when the massacre reached Lyons.
Synopsis
Tanglewood is one of America’s most famous summer-time classical music festivals and can boast a long and impressive list of premieres and performances by famous American composers and conductors. It takes place each year around this time in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.
Tanglewood has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home for more than 60 years, but it wasn't the symphony's first location in the Berkshires. In August of 1936, the first in a three-concert series was performed at Holmwood, a former Vanderbilt estate.
The great Russian-born conductor of the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky, moved the festival to Tanglewood and expanded the concert series into a kind of intensive summer camp for young musicians and composers. Among those who particularly benefited were two young composer-conductors named Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss.
In 1940, the Berkshire Music Center (now the Tanglewood Music Center) opened, and to mark the occasion, American composer Randall Thompson's famous choral work titled Alleluia received its premiere performance.
Synopsis
Angel Fire is a village in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico, home to ski slopes and hiking trails, plus a summer mountain-bike park and zip line. And, since 1983, it’s also the home of a late summer music festival called “Music from Angel Fire.”
Early on, violinist Ida Kavafian was invited to serve as the Festival’s Artistic Director, a position she maintained through 2019. Kavafian returned on today’s date in 2001 to perform in the premiere of a newly commissioned trio by Libby Larsen – along with cellist Peter Wiley And pianist Melvin Chen – this just one of over 45 premieres that have taken place at the Festival to date.
Libby Larsen’s Trio is a classically-proportioned work in three movements: the first movement, titled Sultry, and the third, titled Burst, are very rhythmic, fast, and hauntingly jazz-like. In between, the second movement, titled Still is quite serene, free flowing, and very quiet.
Libbuy Larsen said, “I compose music for the concert hall. I chose this type of music because I love physics. Flutes, cellos, trumpets, tubas, all of the orchestral instruments emit natural sound, and they operate on the laws of physics. I can hear those laws working in the air when those instruments play.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Libby Larsen (b. 1950) – Mvt 3 (Bursts), fr Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano (Curtis Macomber, vn; Norman Fischer, vcl; Jeanne Kierman, p.) Navona Records NV-6014
Synopsis
At the BBC Proms on today’s date in 2004 Proms a new piece by the British composer Judith Anderson was premiered by the BBC Chorus.
Entitled The Secret Garden, it was inspired by several events: a conversation about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, a BBC TV series entitled The Private World of Plants, some rather racy descriptions of the sex life of plants by the 18th century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, and a disturbing news story about the bombing of the so-called “Adam Tree” in Iraq at a site that locals believe was where the Garden of Eden once stood. Bingham wrote her own text, which includes many Latin names of plants, which led to The Secret Garden’s subtitle: Botanical Fantasy.
“This is meant to be a magical piece,” says Bingham. “It has a Christian framework with opening and closing quotations from Genesis and Matthew … but the piece also seems to wonder whether the world is better off without humans, and that, should humans cease to exist, Paradise would very soon re-establish itself …”
Synopsis
Details on the lives and careers of composers born before 1700 tend to be a bit skimpy, at best. For example, we know that the Italian Baroque composer Jacopo Peri was born on today’s date in 1561, but we’re not sure if that was in Rome or Florence.
As a point of reference, remember that William Shakespeare was born in 1564, just three years after Peri. And by the 1580s, around the same time Shakespeare was learning to be a playwright, Peri and some of his Italian contemporaries were experimenting with a new art form that we call now call “opera.”
There was much discussion at the time about what the music of the ancient Greek dramas must have been like, and how dramatic stories might be told in music. Peri was instrumental in the production of two of the earliest operas for which the complete music survives: Dafne, which premiered around 1597, and Euridice from 1600.
Peri outlived his English contemporary Shakespeare by 17 years. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of 52, while Peri died sometime in August of 1633, at 72, a ripe old age for the 17th century.
Music Played in Today's Program
Vagn Holmboe (1909 – 1996) String Quartet No. 13, Op. 124 Kontra Quartet Da Capo CD 8.207001 (complete) or 8.224127 (Quartets 13-15 only)
Synopsis
In the 19th century, anybody who had the means would flee the stifling heat of the cities and head for someplace green and shady and cool: a country house, a spa perhaps, or maybe just a modest cabin by a lake.
In the 19th century, it was Brahms who set the fashion for composers to spend their summer months in the countryside working on their music. His Violin Concerto and Second Symphony were the products of leisurely weeks spent in the lake district of Austria’s Carinthian Alps.
For the American composer Edward Collins, who lived from 1886-1951, the city to be escaped was Chicago, and his country refuge was Cedar Lake, Wisconsin. In 1931, Collins composed a Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra. Like much of Collins’ music, it was premiered by the Chicago Symphony under conductor Frederick Stock, who encouraged young American talent, especially from a local boy like Collins, a native of Joliet, Illinois.
These days the music of Edward Collins has all but disappeared from American concert halls, but conductor Marin Alsop and the Concordia Orchestra recorded a sampling of his major orchestral works for a compact disc series funded by the late composer’s family.
Music Played in Today's Program
Edward J. Collins (1889 – 1951) Concert Piece in A minor Leslie Stifelman, piano; Concordia Orchestra; Marin Alsop, conductor. Albany 267
Synopsis
August 1613 proved to be an especially eventful month in the life and career of Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi. The previous summer his old employer, Duke Vincenzo of Mantua, had died, and Monteverdi was looking for a job. Fortunately, the position of Master of Music for the Republic of Venice opened up, and, on today’s date Monteverdi was probably rehearsing musicians for a trial concert of his music at St. Mark’s Cathedral. The concert was a success. Monteverdi got the job, a generous salary, and even a cash advance to cover the move from his home.
So much for the good news—on his trip back home, Monteverdi was robbed by highwaymen armed with muskets. In a surviving letter, Monteverdi described the incident in some detail, noting that the muskets were very long and of the flint-wheel variety, and that he lost more than a hundred Venetian ducats.
Despite the trauma—and the humiliation of being strip-searched for valuables by one of the robbers—Monteverdi recovered his fortunes in Venice. In addition to his church duties at St. Mark’s, he became famous writing a newfangled sort of commercial entertainment called opera, and lived to the ripe old age of 77.
Music Played in Today's Program
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643) Che dar piu vi poss'io, fr 5th Book of Madrigals Consort of Musicke; Anthony Rooley, conductor. L'oiseau Lyre 410 291
Synopsis
In 1980, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt emigrated from his Soviet-controlled homeland and settled in Austria. Since the 1960’s, Pärt’s increasingly spiritual and overtly religious music, imbued with mystical and contemplative rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church, did not sit well with the communist authorities, and Pärt found it increasing hard to live and work in Estonia.
On today’s date in 1980, at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, another Baltic artist, the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, gave the premiere performance of a new violin-piano arrangement of Part’s Fratres, or Brothers—an instrumental work from 1977 that Pärt subsequently rescored for a variety of ensembles.
In the version commissioned by the Salzburg Festival, the original harmonic material resides in the serene piano part, while the violin plays virtuosic variations above it. That serenity is the result of Pärt’s effort to—as he put it— “learn to walk again as a composer.” He came up with a term, tintinnabulation, for the simplicity and directness of expression he sought.
“Tintinnabulation is like this,” writes Pärt. “I am alone with silence. I work with very few elements… The three notes of the triad are like bells. And that is why I called it tintinnabulation.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) Fratres Gidon Kremer, vn;Keith Jarrett, p. ECM 1275
Synopsis
In the 1950s, if you said the words “Cuban music,” perhaps Desi Arnez, a.k.a. Ricky Ricardo, singing Babaloo might come to mind. These days, it’s more likely the Buena Vista Social Club.
On today’s date back in 1932, George Gershwin had Cuban music on his mind when the New York Philharmonic premiered his Cuban Overture under its original title Rumba. Cuban dance music has always proved appealing to North American composers and long before Gershwin, the 19th century piano virtuoso Louis Moreau Gottschalk toured Cuba and imitated some of the sounds and rhythms he heard there in his original works.
In the early 1940s, a young hay fever sufferer named Leonard Bernstein escaped the New England pollen of Tanglewood for a time in Key West. There he was inspired by the Latin dance bands he heard on radio Havana to write a jaunty, little Cuban-style dance of his own that would resurface some 15 years later as the song America in Bernstein’s hit musical, West Side Story.
And in 1990, American composer Michael Daughterty composed his orchestral conga line entitled Desi—a symphonic tribute to Cuban bandleader Desi Arnez, in his pop icon role of, who else, Ricky Ricardo.
Music Played in Today's Program
George Gershwin (1898 – 1937) Cuban Overture New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor. Teldec 46318
Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) Desi! Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor. Argo 444 454
Synopsis
When a flying saucer circled over Washington, DC, in the classic 1951 sci-fi film, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” it did so to music played on an electronic instrument known as the Theremin.
Its Russian inventor, Leon Theremin, was born in St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1896. In 1927 Theremin traveled to America, where he obtained a patent for an electronic instrument he called the Thereminovox. In the 1930s, Theremin arranged concerts for his creation at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Then, in 1938, without explanation, Theremin disappeared. Some said it was because he was in debt, others because he was married to two women at the same time. The truth was even stranger: Theremin was a spy.
He had been passing on American technical information to the Soviets. Ironically, when he returned home, Theremin was immediately thrown into a Soviet prison for seven years. While incarcerated, he developed miniature electronic eavesdropping devices for the Soviet government.
Decades later, in 1989, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the 92-year old Theremin again showed up in New York to be honored at a festival of electronic music, amazed that his name and instrument were even remembered.
Music Played in Today's Program
Bernard Herrmann (1911 – 1975) The Day the Earth Stood Still National Philharmonic; Bernard Herrmann, conductor. London 443 899
Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971) Berceuse, fr The Firebird Clara Rockmore, theremin; Nadia Reisenberg, piano Delos 1014
Synopsis
There was a time when German opera houses would have fought over the chance to premiere a brand-new opera by Richard Strauss. But by 1940, when Strauss finished a mythological opera entitled The Love of Danae, there was a war on and Strauss had fallen out of favor with Germany’s Nazi rulers.
A scheduled premiere in Dresden had to be cancelled. In Leipzig, the orchestral parts for the new opera were lost in a fire, and in Munich an Allied air raid damaged the opera’s sets and scenery. By the summer of 1944, when conductor Clemens Krauss was rehearsing handpicked vocal soloists and the Vienna Philharmonic for the opera’s belated premiere at the Salzburg Festival, the collapse of the Third Reich was imminent.
On August 1st, an order was issued from Berlin canceling all music festivals and closing all theaters. Somehow Salzburg managed to get a dispensation, and rehearsals for Strauss’s opera were allowed to continue. A private dress rehearsal of The Love of Danae took place in Salzburg on August 16, 1944. The 80-year old composer attended, and, with tears in his eyes, thanked the performers with these words: “Perhaps we shall meet again in a better world.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949) Die Liebe der Danae (Symphonic Fragment), Op. 83 Toronto Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. CBS 45804
Synopsis
It's said that Nature abhors a vacuum – and so, apparently, did Richard Wagner, who devised a brass instrument to bridge a gap he perceived between the horns and the trombones in the orchestra of his day. And so the "Wagner tuba" was born, a brass instrument Wagner designed for the 1876 premiere of his cycle of four Ring operas in Bayreuth, Germany, which began on today’s date that year with Das Rheingold – the first opera in the Ring cycle.
Other composers have also scored for Wagner tubas, including Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss, both ardent Wagner fans, and also Igor Stravinsky, who, though certainly not a Wagnerite, did include Wagner tubas in the early versions of some of his famous ballet scores.
Some contemporary composers include parts for the Wagner tuba in their works as well, and a quartet of these instruments appears in a 1994 score the Hungarian composer, György Kurtág wrote for the Berlin Philharmonic and its then music director, Claudio Abbado. Kurtág is noted for his short, epigrammatic and very introspective chamber works, and "Stele" is his first major work for a large, conventional, arranged symphony orchestra.
Synopsis
Some have claimed that it was on today’s date in 1877 that the American inventor Thomas Edison recorded his own voice reciting, “Mary had a little lamb” on a tin-foil cylinder of his own design. Other historians date the precise birth of the phonograph earlier, others later. In any case, the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company wasn’t established until January of 1878.
Initially, music wasn’t Edison’s top priority: He thought his phonograph might be profitable as an aid to stenographers, or for families who wanted to record the last words of beloved relatives.
Eventually, however, classical music and the phonograph began to interact.
In London in 1888, a bit of a Crystal Palace performance of Handel’s oratorio “Israel in Egypt” was captured on an Edison cylinder. In Vienna, Johannes Brahms, seated at the piano, recorded a snippet of his famous Hungarian Dance No. 3, with a spoken intro many wrongly assumed was by the composer himself.
The voice of British composer Sir Arthur Sullivan WAS captured, however, commenting: “I am astonished—and terrified—at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever!”
Well, Sir Arthur, I’m afraid there’s no going back now…
Music Played in Today's Program
Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904) arr. Kreisler Songs My Mother Taught Me Fritz Kreisler, violin Pearl 9324
George Frederic Handel (1685 – 1757) excerpt, fr Judas Maccabeus Edward Lloyd, tenor Koch Historic 7703
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) plays on an Edison cylinder (r. 1889) Johannes Brahms, p. Pearl 99049
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) Hungarian Dance No. 1 Idil Biret, piano Naxos 8.550355
Synopsis
As the proverbial saying goes: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
It was, frankly, a matter of economic necessity that led a 36-year-old Austrian conductor named Clemens Krauss to program an all-Johann Strauss concert by the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Music Festival on today’s date in 1929.
The Festival was established in 1920 with high ideals but insecure funding. To succeed, the Festival needed both strong local support and wealthy visitors from abroad. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but in 1929, as the Festival approached its 10th anniversary, its finances and future seemed uncertain.
Now, Krauss knew that Strauss waltzes were popular with both the natives and the Festival’s international visitors, so why not offer a whole concert program consisting of nothing but the dance music of Johann Strauss? The August 11, 1929, concert proved to be a resounding success, and the idea was repeated at the Festival several times over the next decade.
Back home in Vienna, Krauss revived the idea of an all-Strauss concert on December 31, 1939. That year-end tradition continues to this day, as the Philharmonic presents its annual New Year’s Concert, broadcast worldwide from Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna.
Music Played in Today's Program
Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825 - 1899) Annen Polka and Perpetuum mobile Vienna Philharmonic; Clemens Krauss, conductor. Preiser 90139 (recorded 1929)
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1813, William Henry Fry was born in Philadelphia. As a journalist, he was one of the most vociferous champions of American concert music, and put his money where his mouth was by becoming a composer himself, creating a number of programmatic works, including a Niagara symphony and another titled Santa Claus. Above all else, Fry was passionate about opera, and wrote several of his own.
Fry was a colorful – if understandably biased – music critic. Here’s an excerpt from his 1862 review of a New York performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore – an opera only 9 years old at that time:
“Trovatore … has a wonderful plot, beyond human comprehension; though finally we learn in the last scene that [the tenor] is made into soup by the order of his brother [the baritone], who then expresses his emotion and surprise on learning of the transaction as the curtain falls. As to the music – there are some charming, popular, ingenious, artistic … points; [but] there are others egregiously vulgar and rowdy. The Anvil Chorus, for example, is about the equal to a scene of mending a sewer set to music; or repairing a pair of cast-off leather breeches.”
Music Played in Today's Program
William Henry Fry (1813 – 1864) Macbeth Overture Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Tony Rowe, conductor. Naxos 8.559057
Synopsis
Ok, if your dad wrote music for silent movies and you want to write music yourself, does that increase the odds you’ll end up a film composer, too? That was the case with David Raksin, who was born in Philadelphia in 1912, and who died in Los Angeles on today’s date in 2004.
When he was 23, Raksin moved to Hollywood to help Charlie Chaplin arrange Chaplin’s own music for the film, Modern Times, and stayed on in Hollywood, working without credit on dozens of B-rated films.
A big break came in 1944 with the tremendous success of Raksin’s haunting score for the 1944 film noir classic, Laura. By the time of his death, Raksin had written scores for hundreds of films and TV shows.
In 1960, for the Horn Club of Los Angeles, Raksin wrote Morning Revisited. Raksin explained the odd title as follows: “They needed a piece [for] their entire ensemble … two antiphonal groups of six French horns, four Wagner tubas, a baritone horn, two contrabass tubas, and seven timpani. I was busy working on a picture, so I'd start work at four or five a.m., and that's how I wrote ’Morning Revisited.’”
Music Played in Today's Program
David Raksin (1912 -2004) Morning Revisited The Horn Club of Los Angeles; David Raksin, conductor. EMI 63764
Synopsis
Just about any time is a good time to be in Paris, but chances are, given your druthers, you wouldn’t have chosen to be there in 1942. The city was occupied by German troops, and World War II had several more dismal years to grind on.
But if you were in Paris on today’s date in 1942, you could have visited the Paris Opera for the premiere of a new ballet by the French composer Francis Poulenc called “Les Animaux modeles” or “The Model Animals,” with a scenario based on animal fables by the French writer La Fontaine.
Some 20 years earlier, in happier times, Poulenc had made his name with another one-act ballet. That 1924 work was titled “Les biches” or “The Does” and was written for the Ballets Russes of Monte Carlo. That work’s scenario described the flirtations and seductions of some bright young things at a house party in the country. “Everything was simple and carefree, sunshine and good humor,” as Poulenc himself put it.
Not surprisingly, Poulenc’s 1942 ballet was a darker, often grimmer affair, expressing perhaps the quiet desperation of the German occupation, mingled with a fervent hope for better days to come.
Music Played in Today's Program
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) Les animaux modeles French National Orchestra; Charles Dutoit, conductor. London 452 937
Synopsis
Performers need composers and composers need performers. And some performers really like composers–and vice versa. That seems to be the case with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, comprised of Joseph Kalichstein, piano; Jaime Laredo, violin; and Sharon Robinson, cello, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
On today’s date in 2011, at a La Jolla Music Society concert in San Diego, California, the Trio premiered the fourth work they had commissioned from Zwilch. She created a blues-y piano quintet, scored for the same ensemble as Schubert’s famous Trout Quintet, so for this “blue trout” Quintet, the Trio were joined by violist Michael Tree and double-bassist Harold Robinson.
In notes for her new piece, Zwilich wrote:
"My Quintet is in three movements, the second of which has the title ‘Die Launische Forelle' (roughly translated: ‘The Moody Trout'). I couldn't resist using a very small quote from the Schubert song on which his Quintet is based. I also took the liberty of allowing that movement to spin out musical images of a ‘moody' trout. In all three movements the weight and character of the contrabass is an important element in the overall design.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) Piano Quintet The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; Michael Tree, vla; Harold Robinson, db. Azica 71292
Synopsis
In 1942, the 19th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music was held in Berkeley, California. Over 30 composers from 13 nations were represented. All of them were male–with one exception. On today’s date, the Prelude, Allegro, and Pastorale for clarinet and viola written by Rebecca Clarke was premiered at the Festival.
Clarke was born in England, in 1886, to an American father and a German mother. She grew up a British citizen, studied music in London, and became one of the U.K.’s first female professional orchestral violists. She was stranded in the United States at the outbreak of World War II and settled permanently in New York City.
In notes for the 1942 Festival, Clarke modestly described her Prelude, Allegro, and Pastorale as (quote): “ … very unpretentious: a short, unassuming little prelude… The second movement should sound very spirited… The third movement, Pastorale, is rather melancholy and nostalgic…”
This work, and much of Clarke’s music, remained unpublished during her lifetime, but, over time, its quality and range increasingly came to light. When Clarke turned 90 in 1976, she was interviewed by the BBC, and seemed both gratified and bemused by all the renewed attention.
Music Played in Today's Program
Rebecca Clarke (1886 – 1979) Prelude, Allegro, and Pastorale, Op. 11 Robert Plane, cl; Philip Dukes, vla. Naxos 8.557934
Synopsis
On today’s date in 2012, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the BBC’s SCOTTISH Symphony, under the direction of SCOTTISH conductor Donald Runnicles, gave the world premiere of a new orchestral piece by the SCOTTISH composer Thea Musgrave.
You might be forgiven for asking, “Were any bagpipes involved?” No, but the piece did involve the next best thing – if you’re Scottish that is–namely the Loch Ness monster. The new piece was entitled Loch Ness – A Postcard from Scotland and here’s how Thea Musgrave described her new work:
“This Scottish loch is famous for its monster - only very occasionally seen. In this lighthearted work he, the monster (a tuba), emerges from the depths (E flat) to find the sun (A major) coming out from a thick mist (string clusters).
“As he plays he is warmed by the sparkling sun (trumpets) and by the strains of an ancient Scottish melody. As the sun goes down, he dives back into the deep waters with a big splash. Then a cool moon rises, a light breeze ruffles the surface of the waters, and all is at peace.”
Synopsis
By the time of his death in 1998, pop singer Frank Sinatra was such a domineering figure in his field that he was known as “The Chairman of the Board.” By the time of his death in 1992, the same nickname might have applied to the American composer William Schuman, who was, at various times, director of publications for G. Schirmer, president of the Juilliard School, president of Lincoln Center, and on the board of many other important American musical institutions. William Schuman even looked the part of a distinguished, well-dressed CEO. Oddly enough, he came rather late to classical music.
Schuman was born on today’s date in 1910, and, as a teenager in New York City, was more interested in baseball than music, even though his dance band was the rage of Washington High School. It was with some reluctance that 19-year old Billy Schuman was dragged to a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The program included a symphony by someone named Robert Schumann, and Billy was pretty impressed. A few years later, in 1933, when he heard the First Symphony of the contemporary American composer Roy Harris, Schuman was hooked, and soon was writing concert music himself. By 1941, when his Third Symphony premiered, Schuman was recognized as a major talent, and in 1943 he was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Music Played in Today's Program
William Schuman (1910-1992) Symphony No. 3 New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Sony Classical 63163
Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856) Symphony No. 1 (Spring) Berlin Philharmonic; James Levine, conductor. DG 435 856
Roy Harris (1899-1979) Symphony No. 1 Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor. Albany/Louisville First Edition 012
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1778, Italy’s most famous opera house opened with a performance of L’Europa riconosciuta, or Europa revealed, a work written specially for the occasion by Antonio Salieri. The new theater took its name from its location, previously occupied by the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which in turn was named after a Milanese nobelman’s wife, Beatrice della Scala.
These days Milan’s Teatro alla Scala—or “La Scala” for short—is still in operation, although today performances of Salieri operas are not as common as those of his 18th century rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
In the 19th century, La Scala was at the center of the golden age of Italian opera, which boasted the greatest works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi.
In August of 1943, 165 years after it opened, La Scala was damaged by Allied bombers as World War II drew to a close. The theater was repaired and reopened in 1946 with a series of gala concerts conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
Some sixty years later, the theater was newly refurbished and re-opened in December of 2004 with a gala production of the same Salieri opera written for its original opening some 226 years earlier.
Music Played in Today's Program
Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) Falstaff Overture London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, conductor. Chandos 9877
Synopsis
The American composer John Harbison was born in 1938, and so, as a young lad, grew up at the tail end of the Golden Age of radio and the big band Era of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Dorsey Brothers, and Benny Goodman.
“Over the radio,” writes Harbison, “came sounds played by bands in hotels and ballrooms, now distant memories that seemed to a seventh-grade, small town, late-night listener like the pulse of giant imagined cities.”
Decades later, John Harbison translated those early musical memories into a three-movement composition for a big band orchestra. “These sounds,” he recalled, “layered with real experience of some of their places of origin, magnified, distorted, idealized, and destabilized, came into contact with other sounds, some of recent origin, and resulted in a celebratory, menacing suite I titled Three City Blocks.”
The U.S. Air Force Band gave the premiere performance of “Three City Blocks” on today’s date in 1993. And, keeping in the spirit of the old days when every major hotel could boast its own dance band, Harbison’s Three City Blocks premiered at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Music Played in Today's Program
John Harbison (b. 1938) Three City Blocks New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble; Frank Battisti, conductor. Centaur 2288
Synopsis
At 6:05 p.m. on today’s date in 2007, the Interstate 35W Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, plunging dozens of cars and trucks into the Mississippi River. Thirteen people died. Investigators said a design flaw was to blame, and the event served as a wake-up call about America’s crumbling infrastructure.
It also inspired a new piece of music.
In 2007 Minnesota composer Linda Tutas Haugen had been commissioned to write a piece for solo instrument and organ for performance at the next American Guild of Organists’ national convention. Haugen had been looking at various hymn tunes for inspiration when the I-35 bridge collapsed.
As she recalled, “I had family members who’d been over the bridge a day before. Many were feeling, ‘It could have been me.’ I reread texts of the hymns I had been considering, and there was one that talks about ‘God of hill and plain, o’er which our traffic runs’ and ‘wherever God your people go, protect them by your guarding hand.’ That inspired my writing.”
Haugen scored her new piece for trumpet and organ and titled it “Invocation and Remembrance.” “For me,” said Haugen, “it’s a prayer, an invocation for protection, and also a remembrance of what happened.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Linda Tutas Haugen Invocation and Remembrance Martin Hodel, trumpet; Kraig Windschitl, organ Augsburg Fortress Music CD (with ISBN: 9780800679118)
On This Day
Births
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1779 - Baltimore lawyer Francis Scott Key, who in 1814 wrote the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner," setting his text to the tune of a popular British drinking song of the day, "To Anacreon in Heaven," written by John Stafford Smith; The text and the tune became the official national anthem by and Act of Congress in 1931;
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1858 - Austrian composer Hans Rott, in Vienna;
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1913 - American composer Jerome Moross, in Brooklyn;
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1930 - British pop song and musical composer Lionel Bart, of "Oliver!" fame, in London;
Deaths
- 1973 - Gian-Francesco Maliperio, Italian composer and first editor of collected works of Monteverdi and Vivaldi, age 91, in Treviso;
Premieres
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1740 - Thomas Arne: masque, “Alfred” (containing “Rule, Brittania”), in Clivedon (Gregorian date: August 12);
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1921 - Hindemith: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 16, by the Amar Quartet (which included the composer on viola) in Donaueschingen, Germany;
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1968 - Webern: "Rondo" for string quartet, written in 1906, at the Congregation of the Arts at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire;
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1993 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra, at the Bravo! Music Festival in Vail, Colo., by soloist David Jolley with the Rochester Philharmonic, Lawrence Leighton Smith conducting;
Others
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1892 - John Philip Sousa , age 37, quits the U.S. Marine Corps Band to form his own 100-piece marching band;
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1893 - In Spillville Iowa, Antonin Dvorák finishes his String Quintet in Eb, Op. 97 ("The American") during his summer vacation at the Czech settlement.
Links and Resources
- On Linda Tutas Haugen
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1892, The Washington Post’s headlines included one that read: “Sousa’s Farewell Toot—Last Appearance of the Marine Band Under His Baton—Admirers of the Popular Conductor Crowd Forward for a Farewell Shake of the Hand at the Close of His Final Concert on the White House Grounds.”
In his 12-year tenure with the Marine Band, Sousa had made it one of the finest touring ensembles in his day. Sousa was famous coast-to-coast—but not all that well paid. While on tour early in 1892, Sousa had been approached in Chicago by an impresario with a business proposition: “Why not form your OWN band, Mr. Sousa? I can offer you four times your Marine Corps salary, plus a percentage of the new band’s profits.” Sousa thought it over, and upon his return to Washington, D.C., submitted his resignation effective July 31, 1892. His final concerts with the Marine Band took place on July 29th and 30th that year.
With that, one important chapter of Sousa’s musical career had ended, but another was just beginning. Over the next four decades, the Sousa Band would go on to become famous worldwide.
Music Played in Today's Program
John Philip Sousa (1854 - 1932) Manhattan Beach Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, conductor. Reference 94
Synopsis
On today's date in 1950, at the Interlochen Summer Music Camp, the Michigan All-Star Band, under the direction of Dale Harris, gave the premiere performance of a new work entitled George Washington Bridge. This music was written by the American composer William Schuman, who was experiencing an especially creative period in the early 1950's. Schuman was living in New Rochelle, New York, but as president of the Juilliard School, spent much of his time in Manhattan, and, as Schuman explained:
"There are few days in the year when I do not see the George Washington Bridge. I pass it on my way to work as I drive along the Henry Hudson Parkway on the New York shore. Ever since my student days when I watched the progress of its construction, this bridge has had for me an almost human personality, and this personality is astonishingly varied, assuming different moods, depending on the time of day or night, the weather, and, of course, my own mood as I pass by… I have walked across it late at night when it was shrouded in fog, and during the brilliant sunshine hours of midday… It is difficult to imagine a more gracious welcome or dramatic entry to the great metropolis."
The piece itself is in ABCBA form—a little like the rising and falling arch of a suspension bridge, in fact, and, since its 1950 premiere at Interlochen, Schuman's George Washington Bridge has won a secure place as a classic of the wind band repertory.
Music Played in Today's Program
William Schuman (1910 - 1992) George Washington Bridge Rutgers Wind Ensemble; William Bertz, conductor. Naxos 572230
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1962, the Symphony No. 5 for strings, by the German-born American composer Gene Gutchë, received its premiere performance at Chatauqua, New York.
Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutchë was born in Berlin in 1907. His father, a well-to-do European businessman, was not amused by the notion of his son “wasting” his time on music, even though the famous Berlin-based composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni confirmed the young man’s talent. So “Gene” Gutchë ran away from home, abandoning any hope of a sizeable inheritance in the process, and came to America.
He studied at the Universities of Minnesota and Iowa, and, in 1950, at age 43, produced his first symphony. Gutchë would go on to compose six symphonies in all, plus an hour-long symphonic work for chorus and orchestra titled “Akhenaten,” premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1983. For most of his life, despite fellowships and commissions, Gutchë lived modestly with his wife, Marion, in a cottage in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, effectively beginning the First World War.
Early in the course of that war, a French composer named Albéric Magnardbecame a national hero when he died defending his home against invading German troops. Maurice Ravel tried to enlist as a French pilot but was refused because of his poor health. Instead, he became a truck driver stationed at the Verdun front. British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was too old to be drafted, but he enlisted as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Another British composer, George Butterworth, would be killed by a sniper during the Battle of the Somme.
The Austrian violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler served briefly in the Austrian Army in 1914 before being wounded and honorably discharged. He arrived in then-neutral New York on November of 1914 and remained in America through the war years.
In 1915, Kreisler made a recording of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, performing with the Russian violinist Efrem Zimbalist. Austria and Russian may have been at war in Europe, but in a cramped New Jersey recording studio, at least, the music of Bach provided a brief island of peace and harmony.
Music Played in Today's Program
J. S. Bach (1685 - 1750) Double Concerto (recorded 1915) Fritz Kreisler, Efrem Zimbalist, vn;string quartet Buddulph CD 21/22
Synopsis
Alfred Hitchcock’s cold war spy film Torn Curtain, opened in New York Theaters on today’s date in 1966. It was the swinging 60s, and Hitchcock had asked his long-time collaborator, composer Bernard Hermann, for a pop score that would be “with it” with a possible hit single as a main title. What Hitch did NOT want was, as he put it, “more Richard Strauss.” Hermann assured Hitch he knew exactly what was required—and then ignored him completely.
Herrmann thought Torn Curtain was a dangerously weak film, and one that needed a huge symphonic score with an eerie choir of massed flutes and ominous, oppressive brass to make it effective. When Hitch heard a Hollywood studio orchestra rehearsing Herrmann’s main title music, he fired the composer on the spot and called in someone else to score the film.
Herrmann was crushed. He had thought that Hitch should have been grateful. “You call in the doctor to make you healthy,” he later quipped—“Not to make you rich!” Hermann may well have right. Torn Curtain is regarded as one of Hitchcock’s lamest efforts, while Herrmann’s rejected score has gone on to be recorded and admired on its own.
Music Played in Today's Program
Bernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) Unused Torn Curtain film score Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony 62700
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1882, the first performance of Richard Wagner’s new opera “Parsifal” took place at the Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria. In the audience was a 25-year old American named Gustav Kobbé, an ardent opera fan who would go on to write “Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book,” a standard reference work on the subject.
As Kobbé watched the opening scene of Parsifal, his gaze became fixed on one spot of the painted scenery, depicting a pile of rocks. Was that Wagner’s face painted on one of the rocks? Or was that Wagner himself, staring out at the singers on stage? During the intermission, Kobbé asked others if they had seen what he had, but they just looked at him as if the heat of the Bavarian summer had affected the young American’s brain.
But after the opera Kobbé asked one of the singers, who was surprised at his sharp eyesight, but confirmed what he saw. To ensure that singers followed his specific directions where to stand and when to move, Wagner had, in fact, been standing on stage amid the painted rocks. To all eyes but Kobbé’s, Wagner’s craggy, sun-tanned face had blended in perfectly with the painted scenery.
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1976, an unusual opera premiered at the Théatre Municipale in Avignon, France. It ran for five hours with no breaks between acts. The audience was invited to wander in and out as it pleased. The libretto consisted of numbers, solfege syllables and some cryptic poems written by a pupil from a New York School for Disturbed Children. Even the title of this new opera, “Einstein on the Beach,” was unusual, suggesting something at once serious and surreal.
In the opera, a violinist dressed up like Albert Einstein wanders in and out of some scenes, a reference to the fact that, in real life, the famous physicist was also a talented amateur violinist. Einstein on the Beach was collaboration between two Americans: composer Philip Glass and set designer Robert Wilson. It made the rounds in Europe, attracted a great deal of attention, and came to America in November of 1976 for two sold-out performances in New York staged at the Metropolitan Opera with Glass and his ensemble.
Its music was even referenced as a kind of “in joke” during a famous TV commercial in which Einstein debates the merits of Coke vs. Pepsi. For the record, Albert chooses Pepsi.
Synopsis
The composer of this familiar theme was born on today’s date in 1904 in Lyon, France. He was christened “Noel” Arnaud, but is better known as “Leo” Arnaud, the name he adopted after emigrating to the U.S.A. Arnaud studied music in his native France with two of its leading composers, Vincent d’Indy and Maurice Ravel. In the 1930s, Arnaud settled in Hollywood, where he churned out scores for everything from Blondie Goes Latin to The Ice Follies of 1939. The high point of Arnaud’s cinematic career was an Oscar nomination for his work as an arranger for the 1964 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Some years earlier, Hollywood Bowl conductor Felix Slatkin commissioned Arnaud to write some music for a 1958 LP sonic spectacular designed to show off the new “stereophonic” recording process. The album was titled Charge! and featured military style fanfares and suites, and included a cut entitled Bugler’s Dream.
In 1968, when ABC television was looking for a musical theme for its Olympic coverage, they chose Bugler’s Holiday. By 1988, when the NBC network secured TV rights for the Olympics, Arnaud’s theme had become the instantly recognizable signature theme for the games.
Music Played in Today's Program
Leo Arnaud (1904 - 1991) Olympic Theme Cleveland Symphonic Winds; Frederick Fennell, conductor. Telarc 80099
Meredith Willson (1902-1984) arr. Arnaud The Unsinkable Molly Brown Overture MGM studio orchestra CBS 45442
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1757, the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti died in Madrid. He was 71 years old, and for the last 38 years of his life was employed at the court of Princess Maria Barbara, first in her native Portugal, and then, when the Princess married the heir to the Spanish throne, in Madrid.
Although Domenico could very well have stayed in Italy and become a famous opera composer like his father, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico spent the better part of his life composing over 600 virtuoso sonatas for Maria Barbara. Only a handful of these were published during his lifetime. In the 19th century, Liszt and Brahms took the trouble to hunt down additional Scarlatti sonatas in manuscript, but the bulk of them remained unpublished and unknown until a complete edition was published in the 20th century.
While not coming anywhere close to matching Scarlatti’s output, one 20th century American composer, the Philadelphia-born Vincent Persichetti, composed ten harpsichord sonatas of his own.
The growing number of modern-day harpsichordists has meant that in addition to the wealth of OLD music for the instrument, many contemporary composers have followed Persichetti’s example, and are writing NEW works for this old instrument.
Music Played in Today's Program
Domenico Scarlatti (1685 - 1757) Sonata in c, K. 363 Elaine Comparone, harpsichord Laurel 838
Vincent Pershichetti (1915 - 1987) Sonata No. 4 Elaine Comparone, harpsichord Laurel 838
Synopsis
On today's date in 1847, Giuseppe Verdi conducted the premiere performance of his newest opera, I Masnadieri or The Robbers, at Her Majesty's Theater in London. And speaking of her Majesty, Queen Victoria was in the audience, as were other state dignitaries, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis Napoleon of France.
It was the first time in over twenty years that a world-famous composer had composed an opera specifically for London. As one of Verdi's young assistants put it, "Neither Rossini, Bellini, or Donizetti had ever pitched their tents on the banks of the Thames."
As an added attraction, the 27-year old Swedish nightingale, soprano Jenny Lind, topped an all-star line-up of singers. It was Jenny Lind's London debut and the first time ever that an operatic role had been specially-written for her
The premiere was a great success for all concerned, with Verdi and the singers called to the stage again and again to cheers from the audience. The critics, for their part, were less than kind.
"We take this to be the worst opera that has been given in your time at Her Majesty's Theater," wrote one. "There does not exist an Italian composer more incapable of producing what is commonly called melody." I Masnadieri fared a little better back in Italy, but gradually faded from the active repertory until the revival of interest in all of Verdi's opera in the 20th century.
Music Played in Today's Program
Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) I masnadieri Overture Hungarian State Opera Orchestra; Iper Giorgio Morandi, conductor. Naxos 8.554077
Synopsis
In London on today’s date in 1938, the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo presented a brand-new work by the German composer Paul Hindemith based on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi entitled Nobilissima Visione.
The idea may have been suggested by Hindemith’s wife, who had recently converted to Catholicism. The Hindemiths had visited the Church of Santa Croce in Florence were deeply impressed by its frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St. Francis. Hindemith originally intended to incorporate melodies by the 14th century French composer Machaut into his ballet but ended up writing original themes in an archaic style. As a staged ballet or as a concert suite, Nobilissima Visione proved to be one of Hindemith’s most popular works.
“My ballet is not an eye-catcher in the old style,” wrote Hindemith in 1938, “It is not exactly full of sparkling wit, but all the same it makes a fine impression, with all the trappings of success that a composer greedy for recognition could wish. Even the earthshaking impresario Sol Hurok was so impressed that he pressed me to his smart businessman’s heart and is insisting on my conducting the piece myself in New York and surrounding villages.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963) Nobilissima Visione San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor. London 433 809
On This Day
Births
- 1896 - French composer Jean Rivier, in Villemomble
Deaths
- 1838 - German inventor of the metronome, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, age 65, on board the brig Otis in the harbour of La Guiara, Venezuela, en route to Philadelphia; Beethoven's orchestral battle-symphony, "Wellington's Victory," was originally written for one of Maelzel's mechanical music-machines
Premieres
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1733 - Handel: oratorio "Athalia," in Oxford (Julian date: July 10)
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1938 - Hindemith: ballet, "St. Francis," at Covent Garden in London, with composer conducting (the suite titled "Nobilissima Visone" is drawn from this score)
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1971 - William Bolcom: “Frescoes” in Montreal, with Bruce Mather (piano and harmonium) and Pierrette LePage (piano and harpsichord);
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1983 - Thomas Oboe Lee: "Morango …almost a tango" for string quartet, at the Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass., by the Composers in Red Sneakers ensemble
Links and Resources
- On Paul Hindemith
Synopsis
Today a tip of the hat to a much-beleaguered and frequently unacknowledged species: the piano teacher. Do you, for example, remember the name of your first piano teacher?
In the case of Duke Ellington, it was not a name one could easily forget. She was a certain Mrs. Clinkscales, and Ellington always gave her credit for her persistence. “Because of my enthusiasm for playing ball and racing through the street, I missed more lessons than I took,” wrote Ellington. “When she had her piano recital with all her pupils, I was the only one who could not play his part. So Mrs. Clinkscales had to play the treble, and I just played the umpy-dump bottom!”
The avant-garde American composer Morton Feldman immortalized the name of HIS piano teacher in an elegiac chamber piece titled Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety. This music was premiered in France on today’s date in 1970. Madame Maurina Press had taught the children of the Czar and knew the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. She started teaching Morton Feldman when he was twelve, and his tribute to her is scored for 12 instruments—with the piano conspicuous by its absence!
Music Played in Today's Program
Morton Feldman (1926 - 1987) Madame Press died last week at 90 Orchestra of St. Luke's; John Adams, conductor. Nonesuch 79249
Synopsis
During WWII, German troops encircled the city of Leningrad for 900 days, a siege that caused immense suffering for that city’s residents. One of them, composer Dimtri Shostakovich, appeared on the cover of a July 1942 issue of TIME magazine, grim-faced and wearing the helmet of a Leningrad fireman.
The publicity was for the American premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, subtitled “Leningrad,” as a live NBC Symphony radio broadcast on today’s date in 1942. The broadcast was dedicated to the Russian War Relief, and the NBC announcer explained how the score of the recently-completed symphony had been flown from the Soviet Union to the West via Teheran.
Two famous conductors, Leopold Stokowski and Arturo Toscanini, had been hotly contesting who would conduct the American premiere. The older conductor pulled rank. “Don’t you think, my dear Stokowski,” wrote Toscanini, “it would be interesting to hear the old Italian conductor play this work of a young Russian anti-Nazi composer?”
Friends of Shostakovich later suggested he may have had more than just the Nazis on his mind and quote him as saying: “Fascism is not simply National Socialism. This is music about terror, slavery, and oppression of the spirit.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Dimtri Shostakovich Leningrad Symphony No. 7 NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA Toscanini Edition Vol. 22
Synopsis
Today we pay tribute to Pauline Viardot-Garcia, born in Paris on today’s date in 1821. Her father was Manuel Garcia, the tenor for whom Rossini had written the role of Count Almaviva in “The Barber of Seville.” Her older sister was the legendary operatic diva Maria Malibran, a famous interpreter of operas by Bellini and Donizetti.
Little Pauline wanted to be a piano virtuoso, and took lessons from Liszt, but at age 15 her mother decided she, too, should become a singer. Chopin adored her voice, and together they arranged some of his mazurkas as songs. Meyerbeer and Gounod wrote operatic roles for her.
In 1860, with the composer himself at the piano croaking out the tenor part of Tristan, Pauline sang the role of Isolde at the first private reading of music from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” and it was she who gave the premiere performance of Brahms’ “Alto Rhapsody” in 1870.
She married Louis Viardot, the director of the Theatre Italien in Paris, and at their home one was just as likely to meet Charles Dickens or Henry James as Berlioz or Tchaikovsky. She was also a composer of songs and chamber operas, which are receiving renewed attention.
Music Played in Today's Program
Viardot-Garcia, Pauline (1821-1910) 12 Poems by Pushkin, Fet and Turgenev: No. 12. Les étoiles (Laetitia Grimaldi, sop; Ammiel Bushakevitz, pno) Bis 2546
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1877, the Vienna Philharmonic performed for the first time in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, during a three-day music festival that included works by Mozart and others, including two living composers of that day, a 44-year old fellow named Brahms and a 64-year old named Wagner.
The Philharmonic would return to Salzburg six more times for mini-festivals through 1910, some led by composer-conductors like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler.
In 1925, an annual “Salzburg Festival” was established, with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera as the main musical participants. The Second World War disrupted the Festival in the 1940s, but soon after it reestablished itself among the most prestigious of international musical happenings.
Traditionally, a familiar brass fanfare opens each Salzburg Festival radio broadcast, but probably few music lovers know the name of its composer.
It was written by Joseph Messner, who wrote over 700 works. He was born in 1893 in the Austrian Tyrol and died in 1969 in a village near Salzburg, where he had served as church organist, conductor and composer for decades, leading many Festival concerts featuring sacred music by Mozart and others.
Music Played in Today's Program
Wolfgang Mozart (1756 - 1791) Menuetto and Trio, fr Haffner Symphony Vienna PhilharmonicRafael Kubelik, conductor. Seraphim 68531
Joseph Messner (1893 - 1969) Salzburg Festival Fanfare Salzburg Mozarteum Orch;Ivor Bolton, conductor. Oehmns CD 734
Synopsis
Today we note the birthday of a remarkable composer, conductor and virtuoso violinist: Eugéne Ysaÿe, born in Liége, Belgium, on today’s date in 1858. After studies with two famous violin composers of his day, Henyrk Wieniawski of Poland and his Belgian compatriot, Henri Vieuxtemps, Ysaÿe soon was touring Europe and Russia as a star performer himself.
In 1886, when the 28-year old Ysaÿe married, the great Belgian composer Cesar Franck presented the young couple with a Violin Sonata as a wedding present. That same year, Ysaÿe founded a famous string quartet, and in 1893 it was the Ysaÿe Quartet that gave the premiere performance of Claude Debussy’s String Quartet, a work its composer dedicated to the ensemble in admiration.
In 1918, Ysaye made his American debut as a conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony, and made such a great impression there that he remained as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony from 1918 to 1922.
As a composer, Ysaye wrote eight concertos and a famous set of six solo sonatas for the violin. He died at the age of 72, in 1931, and in 1937, Queen Elizabeth of Belgium inaugurated the annual Eugene Ysaÿe International Prize for promising young violinists.
Music Played in Today's Program
Cesar Franck (1822 - 1890) Violin Sonata in A Itzhak Perlman, violin; Martha Argerich, piano EMI 56815
Eugène Ysaÿe (1858 - 1931) Chant d'hiver Aaron Rosand, violin; Radio Luxembourg Orchestra; Louis de Froment, cond. Vox Box 5102
Synopsis
For decades Nicolas Slonimsky, the Russian-born American composer, conductor, and witty musical lexicographer, compiled a reference work titled “Music Since 1900.” It’s a year-by-year, month-by-month, day-by-day chronicle of musical events he deemed significant, interesting, or simply amusing.
Here, for example, is Slonimsky’s entry for July 15, 1942:
“Heitor Villa-Lobos conducts in Rio de Janeiro the first performances of three of his orchestral Choros: No. 6, No. 9 and No. 11, exhaling the rhythms, the perfumes and the colors of the Brazilian scene, with tropical birds exotically chanting in the woodwinds against the measured beats of jungle drums.”
Slonimsky did have a way with words, and certainly had fun compiling his mammoth (and highly readable) reference work.
For his part, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos was equally diligent, so much so that he claimed he couldn’t always remember everything that he had written. His Choros No. 11 for piano and orchestra lasts some 65 minutes and is one of his most ambitious works. Originally the word “choro” meant improvised music by Brazilian street musicians, but Villa-Lobos always used the word in its plural form to describe over a dozen of his instrumental works.
Music Played in Today's Program
Heitor Villa Lobos (1887 - 1959) Choros No. 9 Hong Kong Philharmonic; Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor. Naxos 8.555241
Synopsis
A famous commercial for magnetic recording tape once asked the question: “Is it live—or Memorex”—suggesting it was hard to tell the difference. These days, at concerts of some contemporary composers’ works, the correct answer would be “It’s live AND Memorex”—as there is a growing body of works that involve both live performers and prerecorded tape.
A 1995 work by the American composer Ingram Marshall, titled Dark Waters, was written for an English horn soloist accompanied by a prerecorded tape of fragments from old 78-rpm recordings of Jean Sibelius’ chilly tone-poem “The Swan of Tuonela.” Both the live English horn part and the prerecorded tape are digitally processed and mixed at each live performance. “Those who know the Sibelius will recognize familiar strains,” says Marshall.
On today’s date in 1998, Marshall and Libby Van Cleve, the English horn player for whom Dark Waters was written, recorded the work at St. Casimir’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut. “You can actually hear the sound of that church in the recording,” recalls Van Cleve. “We finished at about 3 AM, and it was stiflingly hot—How ironic that Ingram's music—and Sibelius’—is always associated with cold climates!”
Music Played in Today's Program
Ingram Marshall (b. 1942) Dark Waters Libby van Cleve, English horn; Ingram Marshall, electronics New Albion 112
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1829, German composer Felix Mendelssohn was in London, participating in a gala concert to raise funds for the victims of a flood in Silesia. “Everyone who has attracted the slightest attention during the season will take part,” wrote Mendelssohn. “Many offers of good performers have had to be declined, as otherwise the concert will last till the next day!”
Mendelssohn performed his Double Concerto in E Major for two pianos and orchestra, joined by his friend and fellow-composer/pianist Ignaz Moscheles. Mendessohn and Moscheles jointly prepared a special cadenza, and jokingly bet each other how long the audience would applaud it—Mendessohn predicting 10 minutes, and Mosceheles, more modestly, suggesting 5.
In the Baroque age, Double Concertos were very popular, but by Mendelssohn’s day they had become less common. In our time, Concertos for Two Pianos are even rarer. One of the most successful American Double Concertos was written between 1952 and 1953 by the American composer Quincy Porter. Also known as the “Concerto Concertante,” commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra. It proved to be one of the most popular of Porter’s works, and even won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1954.
Music Played in Today's Program
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847) Double Concerto Güher and Süher Pekinel, pianos; Philharmonia Orchestra; Sir Neville Marriner, conductor. Chandos 9711
Quincy Porter (1897 - 1966) Concerto for Two Pianos Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas, duo pianists; Moravian Philharmonic; David Amos, conductor. Helcion 1044
Synopsis
On today’s date in 2002, a high-profile musical event occurred at Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The city was hosting the 57th National Conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League, and the Philadelphia Orchestra was celebrating its 100th anniversary with eight new commissions, all to be premiered in the Orchestra’s new Verizon Hall.
On June 12th, the new piece was a Concerto for Orchestra by a 39-year-old composer named Jennifer Higdon. Higdon’s “Concerto” opened the Philadelphia Orchestra’s program, followed by Richard Strauss’s tone-poem “Ein Heldenleben.” Both pieces were performed before an audience of orchestral professionals from around the country – not to mention Higdon’s proud mother.
Higdon, understandably a little nervous, quipped to a newspaper reporter, "You'll know my mother because she'll be the one crying BEFORE the piece starts." Higdon needn’t have worried. Her “Concerto for Orchestra” was greeted with cheers from both its audience and performers – the latter in typically irreverent fashion, dubbed the new piece “Ein Higdonleben.”
Higdon, the only woman among the eight composers commissioned for the orchestra's centennial project, calls herself a "late bloomer" as a composer. She taught herself the flute at age 15 and didn't pursue formal music training until college. She was almost finished with her bachelor's degree requirements at Bowling Green State University when she started composing her own music.
Music Played in Today's Program
Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) –Concerto for Orchestra (Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, cond.) Telarc 80620
Synopsis
These days, when “Modern Music” is on the program, a sizeable chunk of the concert hall audience might start nervously looking for the nearest exit—but that wasn’t always the case.
On today’s date in 1882, a 21-year old American composer and pianist named Edward MacDowell took the stage in Zurich, Switzerland, to perform his “Modern Suite” for piano at the 19th annual conference of the General Society of German Musicians, a showcase for new music whose programs were arranged by none other than Franz Liszt.
Liszt had met MacDowell earlier that year, and when MacDowell sent him the music for his “Modern Suite” for solo piano, Liszt asked the young composer to play it himself at the Society’s conference in Zurich.
The success of his First “Modern Suite” lead to the creation of a Second, and both were published a year later by the Leipzig firm of Breitkopf & Hærtel. These two suites were the first works of MacDowell to appear in print, and launched his career as one of the major American composers of the late 19th century.
Music Played in Today's Program
Edward MacDowell (1860 - 1908) First Modern Suite, Op. 10 James Barbagallo, piano Naxos 8.559011
On This Day
Births
- 1836 - Brazilian opera composer Antonio Carlo Gomes, in Campinas
Deaths
- 1937 - American composer George Gershwin, age 38, in Hollywood, following an operation on a cystic brain tumor
Premieres
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1882 - MacDowell: "Modern Suite" No. 1 for Piano, in Zurich, with composer as soloist
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1921 - Gershwin: musical revue, "George White's Scandals of 1921," at the Liberty Theater in New York City
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1996 - James MacMillan: "The World's Ransoming" (English horn Concerto), at the Barbican in London, by soloist Christine Pendrill with the London Symphony, Kent Nagano conducting
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2003 - Peter Maxwell Davies: "Naxos Quartet" No. 2, at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham (UK), as part of the Cheltenham International Festival by the Maggini Quartet;
Others
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1798 - In the nation's capital of Philadelphia, President John Adams signed an Act of Congress establishing the United States Marine Band (The original "32 drummers and fifers" assisted in recruiting and entertained residents)
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1885 - First concert of the Boston "Promenade" Orchestra (later dubbed the Boston "Pops") at the old Music Hall in Boston; Adolf Neuendorff conducts;
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1922 - Opening concert of the Hollywood Bowl, with German conductor Alfred Hertz at the podium
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1940 - Leonard Bernstein's first appearance as conductor of a professional orchestra, leading a performance of Wagner's Act I Prelude to "Die Meistersinger" with the Boston Pops at an open-air Esplanade Concert
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1998 - "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, America's oldest professional musical organization, marks its 200th anniversary
Links and Resources
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On composer Edward MacDowell
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On the MacDowell Colony
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1919, the British composer Edward Elgar finished a work he labeled jokingly as his “Opus 1001” – a 50-second “Smoking Cantata,” intended, according to the manuscript score, as "an edifying, allegorical, improving, expostulatory, educational, persuasive, hortatory, instructive, dictatorial, magisterial, inadautory work.”
The score was completed at the Hertfordshire home of a wealthy banker named Edward Speyer, one of Elgar’s oldest friends, to whom the manuscript was given. When Elgar came to stay, Speyer had only one request, that the composer and his musician friends, “Kindly do not smoke in the hall or on the staircase.”
Synopsis
Today we note the birth and death anniversaries of two American composers of the 20th century.
On today’s date in 1915, American composer David Diamond was born in Rochester, New York. In 1940, Dmitri Mitropoulos, then the music director of the Minneapolis Symphony commissioned one of Diamond’s best-known works. Mitropoulos had specifically asked him for an upbeat piece of music. “Write me a HAPPY work,” asked Mitropoulos. “These are distressing times ... make me happy!” The 29-year-old composer responded with his popular “Rounds for String Orchestra,” which Mitropoulos premiered in Minneapolis in 1944.
Also on today’s date, in 1984, the American composer and teacher Randall Thompson died in Boston at the age of 85. Randall Thompson wrote three symphonies and some fine chamber works, but HIS best-known piece of music is this choral setting of “Allelujah” which was first performed at the opening of the Berkshire Music Center at Lenox, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1940, when Thompson was 41 years old.
“[My ‘Alleujah’ is] a very SAD piece,” said Thompson. “Here it is comparable to the Book of Job, where it is written, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’”
Music Played in Today's Program
David Diamond (1915-2005) Rounds (Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; Gerard Schwarz, conductor.) Nonesuch 79002 Randall Thompson (1899 – 1984) Alleluia (Robert Shaw Chamber Singers; Robert Shaw, conductor.) Telarc 80461
Synopsis
Today’s date in 1931 marks the birthday of the first notable Native American composer of concert music. His name was Louis Ballard, and he was born in Devil's Promenade in Oklahoma. His father was Cherokee, and his mother Quapaw.
As a young boy Ballard attended – but managed not to be irreparably damaged by – one of those notorious boarding schools where Native American students were taught to forget everything about their own language and culture. Ballard somehow remained rooted in Quapaw language and traditions at the same time his interest in European classical music developed, and in 1962 became first American Indian to receive a graduate degree in music composition.
Inspired by the example of Bela Bartok, who incorporated the folk music of Eastern Europe in his works, Ballard attempted to do the same with Native American source material in concert works both large and small. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 and in 1974 his orchestral piece Incident at Wounded Knee was performed at Carnegie Hall and taken on an Eastern European tour by Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, who had commissioned the work.
This Louis Ballard chamber piece for two winds and piano is entitled “Mid-Winter Fires.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Louis Ballard (1931-2007): Mid-Winter Fires (Amy Morris, f; Mark Serrup, ob; Mary Goetz, p.) Indande Records 52352
Synopsis
Unless you’re just mad about 18th century history, it’s unlikely you know off the top of your head who the winners and losers were in the War of the Spanish Succession. Suffice it to say, on today’s date in 1713, to celebrate the successful resolution of that conflict, a festive choral “Te Deum” was performed at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
It was written by a very ambitious 28-year old German composer named George Friedrich Handel. We’re not sure if Handel wrote his “Utrecht Te Deum” in response to an invitation from the British royal family or wrote it “on spec” to win their favor. In any case, when performed by the Royal Musicians and the choir of the Chapel Royal on July 7, 1713, it made a tremendous impression.
Handel’s first royal employer was King George the First, and three years after Handel’s death, King George the THIRD sat on the throne. Now, King George the Third may have suffered from madness and lost the American colonies, but at least he DID know a good composer when he heard one. He idolized Handel and saw to it that the composer was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1971, jazz great Louis Armstrong died in New York City at the age of 69. He was born in New Orleans, and for years, all the standard reference books listed his birthday as the Fourth of July, 1900. Well, it turned out that wonderfully symbolic date was cooked up by Armstrong’s manager Joe Glaser. Louis himself wasn’t sure when he was born, so the 4th of July seemed as good a date as any, and was accepted as fact for many years. Eventually documents were discovered that proved Armstrong was actually born on August 4, 1901.
Armstrong earned the nickname “Satchmo”—short for “Satchelmouth”—and in later years he was affectionately dubbed “Pops.” If the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is to be believed, Armstrong was the central figure in the development of jazz in the 20th century.
The British music critic Norman Lebrecht offered this assessment: “Armstrong never bowed his head nor sang from anywhere but the heart. He was a figure of enormous dignity and a musical innovator of universal importance.” Acknowledging his influence in American concert music, composer Libby Larsen subtitled one of her works, a 1990 Piano Concerto, “Since Armstrong.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Louis Armstrong (1901 - 1971) Skip the Gutter Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five Columbia 44422
I'm in the Barrel arr. David Jolley Windscape Arabesque 6732
Synopsis On today’s date in 1992, lovers of the tango had good reason to be sad. The great Argentinean composer and bandoneón virtuoso Astor Piazzolla had died in Buenos Aires at the age of 71.
Now, the bandoneón is a close relation of the accordion, and for it Piazzolla composed new music inspired by the tango, an Argentinian dance form that originated in working-class dancehalls. While still a teenager, Piazzolla had played bandoneón in the orchestra of Carlos Gardél, the most famous tango singer of the 1930s. Eventually, Piazzolla formed his own band, which became famous throughout South America.
But Piazzolla had a burning desire to write concert music, and won a scholarship to study composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. She encouraged him to explore the possibilities inherent in the music he knew best, and so Piazzolla set about “reinventing” the tango. The result was dubbed “nuevo tango,” as vital as the old ones, but often dark and brooding.
When asked why these “new tangos” were so melancholy, Piazzolla replies. "Not because I'M sad,” Piazzolla replied. “Not at all. I'm a happy guy. … No, my music is sad because the TANGO is sad — sad and dramatic, but not pessimistic.”
Music Played in Today's Program Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992) Tres minutos con la realidad Nestor Marconi, bandoneon; Yo Yo Ma, cello; ensemble Sony Classical 63122
Synopsis On today’s date in 1876, America was celebrating its Centennial, and the place to be was in Philadelphia, where a Centennial Exhibition was in progress. This was the first World’s Fair to be held in the United States. It drew 9 million visitors — this at a time when the entire population of the U.S. was 46 million.
The Exhibition had opened in May with a concert attended by President and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant. After “Hail to the Chief,” the orchestra premiered a specially commissioned “Centennial March” by the famous German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner was paid $5000 for the commission, an astronomically high fee in those days. Wagner did not bother to attend the Philadelphia premiere, and privately told friends back: “Between you and me, the best thing about the march was the $5000 they paid me.”
The following month, the French composer Jacques Offenbach arrived to conduct his music at a specially constructed open-air pavilion. “They asked my permission to call it ‘Offenbach Gardens,’” the composer later wrote. “How could I refuse?” The concertmaster of Offenbach’s orchestra, by the way, was a 21-year old violinist from Washington, D.C. by the name of John Philip Sousa.
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) American Centennial March Philip Jones Ensemble; Elgar Howarth, conductor. London 414 149
Synopsis “Country Gardens” is the best-known work of the Australian-born American composer, arranger, and pianist Percy Grainger. Its score bears this note: "Birthday-gift, Mother, July 3, 1918." Grainger’s mother Rose was responsible for his excellent early musical training.
In 1918, Grainger arranged a folk tune given to him in 1908 by Cecil Sharp, a major figure in the folklore revival in England. Grainger titled his arrangement “Country Gardens,” and it went over so well at his recitals that Grainger decided to have it published.
It was a big hit and broke sales records. In fact, until his death in 1961, its sales generated a significant portion of Grainger’s annual income. Like other composers with a mega-hit, Grainger came to resent being known for just one tune and would say to audiences: “The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers. It’s more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it”.
In 1931, “Country Gardens” was arranged for wind band by someone other than Grainger, but around 1950, at the special request of a Detroit band director, Grainger prepared his own wind band arrangement, which likewise became a hit.
Music Played in Today's Program Percy Grainger Country Gardens Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra;Timothy Reynish Chandos 9549
Synopsis In German, “Gluck” means ‘luck’, and today’s date marks the birthday of a German composer named Christoph Willibald Gluck, whose good fortune it was to be credited with “reforming” the vocally ornate but dramatically static form of Baroque opera.
In the 18th century, opera was the biggest and most high-profile of all musical forms, and Gluck wrote 49 of them during his 67 years of life. Like many 18th century opera composers, the stories Gluck chose were often based on ancient Greek myths such as “Orpheus and Eurydice.”
It wasn’t the matter of Gluck’s operas that was revolutionary, but the manner in which he set these stories to music. When the British music historian Charles Burney visited Gluck in 1771, he recorded the composer’s own words on the subject.
“It was my design,” said Gluck,” to divest music of those abuses which the vanity of singers, or the complacency of composers, had so long disfigured Italian opera and made the most beautiful and magnificent of all public exhibitions into the most tiresome and ridiculous.”
To sum it all up, Gluck told Burney, “My first and chief care as a dramatic composer was to aim at a noble simplicity.”
Music Played in Today's Program Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714 - 1787) Dance of the Blessed Spirits, fr Orpheus Academy of Ancient Music; Christopher Hogwood, cond. L'Oiseau-Lyre 410553
Synopsis On today’s date in 1937, a two-piano suite by the French composer Darius Milhaud had its premiere. It was entitled “Scaramouche,” after a stock character in the Italian commedia dell arte, and the music’s upbeat, carefree mood made it an instant hit. For his part, Milhaud was in an apprehensive mood. When he and his wife Madeleine had visited the 1937 Paris International Exposition, they saw premonitions of war reflected in many of its exhibits.
“Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ adorned the walls of the Spanish pavilion,” recalled Milhaud, “but the Spanish Republic had been murdered. Placed face to face, the German and the Soviet pavilions seemed to challenge each other to mortal combat. One evening, as we watched the sun set behind the flags of all nations, Madeleine clutched my arm in anguish and whispered, ‘This is the end of Europe!’”
In 1940, Milhaud was forced to leave France when the Germans occupied Paris. As a Jew, his music was promptly banned. But in 1943, two French pianists performed “Scaramouche” in concert, tricking the German censors by listing its composer’s name as “Hamid-al-Usurid”—a fictitious Arabic composer whose name just happens to be an anagram of “Darius Milhaud.”
Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) Scaramouche Anthony and Joseph Paratore, pianos Four Winds 3014
Synopsis In 1971, American film composer Bernard Herrmann confessed, "the only thing I ever did that was foolhardy was to write an opera." The opera was based on the 19th century novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Herrmann began work on it in April of 1943, and didn't finish until today's date in 1951—at 3:45 p.m., as he noted in its score.
In those years, Herrmann was juggling three careers. He was conducting the CBS Orchestra, producing music for New York radio plays and occasional Hollywood films, and trying to write "serious" concert hall works. It's no wonder it took him eight years to finish a big opera score that clocked in at over three hours in length.
Now, writing an opera is hard enough, but getting it staged is even harder. Herrmann liked to quote Franz Liszt, that "to write an opera you have to have the soul of a hero—and the mentality of a lackey—to have it produced." Even if an opera company expressed interest, Herrmann refused to cut or alter his score. He felt Wuthering Heights was his masterpiece, and refused to compromise.
The opera was never staged during his lifetime, so Herrmann had to content himself with making his own studio recording of Wuthering Heights at his own expense. After Herrmann's death in 1975, the Portland Opera staged an edited-down version, and more recently, in 2011, the Minnesota Opera staged and filmed a critically acclaimed revival.
Music Played in Today's Program Bernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) Wuthering Heights soloists; Pro Arte Orch; Bernard Herrmann, conductor. Unicorn UKCD -2050/52
Synopsis Today’s date in 1914 marks the birthday of the famous Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík. He was the son of a very musical father, namely the violin virtuoso Jan Kubelík, known as the Czech Paganini.
Rafael Kubelík studied violin, composition, and conducting at the Prague Conservatory, and was an excellent pianist to boot – good enough to accompany his father on several concert tours. At the age of 19, Kubelík made his conducting debut with the Czech Philharmonic, and later became that orchestra’s artistic director.
In 1950, Kubelík became director of the Chicago Symphony; in 1955, the director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; and in 1961, conductor of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. It was with the Bavarian orchestra that Kubelík made the bulk of his recordings, including a critically-acclaimed set of the Mahler symphonies. Like Mahler, Kubelík was both a conductor and a composer.
“In public, I am practicing more as a conductor,” said Kubelík, “but I could not live without composing, just as I would not be able to conduct without composing.” Kubelík wrote five operas, three symphonies, chamber music, choral works, and songs.
Rafael Kubelík died at the age of 82 in 1996, in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Music Played in Today's Program Rafael Kubelik (1914 - 1996) Orphikon - Symphony in Three Movements Bavarian Radio Symphony; Rafael Kuybelik, conductor. Panton 1264
Synopsis On today’s date in 1745 a 73-year-old French composer named Antoine Forqueray died inMantes-la-Jolie outside Paris, where he had lived after his retirement as a court musician to King Louis XIV of France.
Forqueray was a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, a bowed string instrument popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, but nowadays only played by specialists in old music. At the tender age of 10, Forqueray played before Louis XIV. Seven years later he landed a job at the Court of Versailles.
In Forqueray's day the other great French gamba virtuoso and composer was Marin Marais, noted for his introspective, sweet, and gentle style of playing. Forqueray’s style was extroverted and bold, even brash. People said Marais played like an angel, and Forqueray like the devil.
Forqueray's style was so distinctive that three other French composers of the day, Jean-Philippe Rameau, François Couperin, and Jacques Duphly, each composed a piece named “La Forqueray” in tribute to him.
An obituary notice suggested that Forqueray had composed some three hundred works, but a selection of thirty-two pieces published by his son two years after his father’s death is the only music by Antoine Forqueray that survives.
Music Played in Today's Program Antoine Forqueray (1671 - 1745) Piece for viola de gamba
Synopsis The name “George Templeton Strong” crops up frequently in both the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War and Ric Burns’ history of New York City. That George Templeton Strong was a lawyer and music lover who lived from 1820-1875, whose diary entries offer a detailed picture of daily life in New York City.
But there’s another member of the family we’d like to tell you about – the son of the famous diarist, George Templeton Strong, Junior, born in New York in 1856, and died in Geneva, Switzerland on today’s date in 1948.
The younger Strong became a fine oboist who played in various New York orchestras of his day. His father was not very happy about that. He wanted his son to study law. Moreover, Junior rebelled against his father’s ultra-conservative tastes in music: Strong Senior detested the music of Liszt and Wagner, whereas Junior, who became a composer, modeled his works on those very composers.
The sad father-son relationship is documented painfully in the final entries of the elder Strong’s diaries. After a bitter argument, Junior left home and moved to Europe, eventually settling in Switzerland, where he pursued a dual artistic career as composer and watercolorist.
Music Played in Today's Program George Templeton Strong (1856 - 1948) Evening Dance, fr Suite No. 2 Moscow Symphony; Adriano, conductor. Naxos 8.559078
Synopsis It was Mozart who wrote the first great piano concertos, with Beethoven, Brahms and others following suit in the 19th century. Closer to our own time, the tradition continues, with new contributions appearing each year.
On today’s date in 1986, it was the turn of American composer, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, when her new piano concerto received its premiere by the Detroit Symphony with Marc-Andre Hamelin the soloist.
“My piano concerto does not cast the pianist as the prototypical 19th-century hero battling the orchestral forces and triumphing through overwhelming virtuosity,” said Zwilich at the time. “My concerto calls for a blending of forces – a joint exploration of the piano soloist and orchestra. The pianist is even asked to merge with various sections of the rather large orchestra at times.”
“To me,” continued Zwilich, “a part of the nobility of the piano is that it can change its color, chameleon-like without losing its special identity … One composer treats the piano as a percussion instrument, another as a singer… Certainly the vast and wonderful piano repertoire explores this remarkable range. And the world of composer-pianists is large enough to embrace Serge Rachmaninoff and Art Tatum.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) Piano Concerto Joseph Kalichstein, piano; Florida State Orchestra; Michael Stern, Koch 7537
On This Day Births * 1747 - Bohemian composer Leopold Kozeluh, (Kotzeluch) in Welwearn; He was the cousin of Johann (Jan) Antonín Kozeluh, who was also a composer; * 1928 - American composer Jacob Druckman, in Philadelphia;
Premieres * 1870 - Wagner: opera "Die Walküre" (The Valkyrie), in Munich at the Hoftheater, with Franz Wüllner conducting; The opera was performed at the Bavarian King Ludwig II's request, but against the composer's wishes; * 1912 - Mahler: Symphony No. 9, by Vienna Philharmonic, Bruno Walter conducting; * 1986 - Zwilich: Piano Concerto, by the Detroit Symphony with Günther Herbig conducting and soloist Marc-André Hamelin; * 2000 - Robert Kapilow: "DC Monuments," by the National Symphony;
Others * 1788 - Mozart finishes his Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, K.543 in Vienna.
Links and Resources * More on Zwilich
Synopsis In the Guiness Book of Music Facts and Feats, the record for "Most Prolific Composer" goes to Georg Philip Telemann, who died on today's date in 1767 at the age of 86. And longevity gave an edge to productivity: Telemann outlived his prolific contemporary, J.S. Bach, by 21 years, and outlived Handel by 12.
But even considering the extra years he lived, Telemann's output is staggering. Of Bach's cantatas, some 200 or so survive, but Telemann's number 1400. He also wrote 125 orchestral suites, 125 concertos, 130 trios, 145 pieces for solo keyboard, and about 50 operas.
Most composers (if they are lucky), publish one autobiography; Telemann published three, and commented in one of them, "How is it possible for me to remember everything I wrote for violin and winds?" Sometimes, in addition to composing original music, Telemann was also asked to perform it: "A few days before I play a violin concerto," he wrote, "I always locked myself away, fiddle in hand, shirt-sleeves rolled up, with something strong to calm the nerves, and practice."
Fortunately, Telemann seemed to find musical inspiration everywhere, including from the pop and folk music of his day. As he put it, "One would scarcely believe what wonderful ideas pipers and fiddlers have when they improvise while dancers pause for breath. An observer could easily gather enough ideas from them in eight days to last a lifetime!"
Music Played in Today's Program Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767) Violin Concerto in A (The Frog) Pavlo Beznosiuk, violin; New London Consort; Philip Pickett, conductor. London 455 621
On This Day Births * 1860 - French composer Gustave Charpentier, in Dieuze, Lorraine; * 1935 - Austrian composer Kurt Schwertsik, in Vienna;
Deaths * 1767 - German composer Georg Philipp Telemann, age 86, in Hamburg; * 1822 - German composer, critic and popular Romantic author Ernst Theodor Amadeus ("E.T.A.") Hoffmann, age 46, in Berlin;
Premieres * 1840 - For the 400th anniversary of the Gutenberg Printing Press, Mendelssohn presents his Symphony No. 2, "Lobegesang" (Song of Praise) at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig; * 1850 - R. Schumann: opera "Genoveva," in Leipzig at the Stadttheater; * 1910 - Stravinsky: ballet, "The Firebird," at the Paris Opera, with Gabriel Pierné conducting; * 1923 - de Falla: one-act opera "El retablo de maese Pedro" (Master Peter's Puppet Show), first staged performance in Paris at the home of the Princesse de Polignac; This opera was premiered in a concert performance in Seville on March 23, 1923; * 1940 - William Grant Still: choral ballad "And They Lynched Him on a Tree," at New York's Lewisohn Stadium by the Schola Cantorum and Wen Talbert Negro Choir with the New York Philharmonic, Arthur Rodzinksi conducting; * 1954 - Leroy Anderson: "Sandpaper Baller" at a Decca recording session in New York City, with the composer conducting; Three different grades of sandpaper rubbed together were used to make the vaudeville-style "soft shoe" dancing sound effects for this classic recording; * 1955 - Grofé: "Hudson Valley" Suite, in Washington, D.C., by the National Symphony conducted by André Kostelanetz; * 1991 - James MacMillan: "Tuireadh" (Lament) for clarinet and string quartet, by James Campbell and the Allegri Quartet at St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall (Orkney Islands).
Links and Resources * On Telemann
Synopsis In wartime London, on today's date in 1943, a Promenade Concert featured the first performance of the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The composer himself conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Queen's Hall, the traditional home of the annual summertime Proms concerts, had been destroyed by German bombers two years earlier. The Proms concerts had moved into a new and larger venue, the Royal Albert Hall, where the series continues to this day.
For the 1943 season, Proms programs started earlier than usual, so that concert goers could get home before the nightly air raids on the city. To London audiences troubled by war fears and many sleepless nights of German bombing, the serene musical world of the Vaughan Williams Fifth must have seemed a real blessing. It's not a "wartime" symphony in the conventional sense, full of defiance and bluster, but rather an evocation and affirmation of England's musical past, blending hints of 16th century hymn tunes and modal folk melodies into symphonic form.
For some time, Vaughan Williams had been at work on an opera based on The Pilgrim's Progress, a 17th century allegorical tale by the Puritan writer John Bunyan. Some of the tunes and motives from his projected opera ended up in the symphony, along with a sense of faith and optimism in the face of adversity that must have deeply affected the first audience to hear the work.
Music Played in Today's Program Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958) Symphony No. 5 London Philharmonic; Bernard Haitink, conductor. EMI 55487
Synopsis In 2008, the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists was held in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and for the occasion a Minnesota Organ Book was commissioned. The idea was that six Minnesota composers should each write a short piece for organ plus one solo instrument, all suitable for use at a Sunday service.
One of the composers selected was Carol Barnett, who thought to herself, “Well, probably everybody else will do something slow and lovely, so I’m going to do something fast, which means a Recessional. The whole idea of a Recessional is, ‘We are done. We’re out of here!’”
Barnett selected a bright, beautiful, but decidedly unusual extra instrument for her piece – namely the steel pan.
The steel pan is a chromatically-pitched concert instrument related to the calypso steel drums heard of Trinidad. Its bright, metallic sound blends surprisingly well with the pipe organ, holding its own against the organ’s mighty voice. Moreover, its calypso associations evoke a sense of joyful release – perfect for a recessional, in Barnett’s opinion.
She titled her piece, Praise, and it received its premiere performance on today’s date in 2008 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, with organist Jonathan Gregoire and percussionist Jay Johnson.
For the record, the six composers and pieces included in The Minnesota Organ Book* are:
• Cary John Franklin: "Morning Light" (for cello and organ)
• Monte Mason: "The Dances of Our Lady" (for soprano saxophone and organ)
• Janika Vandervelde: "Hachazarah: The Arousal of the Return" (for violin and organ)
• Linda Tutas Haugen: "Invocation and Remembrance" (for trumpet and organ)
• Carol Barnett: "Praise" (for steel pan and organ)
• David Evan Thomas: "Psalm and Dance" (for flute and organ)
The sheet music comes with a CD recording of all six pieces and is available from Augsburg Fortress Music (ISBN: 9780800679118)
Music Played in Today's Program Carol Barnett (b. 1949) Praise Jay Johnson, steel pan; Jonathan Gregoire, organ Augsburg Fortress Music CD (with ISBN: 9780800679118)
Synopsis There is an ancient curse, popularly attributed to the Chinese, “May you live in interesting times!” The French composer Etienne-Nicolas Mehul, who was born on this date in 1763, certainly lived and worked in an “interesting” time, politically and musically speaking.
His creative life spanned both the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, and since Mehul live and worked in Paris, he found himself at the epicenter of some extremely “interesting” events. As one of the leading French composers of his day, he was commissioned to write patriotic works for state occasions, and had friends and supporters in high places, including Napoleon himself.
His operas, both dramatic and comic, were greatly admired by his contemporaries, although sometimes these proved too “politically incorrect” for the Parisian censors.
Beethoven (not always “P-C” himself) was a Mehul fan and borrowed some striking theatrical effects from one of Mehul’s operas to use in his own opera, Fidelio.
Apparently this admiration – and the borrowing – was reciprocated. The last movement of Mehul’s First Symphony (in g minor) shows the impact of Beethoven’s dramatic Fifth Symphony (in c minor) of a few years earlier.
Music Played in Today's Program Étienne-Nicolas Méhul (1763 - 1817) Symphony No. 1 Les Musiciens du Louvre; Marc Minkowski, conductor. Erato 45026
Synopsis Today’s the birthday of the versatile Argentinean-born American composer, arranger and jazz pianist, Boris Claudio “Lalo” Schifrin, who was born in Buenos Aires on today’s date in 1932.
From his background, you’d guess Schifrin was destined for a concert career. His father was a violinist in the orchestra of Argentina’s premiere opera house, the Teatro Colon. As a boy he studied with Enrique Barenboim, father of pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim, and in Paris he studied composition with Olivier Messiaen and Charles Koechlin.
But Lalo Schifrin also loved jazz, and after studies by day with Messiaen, his nights were spent performing in Parisian jazz clubs. Eventually Dizzy Gillespie commissioned him to write for his band.
Around the same time, Schrifin began writing film and TV scores. When he started working on the TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” he came into contact with legendary film composer Bernard Herrmann, who became a friend and mentor. Schifrin has written more than 100 scores for film and television but his most famous composition is this catchy theme of the 1960s TV series, “Mission Impossible”—and still used in the subsequent movie remakes.
Music Played in Today's Program Lalo Schifrin (b. 1932) Hommage a Ravel Eaken Piano Trio Naxos 8.559062
Lalo Schifrin (b. 1932) Theme fr Mission Impossible studio orchestra BBC Records 763
Synopsis On today’s date in 1948 at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel there was a press demonstration of a new kind of phonograph record. Edward Wallerstein of Columbia Records stood between a big stack of heavy, shellac, 78-rpm albums, the standard for recorded music in those days, and a noticeably slimmer stack of vinyl discs, a new format which Wallerstein had dubbed “LPs” – “long playing” records that spun at 33 & 1/3 revolutions per minute.
Before 1948, if you wanted to buy a recording of a complete symphony or concerto, it meant the purchase of up to a dozen 78s, each playing only four minutes a side. In developing its new LP-record, Columbia’s goal was to fit complete classical works onto a SINGLE disc.
Columbia’s first LP release was a recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, with Nathan Milstein the soloist and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bruno Walter.
The following year, Columbia struck pay dirt with its original cast album of a brand-new Broadway musical by Richard Rodgers. The 1949 Columbia LP of Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza singing the hit tunes from “South Pacific” became a best-seller, and by 1951 the LP-record had become the industry standard.
Music Played in Today's Program Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847) Violin Concerto in e Nathan Milstein, violin; New York Philharmonic; Bruno Walter, conductor. Sony 64459
Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin; orchestra; Lehman Engel, conductor. Sony 53327
Synopsis Today’s date marks the 1953 New York premiere of a musical movie that flopped when it debuted but has since become a cult classic – and for two very good reasons.
First, the movie’s script – written by Dr. Seuss – was about a little boy named Bart who didn’t enjoy practicing the piano and who was worried that his widowed mom might marry his dreaded piano teacher. The film, entitled “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” is cast as Bart’s dream – or nightmare – with surreal scenarios as only Dr. Seuss could imagine them.
Second, the film boasted a score by Frederick Hollander, a composer of droll Berlin cabaret songs who found a welcome home in Hollywood. For “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T,” Hollander crafted witty songs and an extravagant instrumental sequence for a whacky Seussian ballet.
Despite all that, The New York Times reviewer was bored: “a ponderously literate affair,” he wrote.
The film did have its fans, however, and one was a little boy who DID like to practice the piano – singer and pianist Michael J. Feinstein, who lovingly gathered together all of Hollander’s used and unused music for the movie for a limited edition CD-set released in 2010.
Music Played in Today's Program Friedrich Hollaender (1896-1976) br>5000 Fingers of Dr. T filmscore studio orchestra
On This Day Births * 1717 - Baptismal date of Bohemian violinist and composer Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, in Nemecký Brod (Deutsch-Brod, now Havlíckuv Brod); * 1842 - Austrian operetta composer Carl Zeller, in St. Peter in der Au; * 1854 - Italian opera composer Alfredo Catalani, in Lucca;
Deaths * 1915 - Russian composer Sergei Taneyev, age 58, in Dyud'kovo, near Zvenigorod (Julian date: June 6);
Premieres * 1899 - Elgar: "Enigma Variations," in London, Queen's Hall, Hallé Orchestra conducted by Hans Richter; * 1915 - Saint-Saëns: choral work, "Hail California," in San Francisco, composer conducting; * 1926 - Antheil: "Ballet Mécanique," in Paris; * 1984 - Bernstein: opera "A Quiet Place" (revised version), by La Scala Opera, John Mauceri conducting; The first version of this opera premiered at Houston Grand Opera on June 17, 1983, conducted by John DeMain.
Others * 1869 - final concert of a five-day "Great National Peace Jubilee" involving an orchestra of 1000 and a chorus of 10,000 organized by bandmaster Patrick Gilmore performing in a specially-constructed hall in Boston’s Back Bay;
Links and Resources * On Friedrich Hollaender * Original 1953 movie trailer for "Dr. T" * More on the film
Synopsis OK, violin soloists have it easy: there are thousands of violin concertos they can choose from, starting in the Baroque era of Bach and Vivaldi, and continuing right up to the present day, with new violin concertos available from composers from John Adams to Ellen Taaffe Zwlich.
Oboe concertos? Not so much. Oh, there are some very fine oboe concertos out there, but they just aren’t being written as often as new works for the violin or piano, it seems.
But on today’s date in 2010, a welcome new oboe concerto by the contemporary Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin received its premiere performance at the Concertgebouw in Amstrerdam.
In describing his new work, Shechedrin wrote: “It was my intention … to give expression to the entire palette of the tonal and technical qualities of this wonderful instrument. In my score there are however two further essential actors: the [English horn] which permanently imitates or answers the solo instrument … and the orchestra itself.”
Now, Rodion Shchedrin knows a thing or two about writing concertos and has written quite a few: for trumpet, cello, and viola; SIX concertos for piano -- as well as five showpiece “Concertos for Orchestra!”
Music Played in Today's Program Rodion Shchedrin (b. 1932) Oboe Concerto Alexei Ogrinchuk, oboe; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Suzanna Malkki, conductor. RCO Live CD 11001
Synopsis The “Three B’s” are traditionally Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, of course – but today we’re offering Boccherini, Brahms, and Berio.
The 20th century Italian composer Luciano Berio, noted for his avant-garde scores, was asked to orchestrate the F minor Clarinet Sonata by Johannes Brahms -- in 1986, for a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert featuring clarinetist Michele Zukofsky. Berio admired Brahms, and created a very respectful arrangement, but Berio couldn’t resist adding something of his own: a totally original 13-bar orchestral introduction that segues into the Brahms score.
Eleven years earlier, on today’s date in 1975, Berio’s orchestration of one of the ”greatest hits” of the 18th century Italian composer Luigi Boccherini received its premiere performance in Milan. Originally a quintet for strings, Boccherini’s “Night Music in the Streets of Madrid” was written around 1780 when he was living in Spain. This chamber work became very popular – even though Boccherini feared no one outside Madrid would understand it. 200 years after it was written, when asked to supply a short piece for the La Scala Orchestra in Milan, Berio arranged the final movement of Boccherini’s quintet, music evoking the procession of Madrid’s night watchmen signaling the midnight curfew.
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (arr. Luciano Berio) – Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in f, Op. 120, no. 1 Luigi Boccherini (arr. Luciano Berio) – Ritirata notturna di Madrid (Daniel Ottensamer, cl; Basel Symphony; Ivor Bolton, conductor.) Sony 19075982072
Synopsis If you’re a baby boomer who played in a high school or college band, you’ll probably remember the “Divertimento for Band” by the American composer, Vincent Persichetti, music that premiered on today’s date in 1950, with the composer conducting the Goldman Band.
Persichetti didn’t envision his “Divertimento” as a band work, per se. At the start, it was just some woodwind figures accentuated by brass and percussion. When Persichetti realized that violins and cellos just didn’t seem to fit in the picture, “Divertimento” began to take shape in his mind as a work for winds, brass and percussion alone.
Persichetti went on to write a dozen more compositions for concert band. Beyond his works for band, Persichetti was a prolific composer of keyboard, chamber and orchestra pieces. He once claimed that since musical ideas often came to him in his car, he liked to tape a piece of music paper to his steering wheel, so he could jot down ideas and keep his eyes on the road at the same time.
Luckily for other residents of his hometown of Philadelphia, apparently this practice didn’t result in any head-on collisions!
Music Played in Today's Program Vincent Persichetti (1915 - 1987) Divertimento North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaro Corporon, conductor. Klavier 11124
Synopsis The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen on today’s date in 1843. He is credited with putting Norway on the map, musically speaking, drawing inspiration from the folk music of his native land.
What you might not know is that two famous French composers were fans. Grieg was about 19 years older than Claude Debussy and about 32 years older than Maurice Ravel, but both knew and admired his music.
Despite criticizing Grieg’s Piano Concerto for being too much like Schumann’s, Debussy included Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata in one of his public recitals, praised Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” incidental music, and described Grieg’s songs as possessing “the icy coldness of the Nordic lakes [and] the intensive fire of the sudden Nordic spring.”
Ravel once played some of Grieg’s Norwegian dances for the composer in Paris, timidly at first, but when Grieg asked for a stronger beat, saying, “You should see our peasants with their fiddles stamping the rhythm with their feet. Start over!” Ravel complied, and the elder composer got up and started dancing. After Grieg’s death Ravel said: “Next to Debussy there’s no other composer to whom I feel more related than Grieg.”
Music Played in Today's Program Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Lyric Pieces Book VI, Op.57, No. 6. Homeward Emil Gilels, piano DG 449721
Synopsis A now-obscure Englishman named Charles Caleb Colton is credited with the famous adage that"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
On today’s date in 1985, a new work by the American composer John Harbison premiered in Sarasota, Florida, that imitated the form and gestures of the Baroque Concerto Grossos written by Bach or Handel. Harbison’s work was titled “Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings.”
Harbison described it as follows: “The oboe, clarinet, and strings are equal partners. The first movement is declamatory, the second contemplative, and the last frenetic. Each movement sustains one affect [or mood], in the Baroque manner... The steady insistent rhythms are indeed baroque, the harmonies less so.”
“One astute writer,” commented Harbison, “referred to the piece as ‘scenes from a marriage.’ This metaphorical marriage between solo winds and strings contains quarrels, precarious balances, comic relief, misunderstandings, and eventual unanimity.”
And, speaking of marriage, Harbison composed the work at Token Creek, in Wisconsin, an unincorporated community near Madison where his wife’s family had farmed since the 1920s and where for some 25 years each summer John and Rose Mary Harbison have organized their own mini-Festival of chamber music.
Music Played in Today's Program John Harbison (b. 1938) Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings Peggy Pearson , oboe;Jo-Ann Sternberg, clarinet;Metamorphosen Chamber PlayersScott Yoo, conductor. Archetype Records 60106
Synopsis It was on today’s date in 2003 that a new violin concerto by composer Shulamit Ran premiered at Carnegie Hall – but it would be just as appropriate for us to run this episode of Composer’s Datebook on Mother’s Day – as Ran herself explains:
“Thoughts of my mother, Berta Ran, whose strength of spirit has been a profoundly significant guiding light throughout my life, have embedded themselves in various parts of this work. At the closing of the concerto, echoes of a familiar melody, one my mother sang to me in childhood with words of her own creation, appear, gently fading away.”
Shulamit Ran born in Tel Aviv in 1949 and moved to New York City at age 14 on a scholarship to Mannes College of Music. From 1973 to 2015, she taught at the University of Chicago, and served as composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony. In 1991 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Commenting on winning the prestigious award, Ran admitted to being a little surprised:
“I feel I’ve always been out of step,” she said. “At times … I was not considered avant-garde enough. Now, considering the current trend of accessibility, some think I’m too forbidding.”
Music Played in Today's Program Shulamit Ran (b. 1949) Violin Concerto Ittai Shapira, vln; BBC Concert Orchestra; Charles Hazlewood, conductor. Albany TROY-970
Synopsis In Cockney rhyming slang, being “Brahms and Liszt” means being tipsy.
But in the latter 19th century, “Brahms and Liszt” signified opposite schools of contemporary music. Oddly enough, it was the younger Brahms, who represented the more conservative, traditionally structured side of the spectrum, while the older Liszt, represented a freer, less structured style, dubbed “the music of the future.”
Brahms and Liszt first met on today’s date in 1853, when Liszt was 41 and Brahms 20. The American composer and pianist William Mason was present at the meeting, which took place at Liszt’s home in Weimar, and recalled the encounter in his memoirs.
Liszt read at sight one of Brahms’ early piano pieces and praised the young composer’s work. When pressed for some of his own music, Liszt began playing his recently completed Sonata in B-Minor. Midway through the piece it became embarrassingly apparent that Brahms had fallen asleep in his chair.
Maybe it was the summer heat, perhaps sleep deprivation – or maybe, as some must have thought at the time, Brahms was just bored. In any case, Liszt was understandably miffed, and after finishing his Sonata, rose from the piano and left the room without a word.
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) Ballade No. 3, Op. 10 Lars Vogt, piano EMI 57125
Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) Piano Sonata in b Jeno Jando, piano Naxos 8.550510
Synopsis On today’s date in 1926, the American opera composer Carlisle Floyd was born in Latta, South Carolina. Floyd’s ancestors were among the first to settle in the Carolinas, and many of operas are based on colonial, southern, or rural themes. For decades Floyd taught piano and composition at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and it was there that his most famous opera, Susannah, was initially staged in 1955.
Susannah was a retelling of the Biblical tale of Susannah and the elders, set in rural America. It was a tremendous success and since its premiere, has received over 300 productions and more than 800 performances in the United States and Europe. Opera America magazine included it among the top ten “most performed” American operas of all time.
When pressed what it is about his music that strikes many listeners as quintessentially “American,” Carlisle Floyd once answered, “I’m probably the worst person to ask! I’ve never really set out consciously to write ‘American’ music. I can tell you, however, that when I’ve seen my operas in Europe they have always struck me as more ‘American’ than when I hear them here.”
Music Played in Today's Program Carlisle Floyd (b. 1926) Susannah Soloists and Lyon Opera Orchestra; Kent Nagano, conductor. Virgin 45039
Synopsis Back in Bach’s day, there were churchmen aghast at the thought that composers were trying to sneak flashy opera music into Sunday services. Church music was meant to be simple, austere, and, well , not “operatic.”
So what would they have made of the three “church parables” – mini-operas, really, composed in the 20th century by the great English composer Benjamin Britten?
The third of these, The Prodigal Son, debuted on today’s date in 1968 at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Orford, England. All three impart Christian values and were meant for church performance – scored for a handful of soloists, modest choir, and a small ensemble that would fit in front of and on either side of a church altar where church music was normally performed.
But operas they are, and Britten himself let the “o” word slip when he commented in a 1967 interview that he was (quote), “doing another church opera to go with the other two, Curlew River and The Burning Fiery Furnace, to make a kind of trilogy.’”
Britten took these mini-operas seriously, and dedicated The Prodigal Son to his new friend, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who in turn would dedicate his 14th Symphony to Britten.
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) The Prodigal Son Peter Pears, tenor; John Shirley-Quirk, baritone; Robert Tear, tenor; Bryan Drake, baritone; English Opera Group Orchestra; Benjamin Britten, conductor. Decca 425713
On This Day Births * 1904 - German-born American musical composer Frederick Loewe, in Berlin; * 1913 - Soviet composer Tikhon Khrennikov, in Elets (Julian date: May 28); * 1960 - English composer Mark Anthony Turnage, in Grays, Essex;
Deaths * 1899 - French composer Ernest Chausson, age 44, after a bicycle accident near Limay; * 1918 - Italian opera composer and librettist Arrigo Boito, age 76, in Milan; * 1934 - British composer Frederick Delius, age 72, in Grez-sur-Loing, France; * 1964 - American composer Louis Gruenberg, age 75, in Los Angeles;
Premieres * 1732 - Handel: opera "Acis and Galetea" (in an English/Italian version), in London at the King's Theater in the Haymarket, at the request of Princess Anne (Gregorian date: June 21); * 1865 - Wagner: opera "Tristan and Isolde," in Munich at the Hoftheater, conducted by Hans von Bülow; * 1921 - Stravinsky: "Symphonies of Wind Instruments" (in memory of Claude Debussy), in London at Queen's Hall, with Serge Kousevitzky conducting; Three days earlier, on June 7, 1921, Stravinsky had attended the British premiere of the concert version of his ballet score "The Rite of Spring," also at Queen's Hall, with Eugene Goossens conducting; * 1939 - Bliss: Piano Concerto (with Solomon the soloist) and Vaughan Williams: "Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus," at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic, with Sir Adrian Boult conducting; These works (Along with Bax's Seventh Symphony, which premiered the previous day) were all commissioned by the British Council as part of the British Exhibition at 1939 World's Fair; * 1941 - Poulenc: first public performance of Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani, in Paris; * 1968 - Britten: church opera "The Prodigal Son," in Orford Church, near Aldeburgh.
Links and Resources * On Britten
Synopsis On today’s date in 1904, the London Symphony gave its first concert at the old Queen’s Hall in London. Founded as a musician-run ensemble, along co-operative lines, back then all its players shared the profits at the end of each season.
So, from the start, the LSO had to be entrepreneurial: it made some of the first acoustic recordings of major orchestral works, and in the era of silent movies, played in a London theater pit for major films of the day. By the 1930s, they were recording musical scores for early British sound films as well.
One famous film score venture occurred in 1946, for a British movie entitled The Instruments of the Orchestra, in which the LSO itself played a starring role, performing Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra -- a work specially-composed for the film.
But the LSO’s best-known film score recording dates from 1977. It was then that the LSO that recorded the John Williams score for the first of the Star Wars movies. The score became an instant classic, and the LSO became the “go-to” orchestra for John Williams film scores, including Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Harry Potter.
Speaking of “titanically” successful films, in 1912, the LSO arranged a North American tour and was booked to sail on a brand-new ocean liner named the Titanic. At the last minute, their tour schedule had to be changed, and – fortunately -- they sailed on a liner named the Baltic instead!
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra London Symphony; Benjamin Britten, conductor. London/Decca CD 417 509
John Williams (b. 1932) “Star Wars” Main Title London Symphony; John Williams, conductor. RSO CD 6641-679 (and other CD reissues)
Synopsis On today's date in 1912 Maurice Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé received its first performance at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, staged by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and choreographed by Michel Fokine.
Some three years earlier, Diaghilev had approached Ravel about composing a ballet, and Ravel started working with Fokine on a scenario based on an old Greek pastoral romance about two lovers separated by pirates and reunited by the intervention of the god Pan.
Ravel was a meticulous and slow worker, and his score for Daphnis et Chloé ended up taking three years to complete. By the time of its 1912 premiere, internal squabbles in the Diaghilev company and conceptual differences between composer and choreographer had dampened everyone's enthusiasm for the project. Even Diaghilev seemed to lose interest.
In his memoirs, Pierre Monteux, the conductor of the first performance, recalled, "At first Diaghilev had been very enthusiastic with Ravel's magnificent score, but for some reason, which I have always thought was due to the weakness of the choreography, his fervor for Ravel and his music diminished to such a low pitch that it became difficult to work as we should have on the premiere."
Monteux continued, "But all the musicians in the orchestra, and I might say all the musicians in Paris, knew that this was Maurice Ravel's greatest work."
Music Played in Today's Program Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937) Daphnis et Chloe London Symphony; Pierre Monteux, conductor. London 425 956
Synopsis On today’s date in 1945 Peter Grimes, a new opera by the English composer Benjamin Britten, debuted at Sadler’s Wells Theater in London. The libretto was based on George Crabbe's long poem, The Borough, published in 1810, which described life along England’s North Sea coast.
In the early 1940’s, Britten was living in America, and had read Crabbe’s poem in California. The commission for the opera was also American, coming from Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony and one of the leading music patrons of the day.
But Britten’s opera is intensely English – evoking, as it does, the images and sounds of the North Sea off the east coast of Suffolk. Britten was born within sight of this seascape, and lived, for the better part of his later life, a little farther down the coast at Aldeburgh – the "Borough," on which George Crabbe had based his poem.
From the start, Peter Grimes was an immediate success. Within a week of its June 7th premiere, Britten conducted the London Philharmonic in an orchestral suite of Sea Interludes from his new opera, and these, too, have since firmly established themselves in the concert repertory.
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) Sea Interludes, fr Peter Grimes London Symphony; André Previn, conductor. EMI 72658
Synopsis LAUGH-IN was a popular TV comedy sketch program in the late 1960s and one of their recurring alliterative gag lines referred to “the fickle finger of fate.” Now, composers who enter – and lose – competitions, often mutter something similar – or stronger.
In London in 1703, three English composers, John Weldon, John Eccles, Daniel Purcell, and the Moravian-born Gottfried Finger took part in a competition organized by wealthy opera fans. All four composers were asked to set the same short English-language libretto, and the resulting works were all staged on today’s date for the audience to choose their favorite.
The grand prize of 100 guineas was won by Weldon, even though many bet on Eccles to win. Gottfried Finger came in dead last and was NOT happy about it. He left the country in disgust complaining that (quote), “He had thought to be judged by men, not boys,” and that the competition was rigged.
And in his defense, some recent recordings of Finger’s virtuoso viola da gamba works show him to have been, in fact, a very good composer.
Even so, as the old LAUGH-IN hosts might put it, “Fun fact: fickle fans found Finger faulty. Finished fourth. Forthwith fuming foreigner fled.”
Music Played in Today's Program Gottfried Finger (ca. 1655-6 - buried 31 August 1730) Sonatae pro diversis instrumentis, Op. 1 Echo du Danube Accent CD 24264
SynopsisTchaikovsky's Violin Concerto was first performed on today's date in 1881. The premiere took place in Vienna with Adolf Brodsky the violin soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Richter. It was not a big hit.
The next day, the conservative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: "The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue." According to Hanslick, the concerto's finale (quote): "transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian festival. We see gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze... Tchaikovsky's Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear."
Ouch! Tchaikovsky's score survived the bad review, but a more recent American work suffered a far unkinder cut. The original film score for the 1968 blockbuster movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey" was written by Alex North, who was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on today's date in 1910. Director Stanley Kubrick hired North to write the music for "2001," but Kubrick ultimately decided to use pre-recorded classical and contemporary music instead.
When North attended the New York premiere of "2001," he was devastated that not one minute of the music he had written was included in the final edit.
Believe it or not, no one had informed him in advance!
Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Violin Concerto, Op. 35 Itzhak Perlman, violin; London Symphony; Alfred Wallenstein, conductor. Chesky 12
Alex North (1910-1991) Unused "Opening Theme," for 2001: A Space Odyssey National Philharmonic; Jerry Goldsmith, conductor. Varese Sarabande 66225
SynopsisIt was wet and cold in New York on today's date in 1925, but a curious crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall for a concert by the New York Symphony. Walter Damrosch was to conduct the world premiere of a new “Piano Concerto” by George Gershwin, who would also be the soloist.
The audience reacted with cheers and bravos, but the reviews were mixed: "Conventional, trite... [and] a little dull" was the verdict of one; but another was enthusiastic, suggesting: "Of all those writing the music of today, [Gershwin] alone actually expresses US." In the America of 1925, that "us" would have included the owners of speakeasies, raccoon coats, and Stutz Bearcat roadsters. It was the "Jazz Age"— an era magically captured in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.
Seventy-four years later, in December of 1999, John Harbison's opera based on The Great Gatsby premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, playing to sold-out houses. Once again, audiences were enthusiastic—the critics less so.
To capture the mood of the 1920s, Harbison had composed a number of original songs in Jazz-Age style, which he incorporated as themes in his opera. These tunes have even been published as a separate "Gatsby Songbook!"
Imagine: a modern opera with tunes audiences can actually hum as they leave the theater! What will they think of next?
Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Harbison (b.1938) Remembering Gatsby Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, cond. Argo 444 454
George Gershwin (1898-1937) Piano Concerto in F Peter Jablonski, piano; Royal Philharmonic; Vladimir Ashkenazy, cond. London 430 542
SynopsisOn today's date in 1949, Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis was the venue for the world premiere performance of Béla Bartók's last orchestral piece: his “Concerto for Viola and Orchestra.” The soloist was William Primrose, who had commissioned the work, with the Hungarian-born conductor Antal Dorati leading the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.
Bartók had died in 1945, leaving extensive but incomplete sketches for the concerto he was writing for Primrose. After his death, the “Viola Concerto” was completed and orchestrated by Bartók's friend and fellow Hungarian, Tibor Sérly, who had also put the finishing touches on Bartók's “Third Piano Concerto,” which also premiered posthumously.
The 1949 premiere of the “Viola Concerto” in Minneapolis attracted worldwide attention. To the surprise of some, it also went over very well with its first-night audience at Northrop Auditorium.
At the dress rehearsal, Dorati had predicted as much: "This is one time the audience need have no qualms about the word 'contemporary' as applied to the music it's about to hear." Dorati's view was that the public was finally catching up with Bartók's highly original idiom. "It's not a case of a composer becoming famous because he is dead," said Dorati. "It is true there has been a great surge of performances of Bartók's music since his death, but that is because the public was ready to hear his music."
Music Played in Today's ProgramBéla Bartók (1881-1945) Viola Concerto (completed by Tibor Serly) Hong-Mei Xiao, viola; Budapest Philharmonic; Janos Kovacs, cond. Naxos 8.554183
Synopsis Because it's often played at weddings, the Trumpet Voluntary is one piece of Baroque music that just about everyone has heard. Once attributed to the famous 17th century British composer Henry Purcell, this music was, in fact, composed by Purcell's slightly younger and not-so-famous contemporary Jeremiah Clarke.
Clarke was born around 1674 and sang as a boy soprano in London's Chapel Royal. After his voice changed, he became a choir director and rejoined the Chapel Royal as an organist in 1700. Tragically, on December 1st in 1707, Clarke shot himself – according to some contemporary accounts as the result of a hopeless love affair.
And speaking of such things: also on today's date—in 1886—the American premiere of Tristan Und Isolde, Richard Wagner's classic opera of ill-fated passion, took place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Anton Seidl, a protégé of Wagner, conducted. While composing Tristan, Wagner wrote to his lover, Mathilde Wesendonck: "Child! This Tristan is turning into something fearsome... the opera will probably be banned... only mediocre performances can save me! Good performances will drive people mad!"
If not driven mad, American audiences in 1886 were at least remarkably enthusiastic. The Musical Courier reported that "the audience filled every available seat and listened to the performance, which lasted until nearly midnight, with an attention and genuine enthusiasm unequaled in the musical history of this land."
Music Played in Today's Program Jeremiah Clarke (ca. 1674-1707) Trumpet Voluntary (Prince of Denmark March) Maurice André, trumpet; Jane Parker-Smith, organ EMI 64899
Synopsis On today’s date in 1885, the Paris Opera gave the first performance of “Le Cid,” the 11th opera written by the French composer Jules Massenet.
“Le Cid” is set in medieval Spain and tells the story of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a legendary hero who defended his country against the Moors. The same story inspired a 1961 movie titled “El Cid,” starring—who else?—Charlton Heston.
But back in 1890, the New Orleans Opera introduced Massenet’s opera to American audiences and reached New York City in 1897, serving as a vocal showcase for turn-of-the-century superstars of the early Metropolitan Opera. Enrico Caruso made a famous recording of the opera’s most famous excerpt—Rodrigo’s Act III aria, “O souverain, o juge, o pere,” which translates as “Oh Lord, Oh Judge, Oh Father.”
Unlikely as it may seem, this aria inspired a pop hit in 1981, when composer and performance artist Laurie Anderson translated its opening line as “O Superman, O Judge, O Mom and Dad.” As a credit to the French composer, Laurie Anderson‘s “O Superman” is even subtitled For Massenet.
Trained as a classical violinist with the Chicago Youth Symphony, Laurie Anderson soon shifted to a variety of electronically-altered fiddles, and one of her albums is titled, appropriately, Life on a String.
Music Played in Today's Program Jules Massenet (1842-1912) O souverain, o juge, o pere, from Le Cid Ben Heppner, tenor; Munich Radio Orchestra; Roberto Abbado, conductor. RCA/BMG 62504
Synopsis It was on this date in 1825 that the United States had its first date with authentic Italian opera. This was a performance of Gioacchino Rossini's The Barber of Seville, staged at New York City's Park Theatre.
The singers were mostly from one extraordinary Spanish family—the Garcias—led by its patriarch Manuel Garcia, a tenor who performed role of Count Almaviva – the same role Garcia had created at the opera’s premiere in Rome nine years earlier.
The 1825 New York audience included luminaries from society and the arts—including the American novelist James Fenimore Cooper and Mozart’s one-time librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, who was teaching Italian at Columbia University in those days.
November 29th is also important to 20th century American musical theater. Cole Porter's Gay Divorce opened on Broadway on November 29, 1932, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
The musical’s title rankled censors who feared it treated divorce too lightly, and they insisted on converting it to the less controversial Gay Divorcee. Cole Porter’s score included one of his classic songs, Night and Day, and, like Rossini before him, Porter claimed to have tailor-made this song for the unusual tenor star of his new show, one Fred Astaire.
Music Played in Today's Program Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) selections from The Barber of Seville Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor. Philips 412 266
Cole Porter (1891-1964) Gay Divorce Overture London Sinfonietta; John McGlinn, conductor. EMI 68589
Synopsis According to historians, the 19th Century was the great age of Romanticism—but tell that to Sergei Rachmaninoff and Howard Hanson! On today’s date, two of their quintessentially Romantic works were both premiered in the 20th century.
In 1909, Rachmaninoff came to the U.S. for his first American tour, and on today’s date appeared as the piano soloist in the premiere of his Third Piano Concerto with the New York Symphony. Now, if you believe the movie “Shine,” Rach 3 is the most difficult of all Romantic piano concertos. Even its composer confessed he need to practice it on the boat to America!
By 1930, when American composer Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 premiered on today’s date in Boston, Romantic music was increasingly considered “old fashioned.” But Hanson defiantly subtitled his new Symphony The Romantic.
“My Symphony represents a definite embracing of the Romantic,” wrote Hanson “I recognize, of course, that Romanticism is, at the present time, music’s poor stepchild… Nevertheless, I embrace her all the more fervently, believing as I do that Romanticism will find in this country rich soil for new growth.”
And how about outer space? Decades after its premiere, Hanson’s popular Romantic Symphony even showed up as part of the film score to the sci-fi classic “Alien!”
Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Piano Concerto No. 3 in d, Op. 30 Martha Argerich, piano; Berlin Radio Symphony; Riccardo Chailly, cond. Philips 446 673
Howard Hanson (1896-1981) Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 (Romantic) RCA Symphony; Charles Gerhardt, cond. Chesky 112
Also sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem by Richard Strauss, was first performed in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on this day in 1896, with the composer conducting.
For decades thereafter, it was considered one of his lesser works and only occasionally performed. Then, in 1968, Stanley Kubrick chose its opening fanfare as the main theme of his movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Suddenly Also Sprach jumped to the top of the classical charts and became a concert hall favorite as well— even though many of its new audiences are surprised when the piece goes on for another half hour after its spectacular opening.
Another composer who also benefited from Kubrick’s movie was the Hungarian György Ligeti. Initially, Ligeti’s fame was limited to avant-garde circles, but his 1961 composition Atmosphères also became part of the “2001” soundtrack and catapulted him to much wider fame. Ligeti’s eerily floating sound-clusters seemed to Kubrick perfect “outer space” music.
Ligeti himself was not happy how his music was used in the film, but, grudgingly, did express admiration for the film’s surreal final sequence. Richard Strauss died in 1949—some 20 years before Kubrick’s film debuted—but we suspect that hard-headed businessman would have been pleased that his music was used — and would have promptly demanded a hefty cut of Kubrick’s royalties.
Synopsis On today’s date in 1997, violinist Joshua Bell and the San Francisco Symphony gave the premiere performance of an 18-minute “Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra” by American composer John Corigliano.
This music was a concert offshoot of Corigliano’s film score for Francois Gerard’s movie The Red Violin, but debuted months before the film itself was completed.
Said Corigliano, “I was delighted when asked to compose the score for Francois Girard's new film. How could I turn down so interesting and fatalistic a journey through almost three centuries, beginning as it did in Cremona, home of history's greatest violin builders? I also welcomed the producer's offer to separately create a violin and orchestra concert piece, to be freely based on motives from the film.
“I'd assumed that, as usual in film, I wouldn't be required to score it until it was completed, except for a number of on-camera "cues"… Then plans changed. Filming was pushed back. So the present ‘Chaconne’ was built just on the materials I had; a good thing, as it turns out, because I now had the freedom, as well as the need, to explore these materials to a greater extent than I might have had I been expected to condense an hour's worth of music into a coherent single movement.”
Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b.1938) selections from The Red Violin Joshua Bell, violin; Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony 63010
Synopsis On today’s date in 1955, the Boston Symphony was celebrating its 75th anniversary season with the premiere performance of a brand-new symphony—the sixth—by the American composer Walter Piston. At the time, Piston was teaching at Harvard, and his association with the Boston Symphony went back decades. Even so, Piston paid the orchestra an extraordinary compliment, crediting its musicians as virtual partners in its composition:
“While writing my Sixth Symphony,” Piston wrote, “I came to realize that this was a rather special situation. I was writing for one designated orchestra, one that I had grown up with, and that I knew intimately. Each note set down sounded in the mind with extraordinary clarity, as though played immediately by those who were to perform the work. On several occasions it seemed as though the melodies were being written by the instruments themselves as I followed along. I refrained from playing even a single note of this symphony on the piano.”
This symphony may have been tailor-made for the Boston players, but Piston was practical enough to know other orchestras would be interested, and so added this important footnote: “The composer’s mental image of the sound of his written notes has to admit a certain flexibility.”
Music Played in Today's Program Walter Piston (1894-1976) Symphony No. 6 Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor. Delos 3074
Synopsis On today’s date in 1888, Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky premiered his new Overture-Fantasy Hamlet. He had been asked to write an overture for a gala charity benefit staging of Act III of Shakespeare’s famous play at the Mariinsky Theatre. Alas, the charity was, as Hamlet might say, “not to be.” But Tchaikovsky so liked the idea of a piece inspired by the mood and characters of Hamlet that wrote the overture anyway.
As Hamlet said, “the time is out of joint,” and we fast forward our story almost 100 years to 1982 and another Tchaikovsky – André Tchaikovsky (no relation to Peter Ilyich). André Tchaikovsky was a Polish composer who was also a virtuoso pianist of some note and a wanna-be actor to boot. When André Tchaikovsky died in 1982, he’d asked that his skull be donated to the Royal Shakespeare Company, hoping it would be used for the skull of Yorick in their productions of Hamlet. André Tchaikovsky got his wish in 2008, when his skull was finally held aloft by David Tennant in a series of performances of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon, a production that proved so famous that an image of Tennant as Hamlet holding Tchaikovsky’s skull ended up on a British postage stamp.
Music Played in Today's Program Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Hamlet-Fantasy Overture, Op. 67 –Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, cond. (DG 477670)
Synopsis A question: do you see colors when you hear music? No, we’re not going psychedelic on you and absolutely no controlled substances are involved in preparing today’s edition of Composers Datebook.
It’s just that many composers do—see colors, that is.
The late Romantic Russian composer Alexander Scriabin would describe the key of F-sharp Major as very definitely being “bright blue.” His colleague Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, however, thought F-sharp Major more a greyish-green hue. While many composers confess to seeing certain musical keys as certain colors, the fact is they don’t always agree on which color matches which key.
Which brings us to the American composer Michael Torke, who gave the title “Bright Blue Music” to an orchestral piece that premiered on today’s date at Carnegie Hall at a concert of the New York Youth Symphony.
In 1985, when this music premiered, Torke was just 24 years old, but had already been composing music for most of his young life. In addition to a string of other “colorful” scores, with titles like “The Yellow Pages” and “Ecstatic Orange,” Torke has also gone on to write a number of ballet scores and vocal works, including a TV opera and, in 1999, a big choral symphony for the Disney Corporation to celebrate the Millennium.
Music Played in Today's Program Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) Etude in F#, Op. 42, no. 4 Piers Lane, piano Hyperion 66607
Michael Torke (b. 1961) Bright Blue Music Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor.
Synopsis The American composer Roger Sessions is an acquired taste for most classical music fans, and, truth be told, his works don’t show up on concert recital programs all that often.
He was born in the 19th century, 1896, when Grover Cleveland was president, and died in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
Session’s early music, written when he was in his twenties and thirties, was neo-classical in style, but as the 20th century progressed, Sessions’ style did also, moving from harmonically complex tonality to frankly atonal works. His music became increasingly “gnarly,” you might say, but there was always a lot of emotion in his music, whatever technique he employed.
Take, for example, his Piano Sonata No. 3, nicknamed “The Kennedy Sonata.” It was written in reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on today’s date in 1963. The last movement of Sessions’ Piano Sonata was written as an elegy for the slain president, and includes a climax of three sharply accented chords. For the American pianist William Grant Naboré, one of just a handful of artists who have recorded this work, those three chords suggest the three sharp rifle shots that shattered the air in Dallas the day Kennedy died.
Music Played in Today's Program Roger Sessions (1896-1985) Sonata No. 3 "Kennedy Sonata" William Grant Naboré DRC 3002
Synopsis Today, a letter: written on this date in 1615 by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi to a friend at the court of the Duke of Mantua.
The letter accompanied a vocal score that Monteverdi hoped would convince the Duke to commission a much larger work. After detailed instructions regarding the positioning of the singers and the instruments Monteverdi adds—almost as an afterthought—this line: “If you could let the singers and players see the music for an hour before His Highness hears it, it would be a very good thing indeed.”
Talk about “authentic performance practice!”
It probably took more than an hour’s rehearsal for the U.S. premiere of American composer Steve Reich’s intricate setting of four Hebrew psalm fragments—titled “Tehillim”—which took place in Houston, Texas, on today’s date in 1981. Back then, Reich was already famous as one of America’s leading “minimalist” composers, but a search for fresh directions coincided with Reich’s rediscovery of his Jewish heritage, and “Tehillim” was the result.
“For me,” says Reich, ”the most important aspect of a piece of music, mine or someone else’s, is its emotional and intellectual effect on performers and audiences—I find it basically impossible to separate the emotional and intellectual aspects of a piece of music.“
Music Played in Today's Program Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) Orfeo Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond. Erato 88032
Steve Reich (b. 1936) Tehillim Schoenberg Ensemble; Percussion group The Hague; Reinbert De Leeuw, Cond. Nonesuch 79295
Synopsis Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 was first heard on this day in Budapest in 1889, with the 29-year-old composer conducting.
Originally billed as a “symphonic poem,” a newspaper in Budapest even printed a detailed program, obviously supplied by Mahler himself. For subsequent performance in Europe, Mahler quickly withdrew these Cliff’s Notes to his Symphony.
Twenty years later, in December of 1909, Mahler conducted its American premiere at Carnegie Hall, during his first season as music director of the New York Philharmonic.
The symphony drew mixed reviews:
The New York Times wrote, “There are matters in it, that as absolute music, have no evident significance, and that serve merely to puzzle and perplex.” The critic for the Sun took a dislike to the symphony’s finale, suggesting (quote) “when the weather is bad in Tyrol, it is beyond the power of language to characterize.”
Mahler’s own reactions are recorded in a letter he sent from New York to Bruno Walter back in Europe: “The day before yesterday I did my First Symphony here, without getting much reaction. However, I myself was fairly pleased with that youthful effort… The audiences here are very lovable and relatively better mannered than in Vienna. They listen attentively and very sympathetically. The critics are the same as anywhere else. I don’t read any of them.”
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Symphony No. 1 in D Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond. Virgin 61258
Synopsis The modern Hungarian city we know as Budapest is really three older settlements merged into one: Buda, on the west bank of the Danube, was the royal seat of the medieval Hungarian kings; Obuda, just to the north, was an ancient Roman provincial capital; and Pest, is a newer city situated on the east bank of the Danube. These three became the modern-day city Budapest in 1873.
In 1923, to celebrate modern Budapest’s 50th anniversary, the Hungarian government commissioned two of its greatest composers, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, to compose orchestral pieces which both premiered on today’s date that year.
Bartók’s contribution was a lively “Dance Suite,” with themes reminiscent of Hungarian folk melodies, although no actual folksongs are quoted. It’s one of his most genial and upbeat orchestral scores.
Kodály’s contribution was his Psalmus Hungaricus for tenor, chorus and orchestra, a free setting of a 16th century Hungarian translation of Psalm 55, in which the Psalmist pleads for deliverance from his persecutors.
That Psalm had a special political resonance for Zoltán Kodály, who had fallen out of favor with the right-wing Hungarian regime then in power. Despite its melancholy tone, Psalmus Hungaricus was an instant hit in Hungary and elsewhere, and helped established Kodály’s international reputation as one of his country’s greatest composers.
Music Played in Today's Program Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Dance Suite Philharmonia Hungarica; Antal Dorati, cond. Mercury 432 017
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) Psalmus hungaricus, Op. 13 Lajos Kozma, tenor; Brighton Festival Chorus; London Symphony; István Kertész, cond. London 443 488
Synopsis Today’s date marks the official birthday of a quintessential American form of 20th century music—for cartoons.
It was on November 18, 1928, that the first-ever animated cartoon with its own synchronized soundtrack debuted at the Colony Theater in New York City. This was Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie starring Mickey Mouse, who amazed audiences when he spoke up in a squeaky, falsetto voice provided by none other than Disney himself. Mickey pulled the whistle on his steamboat—a startling sonic effect in those days—and, oblivious of the impending animal rights movement, coaxed music from various squeezed and plucked barnyard colleagues.
That music was composed by a quiet, unassuming theater organist out of Kansas City named Carl Stalling, who was soon lured to Hollywood by Disney to work on subsequent Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons. In 1936, Stalling joined the Warner Brothers studios, and for the next 22 years was the music director for classic Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck cartoons.
Stalling’s wonderfully wacky and endlessly inventive music was usually ignored by “serious” music critics as beneath notice. Ironically, his scores feature the same dizzying shifts of mood, tempo and instrumentation as the most complex avant-garde scores of the post-war period: Stockhausen and Boulez meet Tweety and Sylvester?
Music Played in Today's Program Carl Stalling (1888-1974) Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals and To Itch his Own Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra Warner Bros. 26027
Synopsis On today’s date in 2005, the chancel of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis was transformed into a performance stage for vocal soloists, choirs, and the Minnesota Orchestra led by Osmo Vänksä.
The occasion was the world premiere performance of a new oratorio entitled To Be Certain of the Dawn, featuring music by the American composer Stephen Paulus and a text by the British-born poet Michael Dennis Browne. The Basilica had commissioned the oratorio as a gift to Temple Israel in Minneapolis in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps in 1945.
As Paulus explained, the idea for the oratorio began with a former rector of the Catholic basilica, who felt that Christians should acknowledge and teach about the Holocaust as much as—or more so—than Jews. “It was he,” wrote Paulus, “who decided that an oratorio would be a powerful vehicle for communicating… [and] that children are key to the prevention of genocide, both today and in the future.”
With telling effect, actual informal photographs of Jewish children taken in European ghettos during the 1930s and 40s were projected onto screens during the performance. As poet Michael Dennis Browne wrote, “The faces of children are the sun, moon, and stars of this work.”
Music Played in Today's Program Stephen Paulus (1949 - 2014) To Be Certain of the Dawn Minnesota Chorale; Minnesota Boychoir;Basilica Cathedral Choir and Choristers;Minnesota Orchestra; Osmo Vänskä, cond. Bis CD-1726
Synopsis On today’s date in 1777, the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was baffled by Parisian audiences and wrote these lines to a friend:
“I am so much disgusted with music that at present that I would not write one single note for any amount of money… Never has a more keenly-fought battle been waged than by the enemies of my new opera, Armide. The intrigues against my previous operas were no more than little skirmishes in comparison. Admirers tell me, ‘Sir, you are fortunate to be enjoying the honor of persecution’ and ‘every genius has had the same experience’— Bah! To the devil with their fine speeches!
“Still, yesterday, at the eighth performance of Armide, the hall was so tightly packed that when a man was asked to take off his hat, he replied, ‘Come and take it off yourself, I can’t move my arms!’—which caused laughter. I have seen people coming out with their hair bedraggled and their clothes drenched as though they had fallen into a stream. Only the French would pay for such an experience!”
Gluck would ultimately triumph in Paris and could count among his most ardent supporters none other than the French queen, Marie Antoinette—who presumably had a much cooler and certainly less crowded box at the opera.
Music Played in Today's Program Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787) Act 2 aria, from Armide Rockwell Blake, tenor; Monte Carlo Philharmonic; Patrick Fournillier, cond. EMI 55058
Christoph Willibald von Gluck Don Juan Ballet Music Rhine Chamber Orchestra of Cologne; Jan Corazolla, cond. Christophorus 74507
Synopsis Today’s date marks the anniversary of the first performance of Jerome Kern’s Show Boat, produced in 1927 at the National Theater in Washington, D.C. by Florenz Ziegfeld.
Show Boat’s book and lyrics were by Oscar Hammerstein II, adapted from Edna Ferber’s novel, which had been published only the year before. It was a most unusual story for a musical, and dealt frankly with alcoholism and interracial marriage. Mixing tragic and comic elements was something simply unheard of in American musical theater of that time.
Ziegfeld’s secretary recalled that before the Washington premiere, he fretted that audiences would be disappointed that the girls on stage were wearing much too much clothing for a typical Ziegfeld show. There was little or no applause following the November 15th premiere, and Ziegfeld assumed that “Show Boat” was a flop. But the Washington audiences were simply too stunned to react.
When Ziegfeld’s secretary told his boss that there were long lines waiting to buy tickets for subsequent performances, at first Ziegfeld didn’t believe it. But by the time Show Boat opened on Broadway the following month, even the Great Ziegfeld knew he had a hit on his hands—and one based on great music and a powerful book, with nary a scantily-glad show girl in sight!
Music Played in Today's Program Jerome Kern (1885-1945) selections from Showboat Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Carl Davis, cond. EMI 4573
Synopsis If ever there was a red-letter day in American music, November 14th must surely be it. For starters, it’s the birthday of Aaron Copland, who was born in New York City on today’s date in 1900—and then there’s all that happened on November 14th in the life of Leonard Bernstein.
Here’s how Bernstein himself explained it: “I never forget a Copland birthday. Two of the most important events of my life happened on November 14—the first in 1937 when Aaron and I met for the first time… Now, I worried and complained terrifically back then and always took my troubles to Aaron, who would tell me to ’stop whining.’ He seemed to have such complete confidence in me that he didn’t show a bit of surprise when on Sunday, November 14, 1943, I made a dramatic success by filling in for the ailing Bruno Walter and conducting the New York Philharmonic. All Aaron’s predications came true—and on his birthday!”
As if that weren’t enough, in 1954, again on Copland’s birthday, Bernstein made his TV debut presenting Beethoven’s draft sketches for the opening of his Fifth Symphony. It proved a smash success—and led to Bernstein’s televised Young Person’s Concerts that brought classical music to millions of Americans coast to coast.
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Piano Blues No. 3 James Tocco, piano MPR 201
Synopsis On this date in 1961, cellist Pablo Casals gave a chamber concert at the White House, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy. The concert was given in honor of Governor Luis Muñoz of Puerto Rico, the home of Pablo Casals. Casals played works of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Couperin, with his own composition, Song of the Birds, as an encore.
While eminent guests raved over the performance, the cellist’s laconic comment was simply, “It went well.” Casals could afford to be blasé. After all, he had played at the White House before—for President Teddy Roosevelt back in 1904!
Aaron Copland was also invited to the November 13th White House concert in 1961. In a diary entry, he noted: “Pierre Salinger and Senator Mike Mansfield were at our table. President Kennedy was in full view the entire time… I was surprised at his reddish-brown hair. No evil in the face, but plenty of ambition there, no doubt. Mrs. K. statuesque… After dinner we were treated to a concert by Pablo Casals. No American music. The next step.”
That “next step” came the following spring. In May of 1962, the Kennedys presented Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid at the White House for the visiting president of the Ivory Coast Republic, with Copland as guest of honor.
Music Played in Today's Program Pablo Casals (1876-1973) Song of the Birds Patrick Demenga, cello; Gerard Wyss, piano Novalis 150117
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Billy the Kid Ballet Dallas Symphony; Eduardo Mata, cond. Dorian 90170
Synopsis On today’s date in 1943, the Boston Symphony and conductor Serge Koussevitzky gave the first performance of a Symphony for Strings by the American composer William Schuman.
Schuman was just 33 years old at the time, but Koussevitzky had already been programming and commissioning Schuman’s music for about 5 years. Koussevitzky had already given the premiere performances of his popular “American Festival Overture” and the Third Symphony.
Schuman’s Symphony for Strings is dedicated to the memory of Koussevitzky’s wife, Natalie, whose family fortune that enabled Serge Koussevitzky to establish himself as a conductor, found a publishing house, and commission many of the 20th century’s most significant works, including Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra.”
In Russia, the Koussevitzkys championed Russian music. In France, they supported French composers. And, beginning in 1924, when Koussevitzky became the music director of the Boston Symphony, many American composers benefited from this remarkable couple’s enthusiasm for new music. Schuman’s Symphony for Strings is just one of a long list of the Koussevitzky’s American commissions, which includes works by Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Samuel Barber, Walter Piston, and Leonard Bernstein.
Taken as a whole, the concert music commissioned by Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky remains one of the most remarkable musical legacies of the 20th century.
Music Played in Today's Program William Schuman (1910-1992) Symphony No. 5 (Symphony for Strings) I Musici de Montreal; Yuli Turovsky, cond. Chandos 9848
Synopsis At Carnegie Hall in New York City on today’s date in 1990, a new work by the American composer and jazz trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe had its premiere performance by the American Composers Orchestra. November 11th also happens to be the birthday of its composer, who was born Marvin Peterson, in Smithville, Texas, in 1948, but now goes by the name Hannibal.
The new work was an oratorio titled African Portraits, which traces the story of slavery in America and black culture's contributions to American music. It’s scored for orchestra, jazz quartet, blues guitar, chorus, gospel singer, plus African storyteller and African instruments. In composing this work, which in Biblical terms he calls his personal “burning bush,” Hannibal drew inspiration from a variety of sources, ranging from the spirituals he listened to while working in the cotton fields of Texas to the drums of the Masai people in Africa, with whom he lived for a time.
A critic for the Washington Post described the work as follows:
“The dramatic power conveyed by Portraits is cumulative. It's derived from the drums and the chants, the procession of blues, jazz and gospel refrains, the symphonic sweep and narrative form, the great compression of time, anguish and triumph. It's a listening experience you'll not soon forget.”
Music Played in Today's Program Hannibal Lokumbe (b. 1948) African Portar Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim Teldec 81792
Synopsis On today’s date in 1862, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Forza del Destino or The Force of Destiny had its premiere at the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. Verdi and his wife, Giuseppina, were present for the opening night.
We’re not sure what the outdoor temperature was in St. Petersburg that November evening, but it was something that the Verdis carefully considered before agreeing to attend.
Responding to a friend’s letter describing a Russian winter, Giuseppina wrote: “If I were not afraid of committing forgery, I would alter that imposing figure of 22 below zero which will make Verdi open his eyes wide in fright… As for myself, I took refuge under the stove… In any case, I shall try and persuade him to expose his nose to the danger of freezing in Russia.”
Perhaps in artistic compensation, the story of Forza is set in sultry Spain—and after the premiere in St. Petersburg, the Verdis did indeed set off for warmer climates of Rome and Madrid, where the new opera was to have its next performances.
In the early years of the 20th century, La Forza del Destino—like most of Verdi’s works—was seldom staged, but in the 1920s it was successfully revived, and its overture has become a concert hall favorite.
Music Played in Today's Program Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Overture and Act II excerpt, from La Forza del Destino John Alldis Choir; London Symphony; James Levine, conductor. RCA/BMG 39502
Synopsis The world’s most popular classical guitar concerto, the “Concierto de Aranjuez” by Joaquin Rodrigo, had its first performance on today’s date in 1940, in Barcelona.
Joaquin Rodrigo was born in Spain in 1901 and lost his sight at the age of three. He wrote all of his music on a Braille music typewriter. The “Concierto de Aranjuez,” inspired by a small town of that name thirty miles south of Madrid, remains his signature piece, though he wrote a number of other successful works. Rodrigo died on July 6th, 1999, at the age of 97.
In 1959, a friend had played a recording of Rodrigo’s concerto for the American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Miles Davis said, “After listening to it for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.” So, Miles Davis played it for his friend, jazz composer and arranger Gil Evans, and in short order the two collaborated on their own 16-minute version of Rodrigo’s score. Their collaboration was included on their classic 1960 Columbia LP entitled “Sketches of Spain.”
At the recording session, Miles paid Rodrigo this compliment: “That melody is so strong that the softer you play it, the stronger it gets…”
Music Played in Today's Program Joaquin Rodrigo (1902-1999) Concierto de Aranjuez Manuel Barrueco, guitar; Philharmonic Orchestra; Placido Domingo, conductor. EMI 56175
Synopsis On today’s date in 1919, a concert suite from Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale had its premiere in Lausanne, Switzerland—the same city in which the original theatrical version of Stravinsky’s score was first presented in 1918.
In that original form, The Soldier’s Tale was a kind of musical morality play scored for narrator and small chamber ensemble. Stravinsky incorporated elements of American jazz, although what he knew of jazz was derived entirely from looking at sheet music rather than any firsthand experience of actually hearing American jazz.
Eighty years later, for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis composed A Fiddler’s Tale—a companion piece to Stravinsky’s work, scored for the same configuration of instruments.
Wynton Marsalis said, ''No matter what I do, I'm not going to compare myself to Stravinsky. That would be ridiculous. You have to accept who he is and do what you can do, and hope that what you do is on some level of quality.”
Like Stravinsky’s piece, A Fiddler’s Tale also exists in two versions: as a theater piece with a narrator, and as a purely instrumental suite. Both have been recorded, and both, not surprisingly, feature Wynton Marsalis as the trumpeter.
Music Played in Today's Program Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) L'histoire du soldat Suite Philharmonia Orchestra; Robert Craft, conductor. Koch 7504
Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961) The Fiddler's Tale Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Sony 60979
Synopsis In 1971, after reading a book about the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, the American pop singer Don McLean wrote a song he titled “Vincent,” which became a big hit the following year. The song is better known by its opening line, “Starry, starry night,” a reference to one of Van Gogh’s best-known paintings, entitled “The Starry Night.”
But McLean wasn’t the only composer inspired by that painting. On today’s date in 1978, the National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., a new orchestral work by the French composer Henri Dutilleux.
Dutilleux titled his new work “Timbre, space, movement,” but added a subtitle, “The Starry Night,” in acknowledgement of the painting’s influence, and said he wanted to translate into music the (quote) "almost cosmic whirling effect which [the painting] produces".
Now, painting and music are very different art forms, but the energy, pulsation, and whirling qualities of Van Gogh’s masterpiece do find vivid expression, both visual and musical, in Dutilleux’s work.
As a kind of frame, Dutilleux placed the cellos in a half circle around the conductor, omitted violins and violas from his instrumentation, and alternated static episodes and whirling wind and percussion solos to evoke the illusion of motion in the Van Gogh painting.
Music Played in Today's Program Henri Dutilleux (1916 - 2013) Timbres, espace, mouvement BBC Philharmonic; Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor. Chandos 9504
Synopsis The saxophone—whose flashing serpentine figure is now virtually synonymous with jazz clubs and wind bands—was the brainchild of woodwind craftsman Adolphe Sax, born in Belgium on this date in 1814, to a family of prominent instrument makers. Sax moved to Paris in his late 20’s, where he proved himself a restless and prolific inventor of new instruments.
Yet only a few of these lived on, of which the saxophone is by far the most popular. John Philip Sousa’s band gave many audiences in this country their first taste of the saxophone, and its important role in jazz can hardly be overestimated—that’s a development that neither Sax nor Sousa could have foreseen.
In the symphonic repertory, saxophones are still just occasional visitors to the concert hall, but in the world of chamber music, saxophone quartets have become quite popular. In America alone there are dozens of professional saxophone quartets who commission and perform new works.
Take, for example, the “Quartet for Saxophones” by the Canadian composer Anita “A.D.” Perry, a work written for the Amherst Saxophone Quartet of Buffalo, New York. The Amherst Quartet has a 20-year history of commissioning and performing new music, and has recorded a number of compact discs, include one of Perry’s quartet.
Music Played in Today's Program Anita D. Perry (b. 1960) Quartet for Saxophones Amherst Saxophone Quartet innova 516
Synopsis On today’s date in 1938, two works by the American composer Samuel Barber received their very high-profile premiere performances on a live, coast-to-coast broadcast by the NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
Toscanini was impressed by Barber’s First Symphony, which was performed at the 1937 Salzburg Festival, so Toscanini asked the 25-year old composer for a short orchestral piece, which Toscanini might perform with the newly-formed NBC Symphony.
Barber offered Toscanini his pick of two short pieces, and must have been surprised when Toscanini agreed to perform BOTH of them: a newly-composed Essay for Orchestra and Barber’s arrangement for full string orchestra of a movement from a String Quartet he had written in 1936. Re-titled Adagio for Strings, it was destined to become Barber’s best-known work.
Barber’s “Adagio” acquired a special resonance during World War Two, as a threnody for America’s war dead. It was also performed at the funeral of wartime President Franklin D. Roosevelt. More recently, Barber’s Adagio has been used to great effect in several successful films, including “The Elephant Man” and “Platoon.”
In a memorial tribute to Barber, American composer Ned Rorem wrote, “If Barber [25 years old when the ‘Adagio’ was completed] later aimed higher, he never reached deeper into the heart.”
Music Played in Today's Program Samuel Barber (1910-1981) First Essay for Orchestra, Op. 12 Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos 9053
Samuel Barber (1910-1981) Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 Berlin Philharmonic; Semyon Bychkov, cond. Philips 434 108
Synopsis Take one flute, one oboe, and mix well with one each of a clarinet, bassoon and French horn —and you have the recipe for the traditional wind quintet. In the 19th century, this tasty musical mix was perfected by Europeans like the Czech composer Anton Reicha, who produced 24 wind quintets in his lifetime.
In the 20th century, American composers like Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, and John Harbison have all written one wind quintet each—matching Reicha’s in quality, if not in quantity. But other American composers HAVE returned to the wind quintet for a second helping. On today’s date in 1993, the Wind Quintet No. 2 of the Californian composer David Ward-Steinman received its premiere in Sacramento by the Arioso Quintet.
Ward-Steinman titled his second quintet Night Winds, and asked his five players to occasionally double on some non-traditional instruments such as bamboo or clay flutes, a train-whistle, and even the traditional wind instrument of Indigenous Australians, the didgeridoo—all to create some atmospheric “night-wind” sounds.
In addition to wind quintets, David Ward-Steinman composed orchestral works, chamber music and pieces for solo piano. A native of Louisiana, Ward-Steinman studied with Darius Milhaud in Aspen, Milton Babbitt at Tanglewood, and Nadia Boulanger in Paris.
Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Reicha (1770-1836) Wind Quintet No. 23 in a No. 23, Op. 100 Albert Schweitzer Quintet CPO 999027
David Ward-Steinman (1936-2015) Woodwind Quintet No. 2 (Night Winds) Arioso Quintet Fleur de Son Classics 57935
Synopsis On this day* in 1888, the orchestral suite “Scheherazade,” the most famous work of the Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, was first performed in St. Petersburg. The suite evokes episodes from “The Arabian Nights.” Though Rimsky-Korsakov was Russian, and most often concentrated on operas based on RUSSIAN history and fable, it’s ironic that his most popular work was inspired by folklore and fables from the Middle East.
Until recently, Western knowledge of the Middle Eastern music was mostly limited to such second-hand accounts. But today, we’re discovering first-hand both the traditional music of the Middle East and new works by contemporary composers from that part of the world.
One of these is Iranian-born American composer Reza Vali, who was born in Ghazvin, Iran in 1952 and began his musical studies at the Teheran Conservatory. In 1972, he moved to Vienna and studied at the Academy of Music, and then came to America to study at University of Pittsburgh.
Despite his training in Western technique, Vali has returned to the instruments and traditions of Persian music for inspiration. “Music is like the ocean,” he once said in an interview. “It moves between cultures. It doesn’t have boundaries. But that doesn’t mean that you have to lose your identity … you can have a pluralistic approach by also keeping your identity.”
*Julian calendar date: October 22
Music Played in Today's Program Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) Scheherazade, Op. 35 Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, conductor. Telarc 80568
Reza Vali (b. 1952) Folk Songs Set No. 9 Alberto Almarza, flute; Alvaro Bitran, cello New Albion 077
Synopsis On today’s date in 1873, a new piece by the German composer Johannes Brahms received its first performance by the Vienna Philharmonic. The piece was titled Variations on a Theme by Haydn, and was a big success at its premiere. Brahms must have heaved a great sigh of relief.
For the previous 18 years, Brahms had struggled to complete his First Symphony, unconvinced that he had “the right stuff” to pull it off. In the summer of 1873, he wrote his Haydn Variations as a kind of personal test to see how audiences would react—and to bolster his own confidence. Lucky for us, it worked: Brahms returned to work on his First Symphony and went on to write four symphonies in all!
On today’s date in 1990, the Fourth Symphony of American composer Lou Harrison received its premiere by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Much of Harrison’s music has been influenced by non-Western traditions, especially the Javanese gamelan music, and his Symphony No. 4 is no exception.
Harrison was 73 when this symphony premiered, and he dubbed it his “Last Symphony” —apparently agreeing with Brahms that four was enough. When asked what would happen should he decide to write still another, Harrison quipped, “I’ll call it the ‘VERY Last Symphony.”
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Variations on a theme by Haydn, Op. 56a Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor. Teldec 8.44005
Lou Harrison (1917-2003) Symphony No. 4 (Last Symphony) California Symphony; Barry Jekowsky, conductor. Argo 455 590
Synopsis On today’s date in 1948, Maestro Efrem Kurtz led the first subscription concert of the newly reorganized Houston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1913, but after struggling through the “minor” disruptions of two World Wars and the Great Depression, the symphony’s 1948 season marked its rebirth as a major player among American orchestras. Since then, the Houston Symphony’s roster of conductors has included some of the greatest: Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli, André Previn, to name just a few.
For its 1948 debut concert, the new Houston Symphony commissioned and premiered a new work by Aaron Copland—a concert suite adapted from his latest film score.
Copland had gone to Hollywood early in 1948 to write the music for the cinematic version of John Steinbeck’s novella, “The Red Pony,” and spent ten weeks writing about an hour’s worth of music for the new film, which was scheduled for release in 1949—so that meant his 1948 concert suite from “The Red Pony” debuted even before the movie.
The Houston Post’s review called Copland’s suite “clean, joyous, ingenious and irresistibly spirited,” and correctly predicted “Mr. Copland’s ‘Red Pony’ has grand little gaits, and will stand playing again—here and in a lot of other places.”
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) The Red Pony Suite Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, cond. Delos 3221
Synopsis “Which is better – the movie, or the book it’s based on?”
On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera asked a different question: “Which is better – the opera, or the movie it’s based on?”
The new opera, entitled Lost Highway is by Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer, and was inspired by a 1997 movie by the American film director David Lynch.
Like David Lynch’s film noir, Olga Neuwirth’s opera, which combines live action and music with videos and electronic tape, is dark, often baffling, and more than a little creepy – perfect for a Halloween premiere, in fact. Neuwirth herself had this to say:
“I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty … I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art which deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image... The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable… a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality.”
Music Played in Today's Program Olga Neuwirth (b. 1968): Intro, fr Lost Highway Klanform Wien; Johannes Kalitzke, cond. Kairos CD-0012542KAI
Synopsis It was on today’s date in 1944 that Martha Graham and her dance company first performed the ballet "Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland. The premiere took place at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, as part of the 80th birthday celebrations for music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had commissioned Copland’s score for $500 – not a bad commission back then!
Copland used an old Shaker hymn called "Simple Gifts" as a principal theme for his ballet. The austere but simple elegance of Shaker art reminded him, he said, of Graham’s style of dancing, and tied in with her vague suggestions that the ballet would be about early American pioneers. Copland left the title up to Graham.
Arriving in Washington for the rehearsals, Copland wrote: “The first thing I said to Martha when I saw her was, ‘What have you called the ballet?’ She replied, ‘Appalachian Spring.’ ‘What a pretty title. Where did you get it?’ I asked, and Martha said, ‘Well, actually it’s from a poem by Hart Crane.’ I asked, ‘Does the poem have anything to do with your ballet?’ ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I just liked the title.’”
Understandably, Copland said he was always amused when people said, "Oh Mr. Copland, I can just see the Appalachian Mountains when I hear your music!"
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Appalachian Spring Saint Louis Symphony;Leonard Slatkin, cond. EMI 73653
Synopsis On today’s date in 1787, Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” had its premiere performance in Prague, with Mozart himself conducting. Mozart had arrived in Prague early in October that year, but as singers and instrumentalists alike needed more time than originally planned to prepare his difficult new score, the premiere occurred later than planned.
The October 29th premiere was a triumph, and a Prague newspaper reported that Mozart was received with threefold cheers when he entered and left the theater. At the request of Joseph II, the Austrian emperor, “Don Giovanni” was staged in Vienna the following year. The emperor was pleased: “That opera is divine,” he told Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, but, surprisingly, the Viennese audiences didn’t seem to like it.
Da Ponte quotes the Emperor as suggesting “Don Giovanni” was just too complicated for their taste: “Such music is not meat for the teeth of my Viennese,” he said. In his Memoirs, da Ponte writes: “I reported this remark to Mozart, who replied quietly: ‘Well, give them time to chew on it, then.’”
”He was not mistaken,” continued da Ponte. “At each performance of Don Giovanni the applause increased, and little by little, even Vienna of the dull teeth came to savor it.”
Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Don Giovanni Michele Pertusi (as Leporello); London Philharmonic; Sir Georg Solti, conductor. London 455 500
Synopsis In 2016, the Minneapolis-based jazz composer and pianist Jeremy Walker collaborated with Consortium Carissimi, a Twin Cities early music vocal ensemble in the creation of some brand-new music in the style of the ensemble’s namesake, the 17th-century Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi.
One of the pieces Walker composed was a duet for tenor and mezzo-soprano. The mezzo for the premiere performance was Clara Osowski, a singer with a special passion for art songs, past and present.
Now since Osowski was as impressed with Walker’s music as he with her voice, after that concert they decided to embark on a project to infuse the modern jazz harmonies of, say, Bill Evans, into the Romantic art song genre of Schubert and Brahms.
They chose texts by Whitman, Longfellow, and Minnesota lyricist Greg Foley, for a song cycle Walker titled “Haunted Blue.” “The ‘blue’ in the title refers to the overall mood of the music,” Walker explained. “But it also refers to the type of harmonies I’m using. The ‘haunted’ part is like when you’re half asleep and half awake at night, and dreams combine with reality.”
A studio recording and even some music videos were made, and on today’s date in 2018, “Haunted Blue” received its premiere public performance at a CD release concert in Minneapolis.
Music Played in Today's Program Jeremy Walker "Alma Gentil" and "The Rainy Day," from "Haunted Blue" Clara Osowski, ms; Tefsa Wondemagegnehu, t.; Jeremy Walker, piano "Haunted Blue" CD 93428 00177
Synopsis Traditionally, the harmonica is the instrument of the loner: the cowboy by the campfire, the hobo riding the rails, the bluesman pouring out his soul at midnight.
The Harmonica seems a little out of place in a concert hall — especially when played by someone wearing a tuxedo. But every so often a virtuoso player comes along who commissions a new concert work for the instrument. In the mid-1950s the American harmonica virtuoso John Sebastian asked the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos for just such a work.
On today’s date in 1959, Sebastian premiered Villa-Lobos’ Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra in Jerusalem. This work is now regarded as one of the finest concertos ever written for the instrument, but when the British harmonica virtuoso Tommy Reilly wanted to record it some 20 years after its 1959 premiere, he said had a very hard time tracking down the score. Even Villa-Lobos’ own publisher didn’t seem aware of its existence!
Truth be told, Villa-Lobos was both a very prolific and not always very organized composer, so his poor publisher may be forgiven for his ignorance of the work. Even Villa-Lobos couldn’t remember all the pieces he had written, and once said: “I am like a father of a family too numerous who doesn’t always recognize his own infants.”
Music Played in Today's Program Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) Harmonica Concerto Robert Bonfiglio, harmonica; New York Chamber Orchestra; Gerard Schwarz, cond. RCA/BMG 7986
Synopsis On this day in 1919, Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony in the premiere performance of his new Cello Concerto, with Felix Salmond as soloist.
What should have been a joyous occasion turned out to be a frustrating one — there simply wasn’t enough time to rehearse properly, and the premiere was a near-fiasco. Puzzled, the less-than-full house in Queen’s Hall gave Elgar a polite ovation but left shaking their heads.
Mrs. Elgar blamed the conductor, Albert Coates, who hogged all the orchestra’s rehearsal time working over the two pieces HE was to conduct on the same program as Elgar’s new Concerto, for which Coates would hand off the baton to Elgar. In her diary for October 26th she writes, “Poor Felix Salmond in a state of suspense and nerves — wretched hurried rehearsal — an insult to Elgar from that brutal, selfish, ill-mannered bounder, Coates.”
After the botched premiere of the new Concerto, critic Ernest Newman reported: “Never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable a public exhibition of itself.”
Despite this rough beginning, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has gone on to become one of the composer’s best-loved works worldwide, and has proven to be a favorite with the great cellists of our time, including the late British cellist, Jacqueline du Pré.
Music Played in Today's Program Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) Cello Concerto, Op. 85 Jacqueline du Pré, cello; Philadephia Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim, cond. Sony 60789
Synopsis Imagine that you are playing for high stakes on a TV quiz show and here’s your question:
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No. 1” had its world premiere performance in what city?
a) Moscow
b) St. Petersburg
c) Budapest
d) Boston
Is that your final answer? If you chose d) Boston, you would have been a winner!
Tchaikovsky finished his First Piano Concerto in the early months of 1875, and the work received its very first performance on October 25th that year at the Music Hall in Boston. The orchestra was a freelance group, mostly members of the Harvard Musical Association — the Boston Symphony wouldn’t be founded until six years later. The conductor of the Tchaikovsky premiere was one B.J. Lang -- hardly a name most classical music lovers would recognize today -- but the soloist was world-class: the famous German pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow.
In his day, Bülow was one of the great champions of new music, and Tchaikovsky dedicated his new Piano Concerto to Bulow after his one-time teacher, Nicolai Rubinstein, a famous Russian concert pianist and conductor in his own right, had said the piece was unplayable. Von Bülow proved him wrong, and was able to telegraph Tchaikovsky from Boston that his new concerto had been a big success.
Music Played in Today's Program Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Piano Concerto No. 1 Van Cliburn, piano; RCA Symphony; Kirill Kondrashin, conductor. Philips 456 748
Synopsis In the year 1929, October 24th fell on a Thursday, and that particular day has the dubious honor of being dubbed “Black Thursday” — for it was on that fateful day that the New York Stock Exchange crashed. A full-blown financial panic ensued, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. For many who saw their fortunes wiped out overnight, it must have seemed like the end of the world.
Meanwhile, in Charleston, West Virginia, a baby boy was born on “Black Thursday” who would grow up to become one of America’s most original composers. By the 1970s, George Crumb was acknowledged as a masterful creator of impressionistic and mysterious soundscapes, with evocative titles like “Dream Sequence,” “Night of the Four Moons,” and “Eleven Echoes of Autumn.”
Most of Crumbs’ pieces are for small ensemble, but in 1977 he composed a large-scale work entitled “Star Child,” scored for antiphonal choirs, bell ringers, and a large symphony orchestra positioned for surround-sound effect in the concert hall. Crumb says it traces a “progression from darkness and despair to light or joy and spiritual realization.”
A recording of “Star Child” was issued to celebrate Crumb’s 70th birthday in 1999 — a year, curiously enough, in which the stock market enjoyed an all-time high, just before taking yet another downward plunge!
Music Played in Today's Program George Crumb (b. 1929) Musica Apocalyptica, fr Star-Child Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra; Thomas Conlin, conductor. Bridge 9095
Synopsis In the year 1929, October 24th fell on a Thursday, and that particular day has the dubious honor of being dubbed “Black Thursday” — for it was on that fateful day that the New York Stock Exchange crashed. A full-blown financial panic ensued, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. For many who saw their fortunes wiped out overnight, it must have seemed like the end of the world.
Meanwhile, in Charleston, West Virginia, a baby boy was born on “Black Thursday” who would grow up to become one of America’s most original composers. By the 1970s, George Crumb was acknowledged as a masterful creator of impressionistic and mysterious soundscapes, with evocative titles like “Dream Sequence,” “Night of the Four Moons,” and “Eleven Echoes of Autumn.”
Most of Crumbs’ pieces are for small ensemble, but in 1977 he composed a large-scale work entitled “Star Child,” scored for antiphonal choirs, bell ringers, and a large symphony orchestra positioned for surround-sound effect in the concert hall. Crumb says it traces a “progression from darkness and despair to light or joy and spiritual realization.”
A recording of “Star Child” was issued to celebrate Crumb’s 70th birthday in 1999 — a year, curiously enough, in which the stock market enjoyed an all-time high, just before taking yet another downward plunge!
Music Played in Today's Program George Crumb (b. 1929) Musica Apocalyptica, fr Star-Child Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra; Thomas Conlin, conductor. Bridge 9095
Synopsis On today’s date in 1913, composer Frederick Delius was in Leipzig for the first performances of two orchestral pieces destined to become among his most popular works. These were “On hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring” and “Summer Night on the River,” premiered by the world-famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, led by one of the most charismatic conductors of that time, the legendary Artur Nikisch.
In a letter to his wife, Delius reported that the orchestra was “splendid” — as for Nikisch, Delius had this to say: “He played the first piece MUCH too slow, but very expressively. The second piece he played most beautifully — perfect!”
Eighty-four years later, on October 23, 1997, another atmospheric orchestra work received its first performance when conductor Zdenek Macal led the New Jersey Symphony in “Celestial Night,” a work by the American composer Richard Danielpour., who wrote:
“Part of the inspiration for Celestial Night came to me while star-gazing in New Hampshire and reflecting on the contrast inherent in my life: between summers in rural places where all the driven, frenetic life that I lead in New York City is temporarily suspended and I have a period of peace… [and] the possibility of personal transformation … of discovering something beyond one’s own immediate environment or experience in order to grow.”
Music Played in Today's Program Frederick Delius (1862-1934) Summer Night on the River BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. Teldec 90845
Richard Danielpour (b. 1956) Celestial Night Philharmonia Orchestra; Zdenek Macal, conductor. Sony 60779
Synopsis On today’s date in 1913, composer Frederick Delius was in Leipzig for the first performances of two orchestral pieces destined to become among his most popular works. These were “On hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring” and “Summer Night on the River,” premiered by the world-famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, led by one of the most charismatic conductors of that time, the legendary Artur Nikisch.
In a letter to his wife, Delius reported that the orchestra was “splendid” — as for Nikisch, Delius had this to say: “He played the first piece MUCH too slow, but very expressively. The second piece he played most beautifully — perfect!”
Eighty-four years later, on October 23, 1997, another atmospheric orchestra work received its first performance when conductor Zdenek Macal led the New Jersey Symphony in “Celestial Night,” a work by the American composer Richard Danielpour., who wrote:
“Part of the inspiration for Celestial Night came to me while star-gazing in New Hampshire and reflecting on the contrast inherent in my life: between summers in rural places where all the driven, frenetic life that I lead in New York City is temporarily suspended and I have a period of peace… [and] the possibility of personal transformation … of discovering something beyond one’s own immediate environment or experience in order to grow.”
Music Played in Today's Program Frederick Delius (1862-1934) Summer Night on the River BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. Teldec 90845
Richard Danielpour (b. 1956) Celestial Night Philharmonia Orchestra; Zdenek Macal, conductor. Sony 60779
Synopsis On today’s date in 1942, Bruno Walter conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of the Second Symphony of the American composer John Alden Carpenter.
Like Charles Ives, Carpenter led a double life as a composer and successful businessman. He was born into a wealthy family, and from 1906 until his retirement in 1936, served as Vice President of George B. Carpenter & Co., his father’s railroad and shipping supply company.
Carpenter studied music at home and abroad, and even took composition lessons from Sir Edward Elgar. In 1914, Carpenter scored a national success with his first big orchestral work, a whimsical symphonic suite titled Adventures in a Perambulator, and in 1921 wrote a very popular jazz-inspired ballet titled Krazy Kat, based on a wildly popular newspaper comic strip of the day.
By the 1940s, Carpenter’s works were being performed by America’s leading orchestras and famous maestros like Bruno Walter and Fritz Reiner. To celebrate his 75th birthday, the newly-formed National Arts Foundation promoted performances of his music in the U.S, Europe, and Australia.
But in the decades following his death in 1951, much of Carpenter’s work has been forgotten. Naxos of America released this first-ever recording of his Symphony No. in 2001 — 59 years after the work’s 1942 premiere.
Music Played in Today's Program John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951) Symphony No. 2 National Symphony of Ukraine; John McLaughlin Williams, conductor. Naxos 8.559065
Synopsis On today’s date in 1942, Bruno Walter conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of the Second Symphony of the American composer John Alden Carpenter.
Like Charles Ives, Carpenter led a double life as a composer and successful businessman. He was born into a wealthy family, and from 1906 until his retirement in 1936, served as Vice President of George B. Carpenter & Co., his father’s railroad and shipping supply company.
Carpenter studied music at home and abroad, and even took composition lessons from Sir Edward Elgar. In 1914, Carpenter scored a national success with his first big orchestral work, a whimsical symphonic suite titled Adventures in a Perambulator, and in 1921 wrote a very popular jazz-inspired ballet titled Krazy Kat, based on a wildly popular newspaper comic strip of the day.
By the 1940s, Carpenter’s works were being performed by America’s leading orchestras and famous maestros like Bruno Walter and Fritz Reiner. To celebrate his 75th birthday, the newly-formed National Arts Foundation promoted performances of his music in the U.S, Europe, and Australia.
But in the decades following his death in 1951, much of Carpenter’s work has been forgotten. Naxos of America released this first-ever recording of his Symphony No. in 2001 — 59 years after the work’s 1942 premiere.
Music Played in Today's Program John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951) Symphony No. 2 National Symphony of Ukraine; John McLaughlin Williams, conductor. Naxos 8.559065
Synopsis In the year 1858, the Parisian composer Jacques Offenbach was, as usual, busy writing his next operetta and avoiding his creditors. He found it expedient to work in hotel rooms rather than at home, where he ran the risk of being cornered by bill collectors. Offenbach hoped that maybe, just maybe, one big box office success might clear his debts — and enable him to reupholster the tattered seats in his theater, Les Bouffes-Parisiens.
On today’s date in 1858, the audience in those tattered seats saw the premiere of Offenbach’s latest operetta: a farcical send-up of an old Greek myth. Orpheus in the Underworld was a modest success and ran well for several weeks.
But just as the production would normally be closing, an important Parisian music critic attended a performance, and was shocked, shocked that Offenbach dared make fun of something so noble and edifying as Greek mythology. His outraged review generated a lively debate, especially when Offenbach slyly inserted direct quotes from the review into the operetta itself!
Suddenly, Orpheus in the Underworld was the hottest ticket in Paris.
Box office revenue not only paid for new upholstery, but one tune from the show, an infectious ‘Infernal Galop” would, as M. Offenbach’s celebrated Can-Can, become a world-famous melody practically synonymous with Paris itself.
Music Played in Today's Program Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) Orpheus in the Underworld English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Mark Elder, conductor MCA 6325
Synopsis In the year 1858, the Parisian composer Jacques Offenbach was, as usual, busy writing his next operetta and avoiding his creditors. He found it expedient to work in hotel rooms rather than at home, where he ran the risk of being cornered by bill collectors. Offenbach hoped that maybe, just maybe, one big box office success might clear his debts — and enable him to reupholster the tattered seats in his theater, Les Bouffes-Parisiens.
On today’s date in 1858, the audience in those tattered seats saw the premiere of Offenbach’s latest operetta: a farcical send-up of an old Greek myth. Orpheus in the Underworld was a modest success and ran well for several weeks.
But just as the production would normally be closing, an important Parisian music critic attended a performance, and was shocked, shocked that Offenbach dared make fun of something so noble and edifying as Greek mythology. His outraged review generated a lively debate, especially when Offenbach slyly inserted direct quotes from the review into the operetta itself!
Suddenly, Orpheus in the Underworld was the hottest ticket in Paris.
Box office revenue not only paid for new upholstery, but one tune from the show, an infectious ‘Infernal Galop” would, as M. Offenbach’s celebrated Can-Can, become a world-famous melody practically synonymous with Paris itself.
Music Played in Today's Program Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) Orpheus in the Underworld English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Mark Elder, conductor MCA 6325
Synopsis An unusual Piano Concerto by the American composer Lou Harrison had its premiere performance in New York on this day in 1985. The famous jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, for whom it was written, was the soloist.
Now, Lou Harrison’s music was often marked by its eclectic blending of East and West, and on occasion, Harrison employed non-Western or unusual instruments in his scores, including his own home-made Javanese-style gamelan constructed from old brake drums and clay flowerpots. But that wasn’t what made his Piano Concerto so singular.
“I’ve always wanted to write a piano concerto which utilizes two or three pianos on stage, each tuned differently,” said Harrison. “And Keith was willing to try that. But in the end, I decided to use one piano in a tuning I really enjoy.”
In Harrison’s concerto, the piano is not tuned to the “equal temperament” system in use in Western music since Bach’s day. The black keys are tuned to the medieval system of mathematically exact intervals of 4ths and 5ths, while the white keys reproduce the “just intonation” system common in the Renaissance and Baroque.
And so the familiar instrument has an unfamiliar ring, but one that Keith Jarret loved: “At times in the piece,” he said, “whole chords sound like bells.”
Music Played in Today's Program Lou Harrison (1917-2003) Piano Concerto Keith Jarrett, piano; New Japan Philharmonic; Naoto Otomo, cond. New World 366
Synopsis An unusual Piano Concerto by the American composer Lou Harrison had its premiere performance in New York on this day in 1985. The famous jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, for whom it was written, was the soloist.
Now, Lou Harrison’s music was often marked by its eclectic blending of East and West, and on occasion, Harrison employed non-Western or unusual instruments in his scores, including his own home-made Javanese-style gamelan constructed from old brake drums and clay flowerpots. But that wasn’t what made his Piano Concerto so singular.
“I’ve always wanted to write a piano concerto which utilizes two or three pianos on stage, each tuned differently,” said Harrison. “And Keith was willing to try that. But in the end, I decided to use one piano in a tuning I really enjoy.”
In Harrison’s concerto, the piano is not tuned to the “equal temperament” system in use in Western music since Bach’s day. The black keys are tuned to the medieval system of mathematically exact intervals of 4ths and 5ths, while the white keys reproduce the “just intonation” system common in the Renaissance and Baroque.
And so the familiar instrument has an unfamiliar ring, but one that Keith Jarret loved: “At times in the piece,” he said, “whole chords sound like bells.”
Music Played in Today's Program Lou Harrison (1917-2003) Piano Concerto Keith Jarrett, piano; New Japan Philharmonic; Naoto Otomo, cond. New World 366
Synopsis From the first millennium of the Common Era to the present day, the Mass have been chanted and sung to music both simple and complex. Most Mass settings are in the original Latin, since that liturgical language, after so many centuries, has the advantage of being very familiar and eminently suitable for singing.
On today’s date in 2010, the Kansas City Chorale gave the premiere of a brand-new “Mass for Double Choir” by the American composer René Clausen.
Now, Clausen is an established and well-regarded composer of choral works, but even so writing a Mass can be a daunting task, and Clausen’s was his first such attempt.
“Let's say it was a new challenge to set a text which has historically been set probably more than any other,” says Clausen. “I tend to be rather text-content driven, nearly always attempting to express the meaning and mood of the words. In the longer movements of the Mass, especially the Credo, it was challenging to express all the text, yet keep the music structurally integrated and proportioned.”
René Clausen’s new “Mass for Double Choir” was well-received at its American premiere, and subsequently recorded by the Kansas City Chorale for the British Chandos label. That recording won three Grammy Awards in 2013, including one for “Best Choral Performance.”
Music Played in Today's Program Rene Clausen (b. 1953) Mass for Double Choir Kansas City Chorale; Charles Bruffy, cond. Chandos 5105
Synopsis From the first millennium of the Common Era to the present day, the Mass have been chanted and sung to music both simple and complex. Most Mass settings are in the original Latin, since that liturgical language, after so many centuries, has the advantage of being very familiar and eminently suitable for singing.
On today’s date in 2010, the Kansas City Chorale gave the premiere of a brand-new “Mass for Double Choir” by the American composer René Clausen.
Now, Clausen is an established and well-regarded composer of choral works, but even so writing a Mass can be a daunting task, and Clausen’s was his first such attempt.
“Let's say it was a new challenge to set a text which has historically been set probably more than any other,” says Clausen. “I tend to be rather text-content driven, nearly always attempting to express the meaning and mood of the words. In the longer movements of the Mass, especially the Credo, it was challenging to express all the text, yet keep the music structurally integrated and proportioned.”
René Clausen’s new “Mass for Double Choir” was well-received at its American premiere, and subsequently recorded by the Kansas City Chorale for the British Chandos label. That recording won three Grammy Awards in 2013, including one for “Best Choral Performance.”
Music Played in Today's Program Rene Clausen (b. 1953) Mass for Double Choir Kansas City Chorale; Charles Bruffy, cond. Chandos 5105
Synopsis On this day in 1904, in Cologne, Germany, Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of his Fifth Symphony. It was not a success. Applause was light, with loud hissing from some in the audience. Even Mahler’s wife, Alma, complained so much about the orchestration that Mahler kept tinkering with the score until the last year of his life.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, Mahler’s Fifth has become a popular showpiece for virtuoso orchestras and its slow movement, marked Adagietto -- supposedly Mahler’s musical love to Alma -- has become one of Mahler’s best-loved pieces.
The American composer Jerome Moross also had a symphony premiered on today’s date. The year was 1943, Moross was 30 years old, and Sir Thomas Beecham conducted its premiere performance with the Seattle Symphony. Unlike Mahler, Moross wrote only ONE symphony, and the American hobo tune inspired the slow movement of his “The Midnight Special.”
Jerome Moross is best known his work in Hollywood. His 1958 score for “The Big Country” was nominated for an Academy Award. Moross also wrote the music for “Wagon Train,” a popular TV Western. As Moross once said: “a composer must reflect his landscape and mine is the landscape of America. I don't do it consciously, it is simply the only way I can write.”
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Symphony No. 5 Chicago Symphony; Claudio Abbado, cond. DG 427 254
Jerome Moross (1913-1983) Symphony No. 1 London Symphony; JoAnn Falletta, cond. Koch 7188
Synopsis On this day in 1904, in Cologne, Germany, Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of his Fifth Symphony. It was not a success. Applause was light, with loud hissing from some in the audience. Even Mahler’s wife, Alma, complained so much about the orchestration that Mahler kept tinkering with the score until the last year of his life.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, Mahler’s Fifth has become a popular showpiece for virtuoso orchestras and its slow movement, marked Adagietto -- supposedly Mahler’s musical love to Alma -- has become one of Mahler’s best-loved pieces.
The American composer Jerome Moross also had a symphony premiered on today’s date. The year was 1943, Moross was 30 years old, and Sir Thomas Beecham conducted its premiere performance with the Seattle Symphony. Unlike Mahler, Moross wrote only ONE symphony, and the American hobo tune inspired the slow movement of his “The Midnight Special.”
Jerome Moross is best known his work in Hollywood. His 1958 score for “The Big Country” was nominated for an Academy Award. Moross also wrote the music for “Wagon Train,” a popular TV Western. As Moross once said: “a composer must reflect his landscape and mine is the landscape of America. I don't do it consciously, it is simply the only way I can write.”
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Symphony No. 5 Chicago Symphony; Claudio Abbado, cond. DG 427 254
Jerome Moross (1913-1983) Symphony No. 1 London Symphony; JoAnn Falletta, cond. Koch 7188
Synopsis On this date in 1831, the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted a concert in Munich consisting entirely of his own works — a concert that included the premiere of his “Piano Concerto in G Minor”, with its composer as the soloist.
Mendelssohn was in high spirits and wrote these lines to family:
“It is a glorious feeling to waken in the morning and to know that you are going to write the score of a grand allegro with all sorts of instruments … while bright weather promises a cheering, long walk in the afternoon. On the evening of the October 17th at half-past six, think of me, for then I will dash off with thirty violins and two sets of wind instruments [for] my new concerto in G minor. Every morning I have to write, correct and score till one o’clock, when I go to Scheidel’s coffee house in Kaufinger Gasse, where I know each face by heart and find the same people every day in the same position: two playing chess, three looking on, five reading the newspapers, six eating their dinner — with me making up the seventh.”
Unfortunately for posterity, Mendelssohn never said if he recognized any of that coffeehouse crowd sitting in the audience for the performance of his new concerto!
Music Played in Today's Program Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 25 Cyprien Katsaris, piano; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, cond Teldec 8.43681
Synopsis On this date in 1831, the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted a concert in Munich consisting entirely of his own works — a concert that included the premiere of his “Piano Concerto in G Minor”, with its composer as the soloist.
Mendelssohn was in high spirits and wrote these lines to family:
“It is a glorious feeling to waken in the morning and to know that you are going to write the score of a grand allegro with all sorts of instruments … while bright weather promises a cheering, long walk in the afternoon. On the evening of the October 17th at half-past six, think of me, for then I will dash off with thirty violins and two sets of wind instruments [for] my new concerto in G minor. Every morning I have to write, correct and score till one o’clock, when I go to Scheidel’s coffee house in Kaufinger Gasse, where I know each face by heart and find the same people every day in the same position: two playing chess, three looking on, five reading the newspapers, six eating their dinner — with me making up the seventh.”
Unfortunately for posterity, Mendelssohn never said if he recognized any of that coffeehouse crowd sitting in the audience for the performance of his new concerto!
Music Played in Today's Program Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 25 Cyprien Katsaris, piano; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, cond Teldec 8.43681
Synopsis Today’s date in 1956 marks the birthday of the Cuban composer Eduardo Martin, a name that might not be all that familiar to you — unless you play guitar, that is. Martin has written music for orchestra and films but is best known and admired for works he’s written for his own instrument, the guitar — music infused with the flair and dance rhythms of his native Havana.
One of his popular pieces is titled “Hasta Alicia Baila,” roughly translated “Even Alicia Dances,” referencing the great Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, suggesting that even she couldn’t resist dancing to its beat.
“Guitar is my greatest passion,” said Martin in an interview for Cuban radio. “But I have other passions: my country and my family.”
“In my work, it is easy to notice the attachment to my roots. Even when I travel and see something that I like, I say, ‘Of course, it looks just like home.’ I confess I am an eternal lover of Havana. I find it wonderful and irreplaceable. … And so I reflect in my work some of the impressions that this place has left in me … What I feel when I wake up in my city, when I walk in it, the mix of colors and the sounds that flood through it.”
Music Played in Today's Program Eduardo Martin (b. 1956) Hasta Alicia Baila Clea Galhano, recorder; Rene Izquierdo, guitar "Latin Reverie" CD 89577 75162
Synopsis Today’s date in 1956 marks the birthday of the Cuban composer Eduardo Martin, a name that might not be all that familiar to you — unless you play guitar, that is. Martin has written music for orchestra and films but is best known and admired for works he’s written for his own instrument, the guitar — music infused with the flair and dance rhythms of his native Havana.
One of his popular pieces is titled “Hasta Alicia Baila,” roughly translated “Even Alicia Dances,” referencing the great Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, suggesting that even she couldn’t resist dancing to its beat.
“Guitar is my greatest passion,” said Martin in an interview for Cuban radio. “But I have other passions: my country and my family.”
“In my work, it is easy to notice the attachment to my roots. Even when I travel and see something that I like, I say, ‘Of course, it looks just like home.’ I confess I am an eternal lover of Havana. I find it wonderful and irreplaceable. … And so I reflect in my work some of the impressions that this place has left in me … What I feel when I wake up in my city, when I walk in it, the mix of colors and the sounds that flood through it.”
Music Played in Today's Program Eduardo Martin (b. 1956) Hasta Alicia Baila Clea Galhano, recorder; Rene Izquierdo, guitar "Latin Reverie" CD 89577 75162
Synopsis On today’s date in 1905, Claude Debussy’s orchestral suite La Mer or The Sea was performed for the first time in Paris. Today this music is regarded as an impressionistic masterpiece, but early audiences — especially those in America — found it rough sailing.
“We clung like a drowning man to a few fragments of the tonal wreck,” wrote a 1907 Boston critic, and suggested that instead of The Sea Debussy should have titled his piece “Sea-Sickness.”
“The Sea is persistently ugly,” wrote The New York Times that same year. “Debussy fails to give ANY impression of the sea… There is more of a barnyard cackle in it than anything else.”
And in 1909, this on La Mer from The Chicago Tribune: “It is safe to say that few understood what they heard and few heard anything they understood… There are no themes… There is nothing in the way of even a brief motif that can be grasped securely enough by the ear and brain to serve as a guiding line through the tonal maze. There is no end of queer and unusual effects, no end of harmonic complications and progressions that sound so hideously ugly.”
Ah, the perils of “modern music ” in the early 20th century!
Music Played in Today's Program Claude Debussy (1862-1918) La Mer New Philharmonia; Pierre Boulez, cond. Sony 68327
Synopsis On today’s date in 1905, Claude Debussy’s orchestral suite La Mer or The Sea was performed for the first time in Paris. Today this music is regarded as an impressionistic masterpiece, but early audiences — especially those in America — found it rough sailing.
“We clung like a drowning man to a few fragments of the tonal wreck,” wrote a 1907 Boston critic, and suggested that instead of The Sea Debussy should have titled his piece “Sea-Sickness.”
“The Sea is persistently ugly,” wrote The New York Times that same year. “Debussy fails to give ANY impression of the sea… There is more of a barnyard cackle in it than anything else.”
And in 1909, this on La Mer from The Chicago Tribune: “It is safe to say that few understood what they heard and few heard anything they understood… There are no themes… There is nothing in the way of even a brief motif that can be grasped securely enough by the ear and brain to serve as a guiding line through the tonal maze. There is no end of queer and unusual effects, no end of harmonic complications and progressions that sound so hideously ugly.”
Ah, the perils of “modern music ” in the early 20th century!
Music Played in Today's Program Claude Debussy (1862-1918) La Mer New Philharmonia; Pierre Boulez, cond. Sony 68327
Synopsis To most music lovers, the name Jean-Baptise Lully calls to mind pompous and courtly music for Louis XIV, the French “Sun King” who was his great patron. The Italian-born Lully is credited with “creating” French opera in the 17th century — and some of these works, usually based on subjects from classical mythology and poetry, are occasionally revived and recorded today.
But that was only one side of Lully’s personality, the “stuffy and serious” side, because Lully was also something of a clown — literally.
For over seven years, he worked with the great French comedian and playwright Moliere to create joint stage works. In addition to composing the music, Lully acted, sang and danced in these satirical and slap-stick affairs. The most famous of the Lully-Moliere collaborations debuted on today’s date in 1670, when, to cheer up King Louis after an embarrassing incident involving a bogus ambassador from Turkey, Lully and Moliere concocted a ballet spoof they called Le Turc Ridicule, preceded by a musical play about a wealthy upstart from the middle class, titled Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
Lully played the role of the Grand Mufti, and Moliere the middle-class upstart with upper-class aspirations. Think of Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy in powdered wigs, and you get the idea.
Music Played in Today's Program Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Comedy-Ballet Le Concert des Nations; Jordi Savall, cond. Alia Vox 9807
Synopsis To most music lovers, the name Jean-Baptise Lully calls to mind pompous and courtly music for Louis XIV, the French “Sun King” who was his great patron. The Italian-born Lully is credited with “creating” French opera in the 17th century — and some of these works, usually based on subjects from classical mythology and poetry, are occasionally revived and recorded today.
But that was only one side of Lully’s personality, the “stuffy and serious” side, because Lully was also something of a clown — literally.
For over seven years, he worked with the great French comedian and playwright Moliere to create joint stage works. In addition to composing the music, Lully acted, sang and danced in these satirical and slap-stick affairs. The most famous of the Lully-Moliere collaborations debuted on today’s date in 1670, when, to cheer up King Louis after an embarrassing incident involving a bogus ambassador from Turkey, Lully and Moliere concocted a ballet spoof they called Le Turc Ridicule, preceded by a musical play about a wealthy upstart from the middle class, titled Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
Lully played the role of the Grand Mufti, and Moliere the middle-class upstart with upper-class aspirations. Think of Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy in powdered wigs, and you get the idea.
Music Played in Today's Program Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Comedy-Ballet Le Concert des Nations; Jordi Savall, cond. Alia Vox 9807
Synopsis Today’s date in 1979 marked the passing, at 93, of a remarkable composer and performer named Rebecca Clarke. Born in Harrow, England, in 1886, she became one of the first female professional orchestral viola players in the United Kingdom, and in 1916 moved to the United States.
At a New York recital in 1918, she premiered one of her own compositions under the male pseudonym of “Anthony Trent.” While “Trent’s” work was praised, the same reviewers largely ignored or dismissed her other works on the same recital, which she programmed under her name.
Late in Clarke’s life, with the renewal of interest in works by neglected women composers, she enjoyed a major revival of interest in her works, with her Viola Sonata, written in 1919, singled out as a significant achievement. Even so, Clarke wryly remarked to an interviewer that even then “I got one or two press clippings saying that it was impossible, that I couldn’t have written [the Viola Sonata] myself. And the funniest review of all was that I didn’t exist, and there wasn’t any such person as a Rebecca Clarke, that it was a female pseudonym for Ernest Bloch.”
Music Played in Today's Program Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) — Vivace, from Viola Sonata (Philip Dukes, viola; Sophia Rahman, piano) Naxos 8.557934
Synopsis Today’s date in 1979 marked the passing, at 93, of a remarkable composer and performer named Rebecca Clarke. Born in Harrow, England, in 1886, she became one of the first female professional orchestral viola players in the United Kingdom, and in 1916 moved to the United States.
At a New York recital in 1918, she premiered one of her own compositions under the male pseudonym of “Anthony Trent.” While “Trent’s” work was praised, the same reviewers largely ignored or dismissed her other works on the same recital, which she programmed under her name.
Late in Clarke’s life, with the renewal of interest in works by neglected women composers, she enjoyed a major revival of interest in her works, with her Viola Sonata, written in 1919, singled out as a significant achievement. Even so, Clarke wryly remarked to an interviewer that even then “I got one or two press clippings saying that it was impossible, that I couldn’t have written [the Viola Sonata] myself. And the funniest review of all was that I didn’t exist, and there wasn’t any such person as a Rebecca Clarke, that it was a female pseudonym for Ernest Bloch.”
Music Played in Today's Program Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) — Vivace, from Viola Sonata (Philip Dukes, viola; Sophia Rahman, piano) Naxos 8.557934
Synopsis Today’s date marks the original Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer who for decades was described as the man who “discovered America.” In recent years Native American leaders have pointed out that indigenous peoples had been living on the continent for thousands of years, and Columbus didn’t “discover” anything — in fact, he didn’t even know where he was, which is why he called the people he found here “Indians.” Some historians now think that Viking explorers from Scandinavia arrived in America long before Columbus – and others suggest the Chinese arrived before those Europeans.
Even so, it’s Columbus who has a national holiday (now always observed on the closest Monday in October), and concert music written to celebrate it. For example, there’s a “Columbus Suite” by Victor Herbert, originally commissioned for the 1893 Chicago World Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Columbus voyage, but not actually premiered until 1903.
A much more recent “Columbus-inspired” work, and much more elegiac in tone, is by the Native American composer James DeMars. It’s titled: “Premonitions of Christopher Columbus” and is scored for Native American flute, African drum, and chamber orchestra. In this work, DeMars blends sounds of the various ethnic traditions that would come to make up modern America.
Music Played in Today's Program Victor Herbert (1859-1924) Columbus Suite Slovak Radio Symphony; Keith Brion, cond. Naxos 8.559027
James DeMars (b. 1952) Premonitions of Christopher Columbus Tos Ensemble with R. Carlos Nakai, Native American flute Canyon 7014
On This Day Births * 1686 - German composer and lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, in Breslau; * 1713 - Baptismal date of German composer Johann Ludwig Krebs, in Butterstedt, Weimar; * 1872 - English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire; * 1880 - English-born Canadian composer and organist Healey Willan, in London;
Deaths * 1692 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Vitali, in Bologna, age 60;
Premieres * 1910 - Vaughan Williams: "A Sea Symphony" (after Walt Whitman) at the Leeds Festival; * 1924 - Mahler: Symphony No.10 (1st and 3rd movements only), arranged by Ernest Krenek (with additional retouching by Alexander von Zemlinksy and Franz Schalk), by Vienna Philharmonic, Franz Schalk conducting; The American premiere of these two movements was give on Dec. 6, 1949, by the Erie (Pa.) Philharmonic conducted by the composer's nephew, the Austro-American conductor Fritz Mahler (1901-1973); The English musicologist Deryck Cooke prepared the first performing edition of Mahler's entire Tenth Symphony which received its first performance on August 13, 1964, by the London Symphony conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt; Since then, Cooke has revised his arrangement, and several other musicologists have prepared their own rival performing editions of Mahler's surviving notation for this symphony; * 1931 - Rachmaninoff: “Variations on a Theme of Corelli (La Folia)” for solo piano, in Montréal (Canada), by the composer; * 1951 - Bizet: opera "Ivan le Terrible" (posthumously), in Bordeaux; * 1951 - Dessau: opera "Die Verurteilung des Lukullus" (The Trial of Lucullus) (2nd version), in East Berlin at the Deutsche Staatsoper; * 1961 - Douglas Moore: opera "The Wings of the Dove" (after the novel by Henry James), in New York; * 1971 - Andrew Lloyd Webber: rock musical "Jesus Christ Superstar," in New York City; A choral version of this musical was performed in Kansas City, Kan. On May 15, 1971, and a touring company was launched to present the musical on July 12, 1971; Prior to any staged presentations, the work was first released as a double LP record album in October of 1970; * 1984 - Olly Wilson: "Siinfonia," by the Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa conducting; * 1984 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: "Celebration" for orchestra, by the Indianapolis Symphony, John Nelson conducting; * 1997 - Sallinen: "Overture Solennel," in Monaco by the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, James DePreist conducting; * 1998 - Philip Glass: opera "The Voyage," at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Bruce Ferden conducting; * 2000 - Rautavaara: Harp Concerto, in Minneapolis with harpist Kathy Kienzle and the Minnesota Orchestra, Omso Vänskä conducting;
Others * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in Bb, Op. 6, no. 7 (Gregorian date: Oct. 23).
Links and Resources * On Columbus Day * On Victor Herbert * On James DeMars
Synopsis Today’s date marks the original Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer who for decades was described as the man who “discovered America.” In recent years Native American leaders have pointed out that indigenous peoples had been living on the continent for thousands of years, and Columbus didn’t “discover” anything — in fact, he didn’t even know where he was, which is why he called the people he found here “Indians.” Some historians now think that Viking explorers from Scandinavia arrived in America long before Columbus – and others suggest the Chinese arrived before those Europeans.
Even so, it’s Columbus who has a national holiday (now always observed on the closest Monday in October), and concert music written to celebrate it. For example, there’s a “Columbus Suite” by Victor Herbert, originally commissioned for the 1893 Chicago World Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Columbus voyage, but not actually premiered until 1903.
A much more recent “Columbus-inspired” work, and much more elegiac in tone, is by the Native American composer James DeMars. It’s titled: “Premonitions of Christopher Columbus” and is scored for Native American flute, African drum, and chamber orchestra. In this work, DeMars blends sounds of the various ethnic traditions that would come to make up modern America.
Music Played in Today's Program Victor Herbert (1859-1924) Columbus Suite Slovak Radio Symphony; Keith Brion, cond. Naxos 8.559027
James DeMars (b. 1952) Premonitions of Christopher Columbus Tos Ensemble with R. Carlos Nakai, Native American flute Canyon 7014
On This Day Births * 1686 - German composer and lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, in Breslau; * 1713 - Baptismal date of German composer Johann Ludwig Krebs, in Butterstedt, Weimar; * 1872 - English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire; * 1880 - English-born Canadian composer and organist Healey Willan, in London;
Deaths * 1692 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Vitali, in Bologna, age 60;
Premieres * 1910 - Vaughan Williams: "A Sea Symphony" (after Walt Whitman) at the Leeds Festival; * 1924 - Mahler: Symphony No.10 (1st and 3rd movements only), arranged by Ernest Krenek (with additional retouching by Alexander von Zemlinksy and Franz Schalk), by Vienna Philharmonic, Franz Schalk conducting; The American premiere of these two movements was give on Dec. 6, 1949, by the Erie (Pa.) Philharmonic conducted by the composer's nephew, the Austro-American conductor Fritz Mahler (1901-1973); The English musicologist Deryck Cooke prepared the first performing edition of Mahler's entire Tenth Symphony which received its first performance on August 13, 1964, by the London Symphony conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt; Since then, Cooke has revised his arrangement, and several other musicologists have prepared their own rival performing editions of Mahler's surviving notation for this symphony; * 1931 - Rachmaninoff: “Variations on a Theme of Corelli (La Folia)” for solo piano, in Montréal (Canada), by the composer; * 1951 - Bizet: opera "Ivan le Terrible" (posthumously), in Bordeaux; * 1951 - Dessau: opera "Die Verurteilung des Lukullus" (The Trial of Lucullus) (2nd version), in East Berlin at the Deutsche Staatsoper; * 1961 - Douglas Moore: opera "The Wings of the Dove" (after the novel by Henry James), in New York; * 1971 - Andrew Lloyd Webber: rock musical "Jesus Christ Superstar," in New York City; A choral version of this musical was performed in Kansas City, Kan. On May 15, 1971, and a touring company was launched to present the musical on July 12, 1971; Prior to any staged presentations, the work was first released as a double LP record album in October of 1970; * 1984 - Olly Wilson: "Siinfonia," by the Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa conducting; * 1984 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: "Celebration" for orchestra, by the Indianapolis Symphony, John Nelson conducting; * 1997 - Sallinen: "Overture Solennel," in Monaco by the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, James DePreist conducting; * 1998 - Philip Glass: opera "The Voyage," at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Bruce Ferden conducting; * 2000 - Rautavaara: Harp Concerto, in Minneapolis with harpist Kathy Kienzle and the Minnesota Orchestra, Omso Vänskä conducting;
Others * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in Bb, Op. 6, no. 7 (Gregorian date: Oct. 23).
Links and Resources * On Columbus Day * On Victor Herbert * On James DeMars
Synopsis On today’s date in 1928, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen conducted the first public performance of his new Clarinet Concerto in Copenhagen.
“The clarinet,” said Nielsen, “can, at one and the same time seem utterly hysterical, gentle as balsam, or as screechy as a streetcar on badly greased rails.” Nielsen set himself the task of covering that whole range of the instrument’s conflicting emotions and colors. He wrote it for a Danish clarinetist he admired named Aage Oxenvad, who played both the public premiere on today’s date and a private reading a few weeks earlier.
After the private performance Oxenvad is supposed to have muttered: “Nielsen must be able to play the clarinet himself — otherwise he would hardly have been able to find all the instrument’s WORST notes.” The concerto’s wild mood-swings puzzled audiences in 1928, but today it’s regarded as one of Nielsen’s most original works.
In October of 1996, another Clarinet Concerto received its premiere when American composer John Adams conducted the first performance of his work Gnarly Buttons with soloist Michael Collins. This concerto contains a bittersweet tribute to Adams’ father, a clarinetist who fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease. In Adams’ concerto, the swing tunes slide into dementia, but the concerto ends with a kind of benediction.
Music Played in Today's Program Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) Clarinet Concerto, Op. 57 Kjell-Inge Stevennson, clarinet; Danish Radio Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, cond. EMI 69758
John Adams (b. 1947) Gnarly Buttons Michael Collins, clarinet; London Sinfonietta; John Adams, cond. Nonesuch 79453
On This Day Births * 1882 - Canadian-born American composer R. Nathaniel Dett, in Drummondsville, Ontario;
Deaths * 1896 - Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, age 72, in Vienna;
Premieres * 1727 - Handel: "Coronation Anthems," in London at Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline (Gregorian date: Oct. 22); * 1830 - Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, in Warsaw, composer as soloist; * 1928 - Nielsen: Clarient Concerto, at a public concert in Copenhagen, with the composer conducting and Aage Ozenvad the soloist; This concert had been given a private performance in Humlebaek on September 14, 1928); * 1947 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, by Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting; * 1952 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 7, by Moscow Philharmonic, Samuil Samosud conducting; * 1953 - Messiaen: "Réveil des oiseaux," in Donaueschingen, Germany; * 1955 - B.A. Zimmermann: "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See" for Trumpet and Orchestra, in Hamburg, by the North German Radio Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour, with Adolf Scherbaum the soloist; * 1962 - Carlisle Floyd: opera "The Passion on Jonathan Wader," by the New York City Opera; * 1977 - Bernstein: "Songfest," "Three Mediations from 'Mass,'" and "Slava!" by the National Symphony, conducted by the composer ("Songfest" and "Meditations"‚ and Mstislav Rostropovich ("Slava!"); Rostropovich was also the cello soloist in the "'Meditations"; * 1980 - Bernstein: "A Musical Toast ( A Fanfare in Memory of André Kostelanetz)" by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta; * 1980 - Zemlinksy: opera "Der Traumgörge" (Goerge the Dreamer), posthumously, in Nuremberg at the Opernhaus (This opera was written in 1906); * 1985 - John Harbison: String Quartet No. 1, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., by the Cleveland Quartet. * 1985 - Michael Torke: “Vanada” for brass, keyboards and percussion, at the Concertgebouw Chamber Hall in Amsterdam, by the Asko Ensemble, Lukas Vis conducting.
Links and Resources * On Carl Nielsen * On John Adams
Synopsis On today’s date in 1928, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen conducted the first public performance of his new Clarinet Concerto in Copenhagen.
“The clarinet,” said Nielsen, “can, at one and the same time seem utterly hysterical, gentle as balsam, or as screechy as a streetcar on badly greased rails.” Nielsen set himself the task of covering that whole range of the instrument’s conflicting emotions and colors. He wrote it for a Danish clarinetist he admired named Aage Oxenvad, who played both the public premiere on today’s date and a private reading a few weeks earlier.
After the private performance Oxenvad is supposed to have muttered: “Nielsen must be able to play the clarinet himself — otherwise he would hardly have been able to find all the instrument’s WORST notes.” The concerto’s wild mood-swings puzzled audiences in 1928, but today it’s regarded as one of Nielsen’s most original works.
In October of 1996, another Clarinet Concerto received its premiere when American composer John Adams conducted the first performance of his work Gnarly Buttons with soloist Michael Collins. This concerto contains a bittersweet tribute to Adams’ father, a clarinetist who fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease. In Adams’ concerto, the swing tunes slide into dementia, but the concerto ends with a kind of benediction.
Music Played in Today's Program Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) Clarinet Concerto, Op. 57 Kjell-Inge Stevennson, clarinet; Danish Radio Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, cond. EMI 69758
John Adams (b. 1947) Gnarly Buttons Michael Collins, clarinet; London Sinfonietta; John Adams, cond. Nonesuch 79453
On This Day Births * 1882 - Canadian-born American composer R. Nathaniel Dett, in Drummondsville, Ontario;
Deaths * 1896 - Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, age 72, in Vienna;
Premieres * 1727 - Handel: "Coronation Anthems," in London at Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline (Gregorian date: Oct. 22); * 1830 - Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, in Warsaw, composer as soloist; * 1928 - Nielsen: Clarient Concerto, at a public concert in Copenhagen, with the composer conducting and Aage Ozenvad the soloist; This concert had been given a private performance in Humlebaek on September 14, 1928); * 1947 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, by Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting; * 1952 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 7, by Moscow Philharmonic, Samuil Samosud conducting; * 1953 - Messiaen: "Réveil des oiseaux," in Donaueschingen, Germany; * 1955 - B.A. Zimmermann: "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See" for Trumpet and Orchestra, in Hamburg, by the North German Radio Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour, with Adolf Scherbaum the soloist; * 1962 - Carlisle Floyd: opera "The Passion on Jonathan Wader," by the New York City Opera; * 1977 - Bernstein: "Songfest," "Three Mediations from 'Mass,'" and "Slava!" by the National Symphony, conducted by the composer ("Songfest" and "Meditations"‚ and Mstislav Rostropovich ("Slava!"); Rostropovich was also the cello soloist in the "'Meditations"; * 1980 - Bernstein: "A Musical Toast ( A Fanfare in Memory of André Kostelanetz)" by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta; * 1980 - Zemlinksy: opera "Der Traumgörge" (Goerge the Dreamer), posthumously, in Nuremberg at the Opernhaus (This opera was written in 1906); * 1985 - John Harbison: String Quartet No. 1, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., by the Cleveland Quartet. * 1985 - Michael Torke: “Vanada” for brass, keyboards and percussion, at the Concertgebouw Chamber Hall in Amsterdam, by the Asko Ensemble, Lukas Vis conducting.
Links and Resources * On Carl Nielsen * On John Adams
Synopsis In James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses,” the thoughts of its major characters keep shifting from the sights and sounds they encounter in and around Dublin to their private, non-stop interior monologues. This narrative technique came to be called “stream of consciousness” writing.
In music, something similar occurred on today’s date in 1968, when the Italian composer Luciano Berio conducted the Swingle Singers and the New York Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his new work entitled “Sinfonia.”
“Sinfonia” included music quotes from Bach to Mahler intermingled with sung and spoken texts ranging from Claude Levi-Strauss to Samuel Beckett. There’s even a bit of Joyce’s “Ulysses” tossed in as well, alongside slogans from the student protests of 1968. The text of Sinfonia’s second movement was a tribute to the recently-assassinated Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King – and consisted of nothing but the intoned syllables of his name.
“Sinfonia” was Berio’s “stream of consciousness” interior monologue on the year 1968 made public with great theatrical flair: a dizzying mix of poignant music and political text. Berio was quoted as saying, “The juxtaposition of contrasting elements, in fact, is part of the whole point.”
Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, “Sinfonia” turned out to be a hit, and Columbia Records even released a recording of the work with its premiere performers.
Music Played in Today's Program Luciano Berio (1925-2003) Sinfonia New Swingle Singers; French National Orchestra; Pierre Boulez, cond. Erato 88151
On This Day Births * 1813 - Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, in Le Roncole, near Parma. Probable true date of his birth, according to parish records, though Verdi celebrated it on the 9th, the date he believed correct; * 1903 - Russian-born American composer and songwriter Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky), in Pskov (Julian date: Sept. 27); * 1906 - American composer Paul Creston (Giuseppe Guttoveggio), in New York; * 1920 - American Jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk, in Rocky Mount, N.C.;
Deaths * 1825 - Russian composer Dimitri Bortniansky, age c. 74, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Sept. 28);
Premieres * 1919 - R. Strauss: opera, "Die Frau ohne Schatten" (The Woman Without a Shadow) at the Vienna Staatsoper, conducted by Franz Schalk, and with vocal soloists Lotte Lehmann (Barak's wife), Maria Jeritza (The Empress), Karl Oestvig (The Emperor), Richard Mayr (Barak), and Lucie Weidt (The Nurse); * 1931 - Walton: oratorio, "Belshazzar's Feast," at the Leeds Festival; * 1935 - Gershwin: opera "Porgy and Bess" at the Alvin Theater in New York City; The opera had a trial run in Boston which opened on September 30, 1935; * 1938 - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 1, in Leningrad, by the Glazunov Quartet; * 1948 - Bernstein: song-cycle, "La Bonne Cuisine" (Four Recipes for Voice and Piano), at Town Hall in New York City, with mezzo-soprano Marion Bell and pianist Edwin MacArthur; * 1968 - Berio: "Sinfonia," by New York Philharmonic and The Swingle Singers, with the composer conducting; * 1985 - Benjamin Lees: Symphony No. 4 ("Memorial Candles") in Dallas, with Pinchas Zukerman the soloist;
Others * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, no. 5 and possibly his Concerto Grosso in F, Op. 6, no. 9 as well (Gregorian date: Oct. 21). * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in G, Op. 6, no. 1 (see Julian date: Sept. 29);
Links and Resources * On Berio * More on Berio and James Joyce
Synopsis In James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses,” the thoughts of its major characters keep shifting from the sights and sounds they encounter in and around Dublin to their private, non-stop interior monologues. This narrative technique came to be called “stream of consciousness” writing.
In music, something similar occurred on today’s date in 1968, when the Italian composer Luciano Berio conducted the Swingle Singers and the New York Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his new work entitled “Sinfonia.”
“Sinfonia” included music quotes from Bach to Mahler intermingled with sung and spoken texts ranging from Claude Levi-Strauss to Samuel Beckett. There’s even a bit of Joyce’s “Ulysses” tossed in as well, alongside slogans from the student protests of 1968. The text of Sinfonia’s second movement was a tribute to the recently-assassinated Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King – and consisted of nothing but the intoned syllables of his name.
“Sinfonia” was Berio’s “stream of consciousness” interior monologue on the year 1968 made public with great theatrical flair: a dizzying mix of poignant music and political text. Berio was quoted as saying, “The juxtaposition of contrasting elements, in fact, is part of the whole point.”
Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, “Sinfonia” turned out to be a hit, and Columbia Records even released a recording of the work with its premiere performers.
Music Played in Today's Program Luciano Berio (1925-2003) Sinfonia New Swingle Singers; French National Orchestra; Pierre Boulez, cond. Erato 88151
On This Day Births * 1813 - Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, in Le Roncole, near Parma. Probable true date of his birth, according to parish records, though Verdi celebrated it on the 9th, the date he believed correct; * 1903 - Russian-born American composer and songwriter Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky), in Pskov (Julian date: Sept. 27); * 1906 - American composer Paul Creston (Giuseppe Guttoveggio), in New York; * 1920 - American Jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk, in Rocky Mount, N.C.;
Deaths * 1825 - Russian composer Dimitri Bortniansky, age c. 74, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Sept. 28);
Premieres * 1919 - R. Strauss: opera, "Die Frau ohne Schatten" (The Woman Without a Shadow) at the Vienna Staatsoper, conducted by Franz Schalk, and with vocal soloists Lotte Lehmann (Barak's wife), Maria Jeritza (The Empress), Karl Oestvig (The Emperor), Richard Mayr (Barak), and Lucie Weidt (The Nurse); * 1931 - Walton: oratorio, "Belshazzar's Feast," at the Leeds Festival; * 1935 - Gershwin: opera "Porgy and Bess" at the Alvin Theater in New York City; The opera had a trial run in Boston which opened on September 30, 1935; * 1938 - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 1, in Leningrad, by the Glazunov Quartet; * 1948 - Bernstein: song-cycle, "La Bonne Cuisine" (Four Recipes for Voice and Piano), at Town Hall in New York City, with mezzo-soprano Marion Bell and pianist Edwin MacArthur; * 1968 - Berio: "Sinfonia," by New York Philharmonic and The Swingle Singers, with the composer conducting; * 1985 - Benjamin Lees: Symphony No. 4 ("Memorial Candles") in Dallas, with Pinchas Zukerman the soloist;
Others * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, no. 5 and possibly his Concerto Grosso in F, Op. 6, no. 9 as well (Gregorian date: Oct. 21). * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in G, Op. 6, no. 1 (see Julian date: Sept. 29);
Links and Resources * On Berio * More on Berio and James Joyce
Synopsis John Lennon was born on today’s date in the year 1940, in Liverpool, England — during a German air raid on that city, as it happened. With three other young lads from Liverpool, Lennon would eventually become world-famous, courtesy of the band he helped formed in 1959 called the Beatles.
The Beatles started out in a Liverpool nightclub called the Cavern, playing pop tunes of the day, but soon began performing original material of their own. Before disbanding in 1970, some recognizable elements of classical music were incorporated into some Beatles songs, including a string quartet, a Baroque trumpet, and even an orchestra.
And it wasn’t just a one-sided exchange: Leonard Bernstein played a Beatles song on one of his “Young People’s Concerts” to demonstrate sonata form. Arthur Fiedler performed symphonic arrangements of Beatles tunes at his Boston Pops concerts. And decades after the Beatles disbanded, former member Paul McCartney began composing original chamber works and big concert hall pieces, including a semi-autobiographical “Liverpool Oratorio.”
Not surprisingly, some young British and American composers coming of age in the 1960s and 70s credit the Beatles as an influence. One elegant set of solo guitar arrangements of Lennon-McCartney tunes even came from Japan, courtesy of the eminent Japanese composer (and Beatles fan) Toru Takemitsu.
Music Played in Today's Program Lennon and McCartney (arr. Toru Takemitsu) Here, There and Everywhere John Williams, guitar Sony 66704
On This Day Births * 1585 - Baptismal date of German composer Heinrich Schütz, in Bad Löstritz; * 1835 - French composer, conductor and pianist Camille Saint-Saëns, in Paris; * 1914 - American composer Roger Goeb, in Cherokee, Iowa; * 1938 - Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, in Helsinki; * 1940 - John Lennon (of the Beatles), in Liverpool, England;
Deaths * 1999 - Jazz vibraphone virtuoso, Milt Jackson, age 76, in New York City; He was a member of the famous Modern Jazz Quartet;
Premieres * 1826 - Rossini: opera, "The Siege of Corinth," at the Paris Opéra; * 1891 - Dvorák: "Requiem," Op. 89, in Birmingham, England; * 1896 - Dvorák: String Quartet No. 13 in G, Op. 106, in Prague, by the Bohemian Quartet; * 1921 - Janácek: "Taras Bulba" (after Gogol), in Brno; * 1955 - Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1, by the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky, with David Oistrakh the soloist; * 1963 - Henze: Symphony No. 4 in Berlin, with the composer conducting; * 1980 - Jon Deak: Concerto for Oboe d'amore and Orchestra, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta with Thomas Stacy as soloist; * 1985 - Anthony Davis: opera "X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X," in Philadelphia; The opera's New York City Opera premiere occurred the following year on September 28, 1986; * 1986 - Andrew Lloyd-Webber: musical "Phantom of the Opera," at Her Majesty's Theatre in London; The musical opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theater on January 26, 1988; * 1987 - Corigliano: "Campane di Ravello" (Bells of Ravello) for orchestra (a birthday tribute to Sir Georg Solti), in Chicago, with Kenneth Jean conducting; * 1992 - David Ott: Symphony No. 3, by the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Symphony, Catherine Comet conducting; * 1997 - Robert X. Rodriguez: "Il Lamento di Tristano," by flutist Susan Morris De Jong and guitarist Jeffrey Van, at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; * 1999 - Bolcom: opera "A View From the Bridge," by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dennis Russell Davies, cond. * 1999 - Michael Torke: symphonic oratorio "Four Seasons," at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, by soloists, chorus, and the New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur conducting;
Others * 1973 - Leonard Bernstein gives the first of six lectures entitled "The Unanswered Question," as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.
Links and Resources * On The Beatles
Synopsis John Lennon was born on today’s date in the year 1940, in Liverpool, England — during a German air raid on that city, as it happened. With three other young lads from Liverpool, Lennon would eventually become world-famous, courtesy of the band he helped formed in 1959 called the Beatles.
The Beatles started out in a Liverpool nightclub called the Cavern, playing pop tunes of the day, but soon began performing original material of their own. Before disbanding in 1970, some recognizable elements of classical music were incorporated into some Beatles songs, including a string quartet, a Baroque trumpet, and even an orchestra.
And it wasn’t just a one-sided exchange: Leonard Bernstein played a Beatles song on one of his “Young People’s Concerts” to demonstrate sonata form. Arthur Fiedler performed symphonic arrangements of Beatles tunes at his Boston Pops concerts. And decades after the Beatles disbanded, former member Paul McCartney began composing original chamber works and big concert hall pieces, including a semi-autobiographical “Liverpool Oratorio.”
Not surprisingly, some young British and American composers coming of age in the 1960s and 70s credit the Beatles as an influence. One elegant set of solo guitar arrangements of Lennon-McCartney tunes even came from Japan, courtesy of the eminent Japanese composer (and Beatles fan) Toru Takemitsu.
Music Played in Today's Program Lennon and McCartney (arr. Toru Takemitsu) Here, There and Everywhere John Williams, guitar Sony 66704
On This Day Births * 1585 - Baptismal date of German composer Heinrich Schütz, in Bad Löstritz; * 1835 - French composer, conductor and pianist Camille Saint-Saëns, in Paris; * 1914 - American composer Roger Goeb, in Cherokee, Iowa; * 1938 - Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, in Helsinki; * 1940 - John Lennon (of the Beatles), in Liverpool, England;
Deaths * 1999 - Jazz vibraphone virtuoso, Milt Jackson, age 76, in New York City; He was a member of the famous Modern Jazz Quartet;
Premieres * 1826 - Rossini: opera, "The Siege of Corinth," at the Paris Opéra; * 1891 - Dvorák: "Requiem," Op. 89, in Birmingham, England; * 1896 - Dvorák: String Quartet No. 13 in G, Op. 106, in Prague, by the Bohemian Quartet; * 1921 - Janácek: "Taras Bulba" (after Gogol), in Brno; * 1955 - Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1, by the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky, with David Oistrakh the soloist; * 1963 - Henze: Symphony No. 4 in Berlin, with the composer conducting; * 1980 - Jon Deak: Concerto for Oboe d'amore and Orchestra, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta with Thomas Stacy as soloist; * 1985 - Anthony Davis: opera "X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X," in Philadelphia; The opera's New York City Opera premiere occurred the following year on September 28, 1986; * 1986 - Andrew Lloyd-Webber: musical "Phantom of the Opera," at Her Majesty's Theatre in London; The musical opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theater on January 26, 1988; * 1987 - Corigliano: "Campane di Ravello" (Bells of Ravello) for orchestra (a birthday tribute to Sir Georg Solti), in Chicago, with Kenneth Jean conducting; * 1992 - David Ott: Symphony No. 3, by the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Symphony, Catherine Comet conducting; * 1997 - Robert X. Rodriguez: "Il Lamento di Tristano," by flutist Susan Morris De Jong and guitarist Jeffrey Van, at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; * 1999 - Bolcom: opera "A View From the Bridge," by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dennis Russell Davies, cond. * 1999 - Michael Torke: symphonic oratorio "Four Seasons," at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, by soloists, chorus, and the New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur conducting;
Others * 1973 - Leonard Bernstein gives the first of six lectures entitled "The Unanswered Question," as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.
Links and Resources * On The Beatles
Synopsis 1991 was a big year for American composer John Corigliano. The Metropolitan Opera premiered his opera “The Ghosts of Versailles” and the 53-year old composer won two Grammys and the Grawemeyer Award for his Symphony No. 1. Corigliano was increasingly recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation, and was deluged with commissions for new works.
But about 10 years before all that, guitarist Sharon Isbin had asked Corigliano to write a concerto for her, and kept on asking him. On today’s date in 1993, her persistence paid off when, with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and conductor Hugh Wolff, she gave the premiere performance of Corigliano’s “Troubadours — Variations for Guitar and Orchestra.” This piece was inspired by the courtly love tradition of the medieval troubadours, whose songs combined sophisticated word play with simple but elegantly communicative melodies.
“For composers the idea of true simplicity — in contrast to chic simple-mindedness — is mistrusted and scorned,” wrote Corigliano. “But the guitar has a natural innocence about it… So the idea of a guitar concerto was, for me, like a nostalgic return to all the feelings I had when I started composing — before the commissions and deadlines and reviews. A time when discovery and optimistic enthusiasm ruled my senses… Troubadours is a lyrical concerto.”
Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938) Troubadours Sharon Isbin, guitar; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff, cond. Virgin 55083
On This Day Births * 1870 - French composer and organist Louis Vierne, in Poitiers; * 1930 - Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, in Tokyo; * 1953 - English composer Robert Saxon, in London;
Deaths * 1834 - French composer François Boieldieu, age 58, in Jarcy;
Premieres * 1903 - Nielsen: "Helios" Overture, in Copenhagen; * 1943 - Stravinsky: "Ode" (in memory of Natalie Koussevitzky), by the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky; * 1960 - Prokofiev: opera "The Story of a Real Man" (posthumously) at the Bolshoi in Moscow; A semi-public performance of this opera was given in Leningrad on Dec. 3, 1948, but the opera was rejected by Soviet authorities for subsequent performances during the composer's lifetime; * 1966 - Stravinsky: "Requiem Canticles," in Princeton, with Robert Craft conducting; * 1992 - Ligeti: Violin Concerto, in Cologne, by the Ensemble Moderne conducted by Peter Eötvös, and Saschko Gawriloff the soloist; * 1993 - Corigliano: "Troubadours (Variations for Guitar and Orchestra)," at the Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff, and guitar soloist Sharon Isbin; * 1999 - Kernis: "Garden of Light" and Torke: "Four Seasons" (both commissioned by the Disney Company at the urging of its Chief Executive, Michael Eisner), for the Millennium season of the New York Philharmonic, with Kurt Masur conducting the orchestra, vocal soloists, and choirs in both pieces;
Others * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in a, Op. 6, no. 4 (Gregorian date: Oct. 19); * 1898 - The first issue of the magazine "Musical America" is published.
Links and Resources * On John Corigliano * On Sharon Isbin
Synopsis 1991 was a big year for American composer John Corigliano. The Metropolitan Opera premiered his opera “The Ghosts of Versailles” and the 53-year old composer won two Grammys and the Grawemeyer Award for his Symphony No. 1. Corigliano was increasingly recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation, and was deluged with commissions for new works.
But about 10 years before all that, guitarist Sharon Isbin had asked Corigliano to write a concerto for her, and kept on asking him. On today’s date in 1993, her persistence paid off when, with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and conductor Hugh Wolff, she gave the premiere performance of Corigliano’s “Troubadours — Variations for Guitar and Orchestra.” This piece was inspired by the courtly love tradition of the medieval troubadours, whose songs combined sophisticated word play with simple but elegantly communicative melodies.
“For composers the idea of true simplicity — in contrast to chic simple-mindedness — is mistrusted and scorned,” wrote Corigliano. “But the guitar has a natural innocence about it… So the idea of a guitar concerto was, for me, like a nostalgic return to all the feelings I had when I started composing — before the commissions and deadlines and reviews. A time when discovery and optimistic enthusiasm ruled my senses… Troubadours is a lyrical concerto.”
Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938) Troubadours Sharon Isbin, guitar; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff, cond. Virgin 55083
On This Day Births * 1870 - French composer and organist Louis Vierne, in Poitiers; * 1930 - Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, in Tokyo; * 1953 - English composer Robert Saxon, in London;
Deaths * 1834 - French composer François Boieldieu, age 58, in Jarcy;
Premieres * 1903 - Nielsen: "Helios" Overture, in Copenhagen; * 1943 - Stravinsky: "Ode" (in memory of Natalie Koussevitzky), by the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky; * 1960 - Prokofiev: opera "The Story of a Real Man" (posthumously) at the Bolshoi in Moscow; A semi-public performance of this opera was given in Leningrad on Dec. 3, 1948, but the opera was rejected by Soviet authorities for subsequent performances during the composer's lifetime; * 1966 - Stravinsky: "Requiem Canticles," in Princeton, with Robert Craft conducting; * 1992 - Ligeti: Violin Concerto, in Cologne, by the Ensemble Moderne conducted by Peter Eötvös, and Saschko Gawriloff the soloist; * 1993 - Corigliano: "Troubadours (Variations for Guitar and Orchestra)," at the Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff, and guitar soloist Sharon Isbin; * 1999 - Kernis: "Garden of Light" and Torke: "Four Seasons" (both commissioned by the Disney Company at the urging of its Chief Executive, Michael Eisner), for the Millennium season of the New York Philharmonic, with Kurt Masur conducting the orchestra, vocal soloists, and choirs in both pieces;
Others * 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in a, Op. 6, no. 4 (Gregorian date: Oct. 19); * 1898 - The first issue of the magazine "Musical America" is published.
Links and Resources * On John Corigliano * On Sharon Isbin
Synopsis On today’s date in 1909, “The Golden Cockerel,” the last opera of the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, had its premiere in Moscow. Rimsky-Korsakov had died the previous year, after a bitter battle with government censors who objected to the opera’s thinly disguised satire against the bumbling administration of Czarist Russia. For the premiere, the censors won – the opera was performed with all the changes that Rimsky-Korsakov had so stubbornly resisted while alive.
The original text was not restored until after the Russian revolution of 1917.
Closer to our own time, in October of 1987, American composer John Adam’s “Nixon in China,” debuted at Houston Grand Opera. Alice Goodman’s libretto depicts the historic visit to Red China of President Nixon and then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. Adams says he was completely indifferent to what the real-life personages in his opera might have thought of it.
No government censors objected, in any case, but Adams said that Richard Nixon’s lawyer, Leonard Garment, did attend a performance of “Nixon in China,” and probably reported back to the former President. Nixon’s reaction is not known – nor that of Henry Kissinger. We’re happy to report, however, that according to John Adams, Leonard Garment did subsequently became something of a fan of his music.
Music Played in Today's Program Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): The Golden Cockerel Suite –Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, cond. (DG 447 084)
John Adams (b. 1947): The Chairman Dances –San Francisco Symphony; Edo de Waart, cond. (Nonesuch 79453)
Synopsis The first performance of the “Liebeslieder” – or the “Love Song” Waltzes – for piano four-hands by Johannes Brahms took place on today’s date in 1869. The performers were two distinguished soloists: Clara Schumann, widow of composer Robert Schumann, and Hermann Levi, a famous conductor of his day. But in fact, the “Liebeslieder Waltzes” were intended for amateur musicians to play. These popular scores provided Brahms with some steady income, certainly more than he earned from performances of his symphonies, which some of his contemporaries considered difficult “new” music.
Brahms wrote to his publisher: “I must admit that, for the first time, I grinned at the sight of a work of mine in print. Moreover, I gladly risk being called an ass if our ‘Liebeslieder’ don’t give more than a few people pleasure.”
Some much more recent piano music designed for amateur performers was collected into a volume titled “Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book.” This volume was conceived by composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and the artistic director of Carnegie Hall, Judith Arron. They were concerned about the lack of contemporary piano works that intermediate-level piano students could perform, so commissioned ten composers to write suitable piano pieces from composers ranging from Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carte to Chen Yi and Tan Dun.
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Liebeslieder Waltz No. 18, Op.52a –Silke-Thora Matthies and Christian Köhn, piano (Naxos 553140)
Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021): The Days Fly By –Ursula Oppens, piano (Companion CD to Boosey and Hawkes "The Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book" ASIN: B003AG8IUK)
Synopsis It was on this day in 1972 that “A Ring of Time” by American composer Dominick Argento was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. The work was commissioned to celebrate that orchestra’s 70th anniversary. “A Ring of Time” is subtitled “Preludes and Pageants for Orchestra and Bells,” and evokes the hours of the day, from dawn to midnight, and the seasons of the year.
Though born in York, Pennsylvania, Argento was of Italian heritage, and after spending a year studying in Italy, returned there often to reflect and compose. Argento said: “On one level the title of ‘A Ring of Time’ refers to the predominant role assigned to bells... those aural signals of time’s passing. But it should also be mentioned the work was wholly composed in Florence where the hourly ringing of church bells is inescapable.”
Bells figured prominently in another 20th-century work by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu entitled “From Me Flows What You Call Time,” which was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1990, in New York City, as a commission to celebrate the centennial of Carnegie Hall. Again, bells play a significant role, and Takemitsu directs that at the end of his piece, a series of small bells be rung gently from the balcony above and around the audience.
Music Played in Today's Program Dominick Argento (1927-2019): A Ring of Time –Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, cond. (Reference 91)
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996): From Me Flows What You Call Time –Pacific Symphony; Carl St. Clair, cond. (Sony 63044)
Synopsis In 1939, Dale Carnegie published a self-help book entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People, suggesting you could change people's behavior to you by changing YOUR behavior toward them. We’re not sure if Carnegie’s book was ever translated into Russian, but we’d like to cite the case of the famous Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich as an example of one way to influence a particular composer.
In Rostropovich’s day, the greatest living Soviet composers were Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. In 1949 Prokofiev wrote a Cello Sonata for the 22-year old Rostropovich, and also dedicated his 1952 Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra to him.
Not surprisingly, Rostropovich hoped Shostakovich might write something for him, too, and so asked that composer’s wife, Nina, how to ask him. She replied the best way was NEVER to mention the idea in the presence of her husband. She knew Shostakovich was following the cellist’s career with interest, and if the idea of writing something for Rostropovich was his own, rather than somebody else’s, it stood a better chance of becoming reality.
Rostropovich followed her advice, and – surprise surprise – on today’s date in 1959, gave the premiere performance with the Leningrad Philharmonic of a brand-new cello concerto specially-written for him by Dmitri Shostakovich.
Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Cello Concerto No. 1 in Eb, Op. 107 –Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, cond. (Sony 7858322)
Synopsis If you had arrived early for the gala reopening celebration of Vienna’s Josephstadt Theater on today’s date in 1822, you might have heard the theater orchestra frantically rehearing a new overture by Beethoven. They had just received the score, and so at the last minute were getting their first look at the new piece they would perform that evening.
Beethoven’s “Consecration of the House” Overture was a last-minute commission and interrupted Beethoven’s work on two bigger projects: his “Missa Solemnis” and the Ninth Symphony. This overture begins with a series of solemn chords, continues with a stately march, and closes with a fugue – a tribute to Handel, whose music was much on Beethoven’s mind at the time.
One hundred forty-six years later to the day, another festive occasion was observed with new music, when, on October 3rd, 1968, the New York Philharmonic, as part of its 125th anniversary celebrations, premiered a new orchestral work by the American composer William Schuman. Leonard Bernstein conducted.
Schuman’s piece was entitled “To Thee Old Cause,” and was scored for solo oboe and orchestra. Originally, Schumann planned an upbeat, celebratory work, but the 1968 assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy changed all that and more somber music, dedicated to their memory, was the result.
Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Consecration of the House Overture –Berlin Philharmonic; Bernhard Klee, cond. (DG 453 713)
Willliam Schuman (1910-1992): To Thee Old Cause –New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond. (Sony 63088)
Synopsis These days the cost of commissioning a major American composer to write a major orchestral work requires… well, a major amount of money.
Back in 2001, a group of smaller-budget symphonies around the country decided to pool their resources and commission the American composer Joan Tower to write a new orchestral piece for them. What would have been cost-prohibitive individually proved very do-able when they all chipped in, aided by foundation grant or two. 65 orchestras from all 50 states participated, with the idea being each of them would get first performing rights to Tower's new work.
"When they asked me to do this," Tower said, "they called the project ‘Made in America,’ and that became the work’s title. [Since] it was going across the U.S., this word 'America' kept popping up in my brain. Also, the tune 'America the Beautiful' started to come in, and I thought, 'I really love this tune. It's a beautiful tune, and I think I'll start with this.”
Joan Tower’s “Made in America” received its first performance by the Glen Falls Symphony Orchestra in New York State on today’s date in 2005, then premiered in each of the remaining 49 states over the next two years, ending up in Alaska with the Juneau Symphony in June of 2007.
Music Played in Today's Program Joan Tower (b. 1938): Made in America –Nashville Symphony/Leonard Slatkin (Naxos 8559328)
Synopsis On today’s date in 1768, two regiments of British redcoats marched into colonial Boston accompanied by martial music provided by their regimental wind band. It was that city’s introduction to the exotic sound of massed oboes, bassoons, and French horns.
One Bostonian who was very impressed by these new sounds was Josiah Flagg, an engraver by trade, and a boyhood friend of the famous Boston silversmith, Paul Revere. Before long, Flagg had formed his own musical ensemble, which he called “The First Band of Boston.”
Flagg organized that city’s first concert series, presenting music by J.C. Bach, Stamitz, and other European composers. Occasionally, the First Band of Boston was augmented by musicians from the same British regiment whose entry into town had inspired Flagg’s own musical ambitions.
In October of 1773, Flagg presented a gala concert at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, which proved to be his last. He included music from Britain – excerpts from Handel’s “Messiah” – but closed with the “Song of Liberty,” the marching hymn of Boston’s patriots. We rather suspect the British troops did not participate in that concert.
Soon after, Flagg moved to Providence, where he served as a colonel in the Rhode Island regiment during the American Revolution, and disappeared from our early musical history.
Music Played in Today's Program Oliver Shaw (1779-1848): Gov. Arnold's March –Members of the Federal Music Society; John Baldon, cond. (New World 80299)
Synopsis On today’s date in 1768, two regiments of British redcoats marched into colonial Boston accompanied by martial music provided by their regimental wind band. It was that city’s introduction to the exotic sound of massed oboes, bassoons, and French horns.
One Bostonian who was very impressed by these new sounds was Josiah Flagg, an engraver by trade, and a boyhood friend of the famous Boston silversmith, Paul Revere. Before long, Flagg had formed his own musical ensemble, which he called “The First Band of Boston.”
Flagg organized that city’s first concert series, presenting music by J.C. Bach, Stamitz, and other European composers. Occasionally, the First Band of Boston was augmented by musicians from the same British regiment whose entry into town had inspired Flagg’s own musical ambitions.
In October of 1773, Flagg presented a gala concert at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, which proved to be his last. He included music from Britain – excerpts from Handel’s “Messiah” – but closed with the “Song of Liberty,” the marching hymn of Boston’s patriots. We rather suspect the British troops did not participate in that concert.
Soon after, Flagg moved to Providence, where he served as a colonel in the Rhode Island regiment during the American Revolution, and disappeared from our early musical history.
Music Played in Today's Program Oliver Shaw (1779-1848): Gov. Arnold's March –Members of the Federal Music Society; John Baldon, cond. (New World 80299)
Synopsis “This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you're on a through-route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable... Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination…”
Next stop The DATEBOOK Zone.
OK, all kidding aside, but “submitted for your approval” as Rod Serling would say, this is the COMPOSERS DATEBOOK for September 30th. I’m John Birge.
On today’s date in 1960, the second season of “The Twilight Zone,” — the legendary TV series created by Mr. Serling — began airing on CBS. For this, the producers added a new signature theme written by Marius Constant, a Romanian-born French composer. Constant had studied composition with Olivier Messiaen, Arthur Honegger, and Nadia Boulanger and had a very respectable career as a composer and teacher, but he’s best known for his brief, but iconic, “Twilight Zone” theme.
During its five-season run, that show also employed the talents of other famous composers, including Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman, Fred Steiner, and Franz Waxman.
And in case you’re wondering who wrote the theme for the FIRST season of “The Twilight Zone,” well, that was another famous Hollywood composer by the name of Bernard Herrmann.
Music Played in Today's Program Marius Constant (1925-2004): The Twilight Zone Main Theme (2nd version) –Orchestra; Joel McNeely, cond. (Varese-Sarabande VSD2-6087)
Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): The Twilight Zone Main Theme (1st version) –Orchestra; Joel McNeely, cond. (Varese-Sarabande VSD2-6087)
Synopsis “This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you're on a through-route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable... Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination…”
Next stop The DATEBOOK Zone.
OK, all kidding aside, but “submitted for your approval” as Rod Serling would say, this is the COMPOSERS DATEBOOK for September 30th. I’m John Birge.
On today’s date in 1960, the second season of “The Twilight Zone,” — the legendary TV series created by Mr. Serling — began airing on CBS. For this, the producers added a new signature theme written by Marius Constant, a Romanian-born French composer. Constant had studied composition with Olivier Messiaen, Arthur Honegger, and Nadia Boulanger and had a very respectable career as a composer and teacher, but he’s best known for his brief, but iconic, “Twilight Zone” theme.
During its five-season run, that show also employed the talents of other famous composers, including Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman, Fred Steiner, and Franz Waxman.
And in case you’re wondering who wrote the theme for the FIRST season of “The Twilight Zone,” well, that was another famous Hollywood composer by the name of Bernard Herrmann.
Music Played in Today's Program Marius Constant (1925-2004): The Twilight Zone Main Theme (2nd version) –Orchestra; Joel McNeely, cond. (Varese-Sarabande VSD2-6087)
Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): The Twilight Zone Main Theme (1st version) –Orchestra; Joel McNeely, cond. (Varese-Sarabande VSD2-6087)
Synopsis One of the most popular works of 20th-century orchestral music, “The Planets” by Gustav Holst, had its first performance on today’s date in 1918. This was at a private concert at Queen’s Hall, London, under the baton of Adrian Boult, who later became one of the most famous interpreters of this work. The first public performance of excerpts from “The Planets” took place in February of 1919, after which it quickly became Holst’s best-known composition.
The great success of “The Planets” actually dismayed Holst, who feared it would create a demand for more orchestral works in the same vein, and Holst always liked to do something new and different. He never considered “The Planets” anywhere near his best work, but posterity disagrees.
Holst’s seven-movement orchestral suite is based on the symbolic astrological associations of the planets. Only seven planets are represented because Pluto had yet to be discovered when the music was written. This omission has recently been rectified by a contemporary English composer, Colin Matthews.
At the request of conductor Kent Nagano, Matthews composed a “Pluto” movement, which had its premiere performance in England in May of the year 2000. Matthew’s new piece has also been recorded, as you might expect, as an occasional eighth planetary appendix to new recordings of Holst’s original seven.
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Holst (1874-1934): The Planets –Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. (London 460 606)
Colin Matthews (b. 1946): Pluto –Hallé Orchestra; Mark Elder, cond. (Hyperion 67270)
Synopsis One of the most popular works of 20th-century orchestral music, “The Planets” by Gustav Holst, had its first performance on today’s date in 1918. This was at a private concert at Queen’s Hall, London, under the baton of Adrian Boult, who later became one of the most famous interpreters of this work. The first public performance of excerpts from “The Planets” took place in February of 1919, after which it quickly became Holst’s best-known composition.
The great success of “The Planets” actually dismayed Holst, who feared it would create a demand for more orchestral works in the same vein, and Holst always liked to do something new and different. He never considered “The Planets” anywhere near his best work, but posterity disagrees.
Holst’s seven-movement orchestral suite is based on the symbolic astrological associations of the planets. Only seven planets are represented because Pluto had yet to be discovered when the music was written. This omission has recently been rectified by a contemporary English composer, Colin Matthews.
At the request of conductor Kent Nagano, Matthews composed a “Pluto” movement, which had its premiere performance in England in May of the year 2000. Matthew’s new piece has also been recorded, as you might expect, as an occasional eighth planetary appendix to new recordings of Holst’s original seven.
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Holst (1874-1934): The Planets –Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. (London 460 606)
Colin Matthews (b. 1946): Pluto –Hallé Orchestra; Mark Elder, cond. (Hyperion 67270)
Synopsis It happens to all of us: you’re in some public space and overhear someone say something that strikes you as memorable, oddly poetical, or perhaps even moving. The American composer Lisa Bielawa and soprano Susan Narucki started collecting such overheard phrases, and created a musical work incorporating them.
Commenting on the phrases, Bielawa says, "I noticed… people often say things… that help locate themselves in space and time: 'Last time I ate here by myself’ or 'Remember – it was snowing horribly? And she was holding the dog?'” Or nostalgic phrases like “We used to have a house here, but then my father lost his job. I never go there now.”
The resulting composition for soprano and 12 instrumentalists, entitled “Chance Encounter,” was designed to be performed in a public spaces as well, with the performers arriving and leaving at different times and from different directions, taking up positions scattered around the site, with the soprano singing the overheard phrases as she strolls among them.
This unusual work received its premiere performance at Seward Park in New York City on today’s date in 2008. Since then, “Chance Encounter” has been performed in Rome on a walkway along the banks of the Tiber River, and in other public spaces in places ranging from Venice to Vancouver.
Music Played in Today's Program Lisa Bielawa (b. 1968): Chance Encounter –Susan Narucki, soprano; The Knights (Orange Mountain Music 7004)
Synopsis It happens to all of us: you’re in some public space and overhear someone say something that strikes you as memorable, oddly poetical, or perhaps even moving. The American composer Lisa Bielawa and soprano Susan Narucki started collecting such overheard phrases, and created a musical work incorporating them.
Commenting on the phrases, Bielawa says, "I noticed… people often say things… that help locate themselves in space and time: 'Last time I ate here by myself’ or 'Remember – it was snowing horribly? And she was holding the dog?'” Or nostalgic phrases like “We used to have a house here, but then my father lost his job. I never go there now.”
The resulting composition for soprano and 12 instrumentalists, entitled “Chance Encounter,” was designed to be performed in a public spaces as well, with the performers arriving and leaving at different times and from different directions, taking up positions scattered around the site, with the soprano singing the overheard phrases as she strolls among them.
This unusual work received its premiere performance at Seward Park in New York City on today’s date in 2008. Since then, “Chance Encounter” has been performed in Rome on a walkway along the banks of the Tiber River, and in other public spaces in places ranging from Venice to Vancouver.
Music Played in Today's Program Lisa Bielawa (b. 1968): Chance Encounter –Susan Narucki, soprano; The Knights (Orange Mountain Music 7004)
Synopsis On this date in 1828, Franz Schubert attended a party at the Vienna home of one of his admirers and played some of his new piano sonata in B-flat, which he had completed only the previous day. That same month, Schubert composed one of his greatest works, the String Quintet in C Major.
Tragically, in less than two months, Schubert would be dead, an apparent victim of tertiary syphilis, the most dreaded sexually-transmitted disease of Schubert’s day. In our time, antibiotics can treat this once fatal disease, but in the early 1980s, its place was taken by the AIDS epidemic, which, before effective treatments were discovered, shortened the lives of many contemporary artists.
One of these was the American composer Kevin Oldham, born in 1960 in Kansas City. His piano concerto was premiered to critical acclaim and a standing ovation by the Kansas City Symphony conducted by Bill McLaughlin in 1993.
At that time, Oldham was seriously ill in a New York hospital and weighed only 135 pounds. Nevertheless he checked himself out, flew to his home town to solo in his concerto, then returned to the hospital the following day. He died six weeks later at age 32.
When Schubert died, he was only 31.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Piano Sonata in Bb, D. 960 –Alfred Brendel, piano (Philips 456 573)
Kevin Oldham (1960-1993): Concerto for Piano, Op. 14 –Ian Hobson, piano; Kansas City Symphony; Bill McGlaughlin, cond. (BMG/Catalyst 61979)
Synopsis On this date in 1828, Franz Schubert attended a party at the Vienna home of one of his admirers and played some of his new piano sonata in B-flat, which he had completed only the previous day. That same month, Schubert composed one of his greatest works, the String Quintet in C Major.
Tragically, in less than two months, Schubert would be dead, an apparent victim of tertiary syphilis, the most dreaded sexually-transmitted disease of Schubert’s day. In our time, antibiotics can treat this once fatal disease, but in the early 1980s, its place was taken by the AIDS epidemic, which, before effective treatments were discovered, shortened the lives of many contemporary artists.
One of these was the American composer Kevin Oldham, born in 1960 in Kansas City. His piano concerto was premiered to critical acclaim and a standing ovation by the Kansas City Symphony conducted by Bill McLaughlin in 1993.
At that time, Oldham was seriously ill in a New York hospital and weighed only 135 pounds. Nevertheless he checked himself out, flew to his home town to solo in his concerto, then returned to the hospital the following day. He died six weeks later at age 32.
When Schubert died, he was only 31.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Piano Sonata in Bb, D. 960 –Alfred Brendel, piano (Philips 456 573)
Kevin Oldham (1960-1993): Concerto for Piano, Op. 14 –Ian Hobson, piano; Kansas City Symphony; Bill McGlaughlin, cond. (BMG/Catalyst 61979)
Synopsis The haunting melody “September Song” by Kurt Weill was first heard by the public on today’s date in the year 1938, during a trial run in Hartford, Connecticut, of a new musical titled “Knickerbocker Holiday.”
Kurt Weill was 38 at the time and had been in America just three years. In Europe, he had been a successful composer of both concert and stage works, most notably the enormously popular “Three-Penny Opera” from 1928, a collaboration with the Marxist poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht. He had left his native Germany after being warned that he was under danger of imminent arrest by the Gestapo.
In America, Weill set out to establish himself on Broadway, but to remain faithful to the philosophical thrust of his European work. The text for his “Knickerbocker Holiday,” for example, was by Maxwell Anderson, inspired by Washington Irving’s fanciful “Father Knickerbocker’s History of New York.” But in the Anderson-Weill treatment, the historical Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant comes off as a proto-Fascist dictator, a comic but pointed reference in the year 1938, when both Hitler and Mussolini were at the height of their power.
Until his untimely death in 1950, for his Broadway musicals Weill continued to set serious subjects – ranging from psychoanalysis to South African apartheid – in a distinctive yet accessible style.
Music Played in Today's Program Kurt Weill (1900-1950): September Song (arr. Morton Gould) –Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, cond. (Philips 446 404)
Synopsis The haunting melody “September Song” by Kurt Weill was first heard by the public on today’s date in the year 1938, during a trial run in Hartford, Connecticut, of a new musical titled “Knickerbocker Holiday.”
Kurt Weill was 38 at the time and had been in America just three years. In Europe, he had been a successful composer of both concert and stage works, most notably the enormously popular “Three-Penny Opera” from 1928, a collaboration with the Marxist poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht. He had left his native Germany after being warned that he was under danger of imminent arrest by the Gestapo.
In America, Weill set out to establish himself on Broadway, but to remain faithful to the philosophical thrust of his European work. The text for his “Knickerbocker Holiday,” for example, was by Maxwell Anderson, inspired by Washington Irving’s fanciful “Father Knickerbocker’s History of New York.” But in the Anderson-Weill treatment, the historical Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant comes off as a proto-Fascist dictator, a comic but pointed reference in the year 1938, when both Hitler and Mussolini were at the height of their power.
Until his untimely death in 1950, for his Broadway musicals Weill continued to set serious subjects – ranging from psychoanalysis to South African apartheid – in a distinctive yet accessible style.
Music Played in Today's Program Kurt Weill (1900-1950): September Song (arr. Morton Gould) –Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, cond. (Philips 446 404)
Synopsis On today’s date in 1966, the 60th birthday of composer Dimitri Shostakovich was celebrated at the Moscow Conservatory with a gala orchestral concert of his music. Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich gave the premiere performance of Shostakovich’s brand-new Second Cello Concerto, and the composer’s son, Maxim, conducted his father’s youthful Symphony No. 1 from 1926.
On the morning of the concert, it was announced that, for his outstanding services in the development of Soviet musical culture, the Central Committee had awarded Shostakovich the title “Hero of Socialist Labor,” along with the Order of Lenin and the gold medal “Hammer and Sickle.”
Ironically, earlier that year, Shostakovich had composed a self-deprecating parody piece for voice and piano titled “Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection apropos of This Preface,” whose text included a deadpan recitation of just a small portion of the many honorific titles he had received and the imposing but meaningless official posts with which he had been honored — and now, he found, he had been awarded several more to boot!
All that must have seemed grimly comic to Shostakovich, who, some 30th years earlier, had written an opera which had so offended Joseph Stalin that the composer had come perilously close to disappearing without a trace into the Soviet prison system.
Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1, Op. 10 –St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Yuri Temikanov, cond. (BMG 68844)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Cello concerto No. 2. Op. 126 –Msistislav Rostropovich, cello; Boston Symphony; Seiji Ozawa, cond. (DG 437 952)
Synopsis On today’s date in 1966, the 60th birthday of composer Dimitri Shostakovich was celebrated at the Moscow Conservatory with a gala orchestral concert of his music. Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich gave the premiere performance of Shostakovich’s brand-new Second Cello Concerto, and the composer’s son, Maxim, conducted his father’s youthful Symphony No. 1 from 1926.
On the morning of the concert, it was announced that, for his outstanding services in the development of Soviet musical culture, the Central Committee had awarded Shostakovich the title “Hero of Socialist Labor,” along with the Order of Lenin and the gold medal “Hammer and Sickle.”
Ironically, earlier that year, Shostakovich had composed a self-deprecating parody piece for voice and piano titled “Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and a Brief Reflection apropos of This Preface,” whose text included a deadpan recitation of just a small portion of the many honorific titles he had received and the imposing but meaningless official posts with which he had been honored — and now, he found, he had been awarded several more to boot!
All that must have seemed grimly comic to Shostakovich, who, some 30th years earlier, had written an opera which had so offended Joseph Stalin that the composer had come perilously close to disappearing without a trace into the Soviet prison system.
Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1, Op. 10 –St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Yuri Temikanov, cond. (BMG 68844)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Cello concerto No. 2. Op. 126 –Msistislav Rostropovich, cello; Boston Symphony; Seiji Ozawa, cond. (DG 437 952)
Synopsis In the age of the Baroque, Double Concertos were quite common: there were concertos written for two flutes, two trumpets, or, like the famous concerto by J.S. Bach, for two violins. These Double Concertos represented a civilized give-and-take between the two soloists, a sense of balance or decorum perhaps typical of 18th century society in general. In the 19th century, however, the concept of the solitary artist as hero — or rebel — helped make the virtuosic solo concerto much more typical of the Romantic age.
In our time, the Double Concerto occasionally makes a civilized comeback, and, on today’s date in 1989, one for two violins was premiered in Pittsburgh, Kansas. It’s by the American composer Katherine Hoover, who offered this explanation:
“When two violinists get together to perform with an orchestra, its usually a friendly celebration, a chance for colleagues who value each other’s talents and skills to enjoy making music together… So I began to think: If I were one of the players, I would want the piece to be grateful and warm, with lyricism and a sense of playfulness. This is what I have attempted to write.”
Katherine Hoover’s 1989 Double Concerto was commissioned and premiered by the Southeastern Kansas Orchestra.
Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Double Concerto in d, S. 1043 –Vladimir Spivakov, Arkady Futer, violins; Moscow Virtuosi; Vladimir Spivakov, cond. (RCA 7991)
Katherine Hoover (1937-2018): Double Concerto –David Perry, Suzanne Beia, violins; Wisconsin Philomusic; Vartan Manoogian, cond. (Parnasus 96019)
Synopsis In the age of the Baroque, Double Concertos were quite common: there were concertos written for two flutes, two trumpets, or, like the famous concerto by J.S. Bach, for two violins. These Double Concertos represented a civilized give-and-take between the two soloists, a sense of balance or decorum perhaps typical of 18th century society in general. In the 19th century, however, the concept of the solitary artist as hero — or rebel — helped make the virtuosic solo concerto much more typical of the Romantic age.
In our time, the Double Concerto occasionally makes a civilized comeback, and, on today’s date in 1989, one for two violins was premiered in Pittsburgh, Kansas. It’s by the American composer Katherine Hoover, who offered this explanation:
“When two violinists get together to perform with an orchestra, its usually a friendly celebration, a chance for colleagues who value each other’s talents and skills to enjoy making music together… So I began to think: If I were one of the players, I would want the piece to be grateful and warm, with lyricism and a sense of playfulness. This is what I have attempted to write.”
Katherine Hoover’s 1989 Double Concerto was commissioned and premiered by the Southeastern Kansas Orchestra.
Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Double Concerto in d, S. 1043 –Vladimir Spivakov, Arkady Futer, violins; Moscow Virtuosi; Vladimir Spivakov, cond. (RCA 7991)
Katherine Hoover (1937-2018): Double Concerto –David Perry, Suzanne Beia, violins; Wisconsin Philomusic; Vartan Manoogian, cond. (Parnasus 96019)
Synopsis If you were a member of the European nobility, the summer of 1798 was a scary time. That revolutionary wild man Napoleon Bonaparte had crushed your armies on land and now word had it his fleet had escaped a British blockade. The possibility that Napoleon would control both land and sea struck terror in many a nobleman’s breast.
During this anxious time Prince Nicholas Esterhazy the Second’s favorite composer Joseph Haydn composed a Latin mass titled “Missa in angustiis” or “Mass in Time of Fear.” It opens in the key of d minor, the key employed by Mozart for the spookiest scenes in “Don Giovanni,” an opera that had made a big impression on Haydn at its premiere in Vienna ten years earlier. As Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon puts it, in ‘Don Giovanni,’ 18th century listeners were presented with "the presence of real fear – nay terror.”
So, when word reached the rattled princes of Europe that the British Admiral Nelson had destroyed the French fleet, everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, and, coincidentally, Haydn ends his Mass in the more optimistic key of D Major.
First performed on today’s date in 1798, Haydn’s work soon came to be known as the “Lord Nelson Mass,” and in Robbins Landon’s view stands as “arguably Haydn’s greatest single composition.”
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Joseph Haydn: Missa in angustiis (Lord Nelson Mass)
Synopsis If you were a member of the European nobility, the summer of 1798 was a scary time. That revolutionary wild man Napoleon Bonaparte had crushed your armies on land and now word had it his fleet had escaped a British blockade. The possibility that Napoleon would control both land and sea struck terror in many a nobleman’s breast.
During this anxious time Prince Nicholas Esterhazy the Second’s favorite composer Joseph Haydn composed a Latin mass titled “Missa in angustiis” or “Mass in Time of Fear.” It opens in the key of d minor, the key employed by Mozart for the spookiest scenes in “Don Giovanni,” an opera that had made a big impression on Haydn at its premiere in Vienna ten years earlier. As Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon puts it, in ‘Don Giovanni,’ 18th century listeners were presented with "the presence of real fear – nay terror.”
So, when word reached the rattled princes of Europe that the British Admiral Nelson had destroyed the French fleet, everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, and, coincidentally, Haydn ends his Mass in the more optimistic key of D Major.
First performed on today’s date in 1798, Haydn’s work soon came to be known as the “Lord Nelson Mass,” and in Robbins Landon’s view stands as “arguably Haydn’s greatest single composition.”
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Joseph Haydn: Missa in angustiis (Lord Nelson Mass)
Synopsis As the season begins, we offer you this “Autumn Music” — a woodwind quintet by American composer Jennifer Higdon. Higdon says she wanted to write a companion piece to another famous woodwind quintet titled “Summer Music” by Samuel Barber. Higdon’s “Autumn Music” was commissioned by Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honorary society, and premiered at their 1994 national convention in Pittsburgh.
“Autumn Music,” says Higdon, “is a sonic picture of the season of brilliant colors. The music of the first part represents the explosion of leaves and the crispness of the air of fall. As the music progresses, it becomes more spare and introspective, moving into a more melancholy and resigned feeling.”
Jennifer Higdon was born in Brooklyn in 1962, and teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her chamber and orchestral pieces have been performed by ensembles coast to coast. She’s also active as a performer and, as she explains, as an enthusiastic member of the audience:
“I love exploring new works — my own pieces and the music of others — in a general audience setting, just to feel a communal reaction to new sounds. Music speaks to all age levels and all kinds of experiences in our lives. I think it can express anything and everything.”
Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Autumn Music –Moran Woodwind Quintet (Crystal 754)
On This Day Births * 1875 - Lithuanian composer Mikolajus Ciurlionis, in Varena (then the Kaunas province of the Russian Empire; Julian date: Sept. 10); * 1933 - Spanish composer Leonardo Balada, in Barcelona; * 1961 - American composer Michael Torke, in Milwaukee, Wisc.;
Deaths * 1989 - American song composer Irving Berlin, age 101, in New York City;
Premieres * 1869 - Wagner: opera, "Das Rheingold," in Munich at the Hoftheater, Franz Wüllner conducting; The opera was performed at the Bavarian emperor Ludwig II's request, but against the composer's wishes; * 1938 - Webern: String Quartet, Op. 28, at South Mountain, Pittsfield, Mass., during the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival; This work was commissioned for $750 by the American music patron, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge; * 1964 - Jerry Bock: musical "Fiddler On the Roof" opens on Broadway: It would run for 3,242 performances before closing; * 1971 - Barber: "The Lovers" for solo voice and chorus (after a poem by Pablo Neruda), in Philadelphia; * 1989 - Bernstein: "Arias and Barcarolles" (orchestrated version prepared by Bright Sheng), at the Tilles Center of Long Island University with the New York Chamber Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz and featuring vocalists Susan Graham and Kurt Ollmann; The first version of this work, for soloists and piano four-hands, premiered on May 9, 1988, at Equitable Center Auditorium in New York City; * 1990 - James MacMillan: "The Beserking" (Piano Concerto), at Henry Wood Hall in Glasgow by pianist Peter Donohoue and the Royal Scottish Orchestra, Matthias Bamert conducting; * 1990 - Christopher Rouse: "Jagannath" for orchestra, by the Houston Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach conducting; * 2000 - Philip Glass: “Tirol Concerto” for piano and orchestra, by Dennis Russell Davies (piano and conductor) with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, at the 7th annual Klangspuren Festival in Schwaz, Tirol (Austria); * 2000 - Zwilich: "Millennium Fantasy" for piano and orchestra, by the Cincinnati Symphony, Jesús Lopez-Cobos conducting with soloist Jeffrey Biegel;
Others * 1937 - During the Spanish Civil War, Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas conducts his 1935 composition “Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca” in Madrid while the city was under siege by Spanish fascist forces; The Spanish poet Lorca had been killed by the Falangists;
Links and Resources * On Jennifer Higdon * On Barber's "Summer Music"
Synopsis As the season begins, we offer you this “Autumn Music” — a woodwind quintet by American composer Jennifer Higdon. Higdon says she wanted to write a companion piece to another famous woodwind quintet titled “Summer Music” by Samuel Barber. Higdon’s “Autumn Music” was commissioned by Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honorary society, and premiered at their 1994 national convention in Pittsburgh.
“Autumn Music,” says Higdon, “is a sonic picture of the season of brilliant colors. The music of the first part represents the explosion of leaves and the crispness of the air of fall. As the music progresses, it becomes more spare and introspective, moving into a more melancholy and resigned feeling.”
Jennifer Higdon was born in Brooklyn in 1962, and teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her chamber and orchestral pieces have been performed by ensembles coast to coast. She’s also active as a performer and, as she explains, as an enthusiastic member of the audience:
“I love exploring new works — my own pieces and the music of others — in a general audience setting, just to feel a communal reaction to new sounds. Music speaks to all age levels and all kinds of experiences in our lives. I think it can express anything and everything.”
Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Autumn Music –Moran Woodwind Quintet (Crystal 754)
On This Day Births * 1875 - Lithuanian composer Mikolajus Ciurlionis, in Varena (then the Kaunas province of the Russian Empire; Julian date: Sept. 10); * 1933 - Spanish composer Leonardo Balada, in Barcelona; * 1961 - American composer Michael Torke, in Milwaukee, Wisc.;
Deaths * 1989 - American song composer Irving Berlin, age 101, in New York City;
Premieres * 1869 - Wagner: opera, "Das Rheingold," in Munich at the Hoftheater, Franz Wüllner conducting; The opera was performed at the Bavarian emperor Ludwig II's request, but against the composer's wishes; * 1938 - Webern: String Quartet, Op. 28, at South Mountain, Pittsfield, Mass., during the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival; This work was commissioned for $750 by the American music patron, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge; * 1964 - Jerry Bock: musical "Fiddler On the Roof" opens on Broadway: It would run for 3,242 performances before closing; * 1971 - Barber: "The Lovers" for solo voice and chorus (after a poem by Pablo Neruda), in Philadelphia; * 1989 - Bernstein: "Arias and Barcarolles" (orchestrated version prepared by Bright Sheng), at the Tilles Center of Long Island University with the New York Chamber Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz and featuring vocalists Susan Graham and Kurt Ollmann; The first version of this work, for soloists and piano four-hands, premiered on May 9, 1988, at Equitable Center Auditorium in New York City; * 1990 - James MacMillan: "The Beserking" (Piano Concerto), at Henry Wood Hall in Glasgow by pianist Peter Donohoue and the Royal Scottish Orchestra, Matthias Bamert conducting; * 1990 - Christopher Rouse: "Jagannath" for orchestra, by the Houston Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach conducting; * 2000 - Philip Glass: “Tirol Concerto” for piano and orchestra, by Dennis Russell Davies (piano and conductor) with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, at the 7th annual Klangspuren Festival in Schwaz, Tirol (Austria); * 2000 - Zwilich: "Millennium Fantasy" for piano and orchestra, by the Cincinnati Symphony, Jesús Lopez-Cobos conducting with soloist Jeffrey Biegel;
Others * 1937 - During the Spanish Civil War, Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas conducts his 1935 composition “Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca” in Madrid while the city was under siege by Spanish fascist forces; The Spanish poet Lorca had been killed by the Falangists;
Links and Resources * On Jennifer Higdon * On Barber's "Summer Music"
Synopsis Today’s date marks the premiere in New York City, in 1925, of a classic operetta “The Vagabond King” by Rudolf Friml, the source of many once-popular sentimental tunes, including “Love Me Tonight,” and “Only a Rose.”
Friml was born in Prague in 1879, and he studied composition there with no less a master than Antonin Dvorak. He started his career as a piano accompanist to the famous Czech violinist Jan Kubelik, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1906. In 1907, he appeared as a soloist in his own First Piano Concerto with the New York Symphony, and decided to make America his home.
Friml wrote two piano concertos, a symphony, solo piano pieces — and three film scores for Hollywood. But he’s remembered today chiefly for 24 stage works, beginning in 1912 with “The Firefire,” his first big musical success, and continuing with many others, including the 1924 operetta “Rose Marie” – which in 1936 was made into a successful film starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Their rendition of Friml’s “Indian Love Call” has become a campy cult classic.
Even Friml was occasionally embarrassed by the success of some of his flufflier pop works, and would publish some of these under the pseudonym of Roderick Freeman. He died in Los Angeles in 1972, aged 92.
Music Played in Today's Program Rudolf Friml (1879-1972): Song of the Vagabonds, from The Vagabond King –Eastman-Dryden Orchestra: Donald Hunsberger, cond. (Arabesque 6562)
Rudolf Friml (1879-1972): Chanson "In Love" –New London Orchestra; Ronald Corp, cond. (Hyperion 67067)
Synopsis Today’s date marks the premiere in New York City, in 1925, of a classic operetta “The Vagabond King” by Rudolf Friml, the source of many once-popular sentimental tunes, including “Love Me Tonight,” and “Only a Rose.”
Friml was born in Prague in 1879, and he studied composition there with no less a master than Antonin Dvorak. He started his career as a piano accompanist to the famous Czech violinist Jan Kubelik, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1906. In 1907, he appeared as a soloist in his own First Piano Concerto with the New York Symphony, and decided to make America his home.
Friml wrote two piano concertos, a symphony, solo piano pieces — and three film scores for Hollywood. But he’s remembered today chiefly for 24 stage works, beginning in 1912 with “The Firefire,” his first big musical success, and continuing with many others, including the 1924 operetta “Rose Marie” – which in 1936 was made into a successful film starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Their rendition of Friml’s “Indian Love Call” has become a campy cult classic.
Even Friml was occasionally embarrassed by the success of some of his flufflier pop works, and would publish some of these under the pseudonym of Roderick Freeman. He died in Los Angeles in 1972, aged 92.
Music Played in Today's Program Rudolf Friml (1879-1972): Song of the Vagabonds, from The Vagabond King –Eastman-Dryden Orchestra: Donald Hunsberger, cond. (Arabesque 6562)
Rudolf Friml (1879-1972): Chanson "In Love" –New London Orchestra; Ronald Corp, cond. (Hyperion 67067)
Synopsis Today’s date commemorates the death, in 1957, of the most famous Finnish composer of modern times, Jean Sibelius. Born in 1865, Sibelius studied at the University of Helsinki, developed a strong sense of nationalism in the 1890s, and achieved world fame in the first years of the 20th century. He wrote little after the First World War, however, and lived his last 30 years in almost complete seclusion.
Even so, he was one of the most popular composers of his time. In 1938, a recording of his tone-poem “Finlandia” was selected as one of only three pieces of music to be deposited along with other artifacts of modern civilization in an indestructible time capsule buried on the site of the New York World’s Fair.
By 1957, the enormous acclaim that Sibelius enjoyed during his lifetime had faded somewhat, but these days his reputation seems on the rise once again, as does the influence of Finnish music in general.
A remarkable number of talented composers are thriving in that tiny nation today, and operas, orchestral works, and chamber pieces by contemporary Finnish composers like Aulis Sallinen, Einojuhanni Rautavaara, Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho are increasingly finding worldwide audiences.
Sibelius would have been very pleased.
Music Played in Today's Program Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Alla Marcia, from Karelia Suite –Finnish Radio Symphony; Jukka-Pekka Saraste, cond. (RCA 7765)
Synopsis Today’s date commemorates the death, in 1957, of the most famous Finnish composer of modern times, Jean Sibelius. Born in 1865, Sibelius studied at the University of Helsinki, developed a strong sense of nationalism in the 1890s, and achieved world fame in the first years of the 20th century. He wrote little after the First World War, however, and lived his last 30 years in almost complete seclusion.
Even so, he was one of the most popular composers of his time. In 1938, a recording of his tone-poem “Finlandia” was selected as one of only three pieces of music to be deposited along with other artifacts of modern civilization in an indestructible time capsule buried on the site of the New York World’s Fair.
By 1957, the enormous acclaim that Sibelius enjoyed during his lifetime had faded somewhat, but these days his reputation seems on the rise once again, as does the influence of Finnish music in general.
A remarkable number of talented composers are thriving in that tiny nation today, and operas, orchestral works, and chamber pieces by contemporary Finnish composers like Aulis Sallinen, Einojuhanni Rautavaara, Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho are increasingly finding worldwide audiences.
Sibelius would have been very pleased.
Music Played in Today's Program Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Alla Marcia, from Karelia Suite –Finnish Radio Symphony; Jukka-Pekka Saraste, cond. (RCA 7765)
Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, just a little over one year after two passenger jetliners had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the New York Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new work by the American composer John Adams.
Entitled “On the Transmigration of Souls,” this high-profile commission sought to address a nation still in shock and grief at the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.
"I realized right up front that the public didn't need any more reiteration of the narrative of that day,” Adams said in an interview. “Certainly it didn't need some tasteless dramatization of the events… If I was going to do something meaningful, I was going to have to go in the opposite direction."
Adams chose to set some of the words scribbled on posters plastered around Ground Zero by families searching for their loved ones. "They were a mixture of hope and a slowly dimming acceptance of reality," Adams said. “When people are deeply in shock… they don't express themselves in fancy language… they speak in the most simple of terms."
Adams said he hoped his new piece would provide "memory space,” a musical work that could be at once a platform for either communal or personal reflection.
Music Played in Today's Program John Adams (b. 1947): On the Transmigration of Souls –New York Philharmonic; Lorin Maazel, cond. (Nonesuch CD 79816)
Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, just a little over one year after two passenger jetliners had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the New York Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new work by the American composer John Adams.
Entitled “On the Transmigration of Souls,” this high-profile commission sought to address a nation still in shock and grief at the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.
"I realized right up front that the public didn't need any more reiteration of the narrative of that day,” Adams said in an interview. “Certainly it didn't need some tasteless dramatization of the events… If I was going to do something meaningful, I was going to have to go in the opposite direction."
Adams chose to set some of the words scribbled on posters plastered around Ground Zero by families searching for their loved ones. "They were a mixture of hope and a slowly dimming acceptance of reality," Adams said. “When people are deeply in shock… they don't express themselves in fancy language… they speak in the most simple of terms."
Adams said he hoped his new piece would provide "memory space,” a musical work that could be at once a platform for either communal or personal reflection.
Music Played in Today's Program John Adams (b. 1947): On the Transmigration of Souls –New York Philharmonic; Lorin Maazel, cond. (Nonesuch CD 79816)
Synopsis On this day in 1918, Russian composer Serge Prokofiev arrived in America to give a recital of his piano works in New York. He told interviewers that despite the revolution in his homeland and widespread conditions of famine, Russian musicians continued to work.
Prokofiev himself, however, stayed away from his homeland for years. His opera “The Love for Three Oranges” and his Third Piano Concerto received their premieres in Chicago in 1921. From 1922 to 1932, Prokofiev lived mainly in Paris before eventually returning home for good.
Another temporary expatriate composer, Jón Leifs of Iceland, also has an anniversary today, when in 1950, his “Saga-Symphony” was performed for the first time in Helsinki. Leifs was born in Iceland in 1899 and died there in 1968. He studied in Leipzig, where, in his words, he (quote) “began searching whether, like other countries, Iceland had some material that could be used as a starting-point for new music… some spark that could light the fire.”
Leif’s years in Germany coincided with the rise of the Nazis, who at first found him a sympathetic Nordic composer. When Leifs married a Jewish woman, however, he soon fell out of favor and eventually fled to Sweden with his family. After the war he returned home and today is honored as Iceland’s first great composer.
Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Piano Concerto No. 3 in C, Op. 26 –Martha Argerich, piano; Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. (EMI Classics 56654)
Jón Leifs (1899-1968): Saga Symphony –Iceland Symphony; Osmo Vänskä, cond. (BIS 730)
Synopsis On this day in 1918, Russian composer Serge Prokofiev arrived in America to give a recital of his piano works in New York. He told interviewers that despite the revolution in his homeland and widespread conditions of famine, Russian musicians continued to work.
Prokofiev himself, however, stayed away from his homeland for years. His opera “The Love for Three Oranges” and his Third Piano Concerto received their premieres in Chicago in 1921. From 1922 to 1932, Prokofiev lived mainly in Paris before eventually returning home for good.
Another temporary expatriate composer, Jón Leifs of Iceland, also has an anniversary today, when in 1950, his “Saga-Symphony” was performed for the first time in Helsinki. Leifs was born in Iceland in 1899 and died there in 1968. He studied in Leipzig, where, in his words, he (quote) “began searching whether, like other countries, Iceland had some material that could be used as a starting-point for new music… some spark that could light the fire.”
Leif’s years in Germany coincided with the rise of the Nazis, who at first found him a sympathetic Nordic composer. When Leifs married a Jewish woman, however, he soon fell out of favor and eventually fled to Sweden with his family. After the war he returned home and today is honored as Iceland’s first great composer.
Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Piano Concerto No. 3 in C, Op. 26 –Martha Argerich, piano; Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. (EMI Classics 56654)
Jón Leifs (1899-1968): Saga Symphony –Iceland Symphony; Osmo Vänskä, cond. (BIS 730)
Synopsis In 1962, American jazz composer, performer, and bandleader "Duke" Ellington was 63 years old – an acknowledged master, but trends in American jazz were changing, and there were much younger figures emerging, with more challenging styles.
Take, for example, the bassist Charles Mingus, Jr, a master of collective improvisation, and drummer Max Roach, a pioneer in the Be-Bop movement. Despite their age and stylistic differences, these three jazz titans went into a recording studio on today’s date in 1962 and, while tape rolled, using bare-bones charts provided by Ellington of melodies and harmonies, the three jazz titans improvised. The results were issued the following year as a classic LP entitled, “Money Jungle.”
Despite his fame, Ellington did not have a recording contract in 1962, and, perhaps after decades experiencing the highs and lows of life as a Black jazz musician in a segregated society, “Money Jungle” reflects a certain bitterness. Along with the charts he gave Mingus and Roach, Ellington also provided poetic story lines for each track, like: "Crawling around on the streets are serpents who have their heads up; these are agents and people who have exploited artists. Play that along with the music.”
Music Played in Today's Program Duke Ellington (1899-1974), Charles Mingus (1922-1979), and Max Roach (1924-2007) –Money Jungle: Blue Note 31461
Synopsis In 1962, American jazz composer, performer, and bandleader "Duke" Ellington was 63 years old – an acknowledged master, but trends in American jazz were changing, and there were much younger figures emerging, with more challenging styles.
Take, for example, the bassist Charles Mingus, Jr, a master of collective improvisation, and drummer Max Roach, a pioneer in the Be-Bop movement. Despite their age and stylistic differences, these three jazz titans went into a recording studio on today’s date in 1962 and, while tape rolled, using bare-bones charts provided by Ellington of melodies and harmonies, the three jazz titans improvised. The results were issued the following year as a classic LP entitled, “Money Jungle.”
Despite his fame, Ellington did not have a recording contract in 1962, and, perhaps after decades experiencing the highs and lows of life as a Black jazz musician in a segregated society, “Money Jungle” reflects a certain bitterness. Along with the charts he gave Mingus and Roach, Ellington also provided poetic story lines for each track, like: "Crawling around on the streets are serpents who have their heads up; these are agents and people who have exploited artists. Play that along with the music.”
Music Played in Today's Program Duke Ellington (1899-1974), Charles Mingus (1922-1979), and Max Roach (1924-2007) –Money Jungle: Blue Note 31461
Synopsis The British composer Sally Beamish was born in London and studied music there and in Germany, but more recently has come to be associated with both Scotland and Sweden due to successful composer residencies in those two countries.
Her saxophone concerto, “The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone,” is a perfect example of this association. “The piece begins with a reference to a Swedish herding call,” she explains, “a special high-pitched song which carries over long distances… after this the music becomes more fragmentary, half-heard glimpses, as if the shaft of light has somehow released sounds stored in stone for millennia, layers of music long forgotten… drawing on psalms and chants from different tradition celebrating the enlightenment of [Pentecost].”
The work was a joint commission of the St. Magnus Festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney off the north coast of mainland Scotland, a landscape of wind-swept cliffs, and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. The premiere performance took place at the St. Magnus Festival in June of 1999, and on today’s date that same year, the concerto’s Swedish herding call was heard in that country at its Örebro premiere.
Music Played in Today's Program Sally Beamish (b. 1956) –The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone (John Harle, sax; Swedish Chamber Orchestra; Ola Rudner, cond.) BIS 1161
Synopsis The British composer Sally Beamish was born in London and studied music there and in Germany, but more recently has come to be associated with both Scotland and Sweden due to successful composer residencies in those two countries.
Her saxophone concerto, “The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone,” is a perfect example of this association. “The piece begins with a reference to a Swedish herding call,” she explains, “a special high-pitched song which carries over long distances… after this the music becomes more fragmentary, half-heard glimpses, as if the shaft of light has somehow released sounds stored in stone for millennia, layers of music long forgotten… drawing on psalms and chants from different tradition celebrating the enlightenment of [Pentecost].”
The work was a joint commission of the St. Magnus Festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney off the north coast of mainland Scotland, a landscape of wind-swept cliffs, and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. The premiere performance took place at the St. Magnus Festival in June of 1999, and on today’s date that same year, the concerto’s Swedish herding call was heard in that country at its Örebro premiere.
Music Played in Today's Program Sally Beamish (b. 1956) –The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone (John Harle, sax; Swedish Chamber Orchestra; Ola Rudner, cond.) BIS 1161
Synopsis If you’ve ever witnessed a spectacular display of the Northern Lights, you’ll know the feeling: jaw-dropping wonder at the powerful forces unleashed in the vast spaces of the night sky.
The American composer Henry Brant experienced something like that in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1982 during a visit, and later translated the experience into his “Northern Lights over the Twin Cities,” a work commissioned by Macalester College in St. Paul to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1985.
Like most of Brant’s works, this piece employs several distinct groups of performers separated by space, a technique called “spatial” composition. For his Macalester Centenary commission, Brant utilized all the musical ensembles the College had to offer, including its chorus and orchestra, its wind, marching, and jazz bands, and even its bagpipe ensemble, all positioned at various points around the College’s cavernous Field House.
Brant said his own “spatial” works were inspired by the antiphonal works of the Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli, the multiple brass ensembles in the “Requiem Mass” by the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz, but above all by “The Unanswered Question,” by the modern American composer Charles Ives.
Brant was born on today’s date in 1913. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2002, and died at the age of 94, in 2008.
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Brant (1913-2008) –Northern Lights Over the Twin Cities (Combined musical forces of Macalester College; with six conductors, including Henry Brant) Innova CD 408
Synopsis If you’ve ever witnessed a spectacular display of the Northern Lights, you’ll know the feeling: jaw-dropping wonder at the powerful forces unleashed in the vast spaces of the night sky.
The American composer Henry Brant experienced something like that in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1982 during a visit, and later translated the experience into his “Northern Lights over the Twin Cities,” a work commissioned by Macalester College in St. Paul to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1985.
Like most of Brant’s works, this piece employs several distinct groups of performers separated by space, a technique called “spatial” composition. For his Macalester Centenary commission, Brant utilized all the musical ensembles the College had to offer, including its chorus and orchestra, its wind, marching, and jazz bands, and even its bagpipe ensemble, all positioned at various points around the College’s cavernous Field House.
Brant said his own “spatial” works were inspired by the antiphonal works of the Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli, the multiple brass ensembles in the “Requiem Mass” by the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz, but above all by “The Unanswered Question,” by the modern American composer Charles Ives.
Brant was born on today’s date in 1913. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2002, and died at the age of 94, in 2008.
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Brant (1913-2008) –Northern Lights Over the Twin Cities (Combined musical forces of Macalester College; with six conductors, including Henry Brant) Innova CD 408
Synopsis Do you enjoy a good ghost story? The American novelist Henry James did, but liked to give the ones he wrote an extra twist – another “turn of the screw” you might say. In fact, one of his classic ghost stories from 1898 is titled just that: “The Turn of the Screw.”
In it, a young British governess is entrusted with the care of two orphaned children, who may – or may not – have been abused by their previous governess and her lover, both now dead, who may – or may not – have returned as ghosts to continue their torment of the children. The manner in which Henry James tells the story leaves open the question whether the ghosts are real or just figments of the young governess’s lurid imagination.
“The Turn of the Screw” has been adapted for both stage and screen, and, on today’s date in 1954, an operatic version by the British composer Benjamin Britten received its premiere performance at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Each of the 16 scenes in Britten’s chamber opera is preceded by a variation on a ghostly 12-note theme, a “tone row” in the style of the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, and since we see and hear the ghosts on stage, it’s pretty clear Britten is suggesting the ghosts and the evil in the tale are disturbingly real.
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) –The Turn of the Screw (Sir Peter Pears, tenor; English Opera Group, Benjamin Britten, cond.) London/Decca 4256722
Synopsis Do you enjoy a good ghost story? The American novelist Henry James did, but liked to give the ones he wrote an extra twist – another “turn of the screw” you might say. In fact, one of his classic ghost stories from 1898 is titled just that: “The Turn of the Screw.”
In it, a young British governess is entrusted with the care of two orphaned children, who may – or may not – have been abused by their previous governess and her lover, both now dead, who may – or may not – have returned as ghosts to continue their torment of the children. The manner in which Henry James tells the story leaves open the question whether the ghosts are real or just figments of the young governess’s lurid imagination.
“The Turn of the Screw” has been adapted for both stage and screen, and, on today’s date in 1954, an operatic version by the British composer Benjamin Britten received its premiere performance at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Each of the 16 scenes in Britten’s chamber opera is preceded by a variation on a ghostly 12-note theme, a “tone row” in the style of the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, and since we see and hear the ghosts on stage, it’s pretty clear Britten is suggesting the ghosts and the evil in the tale are disturbingly real.
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) –The Turn of the Screw (Sir Peter Pears, tenor; English Opera Group, Benjamin Britten, cond.) London/Decca 4256722
Synopsis On today's date in 1993, the first gala preview screening of a new film, "The Age of Innocence," based on the novel by Edith Wharton, took place at the Ziegfield Theater in Manhattan, as a benefit for the New York Historical Society. That was only appropriate, since Wharton's historical novel describes upper-class New York society of the 1870s – an age, if the film is to be believed, so emotionally repressed that the unbuttoning of a woman's glove can be a breathtakingly sensual moment.
The new film was directed by Martin Scorsese, famous for decidedly UN-repressed thrillers likes "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "Cape Fear" – and initially some thought Scorsese a poor choice to film Wharton's novel. The skeptics were proven wrong.
Much of the success of the film can be attributed to its ravishing orchestral score by American composer Elmer Bernstein. "It was my personal tribute to the music of Johannes Brahms," said Bernstein, who also credited Scorsese for appreciating the importance of music in bringing a movie to life: Unlike most directors today, Scorsese brought in Bernstein before "Age of Innocence" was filmed – not after.
"We started talking about the character of the music long before Scorsese ever shot a frame of film," recalls Bernstein, with admiration. Bernstein's "Age of Innocence" score was nominated for an Academy Award – the 12th time Bernstein had been so honored in his long and productive cinematic career.
Music Played in Today's Program Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) –Farewell Dinner, from “The Age of Innocence” (Studio Orchestra; Elmer Bernstein, cond.) EMI Classics 57451
Synopsis On today's date in 1993, the first gala preview screening of a new film, "The Age of Innocence," based on the novel by Edith Wharton, took place at the Ziegfield Theater in Manhattan, as a benefit for the New York Historical Society. That was only appropriate, since Wharton's historical novel describes upper-class New York society of the 1870s – an age, if the film is to be believed, so emotionally repressed that the unbuttoning of a woman's glove can be a breathtakingly sensual moment.
The new film was directed by Martin Scorsese, famous for decidedly UN-repressed thrillers likes "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "Cape Fear" – and initially some thought Scorsese a poor choice to film Wharton's novel. The skeptics were proven wrong.
Much of the success of the film can be attributed to its ravishing orchestral score by American composer Elmer Bernstein. "It was my personal tribute to the music of Johannes Brahms," said Bernstein, who also credited Scorsese for appreciating the importance of music in bringing a movie to life: Unlike most directors today, Scorsese brought in Bernstein before "Age of Innocence" was filmed – not after.
"We started talking about the character of the music long before Scorsese ever shot a frame of film," recalls Bernstein, with admiration. Bernstein's "Age of Innocence" score was nominated for an Academy Award – the 12th time Bernstein had been so honored in his long and productive cinematic career.
Music Played in Today's Program Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) –Farewell Dinner, from “The Age of Innocence” (Studio Orchestra; Elmer Bernstein, cond.) EMI Classics 57451
Synopsis During her lifetime, pianist Nadia Reisenberg was regarded as one of this country’s finest concert artists. She performed at Carnegie Hall 22 times, often with the New York Philharmonic.
But she made history on today’s date in 1939 as she embarked on a series of concert performances encompassing of all 27 of the Mozart Piano Concertos. These were live radio broadcasts conducted by Alfred Wallenstein, originating at WOR in New York, relayed coast-to-coast via the Mutual Network and the CBC in Canada, and overseas via short wave. There were 29 broadcasts in all, one a week, starting on September 12, 1939 and ending on March 26, 1940.
Mozart’s 27 piano concerts were first published in 1850, almost 60 years after the composer’s death, but before Reisenberg’s broadcasts, no one had performed ALL of them in such a series. The French composer and pianist Camille Saint-Saens played 9 Mozart concertos in Paris in 1864/1865, and 11 during a series in London in 1910, but Reisenberg was the first to perform all 27 in one concert sequence, since even Mozart himself never played them all in just one season.
Amazingly, live aircheck recordings of most of these historic radio broadcasts have survived and are now part of the Nadia Reisenberg Collection in the International Piano Archives at Maryland.
Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) –Piano Concerto No. 26 in D, K. 537 (Coronation) (Nadia Reisenberg; WOR studio orchestra; Alfred Wallenstein, cond.) (r. March 19, 1940) IPA of Maryland Reisenberg Mozart Piano Concertos CD 13
Synopsis During her lifetime, pianist Nadia Reisenberg was regarded as one of this country’s finest concert artists. She performed at Carnegie Hall 22 times, often with the New York Philharmonic.
But she made history on today’s date in 1939 as she embarked on a series of concert performances encompassing of all 27 of the Mozart Piano Concertos. These were live radio broadcasts conducted by Alfred Wallenstein, originating at WOR in New York, relayed coast-to-coast via the Mutual Network and the CBC in Canada, and overseas via short wave. There were 29 broadcasts in all, one a week, starting on September 12, 1939 and ending on March 26, 1940.
Mozart’s 27 piano concerts were first published in 1850, almost 60 years after the composer’s death, but before Reisenberg’s broadcasts, no one had performed ALL of them in such a series. The French composer and pianist Camille Saint-Saens played 9 Mozart concertos in Paris in 1864/1865, and 11 during a series in London in 1910, but Reisenberg was the first to perform all 27 in one concert sequence, since even Mozart himself never played them all in just one season.
Amazingly, live aircheck recordings of most of these historic radio broadcasts have survived and are now part of the Nadia Reisenberg Collection in the International Piano Archives at Maryland.
Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) –Piano Concerto No. 26 in D, K. 537 (Coronation) (Nadia Reisenberg; WOR studio orchestra; Alfred Wallenstein, cond.) (r. March 19, 1940) IPA of Maryland Reisenberg Mozart Piano Concertos CD 13
Synopsis On today’s date in 1950, Decca recording engineers committed to disc seven short works by the American composer Leroy Anderson, with Anderson himself conducting top-notch New York freelance musicians.
Since 1938, Anderson had been associated with the Boston Pops, for whom he had composed a string of very successful pieces, beginning with “Jazz Pizzicato” and “Jazz Legato,” complimentary works designed for the two sides of a 78-rpm disc. Anderson recorded both those pieces at his 1950 Decca session and also the first performance of a brand-new work, entitled “The Waltzing Cat.” In fact, after 1950 most of Anderson’s premieres took place at Decca recording sessions. One of them, “Blue Tango,” sold over a million copies.
By 1953, one national survey found that Leroy Anderson was the most-performed American composer of his day. That was the year that Anderson wrote his only extended orchestral work, a Piano Concerto. With the exception of a short-lived Broadway musical from 1958 entitled “Goldilocks,” the bulk of Anderson’s works are short, witty orchestral pieces, superbly crafted works intended to make audiences smile.
“I just did what I wanted to do,” Anderson once said, “and it turned out that people liked it.”
Music Played in Today's Program Leroy Anderson (1908–1975) –Jazz Pizzicato and The Waltzing Cat (Decca studio orchestra; Leroy Anderson, cond.) MCA 9815
Synopsis On today’s date in 1950, Decca recording engineers committed to disc seven short works by the American composer Leroy Anderson, with Anderson himself conducting top-notch New York freelance musicians.
Since 1938, Anderson had been associated with the Boston Pops, for whom he had composed a string of very successful pieces, beginning with “Jazz Pizzicato” and “Jazz Legato,” complimentary works designed for the two sides of a 78-rpm disc. Anderson recorded both those pieces at his 1950 Decca session and also the first performance of a brand-new work, entitled “The Waltzing Cat.” In fact, after 1950 most of Anderson’s premieres took place at Decca recording sessions. One of them, “Blue Tango,” sold over a million copies.
By 1953, one national survey found that Leroy Anderson was the most-performed American composer of his day. That was the year that Anderson wrote his only extended orchestral work, a Piano Concerto. With the exception of a short-lived Broadway musical from 1958 entitled “Goldilocks,” the bulk of Anderson’s works are short, witty orchestral pieces, superbly crafted works intended to make audiences smile.
“I just did what I wanted to do,” Anderson once said, “and it turned out that people liked it.”
Music Played in Today's Program Leroy Anderson (1908–1975) –Jazz Pizzicato and The Waltzing Cat (Decca studio orchestra; Leroy Anderson, cond.) MCA 9815
Synopsis We tend to think of Paris as the most sophisticated and worldly of European capitals – a city whose residents are unlikely to be shocked by anything they see or hear.
Ah, but that’s not always the case, as poor Hector Berlioz discovered on today’s date in 1838, when his new opera “Benvenuto Cellini” premiered at the Paris Opéra. One line in the libretto about the cocks crowing at dawn was considered, as Berlioz put it, “belonging to a vocabulary inconsistent with our present prudishness” and provoked shocked disapproval. And that was just the start of a controversy that raged over both the morality and the music of this new opera.
Following the dismal opening night, Berlioz wrote to his father: “It’s impossible to describe all the underhanded maneuvers, intrigues, conspiracies, disputes, battles, and insults my work has given rise to… The French have a positive mania for arguing about music without having the first idea – or even any feeling – about it!”
From the fiasco of the opera’s premiere, however, Berlioz did retrieve some measure of success. His famous contemporaries Paganini and Liszt both admired the work – and said so – and one flashy orchestral interlude from “Benvenuto Cellini” did prove a lasting success when Berlioz recast it as a concert work: his “Roman Carnival Overture.”
Music Played in Today's Program Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) –Benvenuto Cellini and Roman Carnival Overtures (Staatskapelle Dresden; Sir Colin Davis, cond.) BMG/RCA 68790
Synopsis We tend to think of Paris as the most sophisticated and worldly of European capitals – a city whose residents are unlikely to be shocked by anything they see or hear.
Ah, but that’s not always the case, as poor Hector Berlioz discovered on today’s date in 1838, when his new opera “Benvenuto Cellini” premiered at the Paris Opéra. One line in the libretto about the cocks crowing at dawn was considered, as Berlioz put it, “belonging to a vocabulary inconsistent with our present prudishness” and provoked shocked disapproval. And that was just the start of a controversy that raged over both the morality and the music of this new opera.
Following the dismal opening night, Berlioz wrote to his father: “It’s impossible to describe all the underhanded maneuvers, intrigues, conspiracies, disputes, battles, and insults my work has given rise to… The French have a positive mania for arguing about music without having the first idea – or even any feeling – about it!”
From the fiasco of the opera’s premiere, however, Berlioz did retrieve some measure of success. His famous contemporaries Paganini and Liszt both admired the work – and said so – and one flashy orchestral interlude from “Benvenuto Cellini” did prove a lasting success when Berlioz recast it as a concert work: his “Roman Carnival Overture.”
Music Played in Today's Program Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) –Benvenuto Cellini and Roman Carnival Overtures (Staatskapelle Dresden; Sir Colin Davis, cond.) BMG/RCA 68790
Synopsis Today is the birthday of the American composer and teacher Edward Burlingame Hill, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872.
Hill studied at Harvard, which was not surprising, since his grandfather had been President of the college, and his father taught chemistry there. “My father sang the songs of Schubert,” recalled Hill, “and was a great admirer of Bach. Thus at an early age I was imbued with a deep love for serious music.” Hill studied with the 19th century American composer John Knowles Paine, who had established at Harvard the first music department in any American university. After Hill took all of Paine’s courses, he went on to study in Paris with Charles Widor.
Hill’s early works were in the French style, and you might say that he “wrote the book on the subject” – literally. In 1924, Hill published a study titled “French Music” and was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his efforts. During his lifetime, major American orchestras performed Hill’s music, but today, if he’s remembered at all, it’s as a teacher at Harvard. Toward the end of tenure, one his students was Leonard Bernstein, who, in 1953, made a recording of his teacher’s “Prelude for Orchestra.” Hill died in New Hampshire in 1960, at the age of 88.
Music Played in Today's Program Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960) –Prelude for Orchestra (Columbia Symphony; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) CBS/Sony 61849
Synopsis Today is the birthday of the American composer and teacher Edward Burlingame Hill, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872.
Hill studied at Harvard, which was not surprising, since his grandfather had been President of the college, and his father taught chemistry there. “My father sang the songs of Schubert,” recalled Hill, “and was a great admirer of Bach. Thus at an early age I was imbued with a deep love for serious music.” Hill studied with the 19th century American composer John Knowles Paine, who had established at Harvard the first music department in any American university. After Hill took all of Paine’s courses, he went on to study in Paris with Charles Widor.
Hill’s early works were in the French style, and you might say that he “wrote the book on the subject” – literally. In 1924, Hill published a study titled “French Music” and was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his efforts. During his lifetime, major American orchestras performed Hill’s music, but today, if he’s remembered at all, it’s as a teacher at Harvard. Toward the end of tenure, one his students was Leonard Bernstein, who, in 1953, made a recording of his teacher’s “Prelude for Orchestra.” Hill died in New Hampshire in 1960, at the age of 88.
Music Played in Today's Program Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960) –Prelude for Orchestra (Columbia Symphony; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) CBS/Sony 61849
Synopsis On today’s date in 1971, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., was inaugurated with a gala performance of a new work by Leonard Bernstein. Entitled “Mass,” this was a musical and visual extravaganza which reinterpreted the text of the Latin liturgy and involved more than 200 singers, dancers, and instrumentalists.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had asked Bernstein to write a piece to open the new Center but was conspicuous by her absence. President Richard Nixon also chose to stay away, rightly fearing that Bernstein’s “Mass” would be interpreted as an embarrassing protest against the war in Vietnam.
The Washington Post’s front-page review, titled “A Reaffirmation of Faith,” was glowing in its praise, but Time magazine’s assessment was condescending, quoting some New York wits who dubbed it the “Mitzvah Solemnis.” The New York Times review was brutal, calling Bernstein’s Mass “a combination of superficiality and pretentiousness . . . [and] the greatest mélange of styles since the ladies’ magazine recipe for steak fried in peanut butter and marshmallow sauce.”
But Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, when she finally did hear Bernstein’s work, sent the composer an inscribed photograph which read: “Lenny – I loved it, yes, I did, and I love you, too. Thank you for making ‘Mass’ so beautiful.”
Music Played in Today's Program Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) –Sanctus, from Mass (Empire Brass) Telarc 80159
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) –Simple Song, from Mass (Boston Pops; John Williams, cond.) Philips 416 360
Synopsis On today’s date in 1971, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., was inaugurated with a gala performance of a new work by Leonard Bernstein. Entitled “Mass,” this was a musical and visual extravaganza which reinterpreted the text of the Latin liturgy and involved more than 200 singers, dancers, and instrumentalists.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had asked Bernstein to write a piece to open the new Center but was conspicuous by her absence. President Richard Nixon also chose to stay away, rightly fearing that Bernstein’s “Mass” would be interpreted as an embarrassing protest against the war in Vietnam.
The Washington Post’s front-page review, titled “A Reaffirmation of Faith,” was glowing in its praise, but Time magazine’s assessment was condescending, quoting some New York wits who dubbed it the “Mitzvah Solemnis.” The New York Times review was brutal, calling Bernstein’s Mass “a combination of superficiality and pretentiousness . . . [and] the greatest mélange of styles since the ladies’ magazine recipe for steak fried in peanut butter and marshmallow sauce.”
But Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, when she finally did hear Bernstein’s work, sent the composer an inscribed photograph which read: “Lenny – I loved it, yes, I did, and I love you, too. Thank you for making ‘Mass’ so beautiful.”
Music Played in Today's Program Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) –Sanctus, from Mass (Empire Brass) Telarc 80159
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) –Simple Song, from Mass (Boston Pops; John Williams, cond.) Philips 416 360
Synopsis “The Three Choirs Festival” is one of England’s oldest musical traditions. Established around 1715, it showcases the cathedral choirs of Gloucester, Worcester, and Herford, and presents both choral and orchestral works by British composers
Vaughan Williams' “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis” was premiered there in 1910, and in the audience was an 18-year-old aspiring composer named Herbert Howells, who later would relate how Vaughan Williams had sat next to him for the remainder of the concert and shared his score of Elgar's “The Dream of Gerontius” with him.
Howells studied music at Gloucester Cathedral before heading off to London and the Royal College of Music. He also got married and had two children. In 1935, his 9-year-old son Michael contracted polio and died three days later. The grief-stricken Howells began composing a memorial work as private therapy, choral sketches he considered too painful to complete and too personal to have performed.
But in 1950 Howells was asked for a new work to be premiered at Three Choirs Festival, and, at the urging of Vaughan Williams and others who had seen Howell’s private sketches, Howells completed a work he titled “Hymnus Paradisi,” and led the premiere himself on September 7, 1950, one day after the 15th anniversary of his son's death.
Music Played in Today's Program Herbert Howells (1892-1983) –Hymnus Paradisi (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra; Vernon Handley, cond.) Hyperion 66448
Synopsis “The Three Choirs Festival” is one of England’s oldest musical traditions. Established around 1715, it showcases the cathedral choirs of Gloucester, Worcester, and Herford, and presents both choral and orchestral works by British composers
Vaughan Williams' “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis” was premiered there in 1910, and in the audience was an 18-year-old aspiring composer named Herbert Howells, who later would relate how Vaughan Williams had sat next to him for the remainder of the concert and shared his score of Elgar's “The Dream of Gerontius” with him.
Howells studied music at Gloucester Cathedral before heading off to London and the Royal College of Music. He also got married and had two children. In 1935, his 9-year-old son Michael contracted polio and died three days later. The grief-stricken Howells began composing a memorial work as private therapy, choral sketches he considered too painful to complete and too personal to have performed.
But in 1950 Howells was asked for a new work to be premiered at Three Choirs Festival, and, at the urging of Vaughan Williams and others who had seen Howell’s private sketches, Howells completed a work he titled “Hymnus Paradisi,” and led the premiere himself on September 7, 1950, one day after the 15th anniversary of his son's death.
Music Played in Today's Program Herbert Howells (1892-1983) –Hymnus Paradisi (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra; Vernon Handley, cond.) Hyperion 66448
Synopsis Works by Henry Kimball Hadley rarely shows up on concert programs anymore, but in the early years of the 20th century, he ranked as a major and very popular American composer. In 1910, Gustav Mahler, during his tenure at the New York Philharmonic, conducted Hadley’s tone poem “The Culprit Fay,” and in 1920, Hadley’s opera “Cleopatra’s Night” was staged at the Metropolitan Opera.
But by the time of his death on today’s date in 1937, Hadley’s full-blown, late-Romantic style was falling out of fashion in the modernist age of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.
In other aspects of his musical career, however Hadley was quite avant-garde and forward-looking: In 1921 he became associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic -- the first American-born conductor to hold a full-time post with any major American orchestra. In 1926, he was invited by Warner Brothers to conduct the Philharmonic at the New York premiere of their silent film “Don Juan,” starting the legendary actor John Barrymore, and the following year wrote an original score for a second Barrymore silent feature entitled “When A Man Loves.”
Hadley is also credited with making the first symphonic “video,” a 10-minute Vitaphone film of Hadley conducting Wagner’s “Tannhauser” Overture that was shown in movie theaters back then and you can still see today via YouTube!
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Kimball Hadley (1871–1937) –The Culprit Fay (Ukraine National Symphony; John McLaughlin Williams, cond.) Naxos 8.559064
Synopsis Works by Henry Kimball Hadley rarely shows up on concert programs anymore, but in the early years of the 20th century, he ranked as a major and very popular American composer. In 1910, Gustav Mahler, during his tenure at the New York Philharmonic, conducted Hadley’s tone poem “The Culprit Fay,” and in 1920, Hadley’s opera “Cleopatra’s Night” was staged at the Metropolitan Opera.
But by the time of his death on today’s date in 1937, Hadley’s full-blown, late-Romantic style was falling out of fashion in the modernist age of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.
In other aspects of his musical career, however Hadley was quite avant-garde and forward-looking: In 1921 he became associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic -- the first American-born conductor to hold a full-time post with any major American orchestra. In 1926, he was invited by Warner Brothers to conduct the Philharmonic at the New York premiere of their silent film “Don Juan,” starting the legendary actor John Barrymore, and the following year wrote an original score for a second Barrymore silent feature entitled “When A Man Loves.”
Hadley is also credited with making the first symphonic “video,” a 10-minute Vitaphone film of Hadley conducting Wagner’s “Tannhauser” Overture that was shown in movie theaters back then and you can still see today via YouTube!
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Kimball Hadley (1871–1937) –The Culprit Fay (Ukraine National Symphony; John McLaughlin Williams, cond.) Naxos 8.559064
Synopsis Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was born in Henniker, New Hampshire, on today’s date in 1867. Amy Beach – or, Mrs. H.H.A. Beach, as she was also called – was one of America’s first major women composers and a gifted concert pianist to boot
We probably have Mr. Beach to thank for Amy’s decision to devote herself more to composition than performance. In the spring of 1885, at the age of 18, Amy debuted as a soloist with the Boston Symphony, and it seemed a major concert career was in the offing. But later that same year, she married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a prominent New England physician. In respect to his wishes and the custom of the day for women in high society, Mrs. H.H.A. Beach curtailed her concert career and concentrated instead on writing music. Her first published work was a setting of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a long-time family friend.
Only after her husband’s death in 1911, did Amy revive her career as a concert pianist with a concert tour throughout Germany, returning to America at the outbreak of World War I. In her later years, she acted as mentor to a whole new generation of American women pursuing careers in music. She died in New York in 1944.
Music Played in Today's Program Amy Beach (1867-1944) –Piano Concerto in c#, Op. 45 (Joanne Polk, piano; English Chamber Orchestra; Paul Goodwin, cond.) Arabesque 6738
Synopsis On today’s date in 1892, Darius Milhaud was born in Aix-en-Provence. He was one of the most amiable – and prolific – of 20th century French composers, producing over 400 works, including a dozen symphonies. Milhaud spent many years in America teaching at Mills College in California, whose climate reminded him of his beloved Provence.
Despite the rheumatoid arthritis that eventually confined him to a wheelchair, and the fact that he was forced to flee his native country when the Nazis arrived, Milhaud titled his 1973 autobiography: “My Happy Life.”
In his autobiography, Milhaud says that after composing his Twelfth Symphony, his publisher, half in jest, asked him to please stop and that surely twelve symphonies were enough. “I did not stop writing symphonies,” Milhaud slyly noted, “but a minor incident prompted me to give them other titles.” That incident occurred after a concert with the Boston Symphony when Milhaud conducted some of his own music. He heard the grandmother of one of his students remark, “All that is very nice, but it is NOT music for Boston!” Amused, Milhaud composed a work he titled: “Music for Boston,” and soon embarked on a whole NEW series of symphonic works, referred to generically as the “Music For” series, which include “Music for” Indiana, New Orleans, Lisbon, and Prague.
Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) –Symphony No. 9, Op. 380 (Basel Radio Symphony; Alun Francis, cond.) CPO 199 166
Synopsis On today’s date in 1931, a short notice appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, which began: “Music never before heard in San Francisco will make up the program of the New Music Society to be conducted by Nicolas Slonimsky of Boston tonight in the Community Playhouse.” In addition to new works by Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Slonimsky conducted pieces by three American composers, including the world premiere of “Washington’s Birthday,” by Charles Ives.
Ives had written “Washington’s Birthday” in 1909, and the following year had talked some theater musicians into giving the work a run-through. “They made an awful fuss about playing it,” Ives recalled, “and only after some of the parts that seemed to me to be the best and strongest were cut.” About 10 years later, he asked some players of the New York Symphony to give the score a private reading at his home. Again, the musicians complained it was just too difficult.
Slonimsky’s 1931 performance in San Francisco presented the score complete and as originally written. Ives, who lived on the East Coast, was not present for the San Francisco premiere, but was delighted to learn – as he put it: “Neither the audience nor the critics were disturbed to the point of cussing.
Music Played in Today's Program Charles Ives (1874-1954) –Washington's Birthday (Chicago Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond.) CBS/Sony 42381
Synopsis On today’s date in 1773, the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa was visiting the country estate of Prince Nikolaus of Esterhazy. Among the attractions there were an opera house, a marionette theater, and the Prince’s impressive chamber orchestra led by Franz Joseph Haydn.
It’s possible that Haydn’s Symphony No. 48 was performed for the Empress – in any case, this symphony came to be nicknamed the “Maria Theresa.” We do know that Haydn and his orchestra did perform for the Empress – and that they were all dressed up in Chinese costumes for one performance during her visit! Among other “duties as assigned,” Haydn shot three wild game hens that were cooked up for the Empress’s dinner. Ah, the life of a court musician in the 18th century!
It’s also reported that Haydn told the Empress an amusing story from his childhood in Vienna. Apparently repair work was being done on St. Stephens Cathedral when Haydn was a boy soprano in the Cathedral Choir. The Empress was annoyed at the racket made by choirboys playing on the scaffolding and ordered that the next one caught playing up there would get a spanking. The following day Haydn climbed the scaffold, was caught, and received the promised punishment.
Apparently they both got a good laugh out of recalling the story.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) –Symphony No. 48 in C (Maria Theresa) (Polish Chamber Orchestra; Jerzy Maksymiuk, cond.) EMI Classics 69767
Synopsis On today’s date in 17th century Germany, a baby boy was christened who would grow up to be one of the leading composers and organists of his time. No, it wasn’t Johann Sebastian Bach – although the child we’re discussing here would become the teacher of the teacher of J.S. Bach and did serve as godfather to one J.S. Bach’s older relations.
It was Johann Pachelbel who was baptized on today’s date in Nuremberg in the year 1653. A famous musician in his day, after his death in 1706, Pachelbel would be pretty much forgotten by most music lovers until late in the 20th century, when an orchestral arrangement of a little chamber piece that he had written would, as Pachelbel’s “Canon,” suddenly become an unexpected hit. In 1979, the American composer George Rochberg even included a set of variations on Pachelbel’s Canon as the 3rd movement of his own String Quartet No. 6.
Like Bach, some of Pachelbel’s children also became composers, and one of them, Karl Teodorus Pachelbel, emigrated from Germany to the British colonies of North America. As “Charles Theodore Pachelbel,” he became an important figure in the musical life of early 18th century Boston and Charleston, where he died in 1750, the same year as J.S. Bach
Music Played in Today's Program George Rochberg (1918-2005) –Variations on Pachelbel's Canon, from String Quartet No. 6 (Concord Quartet) New World 80551
Synopsis On today’s date in 1928, Kurt Weill’s “Three Penny Opera,” whose cast members portrayed thieves, murderers, and sex workers, debuted at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin.
“The Three-Penny Opera” was a 20th century updating of a satirical 18th century British ballad-opera by John Gay, titled “The Beggar’s Opera.” A new German text was provided by playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill provided a jazzy score.
“The Three Penny Opera” was a smash success in Berlin, and within a year was taken up by theaters all over Europe. But in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, all performances of “The Three Penny Opera” were banned, since Kurt Weill was Jewish, and Bertolt Brecht a communist sympathizer.
Just as “The Three Penny Opera” was being banned in Germany, its 1933 American premiere in New York was a flop, and the show closed after only a dozen performances. It wasn’t until 1952 that it was successfully revived in America. With a new English translation by the American composer Marc Bliztstein, the “Three Penny Opera” was reintroduced by Leonard Bernstein at a Music Festival at Brandeis University, and in 1954 reopened off -roadway in Greenwich Village to sold-out houses and rave reviews.
Music Played in Today's Program Kurt Weill (1900 - 1950) –Three Penny Opera (Suite Canadian Chamber Ensemble; Raffi Armenian, cond.) CBC 5010
Synopsis It was on this day in 1929 that a new march by John Philip Sousa was played for the first time – once – and then promptly forgotten until almost 60 years later. The “Foshay Tower Washington Memorial March” was commissioned by Wilbur Foshay, a high-flying Minneapolis businessman of the Roaring 20s who fell victim to the stock market crash and criminal charges of mail fraud.
One of his extravagant projects was the Foshay Tower he built in downtown Minneapolis, a building shaped like the Washington Monument. The building still stands, with Foshay’s name carved in huge letters on all sides of the obelisk, now renovated as a historic site. In the lobby hangs Wilbur Foshay’s portrait, along with the score of Sousa’s march, which the March King himself conducted in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1929.
Soon after Wilbur Foshay’s empire of public utilities, factories and banks crumbled to dust, and he was convicted of fraud, spending two years and eleven months in Leavenworth prison. Not surprisingly, John Philip Sousa never got paid for his commission. He considered giving it a new name: “The Washington Memorial March,” but then decided to withdraw the piece completely, and the music was not published or performed again until 1988.
Music Played in Today's Program John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) –Foshay Tower (Washington Memorial) March (Great American Main Street Band; Timothy Foley, cond.) EMI/Angel 54130
Synopsis On today's date in 1952, at the aptly named Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York, pianist David Tudor premiered two new works by the American composer John Cage.
The first, titled "Water Music," was scored for a "prepared piano" – a piano into whose metal strings various items had been inserted to alter its sound – plus a duck call and transistor radio. For the second work, Tudor simply closed the lid of the piano, set a stopwatch for the length of the work's four sections – 4 minutes and 33 seconds to be exact – and then sat quietly on the piano bench. The composition consisted of whatever sounds occurred in that amount of time at that particular moment in time, including any breathing, coughing or snickering from the audience.
Some likened the piece to the all-white canvases of the avant-garde painter Robert Rauschenberg, on which accidental aspects of dust or bumps in the canvas created an arbitrary texture. Others thought it an outrageous affront at worst, or a bad joke at best. Whatever else one might think of it, as pianist David Tudor put it, "Cage's 4:33 is one of the most intense listening experiences one can have."
Cage once said: "I'm interested in making sounds that I don't understand," and insisted that random, unplanned sounds were as welcome to his ears as those he organized himself, as in this Cage piece for prepared piano titled "Mysterious Adventure."
Music Played in Today's Program John Cage (1912-1992) –Nos. 5 and 12, fr Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Robert Miller, p.) New World 80203
Synopsis Franz Liszt, the inventor of the "symphonic poem," wrote 13 of them. The second, "Tasso," had its first performance on today's date in 1849. The occasion was a festival celebrating the 100th birthday of the great German national poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the author of "Faust." The festival was in Weimar, Germany, the city where Goethe died and was buried in 1832.
Liszt's "Tasso" was written to serve as the overture to Goethe's drama about the Italian poet "Torquato Tasso," and its premiere performance was conducted by its composer. The main theme of the work is said to be a tune Liszt claimed he heard sung by an Italian gondolier in Venice.
One of the more surprising tributes to Goethe occurred not in Germany, but in scenic Aspen, Colorado, when the Aspen Music Festival was founded in Goethe's honor in 1949 – on the 200th anniversary of his birth. The Aspen Music Festival has grown over the years and today draws some 30,000 visitors annually. One of the original founders of the Festival was French composer Darius Milhaud, who taught at the Aspen Music School for many years. This music is from Milhaud's "Aspen Serenade," written in 1957.
More recently, during conductor David Zinman years as the Festival's Music Director, many contemporary American composers, including John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, Christopher Rouse, and Augusta Read Thomas, have had their works performed – and occasionally premiered – in Aspen.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Liszt (1811-1886) –Tasso (Orchestre de Paris; Sir Georg Solti, cond.) London 417 513
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) –Aspen Serenade, Op 361 (Stuttgart Radio Symphony; Gilbert Varga, cond.) CPO 999114
Synopsis On today's date in 1937, in Mexico City, the Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez conducted the first performance of this music by Aaron Copland.
The music owes its existence to Copland's friendship with Chavez, which led to Copland visiting Mexico in 1932. Copland and Chavez paid a visit to a wild Mexico City Dance Hall called "El Salon Mexico." Quoting a guide-book description of the place in his memoirs, Copland noted its "Three halls: one for people dressed up, one for people dressed in overalls but shod, and one for the barefoot." A sign on a wall over the dance floor read: "Please don't throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies don't burn their feet!"
"In some inexplicable way," Copland recalled, "while milling about in those crowded halls, I felt a live contact with the Mexican people – their humanity, their shyness, their dignity and unique charm. I remember quite well that it was at such a moment I conceived the idea of composing a piece about Mexico and naming it 'El Salon Mexico.'"
Five years later Chavez conducted Copland's music in Mexico City. Copland admits he was nervous about how Mexican audiences would react. He had little to fear – Chavez and the musicians loved it, and so did the local critics, who called it "as Mexican as the music of Revueltas," which at the time, says Copland, was like saying, "as American as the music of Gershwin."
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) –El Salòn Mexico (New Philharmonia; Aaron Copland, cond.) CBS/Sony 46559
Synopsis On today’s date in 2001, during the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter premiered a new chamber work for violin and piano titled “Tango, Song and Dance.” She had commissioned the work from Andre Previn several years earlier, but its premiere was delayed as Mutter embarked on a project to perform and record all Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas.
“After doing all those stern [Beethoven] recitals,” said Mutter, “I wanted to play pieces which reflected the basis of musical history, the folksongs and dances which has inspired composers through so many centuries. ‘Tango, Song and Dance’ is both modern and old-fashioned, and it touches the heart, especially the slow movement, which is really a ‘Song Without Words’.”
And that wasn’t the only thing to touch her heart. It was around this time that Previn and Mutter became husband and wife. For his part, Andre said, “I have one piece of advice to composers for the violin – make sure Anne-Sophie premieres your piece. Then you’re home and dry, and everything works!”
Other composers seem to agree, and Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutoslawski, Henri Dutilleux, Wolfgang Rihm, and John Williams have all written violin works for Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Music Played in Today's Program Andre Previn (1929-2019) –Tango Song and Dance III. Dance (Lambert Okis, pno; Anne-Sophie Mutter, vln.) DG 8143
Synopsis You almost feel sorry for the guy – after all, how would you like to go down in history as the fellow who tried to stiff J.S. Bach? That’s what happened to Herr Johannes Friedrich Eitelwein, a rich merchant of Leipzig who thought he could avoid paying the customary wedding fee apportioned to that city’s church musicians by getting married outside of the city limits.
Back then such fees provided a significant portion of their income, and so on today’s date in 1733, Bach and two other church musicians sent a letter to the Leipzig City Council complaining that, whether married inside or outside of the city, as a Leipzig resident, and a wealthy one to boot, Eitelwein should pay up.
Now in the 18th Century, such petitions required a delicate balance of formal flattery and firm persistence, so the letter begins: “Magnificent, most honorable gentlemen, our wise and learned councilors, distinguished Lords and Patrons: may it please you to condescend to hear how Herr Johannes Friedrich Eitelwein was married on the twelfth of August of the present year out of town, and therefore thinks himself entitled to withhold the fees due us in all such cases, and has made bold to disregard our many kind reminders.”
Bach’s letter survives, but not any records letting us know if Eitelwein ever paid up!
Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685–1750) –“Weichet Nur,” from “Wedding” Cantata No. 202 (Elly Ameling, soprano; Academy of St Martin in the Fields; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) EMI Classics
Synopsis On today's date in 1907, the "Pomp and Circumstance" March No. 4 by Sir Edward Elgar had its premiere performance in London. Say "Pomp and Circumstance" to most people and they will start humming the tune of Number One, later set to words as "Land of Hope and Glory." That march accompanied many of us down the aisle at our high school or college graduations.
In all, Elgar composed five "Pomp and Circumstance" marches, and meant to write a sixth, but just never got around to it. No. 1 is the most familiar, but No. 4 runs a close second, with another very noble, very British main tune. During World War II, Sir Alan Herbert fitted his "Song of Freedom" to this music and with its opening line of "All men must be free," it became an unofficial alternate British national anthem.
Meanwhile on these shores, we note that one of America's classic chamber jazz ensembles was founded on today's date in 1951 in New York City , when the Modern Jazz Quartet was formed by pianist John Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Under the direction of Lewis, the Quartet fused jazz improvisation with classical forms and Baroque counterpoint. Instead of playing in smoky bars, MJQ made a point of playing in concert halls and even wore tuxes, asking audiences to afford their chamber jazz the same attention and respect usually reserved for classical music.
Music Played in Today's Program Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) –Pomp and Circumstance (No. 4 London Philharmonic; Daniel Barenboim, cond.) Sony Classical 60789
Milt Jackson (1923 - 1999) –Blues in c (Modern Jazz Quartet) Atlantic 1652
Synopsis On today's date in 1944, the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky completed an orchestral score he titled "Scenes de Ballet" or "Ballet Scenes." Now, considering Stravinsky had achieved international fame for his earlier ballet scores for "The Firebird," "Petroushka" and "The Rite of Spring," perhaps the generic title "Ballet Scenes" was not all that surprising.
What was surprising was that the commission for this 1944 score came from an unusual source – Broadway. New York impresario and nightclub owner Billy Rose had achieved fame the previous year for his Broadway production of "Carmen Jones" – an updated American version of Bizet's opera "Carmen" with an all-black cast and a jazzed-up score. Rose decided to capitalize on this popular success with something more "upscale and highbrow." Rose conceived of a stage review titled "The Seven Lively Arts," and for the dance component decided to commission the most famous living composer of ballet scores, Igor Stravinsky, who was then living in Los Angeles.
Rose liked the score when he heard it played on the piano, but he thought Stravinsky's orchestration a bit too far-out, and this led to a famous coast-to-coast telegraph exchange. After a preview performance in Philadelphia, Rose sent this telegram message to Stravinsky: "Great success, but could be sensational success if you would authorize Robert Russell Bennett to retouch orchestration."
Stravinsky telegraphed this reply to Billy Rose: "Satisfied with great success."
Music Played in Today's Program Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) –Scènes de Ballet (London Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond.) RCA/BMG 68865
Synopsis We have a silly anniversary to note today – seriously!
On today's date in 1929, Walt Disney released his first "Silly Symphonies" cartoon. Entitled "The Skeleton Dance," it depicted four skeletons dancing and making music in a graveyard, employing bizarre instruments, including an unfortunate cat played like a fiddle and the skeletons' own bones, played like a xylophone.
While its release on Halloween might have been more appropriate, perhaps "The Skeleton Dance" provided some pleasurable spinal chills for moviegoers on a hot August evening back in 1929. In any case, this "Silly Symphony" was a huge success for Disney, became an instant classic, and was voted #18 in a 1994 poll of "The 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time" by professional animators.
And speaking of classics, a bit of Edvard Grieg's spooky "March of the Trolls" was used to great effect in "The Skeleton Dance." But credit for its success should go first to Carl W. Stalling, a legendary composer and arranger of cartoon music and absolute master of unexpected segues, witty allusions, and surreal orchestration, and second, to pioneering Disney animator Ub Iwerks, likewise a master in his field. |
Chuck Jones, an animator famous for his much later Warner Brothers cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner, had worked for Iwerks' studio in his youth, and put it this way: "Iwerks is Screwy spelled backwards."
Music Played in Today's Program Edward Grieg (1843-1907) March of the Trolls
Synopsis For over 120 years the late summer music festival known as the BBC Proms has been presenting memorable concerts in London, but one of the most memorable occurred on today’s date in 1968.
The scheduled performers at the Royal Albert Hall were the USSR State Symphony, its conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, and the virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. As the musicians took to the stage, boos and cat-calls were mixed with the applause, and some shouts of “Go home!” and “Russians out!”
The reason? Earlier that same day, the Soviet Union and its East Block allies had invaded Czechoslovakia, sending troops and tanks into the country to crush the so-called “Prague Spring,” a period of liberalization and reform that threatened Communist control of that nation.
By a cruel stroke of irony, one of the works on the scheduled program of the Soviet orchestra was the Cello Concerto of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. There were some shouts of protests as Rostropovich began to play, but by the end of his intense performance, all was quiet. Rostropovich had played with tears streaming down his face, and after finishing held up the conductor’s score of the concerto as both a sign of solidary with the Czech nation and act of mute protest of the invasion.
Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvorak (1841 -1904) –Cello Concerto in b, Op. 104 (Mstislav Rostropovich, vcl; USSR State Symphony; Yevgeny Svetlanov, cond.) BBC Legends CD 4110 (r. live August 21, 1968 at the BBC Proms)
Synopsis Two concert overtures – one very famous and one not so famous – had their premiere performances on today's date.
In 1956, this music by British composer Sir Arthur Bliss provided a festive opening to that year's Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama. The Edinburgh Festival Overture is a salute to Scotland's premiere arts festival, presented annually in late summer and early fall since 1947.
Also premiered on today's date was Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," commissioned for an international Exhibition of Industry and the Arts in Moscow, and first played at an all-Tchaikovsky concert on today's date in 1882. As pleased as Tchaikovsky was that his music was to be presented at the Exhibition, he was definitely not enthusiastic about the commission.
"There is nothing less to my liking," he wrote, "than composing for the sake of some festival. What, for instance, can you write on the occasion of the opening of an exhibition except banalities and generally noisy passages?" On top of all that, the commission called for something (quote) "with a hint of church music, which must certainly be Orthodox." Glumly, Tchaikovsky to work, writing to another friend: "I don't think it has any serious merits, and I shouldn't be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts."
Ah, Peter Ilyich – you certainly got that one wrong!
Music Played in Today's Program Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) –Edinburgh Overture (City of Birmingham Symphony; Vernon Handley, cond.) EMI Classics 69388
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) –1812 Overture (Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, cond. Phillips 442 011)
Synopsis If you were in Washington, D.C. on today's date in 1957, and wanted to escape the summer heat, tickets for a new musical at the air-conditioned National Theater would run you between $1.10 and $5.50 – and you could boast for years afterwards that you attended the world premiere performance of Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story."
Actually, the three-week trial run of "West Side Story" at DC's National Theater was a hot ticket. The premiere attracted a fashionable crowd of Washington elite as well as those who trained or planed their way to the national's capitol to catch the latest work of America's musical "boy wonder" – the 38-year old Leonard Bernstein.
Even so, The Washington Post reported Bernstein was able to wander the lobby at intermission largely unrecognized – to eavesdrop on audience reaction. One woman who did recognize him identified herself as a former social worker in a rough neighborhood like the one depicted in his musical. "It's all so real, so true," she told Bernstein. "It chills my blood to remember." Bernstein was a little taken aback. "It isn't meant to be realistic," he said. "Poetry – Poetry set to music – that's what we were trying to do."
But gang violence as the subject for a musical was shocking to 1957 audiences. When the show opened on Broadway, the New York "Times" expressed its impact as follows: "Although the material is horrifying, the workmanship is admirable… 'West Side Story' is a profoundly moving show."
Music Played in Today's Program Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) –Prologue, fr West Side Story (orchestra and chorus; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) DG 415 255
Synopsis Today is the birthday of Antonio Salieri, one of the most unjustly maligned composers in history.
The successful stage play and movie "Amadeus" have helped to repeat the notorious charge that the jealous 18th-century Italian composer Antonio Salieri was directly or indirectly responsible for Mozart's early death. Historians have acquitted Salieri of this crime, but more people are familiar with the fiction than the facts.
The truth is that Salieri was often quite friendly to Mozart during his lifetime, and after Mozart's death served as a music teacher to Mozart's talented son, Franz Xaver Mozart. The long-lived Salieri also gave lessons in the Italian style to Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt – surely signs of a nature more generous than jealous.
Salieri was born in Legnano, Italy in 1750. He came in Vienna in 1766, when he was 16 years old, and Vienna remained his home until the end of his life. A protégé of the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II, Salieri even accompanied that very musical monarch, who played the cello, at royal chamber music sessions. As a composer, Salieri enjoyed imperial patronage from his arrival in Vienna until 1800, a period of some 35 years.
Some of the operas Salieri wrote for Vienna have been revived and recorded in our time. He wrote over 40 of them, including a comic opera entitled "The Talisman" – an opera composed to a text by Mozart's favorite librettist, Lorenzo da Ponti.
Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) –Symphony No. 25 (Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) Fantasy 900 1791
Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) –La locandiera Overture (London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, cond.) Chandos 9877
Synopsis On today's date in 1928, the Columbia Phonograph Company of New York announced that the Symphony No. 6 by the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg was the winner of its $10,000 Schubert Memorial Prize.
The Competition was intended to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Schubert's death, and originally, Columbia wanted the prize to go to the composer who most successfully "finished" Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony." After protests that this was an insult to Schubert's memory, Columbia expanded the competition to include the best original score conceived in the spirit of Schubert's music. Attenberg's Symphony was chosen as the winner by an international jury, which included several composers.
Now, in 1928, $10,000 was a small fortune – and about 10 times the normal commission fee for a big symphonic work. Not surprisingly, Atterberg's score was soon nicknamed "The Dollar Symphony." Some even accused him of cynically tailoring his music to appeal to the conservative taste of the competition's jury, and even quoting from works by the composers on the panel to curry their favor.
Atterberg defended himself by pointing out the Symphony's opening movements were very much in his normal style, but admitted the final movement was, in fact, intended as a parody of the competition's requirement to write in Schubert's style. "It brought me special pleasure," Atterberg said, "to observe that all the critics who found reminiscences of other composer's works were not able to identify a very obvious quotation of a Schubert theme in my Rondo-Finale."
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Schubert (1797-1828) –Symphony No. 8 in b (Unfinished) (Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Claudio Abbado, cond.) DG 423 655
Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974) –Symphony No. 6 in C (Dollar Symphony) (Norrköping Symphony; Jun'ichi Hirokami, cond.) Bis 553
Synopsis On today's date, Elvis left the building – permanently.
On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley died in Memphis, Tennessee. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935, Elvis first earned his living as a mechanic and furniture repairman who occasionally played cowboy ballads on the guitar at parties. But somehow Elvis reinvented himself and became the archetypal rock 'n' roll superstar, revered more as the modern day reincarnation of the Greek god Dionysius than a mere mortal.
His funeral caused such an outpouring of hysteria and that two people died in the chaos and many more were injured. There was even a bizarre plot at the time to kidnap Elvis' corpse and hold it for ransom. And, of course, some people claim he never died at all.
American composer Michael Daughtery has taken pop icons like Elvis as the inspiration for a number of his concert works. He has even written a bassoon concerto titled "Dead Elvis" – a set of variations on the Dies Irae theme from the Latin Mass for the Dead. In performance, the composer asks that the soloist enter in the familiar costume of Las Vegas Elvis – sunglasses and a rhinestone-encrusted white jumpsuit with a plunging, open, neckline. Hip gyrations are optional.
Michael Daugherty writes: "Elvis is a part of American culture, history, and mythology, for better or for worse. If you want to understand American and all its riddles, sooner or later you have to deal with Elvis."
Music Played in Today's Program Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) –Dead Elvis (Charles Ullery, bassoon; London Sinfonietta; David Zinman, cond.) Argo 458 145
Synopsis In the Catholic Liturgical calendar, today is celebrated as the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. In the Middle Ages, when the veneration of Mary as Notre Dame – French for "Our Lady" – was at its peak, a "Lady Mass" would be sung on a day like this.
And it's quite likely that one of the earliest-known settings of the Latin mass, the "Notre Dame Mass" by Guillaume de Machaut, was performed as a Lady Mass at one particular chapel in the Cathedral of Reims for many years in the 14th century. Guillaume and his brother Jean were both canons at that Cathedral and had arranged an endowment for a mass in honor of Mary to be sung there every Saturday.
In our day, Guillaume de Machaut's Notre Dame Mass is his most famous work, but in his own time, the age of Chaucer, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, he was far better known as a secular poet of Courtly Love. Machaut had been a widely-travelled and extremely well-connected artist before returning to his native Reims at the end of his life. Before that, employment by various members of the royalty took him from Paris to Prague and on trips to Italy, Poland, and Lithuania.
It's ironic that Machaut is nowadays famous for his sacred music – this one Mass in particular – when the vast majority of his music was decidedly secular in tone.
Music Played in Today's Program Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377) –Messe de Nostre Dame
Synopsis The fact that a new opera might debut at the Salzburg Festival in Austria is not in itself an unusual occurrence. But in August of the year 2000, the new opera in question was "L'Amour de Loin" or "Distant Love" by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho – making it the first opera by a female composer ever to be staged at the prestigious international Festival, and one that opened to rave reviews.
Born in Helsinki in 1952, Saariaho now lives with her husband and children in Paris. She has said that though she loves Helsinki, she's more comfortable in a city where she is not a celebrity. "I'm too well recognized in Finland," says Saariaho. "When I say this to colleagues in America, they think it's fantastic that there is a country where contemporary music composers can be esteemed public personalities."
Speaking of summer-time opera premieres, Richard Wagner's "Die Walküre" had its first performance as part of his "Ring Cycle" on today's date in 1876, at Wagner's own theater in Bayreuth, a small town in Southern Germany.
Some early critics thought building a big theater in such an out-of-the-way place was a monumental act of folly, but Wagnerites have been making the midsummer pilgrimage there for over 125 years – despite the lack of air-conditioning in Wagner's theater. Appropriately, it's some of the warmest music from "Die Walküre" – the "Magic Fire" scene that brings the opera to its close.
Music Played in Today's Program Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) –…à la fumée (Petri Alanko, f; Anssi Karttunen, vcl; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen, cond.) Ondine 804
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) –Magic Fire Music, fr Die Walküre (Cleveland Orchestra; George Szell, cond.) CBS/Sony 46286
Synopsis On today's date in 1950, the orchestra of the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla, California gave the premiere performance of this music by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. The "Sinfonietta La Jolla" was Martinu's response to the Society's call for a tuneful and approachable piece of new music for their chamber orchestra.
Martinu modeled his 20th century work on the 18th century symphonies of Haydn, a composer he very much admired. In fact, in 1890, when Martinu was born, his native Bohemia was still a part of the Austria-Hungarian empire in which Haydn had lived and worked a hundred years earlier.
Martinu's music blends the modernism of 20th century composers like Stravinsky with the rich 19th century tradition of Czech national composers like Dvořák – but Martinu's relations with his native land were anything but smooth. He was twice kicked out of the Prague Conservatory for his supposed lack of academic discipline, and instead established himself as a freelance composer in France and Switzerland. Then, just as his music began to receive some recognition and performances back in Prague, the Nazi invasion of World War II led to his works being banned.
In 1941, Martinu settled in the United States, where his music was very well received. In 1948, Martinu returned briefly to Prague, but found the new Communist government there as distasteful to him as the Nazis. Martinu's "Sinfonietta La Jolla" was written shortly after he returned to the United States.
Music Played in Today's Program Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) –Sinfonietta "La Jolla" (Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Christopher Hogwood, cond.) London 433 660
Synopsis Each summer, music lovers congregate about 25 miles north of downtown Chicago for the annual Ravinia Festival, the oldest outdoor music festival in America, and since 1936 the summer home of the Chicago Symphony.
But on today’s date in 2013, Ravinia was the venue for world-premiere performances of several new art songs, including “Twilight Butterfly,” by the American composer Augusta Read Thomas, a setting of a poetic text written by the composer herself.
“The poetic is always in my music”, explained Thomas. “In writing ‘Twilight Butterfly’ … I began with a mental picture … [of] someone, viewing a butterfly fluttering on a deep summer evening beneath the twilight moon. This imagery became so specific that writing my own lyrics was almost inescapable.”
Now even at their most poetic, composers must keep practical considerations in mind, as Thomas explained:
"Beyond the evocative, impressionist nature of the piece … I sought to provide a comfortable performance environment for the singer. My lyrics integrate words whose open vowel sounds suit the voice ... The piano gives the singer pitches at every entrance … [and] rubato indications allow the singer delicate rhythmic and interpretive flexibility.”
Music Played in Today's Program Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) –Twilight Butterfly (Yvonne Redman, soprano; Julie Gunn, piano) Nimbus 6306
Synopsis Elia Kazan's film, "On the Waterfront," a 1954 black and white classic starring Marlon Brando, won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was also nominated for – but didn't win – that year's Oscar for best original score. It was Leonard Bernstein's first film score, and his last. He didn't enjoy the experience:
"I had become so involved in each detail of the score," Bernstein recalled, "that it seemed to me the most important part of the picture. I had to keep reminding myself that it really is the LEAST important part… Sometimes the music would be turned off completely to allow a line to stand forth stark and bare, and then be turned on again. Sometimes the music, planned as a composition with a beginning, middle, and end, would be silenced seven bars before the end… And so the composer sits by, protesting as he can, but ultimately accepting with a heavy heart the inevitable loss of a good part of the score. Everyone tries to comfort you. 'You can always use it in a suite.' Cold comfort. It's good for the picture, you repeat numbly to yourself… it's good for the picture."
But Bernstein did fashion a concert suite from "On the Waterfront" and, not one to waste time, conducted the first performance with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood on today's date in 1954, exactly two weeks after the film opened.
Music Played in Today's Program Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) –On the Waterfront Suite (Israel Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) DG 415 253
Synopsis On today's date, Wolfgang Mozart completed two of his most famous works: on August 10th, 1787, the Serenade known as "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," and, on the same day exactly one year later, the "Jupiter Symphony" – Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in C Major.
Despite the fame of "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" – which translates as "A Little Night Music" – nothing is known for certain about the circumstances of its composition. Since a Serenade is a suite of orchestral movements normally written as background music for some rich patron's patio party, we can assume "Eine kleine" filled such a function some pleasant evening in Vienna. We can only hope the patrons appreciated what they got for their money.
Hardly any more is known about the composition of Mozart's final symphony, the "Jupiter," as no relevant letters or documents survive from this period of his life. The "Jupiter" nickname appears to have originated years later in London. In Germany it was just called "the symphony with the fugal finale."
There's a classic recording of Mozart's symphony favorites featuring the Marlboro Festival Orchestra with Pablo Casals conducting. The Marlboro Festival is held each summer for seven weeks in a cluster of old farm buildings on a hilltop in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Talented young professional musicians from all over the country gather here, principally to study, secondly to perform, for audiences eager to hear both the emerging and established Marlboro musicians.
Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) –Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) EMI Classics 65690
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) –Symphony No. 41 in C (Jupiter) (Marlboro Festival Orchestra; Pablo Casals, cond.) CBS/Sony 47294
Synopsis In the 19th century, the German spa town of Baden-Baden was the place to be in the summer. Wealthy international tourists could bathe in artesian wells by day, and by night, gamble at the casino or attend performances at a splendid theater modeled on the Paris Opera.
That theater opened on today’s date in 1862 with the premiere of a new comic opera by the French composer Hector Berlioz, based closely on Shakespeare's comedy ‘Much Ado About Nothing', and titled “Beatrice and Benedict” after the witty pair of lovers in the play. The composer himself conducted.
“A great success,” Berlioz wrote the next day. “…applauded from beginning to end. I was recalled to the stage I don’t know how many times.” Despite the success, Berlioz confessed, “My infernal neuralgia was so bad that I mounted the podium …without feeling the slightest emotion. This bizarre indifference meant I conducted better than usual!”
Despite making light of his increasing illness, possibly Crohn’s Disease, this opera proved to be his last work, and Berlioz had only a few more years to live. His biographer David Cairns writes: "Listening to the score's exuberant gaiety, only momentarily touched by sadness, one would never guess that its composer was in pain when he wrote it and impatient for death.”
Music Played in Today's Program Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) –”Beatrice and Benedict” Overture (Boston Symphony; Charles Munch, cond.) RCA Victor Gold Seal 61400
Synopsis The French composer and concert pianist Cecile Chaminade was born in Paris on this date in 1857. She wrote symphonic works and even operas, but it was her piano pieces and songs that became enormously popular with amateur musicians around the turn of the century, especially in America.
In the decade before World War I, over a hundred "Chaminade Clubs" sprouted up in America, where Chaminade's music was performed by and for her fans. So imagine the excitement when it was announced that Madame Chaminade herself would be giving a concert tour of Eastern and Midwest states in 1908. Chaminade's American tour opened and closed at New York's Carnegie Hall, and over a two-month period she performed in Philadelphia, Louisville, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Boston, and Washington DC.
In 1908, the majority of amateur musicians in America were women, but the majority of music critics were men – the latter gave Chaminade's concerts mixed reviews at best, and downright sexist put-downs at worst. For her part, Chaminade was used to that sort of reception in Europe – and the limited role society allowed women artists in her day.
But in a Washington Post interview published during her American tour, Chaminade remained optimistic: "There is no sex in art," she said. "Genius is an independent quality. The woman of the future, with her broader outlook, her greater opportunities, will go far, I believe, in creative work of every description."
Music Played in Today's Program Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944) L'Ondine, Op. 101 and Scherzo in C, fr Op. 35 (Peter Jacobs, p.) Hyperion 66584
Synopsis On today’s date in 1829, the German composer Felix Mendelssohn and his friend, Karl Klingemann, were on the North Sea bound for Glasgow.
Klingemann was not impressed with Scotland and wrote home that the rough North Sea passage had made most of the passengers sick – with one remarkable exception. “An 82-year old woman,” he wrote, “sat calmly by the smoke stack, warming herself in the cold wind. She was determined to see Staffa before she died. Staffa, with its silly basalt columns and caves, is in all the picture books. So, we were put into boats and clambered past the hissing sea on stumps of columns up to the odiously celebrated Fingal’s Cave. I must say, never did such green and roaring waves pound in a stranger cave. The many pillars make the inside resemble a monstrous organ. Black, resounding, and utterly without any purpose at all…”
Well, perhaps not utterly without purpose, since Felix Mendelssohn sent a letter home to HIS family on August 7 which included a scrap of musical notation. “To give you an idea of how strange I felt,” wrote Mendelssohn, “this music occurred to me.” It was the opening theme of what would become his concert overture titled “The Hebrides, or Fingal’s Cave.”
Music Played in Today's Program Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847) –The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) (Overture BBC Symphony; Sir Colin Davis, cond.) Philips 426 978
Synopsis On today's date in 1946, Leonard Bernstein conducted the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera, "Peter Grimes," at the Tanglewood Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts. "Peter Grimes" had received its very first performance in London the previous year, and had already been staged elsewhere in Europe before reaching America. In fact, this quintessentially British opera was originally an American commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation run by the famous conductor and music patron Serge Koussevitzky, who was the founder and guiding spirit of the Tanglewood Festival.
Opera News covered the American premiere with a feature titled "Peter Grimes On Trial – A Symposium of Verdicts," beginning by quoting with the grudging praise of the New York Times' very conservative critic that the opera was "a very interesting modern work in a provocative form."
Also included were quotes from the lead singers, who noted its "strange intervals, harmonies, and difficult counter-play of the various voices." But Boris Goldowsky, the music director of the Tanglewood Center, provided the most accurate assessment, given the hindsight of history: "The opera has lasting merit," said Goldovsky, "and it will join the standard repertory. Like all new works, it was difficult at first, but future productions will be easier."
Here's an additional historical footnote: the Tanglewood premiere of "Peter Grimes" was the first opera Leonard Bernstein conducted professionally, and the opera's instrumental "Sea Interludes" were on the program of the last orchestral concert he ever conducted, 44 years later, in August of 1990, and again at Tanglewood.
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) –Sunday Morning and Storm, fr Peter Grimes (New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) Sony Classical 47541
Synopsis The gourmet composer Gioachino Rossini had a beef dish, Tournedos Rossini, named after him, and over the centuries countless towns have honored their native composers by naming streets after them – but few can top the honor bestowed on the late Olivier Messiaen by the citizens of Parowan, Utah. They named a mountain after him.
On today's date in 1978, the citizens of Parowan resolved to name a local mountain Mt. Messiaen in honor of the French composer, who had spent a month in Utah five years earlier while working on his symphonic suite titled "From the Canyons to the Stars."
Messiaen had been commissioned to write a work for the American Bicentennial in 1976. Apparently back in France he owned of a series of books titled "Wonders of the World," which included striking color pictures of the canyons of Utah, which so fired Messiaen's imagination that he made a special pilgrimage to Bryce Canyon in Utah see them with his own eyes. The result was an orchestra score titled "From the Canyons to the Stars," which includes a movement titled "Bryce Canyon and the Red-orange rocks."
"Colors are very important to me," Messiaen once said. "I have a gift – it's not my fault, it's just how I am – whenever I hear music or even if I read music, I see colors. The colors do just what the sounds do: they are always changing, but they are marvelous."
Music Played in Today's Program Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) –Bryce Canyon and the Red-Orange Rocks, fr From the Canyons to the Stars (London Sinfonietta; Esa-Pekka Salonen, cond.) CBS/Sony 44762
Synopsis Today marks the birthday of American composer David Raksin, born in 1912 in Philadelphia. He studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg, was friends with Igor Stravinsky, and has written a wide range of concert music. Yet Raksin is best known for one haunting tune – the theme he wrote for a classic 1944 film noir entitled "Laura."
David Raksin said the true story behind this music sounds like something out of a Grade-B movie. The very weekend he faced a deadline and simply had to come up with a theme for "Laura," Raksin says he received a "Dear John" letter from his wife stating she was leaving him. Unwilling to believe she was serious (she was); he stuck the letter in his pocket and tried to lose himself in his work.
"By Sunday night," recalled Raksin, "I realized I had a very painful case of writer's block. From the time I was a boy, when the music wouldn't flow, I would prop a book or a poem on the piano and improvise. The idea was to divert my mind from conscious awareness of music-making… I took the letter out of my pocket, put it up on the piano and began to play… and then, without willing it – I was playing the first phrases of what you now know as the 'Laura' theme."
Music Played in Today's Program David Raksin (1912-2004) –Theme from “Laura” (New Philharmonia; David Raksin, cond.) BMG/RCA 1490
Synopsis A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty “Hi-yo, Silver!”
Generations of American baby boomers first heard Rossini’s “William Tell” Overture as the opening credits of the old Lone Ranger TV western, but we suspect only a few of them ever realized the overture by an Italian composer was written for a French opera about a Swiss archer, which was adapted from a German play by Friedrich Schiller. Like a Facebook relationship, “It’s complicated.”
Anyway, Rossini’s “William Tell” was first heard in Paris on today’s date in 1829. Rossini hoped “William Tell” would be considered his masterpiece. Ironically, the complete opera is only rarely staged these days, but the “William Tell” overture became a familiar concert hall showpiece – SO familiar, in fact, as to become something of a musical cliché.
The Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich gave a dark 20th-century spin to Rossini’s overly familiar theme, when he quoted the “William Tell” overture in the opening movement of his Symphony No. 15. In the context of Shostakovich’s enigmatic final symphony, Rossini’s jaunty little theme comes off like a forced smile, and audiences are free to read whatever political subtext they wish into its rather sinister context.
Music Played in Today's Program Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) –William Tell Overture (Philharmonia Orchestra; Carlo Maria Giulini, cond.) EMI 69042
Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) –Symphony No. 15 in A, Op. 141 (London Philharmonic; Mariss Jansons, cond.) EMI 56591
On This Day Births * 1884 - Russian-born American composer Louis Gruenberg, near Brest-Litovsk (Julian date: July 22); * 1896 - Russian inventor Lev Sergeivitch Termen (anglicized to Leon Theremin) in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: August 15)
Deaths * 1784 - Italian composer and teacher Giovanni Battista Martini, age 78, in Bologna; His students included Gluck, Mozart, Grétry, and Jommelli;
Premieres * 1829 - Rossini: opera, "Guillaume Tell" (William Tell), at the Paris Opéra; * 1941 - Robert Russell Bennett: Symphony in D ("For the Dodgers"), in New York; * 1961 - John Cage: "Atlas Eclipticalis," at the "International Week of Today's Music," in Montréal; * 1967 - Lalo Schifrin: cantata, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" (adapted from the composer's filmscore) by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, with Lawrence Foster conducting;
Others * 1668 - German composer Dietrich Buxtehude marries the daughter of Franz Tunder, retiring organist at St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, as a condition to succeed Tunder in his position at St. Mary's; It is thought that both Handel and J.S. Bach were both interested in the position - but not in Tunder's daughter; * 1778 - Milan’s famous Teatro alla Scala (La Scala) opens with a performance of “L’Europa riconosciuta” by Italian opera composer Antonio Salieri, a work written specially for the occasion; The theater took its name from the site previously occupied by the church of Santa Maria della Scala (named after Bernabo Visconti’s wife, Beatrice della Scala); This same opera, conducted by Riccardo Muti, was performed on Dec. 7, 2004 at the Gala reopening of La Scala after three years of major renovation; * 1779 - Mozart finishes in Salzburg his "Posthorn" Serenade; * 1795 - The Paris Conservatory of Music is founded by the National Revolutionary Convention.
Links and Resources * On Rossini * On other famous radio themes
Synopsis In Greek mythology, Orpheus was a priest of Apollo and a fabulous musician, who attempted to bring his dead wife Eurydice back from the underworld.
On this day in 1774, in Paris, the first performance of the French version of the opera “Orpheus and Eurydice” by Christoph Willibald Gluck took place. Gluck originally wrote the opera in Italian, but for the French version in 1774, he added some new instrumental music, including a serene interlude depicting the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” —an excerpt that has become one of Gluck’s most famous and best-loved works.
Over the centuries, more than 60 operas have been written on the theme of Orpheus and Eurydice. In fact, two of the very FIRST operas ever written are based on this legend, both by Italian composers of the late Renaissance: one by Jacopo Peri performed in 1600 and another by Claudio Monteverdi from 1607.
One of the more recent operas based on the Orpheus legend is by the American composer Philip Glass, based on a libretto he adapted from the 1950 movie, “Orpheus,” by the surrealistic French poet and film director Jean Cocteau. The American Repertory Theatre and the Brooklyn Academy of Music commissioned Glass’s version in 1993.
Music Played in Today's Program Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) – Dance of the Blessed Spirits, fr Orphée (Academy of Ancient Music; Christopher Hogwood, cond.) L'oiseau Lyre 410 553
Philip Glass (b. 1937) – Act 2 Interlude, fr Orphée (Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, cond.) Nonesuch 79496-2
Synopsis Most classical music lovers know and love Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, Opus 95, and his “American” String Quartet, Opus 96, but fewer know the work he wrote next: his String QUINTET, Opus 97. We think that’s a shame, since all three rank among the finest things the Czech composer ever wrote.
Dvorak’s Quintet is also nicknamed the “American” – and for good reason: It was completed in 1893 on today’s date in Spillville, Iowa, during the composer’s summer vacation in that small, rural community of Czech immigrants, where he and family could escape the noise and bustle of New York City and his duties there at the National Conservatory.
Dvorak had been brought to America to teach Americans how to write American music, but, like any good teacher, Dvorak was as eager to LEARN as to teach. In New York, Henry T. Burleigh, a talented African-American Conservatory student taught Dvorak spirituals, and in Spillville, Dvorak eagerly attended performances of Native American music and dance by a group of touring Iroquois Indians.
Traces of those influences can be heard in Dvorak’s “American” works. In his Quintet, for example, unison melodic lines and striking rhythms seem to echo the Iroquois chants and drums Dvorak heard during his summer vacation in Spillville.
Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) – II. Allegro vivo, fr String Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 97 (Vlach Quartet Prague with Ladislav Kyselak, viola) Naxos 8.553376
On This Day Births * 1779 - Baltimore lawyer Francis Scott Key, who in 1814 wrote the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner," setting his text to the tune of a popular British drinking song of the day, "To Anacreon in Heaven," written by John Stafford Smith; The text and the tune became the official national anthem by and Act of Congress in 1931; * 1858 - Austrian composer Hans Rott, in Vienna; * 1913 - American composer Jerome Moross, in Brooklyn; * 1930 - British pop song and musical composer Lionel Bart, of "Oliver!" fame, in London;
Deaths * 1973 - Gian-Francesco Maliperio, Italian composer and first editor of collected works of Monteverdi and Vivaldi, age 91, in Treviso;
Premieres * 1740 - Thomas Arne: masque, “Alfred” (containing “Rule, Brittania”), in Clivedon (Gregorian date: August 12); * 1921 - Hindemith: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 16, by the Amar Quartet (which included the composer on viola) in Donaueschingen, Germany; * 1968 - Webern: "Rondo" for string quartet, written in 1906, at the Congregation of the Arts at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; * 1993 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra, at the Bravo! Music Festival in Vail, Colo., by soloist David Jolley with the Rochester Philharmonic, Lawrence Leighton Smith conducting;
Others * 1892 - John Philip Sousa , age 37, quits the U.S. Marine Corps Band to form his own 100-piece marching band; * 1893 - In Spillville Iowa, Antonin Dvorák finishes his String Quintet in Eb, Op. 97 ("The American") during his summer vacation at the Czech settlement.
Links and Resources * On Dvorak
Synopsis Two or three days after his death on July 28, 1750, the final rites were held in Leipzig, in St. John’s Church, for Johann Sebastian Bach, considered by many the greatest composer who ever lived. Bach was buried in the churchyard of St. John’s. In 1894, his remains were discovered during excavations and were reburied inside.
Although not unappreciated in his lifetime, and not completely forgotten for nearly a century as myth would have it (Mozart and Beethoven both revered him), it’s true that Bach’s real stature was not fully recognized by the wider public until Felix Mendelssohn’s famous revival performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” in Berlin in 1829.
And since Mendelssohn’s 19th century revival, Bach’s Passion settings and cantatas have been staged as operas or ballets in the 20th and 21st. His music has survived arrangements for solo piano, full symphony orchestra, Moog synthesizer, authentic “period” instruments, Japanese koto orchestra, shakuhachi flute, and the various jazz stylings of the Swingle Singers and the late pianist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, John Lewis.
However it was adapted or altered by the passing fashion or fads of the day, Bach’s music continues to touch whoever plays it or listens to it.
Music Played in Today's Program J. S. Bach (1685-1750) – St. Matthew Passion (SW German Madrigal Chorus; Wolfgang Gönnenwein, cond.) EMI Classics 79544
J. S. Bach (1685-1750) (arr. Chris Brubeck) – Variations on Themes by Bach (Joel Brown, guitar; London Symphony; Joel Revzen, cond.) Koch International 7485
Synopsis On today’s date in 1965, the New York Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of an orchestral work by Duke Ellington, titled “The Golden Broom and the Golden Apples,” with the composer conducting. On the same program, Lukas Foss conducted the very belated, posthumous premiere of “From the Steeples and the Mountains,” by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Charles Ives.
In 1965, Duke Ellington, too, had been nominated for the Pulitzer, but didn’t get it. The Pulitzer jury did, however, recommend that Ellington receive a Special Citation in honor of “the vitality and originality of his total productivity.” That recommendation was rejected, and when word leaked out, a scandal ensued. The 66-year old Ellington remained unflappable, and said, with just a tiny hint of irony, “Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.”
“I work and I write,” said Ellington. “My reward is hearing what I’ve done. I’m hardly surprised that my kind of music is still without official honor at home. Most Americans will take it for granted that European music – classical music, if you will – is the only really respectable kind. Jazz is like the kind of man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.”
In 1999, the Pulitzer Committee made amends, and Ellington was awarded a Special Citation – belatedly and posthumously – to commemorate the centennial year of his birth.
Music Played in Today's Program Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington (1899-1974) – The Golden Broom and the Green Apple (Duke Ellington, piano; Cincinnati Symphony; Erich Kunzel, cond.) MCA 42318
Synopsis In 1917, on the day the United States declared war in Germany, the American song-writer and former vaudeville showman George M. Cohan composed a song titled “Over There,” based on the first three notes of a military bugle-call.
On today’s date the following year, the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso performed Cohan’s song for an audience of 10,000 at an open-air concert in Ocean Grove, N.J. Musical America reported (quote): “It was a great opportunity for the rocking-chair brigade, which had never in its whole life witnessed such an outpouring of humans. And the automobiles! The Ocean Grove police department had BOTH its hands busy directing the traffic, extricating Fords from Rolls-Royces and preventing them from parking on the pathways.”
Caruso’s 1918 rendition of “Over There,” despite his heavily Italian-accented English, was the smash hit. “The audience got up on its 20,000 feet and yelled with delight,” reported Musical America, which also noted that Cohan had completed a brand new patriotic song addressed to the troops overseas, ending with the lines, “When you come back, and you will come back, There’s a whole world waiting for you.”
In 1936, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented Cohan with the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions to World War I morale, in particular for his songs "You're a Grand Old Flag” and "Over There."
Music Played in Today's Program George M. Cohan (1878-1942) (arr. Bennett) – Over There (Cincinnati Pops; Erich Kunzel, cond.) Telarc 80175
George M. Cohan (1878-1942) – Over There (Enrico Caruso, tenor) (recorded July 11, 1918) RCA/BMG 60495
Synopsis Playing in a marching band isn’t always as easy as it looks. Imagine the predicament in which Berlioz found himself on today’s date in 1840, conducting 210 musicians under a broiling noonday sun as they slowly progressed to the Place de Bastille.
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the French “July” Revolution of 1830, a memorial column had been erected on the spot where the Bastille once stood, and the remains of fallen revolutionary heroes were being transferred to a cenotaph at the foot of the column, accompanied by Berlioz’s specially commissioned “Funeral and Triumphal Symphony,” composed for massed military bands. Berlioz himself, in full military uniform and conducting with a saber, led the solemn procession that hot July day.
In a letter to his father, Berlioz wrote: “The old know-it-alls were claiming that I’d never manage to have my symphony performed on the march and that my 210 musicians wouldn’t stay together for even 20 bars. So I placed the trumpets and drums in front so that I could give them the beat while walking backwards. I planned it so that in the opening bars these instruments play by themselves, so they could be heard by the rest of the band. The symphony’s march and finale were played six times, on the march, with an ensemble and effect that were truly extraordinary.”
Music Played in Today's Program Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) – Symphonie funebre et triomphale (London Symphony; Sir Colin Davis, cond.) Philips 416 283
Synopsis It was on this day in 1929 that the first performance was given of a radio cantata – not on the radio, oddly enough, but in a concert hall in Baden-Baden, Germany. It was entitled “Lindbergh’s Flight,” with a text by Bertolt Brecht, and music by both Kurt Weill AND Paul Hindemith. This cantata was intended for a later radio broadcast and meant to illustrate both the literal and philosophical aspects of Charles A. Lindbergh’s first-ever solo flight across the Atlantic two years earlier in 1927.
Today, when planes whiz back and forth across the Atlantic every day, carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers, we have to remember that in 1927, the number of people flying to Europe nonstop was just ONE, namely Lindbergh, and the feat made headline news around the world.
Three decades after Lindbergh’s flight, composer Franz Waxman would write the film score for “The Spirit of St. Louis,” a 1957 Hollywood version of the Atlantic crossing starring Jimmy Stewart.
And speaking of Atlantic crossings, Waxman, Weill and Hindemith – all German-born composers – would emigrate to the U.S. in the 1930s, their flight a result of the racial laws and artistic repression that followed the rise of Nazi ideology in Europe.
Music Played in Today's Program Kurt Weill (1900-1950) – Lindbergh's Flight (Cologne Radio Orchestra; Hermann Scherchen, cond.) Capriccio 60012
Franz Waxman (1906-1962) – The Spirit of St. Louis (studio orchestra; Franz Waxman, cond.) BMG/RCA 2283
Synopsis On today’s date in 1882, the eminent German conductor Hermann Levi led the first performance of Richard Wagner’s new opera, “Parsifal” – a work that would also turn out to be his last, as Wagner would die the following year in Venice.
No other Wagner opera would arouse the same level of controversy as “Parsifal.” Some thought it a blasphemous parody of the Catholic Mass, others, like the anti-religious Friedrich Nietzsche, saw it as a sanctimonious sell-out. Wagner helped fuel the controversy by calling the work a “sacred stage festival play.” Despite the notorious anti-Semitism of Wagner and his circle, the bulk of those Bayreuth performances, like the very first, would be conducted by Hermann Levi, who was Jewish.
Levi wrote to his father about an unusual occurrence that took place during the final performance of the first run of “Parsifal” at Bayreuth:
“Just before the final scene, Wagner appeared in the pit, twisted and turned his way up to my desk, took the baton from my hand and conducted the performance to the end. I remained at his side, because I was afraid he might slip up, by my fears were quite groundless – his conducting was so assured that he might have been nothing but a Kapellmeister all his life. At the end, the audience burst into applause which defies all description.”
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813-1883) – Transformation Music, from Parsifal (London Symphony; Sir Adrian Boult, cond.) EMI Classics 62539
Synopsis On today’s date in 1937, one of Copland’s less familiar works had its premiere performance – on the radio. The radio premiere was the result of a commission from the Columbia Broadcasting System, and was premiered by the CBS Symphony Orchestra.
This work has at least three different titles. Originally titled simply “Music for Radio,” as requested by the network, it was given the more colorful name “Saga of the Prairies” as the result of an on-air listener contest sponsored by CBS. Later, when Copland himself published the music, it bore the title: “Prairie Journal.” So – take your pick.
Copland received a $500 commission – quite generous in those days – and was thrilled that his music would reach millions of listeners with a single broadcast. Today, new music by contemporary composers is still occasionally commissioned by radio stations and radio networks.
In 1993, “Still Movement with Hymn” was commissioned from Aaron Jay Kernis by American Public Radio (now American Public Media) and broadcast nationally on one of their program offerings. “Still Movement with Hymn,” is one of a series of elegiac works by Kernis, written in memory of American composer Stephen Albert, who was killed in a car accident the year before.
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) – Music for Radio (Saga of the Prairies) (Pacific Symphony; Keith Clark, cond.) Albany TROY- 064
Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960) – Still Movement with Hymn (Pamela Frank, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; Carter Brey, cello; Christopher O'Riley, piano) Argo 448 174
Synopsis In 1926, the German composer Paul Hindemith was the director of that year’s Donaueschingen Music Festival, which, since its inception in 1921, had quickly established itself as an important showcase for new and progressive music. For the 1926 Festival, Hindemith decided to spotlight a genre of music overlooked by many composers, namely music for wind bands, and contributed a work of his own, entitled “Concert Piece for Wind Orchestra,” which premiered on today’s date in 1926 and was published as his Opus 41.
The critics of the day opined that the music was interesting, but lamented that such talented composers would waste their time writing for bands.
In his book “Winds of Change,” a history of band music and its reception, Dr. Frank Battisti explains: “In 1926, serious works for band were of no interest to German and Austrian band directors, who preferred to continue performing the standard repertory of transcriptions, arrangements, and marches. Critics, after hearing these works, remained convinced that the wind band would never become a medium of artistic musical expression.”
With the passage of time, and a dramatic change in the attitudes of band director and critics alike towards concert music for bands, Hindemith’s 1926 concert programming seems downright prophetic.
Music Played in Today's Program Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) – Concert Music for Winds, Op. 41 (Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, cond.) CBS MK-44916
Synopsis On today’s date in 1940, the “Standing Room Only” signs went up early as a crowd of 23,000 stormed the Hollywood Bowl to hear the great Paul Robeson perform.
On the program was Earl Robinson’s “Ballad for Americans,” a work for solo voice and orchestra that was for a time one of the most popular musical works in America. Earl Robinson had studied with Copland, and in 1934 had joined the Federal Theater Project. His “Ballad for Americans” quickly became a popular concert hall vehicle for Paul Robeson, and, in election year 1940, it was even performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Republican Party’s National Convention. Robeson made a famous recording of the work, but nowadays “Ballad for Americans” is seldom, if ever, heard or performed.
Also on the Hollywood Bowl’s program for July 23, 1940, was the first complete West Coast performance of William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1, subtitled the “Afro-American Symphony” by its composer. Still had settled in Los Angeles to work for the film industry, but by 1940 had also achieved fame as the country’s foremost African-American composer of concert music. Unlike “Ballad for Americans,” the “Afro American Symphony” still shows up on concert programs these days.
Music Played in Today's Program William Grant Still (1895-1978) – Symphony No. 1 (Afro-American) (Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond.) Chandos 9154
Synopsis London might seem an unlikely venue for the premiere of this quintessentially Spanish music—but it was a decidedly international affair when Manuel de Falla’s ballet “The Three-Cornered Hat” received its premiere performance at the Alhambra Theatre in London on today’s date in 1919.
The ballet was choreographed by the Russian dancer Leonide Massine, who performed in the premiere with the Ballet Russe company headed by Serge Diaghilev, who had commissioned de Falla to write the work in the first place. The conductor for the premiere, Ernest Ansermet, was Swiss, but the scenery, costumes and curtain, at least, were designed by de Falla’s countryman, the famous Spanish artist Pablo Piccasso.
Andalucian by birth, but living in Paris, de Falla must have found it frustrating that during this time his music was sometimes snubbed in Spain as sounding too cosmopolitan, and then pigeon-holed abroad as sounding too Spanish!
The career of Latino-American composer Roberto Sierra has also turned out to be similarly cosmopolitan. Born in Puerto Rico in 1953, Sierra studied in Europe—with the Hungarian composer György Ligeti among others—before returning to the United States where he now lives and works. His music has been performed by leading American ensembles and orchestras—including the Philadelphia Orchestra, where Sierra served as composer-in-residence. This chamber work by Sierra, titled “Eros,” was written for flutist Carol Wincenc.
Music Played in Today's Program Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) – The Three-Cornered Hat (Ballet Suisse Romande Orchestra; Ernest Ansermet, cond.) London 414 039
Roberto Sierra (b. 1953) – Eros (Jeani Foster, flute; Stefanie Jacob, piano) Fleur de son Classics 57950
Synopsis In the summer of 1824, the fifteen-year-old Mendelssohn spent a holiday with his father in the fashionable spa town of Bad Doberan, on the Baltic coast near Rostock. Writing home to his family in Berlin he confessed that, although he was "comfortably lodged… with friendly people, a decent piano, [and a] pretty view... so far I have not written a note."
That would change, however, as Mendelssohn befriended musicians employed by the local Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, whose court ensemble was a wind-band. For them, the young Mendelssohn composed a Nocturno, scored for the classical octet of double winds, plus a flute, trumpet, and an odd brass instrument called a “Como Inglese di Basso," roughly similar in shape to a bassoon, but with a cup mouthpiece and both open and keyed holes.
Mendelssohn described it in a letter he wrote on today’s date in 1824 as "a large brass instrument with a fine, deep tone, that looks like a watering can or a stirrup pump."
Music for that original 1824 Nocturno has not survived, but eventually Mendelssohn reworked and enlarged the piece, adding new music, and much later, in 1838, expanded the scoring to a full wind ensemble and published the result as his Overture for Winds, Op. 24.
Music Played in Today's Program Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) – Overture for Winds, Op. 24 (London Symphony; Claudio Abbado, cond.) DG 423 104
Synopsis In the summer of 1972, five burglars broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC, and soon the term “Watergate” came to signify a political scandal that nearly led to the impeachment of then-president Richard Nixon. But if you had said, “Watergate” to someone in D.C. in July some 30 years earlier, you probably were referring to a series of outdoor concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra, whose “Watergate Concerts” were held on the banks of the Potomac near the Lincoln Memorial.
These concerts presented a mix of old and new music, classical favorites and recently composed works by American composers. For example, on today’s date in 1945, the weather in DC was clear and warm when Alexander Smallens conducted an outdoor Watergate Concert that included the recently-composed suite from Aaron Copland’s ballet “Rodeo,” and “Newsreel,” an orchestral suite by William Schuman.
Schuman’s suite was inspired by the popular newsreel features shown at movie theaters in those days – a time when radio ruled, and if people wanted to SEE footage of faces and places in the news, they had to turn to the movies, not CNN or the internet.
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) – Rodeo (London Symphony; Aaron Copland, cond.) Sony Classical 60593
William Schuman (1910-1992) – Newsreel (Milwaukee Symphony; Lukas Foss, cond.) Pro Arte 102
Synopsis Many composers have produced works inspired by their deep religious faith: in the 18th century, the sacred music of the devout Lutheran church musician Johann Sebastian Bach being a notable example.
Even in our more secular age, this is sometimes the case. The contemporary Scottish composer James MacMillan’s works have explicit Christian themes, and, like Franz Liszt in the 19th century, MacMillan has even taken minor religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church.
On commission from the London Symphony, MacMillan wrote three interrelated orchestral works, two concertos and a symphony, all based on the Passion and Resurrection story. The first of these, entitled “The World’s Ransoming,” for English horn and orchestra, focused on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, and was premiered at the Barbican Center in London on today’s date in 1996.
Of this piece, MacMillan wrote, “’The World's Ransoming’ includes musical references to [traditional liturgical] plainsongs for that day, as well as a Bach chorale … which I have heard sung in the eucharistic procession … The title of the piece comes from St. Thomas Aquinas's [Latin] hymn ‘Pange Lingua’.”
An English translation of part of the Aquinas hymn reads:
Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory,
Of His Flesh, the mystery sing;
Destined, for the world's ransom,
From a virgin’s womb to spring.
Music Played in Today's Program James MacMillan (b. 1959) – The World's Ransoming (Christine Pendrill, English horn; BBC Scottish Symphony; Osmo Vänskä, cond.) BIS 989
Synopsis To some it seemed an act of sheer madness for a String Quartet to announce in the 1970s that it would not perform the classic repertory of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, but devote itself instead to music written after 1900, especially newly-composed works. But the Kronos Quartet has proved the skeptics wrong. Founded in Seattle in 1973, and reformed in San Francisco five years later, the Kronos Quartet has established itself as a major player on the international music scene, premiering hundreds of new works by living composers.
On today’s date in 1984, the Kronos Quartet was at the Kukmo Music Festival in Finland, where they gave the premiere performance of the 5th String Quartet of the Finnish composer, Aulis Sallinen, subtitled “Pieces of Mosaic.” This quartet is a string of 16 short fragments, and, as the composer explained, reflected a pessimistic view of world affairs, circa 1984, the ominously Orwellian year of its composition. “It seems somehow crazy,” said Sallinen, “that a composer should create extended symphonic forms for the world we live in. This quartet is the kind of work the world deserves: one which is smashed into fragments.”
Sallinen is one of the best-known Finnish composers since Sibelius, and in addition to chamber works like his Fifth Quartet, he has written symphonic works and a number of successful operas.
Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) – String Quartet No. 17 in Bb (Quartetto Italiano) Philips 422 512
Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) – String Quartet no. 5 (Pieces of Mosaic) (Sibelius Quartet) Ondine 831
On This Day Births * 1670 - Italian opera composer Giovanni Bononcini, in Modena; In 1720 he joined the Royal Academy of Music in London, where one faction favored Bononcini's works over those by Handel * 1821 - French mezzo-soprano PaulineViardot-Garcia; She arranged some of Chopin's mazurkas as songs and performed them with the composer in concert; She also wrote an opera, "La Derniére Sorcière," that was performed in Weimar in 1869, and a chamber opera version of "Cendrillon (Cinderella)" which was performed privately in 1904 * 1872 - Czech composer Julius Fucik, in Prague; A student of Dvorák's, he composed the famous "circus" march, "Entrance of the Gladiators"; * 1894 - Dutch-born American composer Bernard Wagenaar, in Arnhem; He was the son of the Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar (1862-1941); He came to the U.S. in 1920, was a violinist with the New York Philharmonic from 1921-23, and in 1927 became a composition teacher at the Juilliard Graduate School * 1933 - Canadian composer R. Murray Schafrer, in Sarnia, Ontario * 1954 - American composer Tobias Picker, in New York
Deaths * 1949 - Czech composer Vitezslav Novák, age 78, in Skutec, Slovakia
Premieres * 1713 - Handel: "Utrecht Te Deum," in London (Julian date: July 7) * 1791 - Cherubini: opera, "Lodoiska, in Paris * 1920 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 5, in Moscow * 1972 - Panufnik: Violin Concerto, in London, with Yehudi Menuhin as soloist * 1976 - Stockhausen: multi-media work "Sirius," in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institute * 1984 - Sallinen: String Quartet No. 5 ("Pieces of Mosaic"), at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland, by the Kronos Quartet
Links and Resources * On the Kronos Quartet * On Aulis Sallinen
Synopsis On today’s date in 1717, King George and his entourage took a barge trip on the river Thames, traveling from Whitehall to Chelsea, accompanied by about 50 musicians, also on barges. A contemporary newspaper account reported that they performed “the finest Symphonies, composed express for this occasion by Mr. Handel, which his Majesty liked so well that he caused it to be played three times in going and returning.”
Another report refers to “trumpets, horns, oboes, bassoons, flutes, recorders, violins and basses” being employed. In our time, Handel’s “Water Music” – as the three suites have come to be known – is one of the best-known and best-loved works of the entire Baroque Age.
In 1985, three hundred years after the birth of Handel, American composer Libby Larsen composed a Symphony she titled “Water Music,” written as a tribute to Handel and as an expression of her own enthusiasm for sailing.
Libby Larsen is one of today’s busiest American composers, and in the year 2000 the American Academy of Arts and Letters presented Larsen with its Award in Music, honoring her lifetime achievements as a composer. When asked how she finds time to balance her busy life as a composer, Larsen answers: “I can’t not do it – having a life and a life in music is as natural and necessary to me as breathing.”
Music Played in Today's Program George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) – Water Music (Royal Philharmonic: Sir Yehudi Menuhin, cond.) MCA 6186
Libby Larsen (b. 1950) – Symphony (Water Music) (Minnesota Orchestra; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) Nonesuch 79147
Synopsis Following the death of a loved one, the American poet Barbara Crooker wrote, “How can we go on/knowing the end of the story?”
The American composer Dale Trumbore attempted to answer that question with her haunting choral work entitled “How to Go On,” given its premiere performance on today’s date in 2016 in Anaheim, California by the Choral Arts Initiative.
Rather than setting the traditional Latin text of the Requiem Mass like Verdi, or passages from the Bible like Brahms, Trumbore crafted a kind of “secular requiem,” choosing texts by Crooker and two other contemporary American poets addressing fundamental questions of life, love, and loss.
“I have moments of utter panic about my own mortality,” confessed Trumbore, “and I know many other people do as well, although we may not openly discuss or address our fears about death. Taken together, the seven poems of ‘How to Go On’ recognize these fears while also cultivating a feeling of everything ultimately being at peace. Hopefully the music adds to that visceral feeling of reassurance. “
New Jersey native Dale Trumbore studied with the great choral composer Morten Lauridsen at the University of Southern California and her own vocal works are noted for what The New York Times described as her “soaring melodies and beguiling harmonies.”
Music Played in Today's Program Dale Trumbore (b. 1987) – How to Go On (Choral Arts Initiative; Brandon Elliott, cond.) CAI 2017
Synopsis In 1965, Leonard Bernstein took a sabbatical year from his duties as music director of the New York Philharmonic. In 1964, the busy Mr. Bernstein had just finished conducting Verdi’s opera “Falstaff” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in 1966, would make his debut at the Vienna State Opera, conducting the same work. But he reserved 1965 to concentrate on composing.
“In the course of that year,” recalled Bernstein, “I had the luxury to do nothing but experiment. And part of my experimentation was to try to write some pieces that, shall we say, were less old-fashioned. I wrote a lot of music, 12-tone music and avant-garde music of various kinds, and a lot of it was very good, but I threw it all away. What I came out with at the end of the year was a piece called ‘Chichester Psalms,’ which is simple and tonal and as pure B-flat as any piece you can think of… because that was what I honestly wished to write.”
Bernstein conducted the premiere performance at Lincoln Center with the Camerata Singers and the New York Philharmonic on July 15th, 1965, and later in the month, traveled to Chichester Cathedral in England, which had commissioned the work in the first place, for the British premiere of his “Chichester Psalms.”
Music Played in Today's Program Giuseppe Verdi (1913-1901) – Act III excerpt, from Falstaff (soloists; Vienna Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) CBS/Sony 42535
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) – Chichester Psalms (Camerata Singers; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) CBS/Sony 47162
Synopsis Today is Bastille Day, and on today’s date in 1900, the Opera-Comique in Paris premiered a patriotic opera entitled “La Marseillaise,” which melodramatically depicted how, on a spring night during the French Revolution, Rouget de l’Isle supposedly wrote the words AND music for the song which later became the French National Anthem.
The opera has been long forgotten, but its composer, the French-born Lucien-Leon-Guillaume Lambert, JUNIOR – alongside his father, the American-born composer Charles-Lucien Lambert, SENIOR – is getting some renewed attention. Both are included in a landmark new reference work: The International Dictionary of Black Composers, published by the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago.
The elder Lambert was born in New Orleans around 1828, and was a contemporary and friendly rival of the famous piano virtuoso and composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The elder Lambert settled in Brazil, and enjoyed an international career in both Brazil and France, performing and publishing his piano dances and salon pieces, and often appearing in concert with his son.
Lucien Lambert, Jr. was born in France in 1858, and studied with Jules Massenet, among others. He won the prestigious Concours Rossini competition, and enjoyed a productive career in France and Portugal, composing ballets, concertos, and several operas – including the one that premiered in Paris on today’s date in 1900. He died in Portugal in 1945.
Music Played in Today's Program Roger de Lisle (1760-1836) – La Marseillaise (Detroit Symphony; Paul Paray, cond.) Mercury 434 332
Lucien Lambert, Jr. (1858-1945) – Brocéliande Overture (Hot Springs Music Festival; Richard Rosenberg, cond.) Naxos 8.559 037
Synopsis Decades after their deaths, Richard Strauss and Dmitri Shostakovich still remain politically controversial. Strauss worked in Nazi Germany under Hitler, and Shostakovich in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Was their art compromised by politics – and should that influence how we hear their music today?
In July of 1935, Strauss pleaded with Hitler for a personal meeting to explain his resignation as President of Germany’s office of musical affairs. He needn’t have bothered: the Gestapo had intercepted a letter Strauss had sent to the Jewish writer, Stefan Zweig, the Austrian librettist of Strauss’ latest opera. In that letter, Strauss mocked the Nazi’s obsession with race and urged Zweig to continue to work with him, even if they would have to meet in secret. Strauss was asked to resign, and, anxious to avoid further trouble for himself and his family, appealed directly to Hitler, who never responded.
Dmitri Shostakovich also ran afoul of his dictator when, in 1936, Stalin attended Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and hated it. The next day, Shostakovich was harshly condemned in the official press, and lived in terror for the rest of Stalin’s reign, redirecting his music according to Party line and making obsequious political utterances whenever asked. Even so, many today claim to hear both terror AND heroic – if coded – resistance in Shostakovich’s best scores.
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864-1949) – Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40 (Daniel Majeske, violin; Cleveland Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim, cond.) London 414 292
Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) – Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk excerpts (Scottish National Orchestra; Neeme Jarvi, cond.) Chandos 8587
Synopsis On this day in 1900, the world first heard the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré in its full orchestral version at a concert at the Paris World Exhibition. Faure’s Requiem ranks today among his best-known and best-loved compositions, and omits all reference to the terrors of the Last Judgment which appear in the traditional liturgical text, concentrating instead on comforting the bereaved. The Requiem was originally written for chorus and a more intimate chamber ensemble, and was occasioned by Fauré’s sorrow at the death of his own father.
The American composer Christopher Rouse has written a number of works dealing with the passing of friends and colleagues – works half-seriously, half-jokingly referred to as Rouse’s “Death Cycle.” Rouse’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Trombone Concerto from 1991 is dedicated to the memory of Leonard Bernstein; his Symphony No. 2, from 1994, contains a tribute to the young composer Stephen Albert, who died in a car crash; and a section of his Flute Concerto from 1993 reflects the composer’s shock upon reading an account of the senseless tragedy of a two-year-old child, abducted from an English shopping mall and killed by two ten-year-olds.
Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed has noted that much of Rouse’s work is “music of leave-taking… but it is also a music of catharsis, survival and a celebration of being alive.”
Music Played in Today's Program Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) – Requiem (The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, cond.) Collegium 101
Christopher Rouse (b. 1949) – Symphony No. 2 and Flute Concerto (Carol Wincenc, flute; Houston Symphony; Christoph Eschenbach, cond.) Telarc 80452
Synopsis Today’s date marks two events in American musical history – one sad, one happy.
It was on today’s date in 1937 that George Gershwin died at 10:35 in the morning in a Hollywood hospital after an operation for a brain tumor. He was only 38 years old. Gershwin was the idol of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, and also admired by the “serious” composers of his day, such as Maurice Ravel and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Even Arnold Schoenberg, the fearsome leader of the 12-tone school – and Gershwin’s regular tennis partner in Los Angeles – said, in tribute, “there is no doubt that he was a great composer.”
A Gershwin memorial concert was held in the Hollywood Bowl later that year, featuring notables from both classical and popular music, including Otto Klemperer, Fred Astaire, and Lily Pons.
The happier anniversary we note is the founding of the Hollywood Bowl itself, on today’s date in 1922. This open-air auditorium was constructed in a natural canyon in the Los Angeles area, and hosted its first public concert with the fearsomely-bearded German conductor Alfred Hertz on the podium. An audience of 5,000 cheered music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Rossini. Works by those composers still show up on Hollywood Bowl programs today, often alongside selections from now-classic Hollywood film scores, often conducted by their composers – bearded or otherwise.
Music Played in Today's Program George Gershwin (1898-1937) – An American in Paris (Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, cond.) Philips 438 663
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) – 1812 Overture (Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, cond.) EMI Classics 65690
Synopsis On today’s date in 1733, Georg Friderich Handel paid a visit to Oxford to conduct the premiere performance of his new oratorio, “Athalia,” at the Sheldonian Theater.
Handel had been invited by the University to add some musical pizzazz to an elaborate ceremony know as “The Publick Act,” during which honorary degrees were bestowed on worthy individuals. It was apparently a terrific performance, with one visitor from London reporting: “Never has there been such applause and marks of admiration.” But not everyone in Oxford was happy. One crusty don, apparently not a fan of new music, complained of the presence of “Handel and his lousy crew – a great number of foreign fiddlers.“
Handel was offered an honorary degree by Oxford, but he did not accept, claiming he was “too busy,” but maybe he just balked at paying the University’s required fee of 100 pounds to receive the honor.
In the 19th century, Oxford and its rival Cambridge would bestow honorary degrees on other major composers like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak, and, in our own time, between 1949 and 1990, one American composer, William Schuman received no fewer than 28 honorary degrees. In fact, Schuman had so many that he had a quilt sewn together from pieces of his ceremonial gowns, so that, as he liked to quip, “He could take his naps by degrees.”
Music Played in Today's Program George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) – Sinfonia, from Athalia (Academy of Ancient Music; Christopher Hogwood, cond.) L'Oiseau-Lyre 417 126
William Schuman (1910-1992) – Chester (Variations for Piano) (Alexei Sultanov, piano) Teldec 46103
Synopsis Today marks the birthday in 1879 of Ottorino Respighi, a rare Italian composer more famous for orchestral works than operas. And no wonder – Respighi was a master orchestrator, learning his craft first-hand from the brilliant Russian orchestrator Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov during the time the young Italian served as principal violist in the pit band of the Russian Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg.
One of Respighi’s best-loved works is The Pines of Rome. It includes a slow section depicting a full moon shining on the pines growing on the Janiculum hill west of Rome. The music includes the song of a nightingale, played from a phonograph record of an actual nightingale. That record, made in 1910, was the first ever made of live bird song, and using it as part of Respighi’s orchestration was cutting-edge stuff in 1924.
This recording was made by the Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati, who was known noted for his fiery temper, but Dorati had an equally strong sense of humor, so in the 1950s, when one of his Minneapolis Symphony musicians substituted a Spike Jones once during a rehearsal, of the Respighi piece, Dorati got the joke and laughed along with everybody else.
Music Played in Today's Program Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) – Feste Romane (Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond.) London 410 145
Spike Jones (1911 – 1965) – Rhapsody from Hunger (Spike Jones and his City Slickers) RCA 3235
Synopsis It’s a book – it’s a YouTube video – it’s a concert hall work! It’s by Stookey and Snicket!
Now, “Stookey and Snicket” is not the name of a law firm in some obscure novel by Charles Dickens, but is in fact the collaborative team of American composer Nathaniel Stookey and American novelist Daniel Handler, who writes popular children’s books under the pen name of Lemony Snicket.
Stookey was the youngest composer ever commissioned for the San Francisco Symphony's New and Unusual Music Series when he collaborated with Handler on a piece for narrator and orchestra. Their collaboration, entitled “The Composer Is Dead,” premiered on this date in 2006.
This “new and usual” work with a macabre title is similar to Prokofiev's “Peter and the Wolf” and Britten's “The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra” in that it intends to introduce young audiences to the instruments of the orchestra. But anyone familiar with Lemony Snicket books can expect something a little quirky, and, in fact, “The Composer Is Dead” is a murder mystery, complete with a police inspector rounding up the usual suspects, and eventually pointing the finger…
And if you want to find out “whodunit” – well, you’ll have to buy the book!
Music Played in Today's Program Lemony Snicket and Nathaniel Stookey – The Composer is Dead (Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler), narrator; San Francisco Symphony; Edwin Outwater, cond.) Book Audio CD
Synopsis On today’s date in 1956, one of the most successful of all American operas had its first performance at the Center Opera House in Colorado. “The Ballad of Baby Doe” was created by composer Douglas Moore and librettist John Latouche, and was based on a real-life tale of love and loss that had played out in that state.
Elizabeth McCourt Tabor, better known as “Baby Doe,” became the second wife of the Colorado prospector, businessman, and politician Horace Tabor in 1883. Tabor's messy divorce and remarriage to the young and beautiful Baby Doe was a major scandal at the time. Tabor was immensely wealthy, and had built an Opera House that bears his name and still stands in Leadville, Colorado, where he met Baby Doe. In 1899, Tabor had lost his entire fortune, and after his death, Baby Doe lived on in a poor miner’s shack near Leadville, where she was found frozen to death in 1935.
And it was on a cold winter’s day – a year before the premiere of their new opera – that Moore and Latouche paid a visit to Tabor’s Opera House in Leadville, and stood on its stage for inspiration. A witness of their visit recalled: “I was intensely aware of a great and eerie silence that suddenly came over the building. If ever there were ghosts of the past in the Tabor Opera House I could believe that they were there at that moment!”
Music Played in Today's Program Douglas Moore (1893-1969) – The Ballad of Baby Doe (Jan Grissom, sop; Central City Opera Orchestra; John Moriarty, cond.) Newport Classics 85593
Synopsis It was on this day in 1913 that the French Academy of Fine Arts – for the first time in its history – presented its highest award, the Prix de Rome, to a woman. The honor was awarded to Lili Boulanger, who was just 19 years old at the time. She was born in Paris in 1893, the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger, who would become the most famous teacher of composition in the 20th century, numbering an amazing array of famous American composers among her students, ranging from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass.
Nadia’s sister Lili, however, suffered from poor health. Her tragically short career was interrupted by World War I, when she volunteered to nurse wounded soldiers. She died before the great conflict was over, on March 15th, 1918, at the age of 24.
Nearer to our own time, another woman, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, made history when she became the first woman composer to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. That was in 1983, and the piece was her Symphony No. 1. Born in Miami, Florida, in 1939, Zwilich studied composition with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions at Juilliard, and accomplished another “first” by becoming the first woman to earn the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition at the famous school. Her Third Symphony was commissioned in 1992 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic.
Music Played in Today's Program Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) – Hymne au Soleil (New London Chamber Choir; James Wood, cond.) Hyperion 66726
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) – Symphony No. 3 (Louisville Orchestra; James Sedares, cond.) Koch International 7278
Synopsis On today’s date in 1989, NBC transmitted the pilot episode of a sitcom that 180 episodes later would be recognized as a TV classic.
In composing, as in comedy, timing is everything, so when comedian Jerry Seinfeld approached composer Jonathan Wolff about writing the intro music for “Seinfeld,” Wolff knew it was time for something a little different than a generic sitcom theme.
“When he called me,” Wolff recalled, “Jerry described to me the problem he was having: the opening and closing credits for this new show were to be Jerry doing stand-up material in front of an audience. He tells jokes, people laugh. And he wanted unique, signature theme music to go with it, [so I said] how about this? … we treat your human voice telling jokes as the melody of the Seinfeld theme! My job will be to accompany you in a way that’s fun and quirky but does not interfere with the audio of your standup routine.”
That meant that the Seinfeld intro would change each week, with Jonathan Wolff himself performing on slap bass themes and variations that danced before, after, and around the cadence of Jerry’s punchlines like, as Wolff put it, “a vaudeville rim shot.”
Music Played in Today's Program Jonathan Wolff (b.1958) – Theme, from Seinfeld; Water Tower Music digital download
Synopsis Today we celebrate three legendary figures in American popular music.
The first is Stephen Foster, the great American songwriter of the 19th century who composed 189 classic songs including “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Old Folks at Home.” Foster was born on this date in 1826 in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania.
The second figure we honor today is the incredibly influential 20th century jazz trumpeter, Louis Armstrong, who claimed to have been born on this date in New Orleans in the year 1900.
It seems too good to be true that Foster and Armstrong should both have been born on the Fourth of July—in fact, Armstrong’s real birthday occurred on August 4, 1901. Apparently, Armstrong wasn’t sure of the exact details, so he and his agent decided that it would be good publicity for Armstrong to be born on the Fourth of July and at the start of the new century.
The great Vaudeville and Broadway song and dance man, George M. Cohan, also believed he was born on the Fourth of July, in 1878—a public misconception reinforced by the famous 1942 biographical film of Cohan’s life, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” starring James Cagney as George M.
The belated discovery of Cohan’s birth certificate, however, proved that a Yankee Doodle Dandy he may have been, but one actually born on the THIRD of July.
Music Played in Today's Program Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881) – Souvenirs d'Amerique (Tchaikovsky Chamber Orchestra; Lazar Gosman, cond.) CBS/Sony 45529
George M. Cohan (1878-1942) – George M! Overture (New York City Opera Orchestra; Paul Gemignani, cond.) MusicMaster 67099
Synopsis The piano became the dominant keyboard instrument in Mozart’s lifetime in the late 18th century. Before that, the harpsichord had ruled. But for more than a hundred years after Mozart’s day, the harpsichord seemed as dead as the dodo, and even the great harpsichord works of Bach and other early 18th century masters were always played on the piano—that is, until Wanda Landowska came on the scene.
This indomitable woman was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1879, and single-handedly brought the harpsichord back to life. It was on today’s date in 1927 that she inaugurated an historic series of harpsichord concerts at her summer home near Paris—and, two years later, in 1929, Landowska premiered the “Concert champêtre,” by Francis Poulenc, a brand new harpsichord concerto written specially for her.
Very much in the spirit of Wanda Landowska, the contemporary composer and performer Barbara Harbach is in the vanguard of today’s advocates for the harpsichord.
A passionate advocate for new music, she has recorded several compact discs of “20th Century Harpsichord Music” for the Gasparo label, featuring works by American composers from Samuel Adler to Ellen Taafe Zwillich.
Music Played in Today's Program J. S. Bach (1685-1750) – Little Prelude in C, S. 934 (Wanda Landowska, harpsichord) Pearl 9489
Barbara Harbach (b. 1946) – Cante Flamenco, from Tres Danzas para Clavecin (Barbara Harbach, harpsichord) Gasparo 290
Synopsis On this date in 1723, church-goers in Leipzig were offered some festive music along with the gospel readings and sermon. The vocal and instrumental music was pulled together from various sources, some old, some newly-composed, and crafted into a fresh, unified work, a church cantata entitled “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” – which in English would be “heart and voice and thought and action.” The idea was that text and music would complement and comment on that day’s scripture readings and sermon.
Now this sort of thing was not all that uncommon back then for the hard-working composer Johann Sebastian Bach. On average Bach would prepare and present around 50 church cantatas a year, and Bach’s cantata No. 147, presented on July 2, 1723, concluded with a catchy melody that would be revived to great effect some 200 years later.
In 1926, the concluding choral section of Bach’s cantata, “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” in the original German, was arranged by the British pianist Dame Myra Hess and given an English title, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” It became a popular piano recital selection, and, over time, a very popular piece to play at weddings – even though Bach’s original cantata text had nothing at all to do with tying the knot.
Music Played in Today's Program J. S. Bach (1627 - 1750) – Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, from S. 147
Synopsis “Where to go for summer vacation?” That’s always been the question for any city-dweller fortunate enough to be able to escape to somewhere cool and green, with perhaps an ocean beach or at least a lake nearby.
In the summers of 1877 and 1878, Johannes Brahms abandoned urban Vienna for the rural Austrian district known as Carinthia and specifically the small town of Pörtschach on Wörthersee. Even today, this is prime vacation territory, with rolling green hills, dark pine trees, bright blue lakes, and the snow-capped Alps along the horizon. And the wildflowers have to be seen to be believed.
We can’t show you all that, but perhaps you can hear a sense of that landscape in the Second Symphony and Violin Concerto of Brahms —two works he composed during his summer holidays there.
In Carinthia, said Brahms, the melodies are so abundant that one had to be careful not to step on them. There just might be something in that, at least with respect to great Violin Concertos. In July of 1935, 57 years after Brahms wrote his Concerto in Pörtschach, the Viennese composer Alban Berg would finish his Violin Concerto in the same town, on the opposite shore of the Wörthersee from where Brahms stayed during his summer vacations. Berg’s Concerto even includes a quote from a risqué Carinthian folksong.
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) – Symphony No. 2 (Concertgebouw Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, cond.) Philips 442 068
Johannes Brahms – Violin Concerto in D (David Oistrakh, vn; ORTF Orchestra; Otto Klemperer, cond.) EMI Classics 64632
Alban Berg (1885-1935) – Violin Concerto (Henryk Szeryng, vn; Bavarian Radio Symphony; Rafael Kubelik, cond.) Deutsche Grammophon 431 740
Synopsis Under the old Julian calendar in use in Czarist Russia, on today’s date in 1861, the Romantic composer Anton Arensky was born in Novgorod. If you prefer, you can also celebrate Arensky’s birthday on July 12 – the same date under the modern Gregorian calendar, but Arensky was such a Romantic that the Old Style date seems, well, more appropriate somehow.
Arensky studied with Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, and admired the music of Tchaikovsky. Arensky taught at the Moscow Conservatory and published two books: a “Manual of Harmony” and “A Handbook of Musical Forms.” His own students included a number of famous Russian composers, including Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière.
Arensky wrote three operas, two symphonies, concertos, chamber works, and suites for two pianos – but it’s his Piano Trio in D minor that gets performed and recorded more often than any of his other works.
A victim of tuberculosis, Arensky spent the last years of his life in a Finnish sanatorium. He died young – just 44 years old – in 1906.
Music Played in Today's Program Anton Arensky (1861 – 1906) –Piano Trio No. 1 (Rembrandt Trio) Dorian 90146
Synopsis The reign of the Roman emperor Nero, notorious for his horrific deeds, was chronicled by the historian Tacitus. His account of the rise of the courtesan Poppea from Nero’s mistress to his empress, provides the plot of one of the operas written by the 17th century Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi.
Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea” was first performed in Venice at the Teatro Sanctae Giovanni e Paolo in the autumn of 1643.
The first performance of Monteverdi’s “Poppea” in modern times had to wait until 1913, when the French composer Vincent d’Indy presented his arrangement of “Poppea” in Paris. In America and Britain, “Poppea” was first staged in 1927, at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts and at Oxford University in England. It wasn’t until today’s date in 1962 that a full professional staging of “Poppea” occurred at the Glyndebourne Festival in England, in a version prepared and conducted by Raymond Leppard.
Monteverdi did not prescribe specific vocal ranges for the characters, and since there was no standardized orchestra in the 17th century, it was customary back then to simply give a list of some suggested instruments and leave it to the performers to decide who played what and when. Therefore, any MODERN performance of a Monteverdi opera is always somebody’s “version” of the surviving notes, based on educated guesswork and the available performers.
Music Played in Today's Program Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643) –L'incoronazione di Poppea (soloists; Vienna Concentus Music Vienna; Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond.) Teldec 42547
Synopsis A decidedly UN-politically correct opera had its premiere at London’s Covent Garden on today’s date in 1905. It was entitled “L’Oracolo” or “The Oracle” by the Italian composer Franco Leoni. Here’s a witty one-sentence précis of the opera prepared by Nicolas Slonimsky for his chronology “Music Since 1900”:
“L’Oracolo, an opera in one long act, dealing with multiplex villainy in San Francisco’s Chinatown, wherein a wily opium-den keeper kidnaps the child of the uncle of a girl he covets, kills her young lover, and is in the end strangled by the latter’s father, with a local astrologer delivering remarkably accurate oracles; an Italianate score tinkling with tiny bells, booming with deep gongs, and bubbling with orientalistic pentatonicisms.”
Another wag described “L’Oracolo” as “Puccini-and-water,” suggesting that if Puccini were whisky, Leoni music was definitely a less potent brew.
But when a touring Italian opera company announced a performance of “L’Oracolo” in San Francisco in 1937, the city’s Asian residents protested, demanding they cut the most racially offensive scenes or, better yet, stage a different opera altogether. A compromise was reached, whereby the House manager preceded the performance with a speech assuring the capacity audience that the opera’s locale and action were pure fiction, and bore no resemblance to San Francisco’s Chinatown past or present.
Music Played in Today's Program Franco Leoni (1864 – 1937) –L'Oracolo (Tito Gobbi, baritone; National Philharmonic; Richard Bonynge, cond.) London OSA-12107 (LP)
Synopsis According to Emerson, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Well, we’re not sure if the composer Arnold Schoenberg ever read Emerson, but we think the 20th-century Austrian composer must have shared this principle with the 19th-century American essayist. Just when many people had Schoenberg comfortably pigeon-holed as an “atonal” composer, he went and wrote a big TONAL piece, resolutely set in the key of G minor.
In the 1940’s, Schoenberg’s publisher asked him to write a piece for high school or amateur wind band. The work Schoenberg finished during the summer of 1943 was entitled “Theme and Variations,” and was described by its composer—with his customary modesty—as (quote), “one of those compositions which one writes in order to enjoy one’s own virtuosity and… to give a certain group of music lovers something better to play.”
Schoenberg’s music proved a little too difficult for high school bands, however, so its first performance was given on today’s date in 1946 by the Goldman Band, America’s top wind ensemble of that day, at a Central Park concert in New York City conducted by Richard Franko Goldman, an enthusiastic supporter of new works for band.
Music Played in Today's Program Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951) –Theme and Variations, Op. 43a (Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble; Harlan D. Parker, cond.) Naxos 8.570403
Synopsis In the summer of 1912, the Vienna Philharmonic presented a week-long Music Festival that offered three “Ninths” – Beethoven’s Ninth conducted by Felix Weingartner, Bruckner’s Ninth conducted by Artur Nikisch, and, on today’s date, the world premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth, conducted by Bruno Walter.
Mahler had died the previous year, and the Viennese public greeted the posthumous premiere of his last complete work with a roar of applause – and decidedly mixed reviews. The work’s elegiac opening won over most of the professional critics, but many were frankly puzzled by some of the symphony’s raucous middle movements.
Bruno Walter, the Mahler protégé who conducted the premiere, was singled out for praise, however. Walter made two famous recordings of Mahler’s Ninth: The first made live during a January 16, 1938, concert of the Vienna Philharmonic. On January 16, 1961 – exactly 23 years to the day after that 1938 recording – Walter began making a stereo recording of Mahler’s Ninth at the American Legion Hall in Hollywood, with the Columbia Symphony.
Walter was 84 in 1961, and despite repeated pleas from the control room, couldn’t stop himself from vigorously stamping his foot 17 seconds into the second-movement, Laendler – a thump not written in Mahler’s score, but now part of Walter’s classic second recording.
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911) –Symphony No. 9 (Columbia Symphony; Bruno Walter, cond.) Sony 64452
Synopsis In the middle of the 15th century, a German printer by the name of Johann Gutenberg invented a method of printing from moveable type cast in metal. His invention revolutionized the way books were printed, and the widespread dissemination of Gutenberg Bibles made him famous in Europe.
In the summer of 1840, the city of Leipzig planned to unveil a new statue of Gutenberg, and commissioned composer Felix Mendelssohn for two new works. The first, for two choirs, would accompany the unveiling of the statue of Gutenberg, and would take place in the city’s open marketplace after the morning church service on June 24th. The following day, June 25th, there would be a gala concert in Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church featuring the church choir and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra performing a new symphony by Mendelssohn.
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, entitled “Lobgesang,” or “Hymn of Praise,” is modeled on Beethoven’s Ninth, opening with purely instrumental movements, and concluding with a finale for vocal soloists and chorus. Mendelssohn’s text was taken from Martin Luther’s German-language translation of the Bible. Since the premiere was intended for St. Thomas Church, where the master of counterpoint Johann Sebastian Bach had once been Kantor, Mendelssohn chose to end his Symphony with a big fugue.
Music Played in Today's Program Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847) –Symphony No. 2 (Hymn of Praise) (Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Chorus; Edo de Waart, cond.) Fidelio 9202
Synopsis Today’s date marks the shared birthday of two of America’s most famous “maverick” composers, both hailing from California.
June 24, 1901, is the birth date of Harry Partch, an Oakland native. Partch devoted his life to developing an alternate system of tuning. Instead of the conventional Western system of equal temperament, in Partch’s harmonic world, microtones were welcomed.
To play his expanded scales, Partch designed and built new instruments with colorful names like “marimba eroica” and “cloud chamber bowls.” For Partch, music was a synthesis of theory and theater, ritual and dance -- intensely physical in nature and best experienced live. Harry Partch died in San Diego in 1974.
Another Californian, born on this date in 1935, is Colfax native Terry Riley.
It was in San Francisco in 1964 that Riley’s most famous piece, entitled “In C”, received its premiere. The score consists of 53 phrases, or modules, with each player freely repeating each phrase as many times as desired before proceeding to the next. The result is an unpredictable, unique music work of canonic textures and polyrhythms, capable of being performed by any group of instruments ranging from a marimba ensemble to a full symphony orchestra, and now regarded as one of the seminal works of the so-called “minimalist” movement in music.
Music Played in Today's Program Harry Partch (1901 – 1974) –Delusion of the Fury (Ensemble of Unique Instruments; Danlee Mitchell, cond.) innova 406
Terry Riley (b. 1935) –In C (SUNY at Buffalo Ensemble; Terry Riley, cond.) CBS 7178
Synopsis Today we remember the Russian composer Reinhold Glière, who died in Moscow on today’s date in 1956. These days Glière is probably best known for the popular “Russian Sailor’s Dance” from his ballet “The Red Poppy.”
Glière was born in Kiev in 1875, and studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where he later became professor of composition. That was after the Russian Revolution, and Glière could count among his students Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Miaskovsky. With the success of works like “The Red Poppy,” Glière is often cited as the founder of Soviet ballet.
Glière also wrote several symphonies, all intensely Russian in color and character. The most famous of these is his Third, subtitled “Ilya Murometz” after a legendary Russian folk hero.
Glière was also intrigued by the folk music of the far eastern republics of the then USSR, incorporating folk themes from the Soviet Union’s Trans-Caucus and Central Asian peoples into some of his orchestral scores.
He was a very prolific composer, but apart from a handful of very popular works, most of Glière's operas, ballets and orchestral works remain largely unfamiliar to most music lovers in the West.
Music Played in Today's Program Reinhold Glière (1875 – 1956) –Russian Sailors' Dance, from The Red Poppy (Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, cond.) BMG 63313
Reinhold Glière (1875 – 1956) –Symphony No. 3 (Ilya Murometz) (London Symphony; Leon Botstein, cond.) Telarc 80609
Synopsis For eight summers starting in 1868, the German-born American conductor Theodore Thomas lead concerts at New York City’s Central Park. As usual with Thomas’s programs, there was a calculated mix of old and new music, and more than a few premieres.
On today’s date in 1871, for example, Thomas conducted the first American performance of “Kaiser March,” a brand-new work by the German opera composer Richard Wagner completed earlier that year to honor Wilhelm of Prussia who had just become Emperor of a united German Reich. It went over very well back in Germany, and, considering that: a) everybody likes a good march, especially at summertime pops concerts and, b) a sizeable percentage of New York’s musicians in Thomas’s day were either German-born or German-trained, we can assume Wagner’s “Kaiser March” was well-received at its American debut.
Five years later, in 1876, Thomas would conduct the premiere of another celebratory march by Wagner, this one commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the American Revolution. Wagner was paid $5000, an enormous sum of money in those days, to compose an “American Centennial March” for national festivities in Philadelphia.
Both of these marches are seldom performed today, and are regarded as pretty thin stuff, musically speaking. Wagner himself quipped that the best thing about his “American Centennial March” was the fee he received for writing it.
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883) –American Centennialand Imperial Marches (Hong Kong Philharmonic; Varujan Kojian, cond.) Naxos 8.555386
Synopsis There are dozens of famous cello concertos that get performed in concert halls these days, ranging from 18th century works by the Italian Baroque master Antonio Vivaldi to dramatic 20th century works of the Russian modernist Dmitri Shostakovich.
In 2007, the American composer Sean Hickey was commissioned by Russian cellist Dmitry Kouzov to write a new concerto, which received its premiere performance on today’s date two years later, in 2009.
“In this work,” Hickey recalled, “I wanted to fuse my interest in neo-classical clarity and design with the songful, heroic nature of the greatest cello concerto literature … My Cello Concerto had its Russian premiere at the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, a neo-Baroque edifice on the banks of the Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg … [It] was then recorded in the legendary Melodiya Studios on Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg, known from Soviet times as producing recordings from the likes of Shostakovich, Rostropovich, Mravinsky, and many others.
“One moment of personal satisfaction came when the Russian orchestra, after rehearsing the piece for days, picked up on a buried quotation from Shostakovich’s Seventh, his ‘Leningrad Symphony’ in the final pages of my piece. It’s easy to forget in the glittering and watery metropolis, which rivals any European city for beauty and culture, that St. Petersburg is a city full of ghosts.”
Music Played in Today's Program Sean Hickey (b. 1970) –Cello Concerto (Dmitry Kouzov, vcl; St. Petersburg State Symphony; Vladimir Lande, cond.) Delos 3448
Synopsis It’s a mark success when a new musical work is recorded shortly after its premiere, and even more when the recording session itself is the premiere. But that was the case with many works written by the American composer Leroy Anderson, whose short and tuneful compositions from the 1940s, 50s and 60s proved enormously popular during his lifetime.
On June 20, 1962, Anderson was at New York’s Manhattan Center, conducting for Decca Records the premiere of his “Clarinet Candy.” By recording in the summer months, when many of New York’s best symphonic players were available for studio work, Anderson was able to round up top-notch musicians for his recording sessions.
The contemporary Argentinean-born composer Osvaldo Golijov has also proved popular enough to have many of his brand-new works recorded either at their premieres or shortly thereafter. This Klezmer-style clarinet piece is entitled “Rocketekya,” and was written for the 20th anniversary of New York’s Merkin Hall. Golijov explained: “I thought it would be interesting to write a different sort of celebratory piece, and I had an idea of a shofar blasting inside a rocket—an ancient sound propelled toward the future.”
Music Played in Today's Program Leroy Anderson (1908 - 1975) –Clarinet Candy (Decca Studio Orchestra; Leroy Anderson, cond.) MCA 9815
Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960) Rocketekya (David Krakauer, clarinet; Alicia Svigals, violin; Martha Mooke, electric viola; Pablo Aslan, contrabass) Naxos 8.559403
Synopsis On today’s date in 1869, a visitor to Boston’s Back Bay could have marveled at a huge, specially-erected wooden structure sporting American flags and surrounded by a mini-village of peanut vendors and lemonade stands.
Inside, an orchestra of 1000 sat surrounded by a chorus of 10,000. Over the stage hung giant portraits of Handel and Beethoven, and higher yet depictions of two angels gazing heavenwards by a banner reading “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.”
This June 19th concert marked the end of a 5-day Jubilee Festival of Music and Reconciliation, as America tried to mend the wounds caused by its recent Civil War. Former Union General and current President Ulysses S. Grant was on hand, and the New York Times opined that the Festival offered proof that, “our people can think of something beyond … the almighty dollar.”
During the Festival, the massive orchestra and chorus performed selections ranging from “classical” works by Bach and Mozart to more recent works by Meyerbeer and Verdi.
A review by John S. Dwight, Boston’s leading music critic of that day, found the immense chorus “glorious and inspiring” and the huge orchestra “splendid.” However, he dismissed a performance of Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus,” accompanied by 100 real anvils, as a “childish, trivial thing for such a grand occasion.”
Music Played in Today's Program Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 -1864) –Coronation March, from Le Prophète (New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) Sony 46709
Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) –Anvil Chorus, from Il Trovatore (Chicago Symphony and Chorus; Sir Georg Solti, cond.) London 466 075
Synopsis Drop the name “Pleyel” among classical music aficionados and one might say, “Oh, yeah, Pleyel. He was a French piano maker. I think Chopin liked Pleyel pianos.” Another might add, “He was a composer, too, but... I don’t think he was really French…” Another might add, “Didn’t he have something to do with Haydn?”
Well, they’re ALL right. Ignace Joseph Pleyel was born near Vienna on today’s date in 1757. As a teenager, he became a pupil of Haydn, and in 1791, ended up in London, where, for a time, Pleyel’s orchestral concerts competed with Haydn’s. The two remained friends, however, dined together and attended each other’s concerts.
In 1795, Pleyel set up shop in Paris, where he founded a publishing house and piano factory. His own compositions remained enormously popular. In 1805, Pleyel travelled to Vienna, visited the aging Haydn and heard that young upstart Beethoven improvising at the piano.
In 1822, the whaling port of Nantucket, Massachusetts, formed a Pleyel Society ‘to chasten the taste of listeners,’ in the words of a local newspaper. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music, “The most telling evidence of the appeal of Pleyel’s music lies in the thousands of manuscript copies that filled the shelves of archives, libraries, … and private homes, and in the thousands of editions of his music produced in Europe and North America.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ignaz Pleyel (1757 – 1831) –Symphony in G, Op. 68 (London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, cond.) Chandos 9525
Synopsis Back in 1714, today’s date fell on a Sunday, and, if you had happened to be attending a church service at the German Court of the Duke of Weimar, you might have heard some new music by the Duke’s court composer and organist, Johann Sebastian Bach.
It’s possible that Bach’s Cantata No. 21 received its first performance that day: its first part before the sermon, its second part right afterwards. The opening text, which Bach sets as a fugue, begins “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis” or, in English, I had much affliction.”
Now even in Bach’s day, composers were afflicted with critics. In 1725, a then-famous composer—and critic—Johann Mattheson took Bach to task for the way in which he had set his text by quoting exactly what is being sung:
"I, I, I, I had much affliction, I had much affliction, in my heart, in my heart. I had much affliction, in my heart…” etc… Mattheson’s point, apparently, was that vocal music should not stutter, but flow gracefully in the “gallant” style that was becoming more fashionable and trendy back then.
Even so, Mattheson knew that Bach was the real deal, and earlier had praised Bach in print for church and keyboard music so well written that (quote), “we must certainly rate this man highly.”
Music Played in Today's Program J. S. Bach (1685 - 1750) –Cantata No. 21 (Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis)
Synopsis The American composer Henry Brant is famous for his avant-garde “spatial” music – works that require groups of musicians stationed at various points around a performance space. But hard-core film music buffs might also know Brant as a master orchestrator of other composers’ scores for Hollywood productions in the 1960s.
On today’s date in 1995, Brant conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, Canada, in the premiere of one of his orchestrations – in this case, a symphonic version of the “Concord” Piano Sonata of Charles Ives, first published in 1920. In the long preface to his Sonata, Ives wrote:
“The [Sonata] is an attempt to present [an] impression of the spirit of transcendentalism… associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts… impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts, and a scherzo supposed to reflect a lighter quality… found in the fantastic side of Hawthorne.”
Henry Brant had been profoundly influenced by Ives’s music long before he got to know the “Concord” Sonata, but when he did, Brant set to work orchestrating it.
“I sensed that here was a tremendous orchestral piece,” Brant wrote. “It seemed to me that the complete Sonata, in a symphonic orchestration, might become the ‘Great American Symphony’ that we had been seeking for years… What better way to honor Ives.”
Music Played in Today's Program Charles Ives (1874-1954) arr. Henry Brant (1913-2008) –A Concord Symphony (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, cond.) innova 414
Synopsis On today’s date in 1980, a week-long festival entitled “New Music America” came to a close in Minneapolis with a concert at that city’s Guthrie Theater. The program included the premiere of “High Life for Strings,” composed by David Byrne, a musician best known for his work with a rock band called The Talking Heads.
Byrne later recalled, “When I participated in the New Music America festival in Minneapolis, minimalism and New-Age noodling were making big in-roads into a scene that had been more insular and academic. My piece, for a dozen strings was on a program with Philip Glass.” Byrne says he was influenced by the intricate rhythms of West African pop music.
Brian Eno was another rock musician represented during the Festival in Minneapolis. Some years earlier, Eno had been so irritated by the inane, chirpy muzak he heard while traveling that he composed a soothing ambient synthesizer score he called “Music for Airports.” Appropriately enough, during the 8 days of the Festival, Eno’s score was broadcast 24 hours a day throughout the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Decades after its composition, composer Michael Gordon arranged Brian Eno’s synthesizer score for acoustic instruments, and recorded this arrangement of “Music for Airports” with the “Bang on a Can All-Stars.”
Music Played in Today's Program David Byrne (b. 1952) –High Life (Balanescu Quartet) Argo 436 565
Brian Eno (b. 1948) arr. Gordon –Music for Airports (Bang on a Can All-Stars) Point Music 314 536 847
Synopsis It’s summertime, the livin’ is easy, and all across the country music festivals large and small are getting underway. In addition to the big symphonic festivals at Ravinia and Tanglewood, there are smaller ones devoted exclusively to the intimate art of chamber music. These festival often offer young, emerging composers the chance have their brand-new scores heard in workshop settings. Sometimes composers themselves are in charge of these summer festivals, partnering with established or specially-organized performing ensembles.
In 1995, for example, two American composers, Daniel S. Godfrey and Andrew Waggoner, started up the Seal Bay Festival, a two-week series of performances and workshops of recently composed chamber music in the Penobscot Bay area of Maine.
On June 14th, 2001, this newly-revised string quartet by Daniel Godfrey received its premiere by the Cassatt Quartet at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport.
The quartet is inscribed to the memory of Godfrey’s mother, who died in 1997. “Her passing,” says Godfrey, “came to represent for me the losses, and the necessity of letting go, that have accompanied my arrival at late middle age. To oversimplify, perhaps, the first movement grieves, the second looks back wistfully, and the third looks ahead with determination and, ultimately, with hope.”
Music Played in Today's Program Daniel S. Godfrey (b. 1949) –String Quartet No. 3 (Cassatt String Quartet) Koch 7573
Synopsis In 1944, the French composer Darius Milhaud was in California, teaching at Mills College in California, and received a commission to write a piece suitable for school bands. With a world at war, the Jewish composer had found safe refuge in the U.S., and so eagerly accepted the commission for a number of reasons. Milhaud, confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, sent his wife Madaleine to the College library to obtain a collection of French folk tunes. His idea was arrange of some these into a suite.
As the composer himself explained after his “Suite Française” was finished:
“The five parts of [my] Suite are named after French Provinces, the very ones in which the American and Allied armies fought together with the French underground for the liberation of my country. I used some folk tunes of these Provinces, as I wanted the young American to hear the popular melodies of those parts of France where their fathers and brothers fought on behalf of the peaceful and democratic people of France."
Milhaud’s “Suite Française” was premiered by the Goldman Band in New York City on today’s date in 1945, and rapidly became one of the best-known and most often performed of Milhaud’s works, and one of the established classics of the wind-band repertory.
Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) Suite Francaise (Eastman Wind Ensemble; Frederick Fennell, cond.) Mercury 289 434 399-2
Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, a high-profile musical event occurred at Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The city was hosting the 57th National Conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League, and the Philadelphia Orchestra was celebrating its 100th anniversary with eight new commissions, all to be premiered in the Orchestra’s new Verizon Hall.
On June 12th, the new piece was a Concerto for Orchestra by a 39-year-old composer named Jennifer Higdon. Higdon’s “Concerto” opened the Philadelphia Orchestra’s program, followed by Richard Strauss’s tone-poem “Ein Heldenleben.” Both pieces were performed before an audience of orchestral professionals from around the country – not to mention Higdon’s proud mother.
Higdon, understandably a little nervous, quipped to a newspaper reporter, "You'll know my mother because she'll be the one crying BEFORE the piece starts." Higdon needn’t have worried. Her “Concerto for Orchestra” was greeted with cheers from both its audience and performers – the latter in typically irreverent fashion, dubbed the new piece “Ein Higdonleben.”
Higdon, the only woman among the eight composers commissioned for the orchestra's centennial project, calls herself a "late bloomer" as a composer. She taught herself the flute at age 15 and didn't pursue formal music training until college. She was almost finished with her bachelor's degree requirements at Bowling Green State University when she started composing her own music.
Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) –Concerto for Orchestra (Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, cond.) Telarc 80620
Synopsis On today’s date in 1931, the Russian-born American composer Nicolas Slonimsky was in Paris, conducting the second of two concerts of modern music from the Americas bankrolled by a retired insurance executive named Charles Ives.
This second concert showcased Latin American composers like Pedro Sanjuan, Carlos Chavez, and Alejandro Caturla, as well as works by the Franco-American composers Carlos Salzedo and Edgard Varese. North America was represented by Wallingford Riegger’s “Three Canons” for flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon.
Normally, chamber music for just four players doesn’t require the services of a conductor, but in this case Slonimsky did beat time for the Parisian wind players hired for the gig. As Slonimsky put it, “Some instrumental parts were written in 5/8 and others in 2/8. I started beating time in 5/8, whereupon the binary musicians began to gesticulate at me to show their discomfort. What was I to do? OK, I said, I will conduct 5/8 with my right hand and 2/8 with my left. I was so delighted with my newly found ambidextrous technique that I applied it in other pieces as well, notably in the second movement of Ives’ Three Place in New England, played on the first of the two Parisian concerts. Someone quipped that my conducting was evangelical, for my right hand knew not what my left hand was doing.”
Music Played in Today's Program Wallingford Riegger (1885 – 1961) –Three Canons, Op. 9 (Samuel Baron, fl.; Ronald Roseman, ob.; Charles Neidich, cl.; Donald MacCourt, bsn.) Bridge 9068
Synopsis On today’s date in 1939, the King and Queen of England were in New York City. Despite the perilous situation back home in Europe, their royal majesties George and Elizabeth Windsor crossed the Atlantic to attend the 1939 World’s Fair, and sample exotic native delights such as a hot dog picnic with President Franklin Roosevelt.
That same evening at Carnegie Hall, another visiting Brit, conductor Adrian Boult, led the New York Philharmonic in premiere performances of three brand-new works by leading British composers of the day, including the world premiere of the Seventh Symphony of Arnold Bax, a work commissioned by the British Council and dedicated to the American people. Also premiered that night was a virtuoso Piano Concerto by Arthur Bliss and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ set of variations for strings and harp on the old English carol, “Dives and Lazarus.”
The music critic for The New Yorker, covering the premieres, wrote: “The symphony wandered, as Bax symphonies seem to do, yet wandered into many characteristic eloquences. The variations were soundly charming, and the piano concerto was a roaring triumph.”
There seems to be no documentation on the quality of the hot dogs served to their royal majesties, but we’re willing to bet they, too, were top-notch.
Music Played in Today's Program Sir Arthur Bliss (1891 - 1975) –Piano Concerto (Philip Fowke, piano; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; David Atherton, cond.) Unicorn 2029
Sir Arnold Bax (1883 - 1953) –Symphony No. 7 (London Philharmonic; Raymond Leppard, cond.) Lyrita 232
Synopsis Contemporary composers may bemoan that their newly-composed opera or concerto might languish unperformed for years. “Haydn was lucky,” they whine, “His stuff got played right away!”
Well, it’s true that Haydn DID have his own orchestra at Prince Esterhazy’s estate and got his music played while the ink was still wet. But even Haydn had to wait for a premiere on occasion—in two instances, for a very, VERY long time.
Consider the last opera Haydn wrote, entitled L'anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice –or, in plain English, The Soul of the Philosopher, or Orpheus and Euridice. This was supposed to premiere in 1791 in London. But a spat between the Prince of Wales and his pop, King George III, meant the performance was off. The opera was eventually premiered 160 years later – on today’s date in 1951, at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, with a cast including Maria Callas and Boris Christoff, led by the German conductor Erich Kleiber.
And the public premiere of a Cello Concerto in C, a work some think Haydn wrote at Esterhazy in the 1760s, took place in the 1960s. Haydn’s score was presumed lost until 1961, when it was discovered at the Prague National Museum and finally played by cellist Milos Sádlo and the Czech Radio Symphony, led by Sir Charles Mackerras, on May 19, 1962.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) –Orfeo ed Euridice
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) –Cello Concerto in C
Synopsis The American composer Elliott Carter lived to be 103 and remained amazingly productive, publishing more than 40 works between ages 90 and 100, and over 20 more AFTER he turned 100 in the year 2008.
On today’s date in 2012, a new chamber work by Carter with an odd title received its first performance at a concert in the New York Philharmonic’s CONTACT! Series. The work was titled “Two Controversies and a Conversation” and showcased the percussive aspects of the piano, highlighting that instrument alongside a solo percussionist. The premiere was an international triple-commission from the New York Philharmonic, the Aldeburgh Festival in England, and Radio France.
An earlier version of part of the new work, titled just “Conversations,” had been premiered in the UK the previous year. The composer explained the title as follows: “How does one converse?” asked Carter. “One person says something and tries to get the other person to respond, or carry on, or contradict a statement. Those conversing are also all the time playing a kind of game with each other. I tried to put all that into my music … After the premiere of ‘Conversations’ at the Aldeburgh Festival in June of 2011, [the British composer] Oliver Knussen suggested I expand this piece. I decided to add two more movements, which became the two ‘Controversies.’"
Music Played in Today's Program Elliott Carter (1908 – 2012) –“Conversation,” from “Two Controversies and a Conversation” (Eric Huebner, piano; Colin Currie, percussion; New York Philharmonic; David Robertson, cond.) NYP 20120112
Synopsis Boston-born American composer Alice Parker is a respected figure in the world of choral music. She studied with the legendary choral conductor Robert Shaw and collaborated with him in a series of folk-song arrangements that are performed by choruses all over the world.
Parker was approached by the American Composers Forum to write a new work for their “Choral Quest” series specially designed for middle school children. Parker was intrigued by the challenge, realizing that many scores written for elementary schools would be too easy for middle schoolers, but works written for high school choirs might be too difficult. Also, parts written for middle school boys would have to accommodate voices in the process of changing from treble to tenor, baritone, and bass.
Parker collaborated with students from the Amherst Regional Middle School Choir in her home state, and found some Native American texts that intrigued her, including one that began “What I am, I must become.” That text seemed perfect, since, as Parker put it, “Children that age have so much ‘becoming’ to do… what they don’t realize—yet—is that is true for all of us, all of our lives!”
That text became the first of a three-part suite entitled “Dancing Songs,” premiered by the Amherst Regional Middle School Choir and their director David Ranen on today’s date in 2011.
Music Played in Today's Program Alice Parker (b. 1925) –Dancing Songs (Minnesota Boy Choir) ChoralQuest promotional CD
Synopsis On today’s date in 1931, the Russian-born American conductor, and composer Nicolas Slonimsky was in Paris conducting the first of two concerts of ultra-modern music from the New World. These were presented under the auspices of the Pan American Association of Composers, and funded by an anonymous philanthropist Slonimsky later identified as retired insurance executive and fellow composer Charles Ives.
Slonimsky had approached Ives early in 1931 with the idea of presenting a series of new music concerts in New York. When that proved too costly, they suggested mounting the same concerts in Paris.
“In 1931, the dollar was still almighty among world currencies,” recalled Slonimsky. “Ives gave me a letter of credit to the Paris branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank in the amount of $1500, an enormous sum of money in French francs at the time. The prestigious Orchestra Straram was engaged for my first Paris concert. I had a brilliant audience: composers, journalists, painters, Italian futurists. There was applause, but also puzzled responses.”
One French music critic even entitled his review “The Discovery of America,” writing, “We have, (without joking), just discovered America, thanks to a Christopher Columbus called Slonimsky.” As for Ives, he was very pleased with the success of the concerts, and for a time jokingly addressed Slonimsky as either “Columbus et Vespuccius,”
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Cowell (1897 – 1965) –Synchrony (Polish National Radio Orchestra; William Strickland, cond.) Citadel 88122
Synopsis Merriam-Webster’s defines a “gazebo” as “a freestanding roofed structure usually open on the sides.
To most Americans, however, “gazebo” conjures up warm, summer days spent out-of-doors: If you imagine yourself inside a gazebo, you’re probably enjoying a cool beverage while gazing out at the greenery – or, if you fancy yourself outside one, you’re probably seated in a lawn chair, gazing at a group of gazebo-sheltered band musicians playing a pops concert for your entertainment.
In the early 1970’s, the American composer John Corigliano wrote a series of whimsical four-hand piano dances he dedicated to certain of his pianist friends, and then later arranged these pieces for concert band, entitling the resulting suite “Gazebo Dances. “
“The title,” explained Corigliano, “was suggested by the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside, where public band concerts are given in the summer. The delights of that sort of entertainment are portrayed in this set of dances, which begins with a Rossini-like Overture, followed by a rather peg-legged Waltz, a long-lined Adagio, and a bouncy Tarantella.”
The concert band version of Corigliano’s “Gazebo Dances” was first performed in Indiana on today’s date in 1973, by the University of Evansville Wind Ensemble, with Robert Bailey conducting.
Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938) – Gazebo Dances (University of Texas Wind Ensemble; Jerry Junkin, cond.) Naxos 8.559601
Synopsis In the summer of 1853 Johannes Brahms had just turned twenty and was touring as the piano accompanist of the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi. On today’s date, they arrived in Gottingen, where they were hosted by Arnold Wehner, the Music Director of that city’s University.
Wehner kept a guest book for visitors, and over time accumulated signatures from the most famous composers of his day, including Mendelssohn, Rossini, and Liszt. Now, in 1853, Brahms was not yet as famous as he would later become, but as a thank-you to his host, he filled a page of Wehner’s album with a short, original composition for piano.
Fast forward over 150 years to 2011, when Herr Wehner’s guest book fetched over $158,000 at an auction house in New York City, and this previously unknown piano score by Brahms attracted attention for many reasons.
First, few early Brahms manuscripts have survived. Brahms was notorious for burning his drafts and sketches, and second, the melody Brahms jotted down in 1853 showed up again in the second movement of his Horn Trio, Op. 40, published 12 years later.
Finally, there's a still-unresolved controversy about who had rediscovered the long-lost score: the auction house had the manuscript authenticated in 2011, but in 2012 the British conductor Christopher Hogwood claimed he had stumbled across it while doing other research.
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) – Albumblatt in A Minor (1853) (Sophie-Mayuko Vetter, p.) Hännsler 98048
Synopsis In the late 19th Century, there were two rival musical camps: one favored “absolute music” like the symphonies, concertos, and chamber music of Brahms; the other the “music of the future,” namely the operas of Wagner and the tone poems of Liszt, works that told dramatic stories in music.
Now, Dvorak’s mentor was Brahms, and Dvorak was famous for his symphonies, concertos, and chamber music. But on today’s date in 1896, at a concert of the Prague Conservatory Orchestra, three tone poems by Dvorak premiered: “The Water Goblin,” “The Noonday Witch,” and “The Golden Spinning Wheel,” all three based on Czech folk legends – and rather lurid, even gruesome ones at that.
Not surprisingly, the “absolute music” camp was shocked. The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick lamented: “It is strange that Dvorak now indulges in ugly, unnatural, and ghastly stories which correspond so little to his amiable character and to the true musician that he is. In ‘The Water Goblin’ we are treated to a fiend who cuts off his own child’s head!”
But another Czech composer, Leos Janacek, heard something quite different: “In all the orchestral tone poems that I have known, the ‘direct speech’ of the instruments, if I might describe it thus, has never sounded with such certainty, clarity and truthfulness within the wave of melodies, as it does in ‘The Water Goblin.’”
Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904) – The Water Goblin (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond.) Teldec 25254
Synopsis On today’s date in 1953, thousands crowded the route to and from London’s Westminster Abbey for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and, at the Queen's own request, the event was televised live by the BBC.
British composer William Walton was asked to write two new pieces. The first Walton’s “Coronation Te Deum”, a work that he had begun almost a decade earlier for a quite different occasion, namely the opening night of the 1944 London Proms. The piece got shifted to a back-burner when Walton was asked to work on Lawrence Olivier’s wartime film of Shakespeare’s “Henry V.”
For the new Queen’s Coronation, Walton returned to his abandoned score, writing to friends, “I’ve got cracking on the Te Deum. Lots of counter-tenors and little boys Holy-holy-ing, not to mention all the Queen’s Trumpeters and a side drum. You will like it, I think, and I hope He will too.” “He” was capitalized, so presumably Walton was referring to either the Deity -- or Winston Churchill, perhaps.
Walton was also asked to compose a “Coronation March,” which he entitled “Orb and Scepter” after a line, coincidentally, from Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” Walton’s March may have seemed a bit jazzy to the more conservative audiences of the day, but one critic, slipping into Cockney slang, gushed, “It sounds like a right royal knees-up!”
Music Played in Today's Program William Walton (1902 - 1983) – Coronation Te Deum (Andrew Lumsden, organ; Finzi Singers; Paul Spicer, cond.) Chandos 9222
William Walton (1902 - 1983) – Orb And Sceptre March (English Northern Philharmonia; Paul Daniel, cond.) Naxos 8.553981
Synopsis When most people hit 65, they’re anticipating their first social security check, but on today’s date in 1750, when George Frederick Handel turned 65, he was making out his will.
To John Christopher Smith, Handel left, “my large harpsichord, my little house organ, my music books, and 500 pounds sterling.” John Christopher Smith, born Johann Christoph Schmidt, was an old friend of Handel’s from his university days in Germany. Handel persuaded Herr Schmidt to give up the wool trade and come to England. As MISTER Smith, he established a famous copyists’ shop in London, became Handel’s business partner.
Seven years later, Handel modified his will, leaving his larger theater organ to John Rich, whose Covent Garden Theater had staged Handel’s most recent operas and oratorios. To Charles Jennens, who had arranged the Biblical verses for Handel’s “Messiah,” the composer bequeathed some paintings.
To the Foundling Hospital, a charitable institute that had performed “Messiah” as a successful fundraiser, Handel left “a fair copy of the score and all parts” for that famous oratorio. Shortly before his death, Handel bequeathed 1000 pounds to the Society for the Support of Decayed Musicians, a charity in aid of musicians’ widows and orphans, and directed that 600 pounds be used to erect his own monument in Westminster Abbey.
Music Played in Today's Program George Frederic Handel (1685 - 1759) – Air, from Water Music (St. Martin's Academy; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) EMI 66646
Synopsis For fans of British comedy, the name Peter Sellars conjures up an actor famous for his iconic role as the bumbling Chief Inspector Clouseau in “Pink Panther” movies. But for opera fans, the name refers to a completely different fellow: an American theater director born in 1957.
The American Peter Sellars is notorious for staging classic operas as if they were set in present-day America. For example: Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” in a dangerous, drug-dealing neighborhood in New York City's Spanish Harlem, or “The Marriage of Figaro” in a luxury penthouse in Trump Tower.
Sellars is also the frequent partner of American composer John Adams in brand-new operas and concert projects. On today’s date 2012, a new oratorio by Adams and Sellars titled “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” received its world premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
The new work’s libretto, crafted by Sellars, tells the Biblical story of the passion and death of Jesus from the point of view of "the other Mary," Mary Magdalene, alongside texts and scenes from contemporary American life, including a women’s shelter, labor and social justice protests, and the opioid crisis. If Jesus were alive today, Sellars and Adams seem to be saying, He would be ministering to the suffering margins of American society, not to the rich and powerful.
Music Played in Today's Program John Adams (b. 1949) — chorus, fr “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” (Los Angeles Master Chorale & Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, cond.) DG 0289 479 2243 8
Synopsis On today’s date in 1962, Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” for soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus, and orchestra, had its premiere performance at Coventry Cathedral in England. The Cathedral had been virtually destroyed in World War II bombing, and Britten’s big choral work was commissioned to celebrate its restoration and reconsecration.
Britten was a committed pacifist, and his “War Requiem” text combines poems by Wilfred Owen, who had been killed in the First World War, with the traditional Latin text of the Mass for the Dead. For the premiere, Britten requested soloists representing nations who had fought during the Second World War.
With Britten’s life-time partner, tenor Peter Pears, representing England, the plan was to have a German baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and a Russian soprano, Galina Vishnevskaya, for the 1962 premiere. As a young man, Fischer-Dieskau had been drafted into the German army, and had been a prisoner of war, but was eager to participate. Unfortunately, the Soviet authorities wouldn’t issue a visa for soprano Vishnevskaya to sing in the new Britten piece. “How can you, a Soviet woman, stand next to a German and an Englishman and perform such a political work,” they told her. The British soprano Heather Harper substituted for her.
For many, Britten’s “War Requiem” is his masterpiece, and shortly after its premiere, Britten wrote to his sister, “The idea did come off, I think... I hope it will make people think a bit.”
Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) — War Requiem (soloists; choirs; BBC Scottish Symphony; Martyn Brabbins, cond.) Naxos 8.553558
Synopsis It was on today’s date in 1913 that Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring” premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, provoking catcalls and fisticuffs from some in the audience. Most scholars suggest it was the ungainly, deliberately primitive choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky, more than Stravinsky’s score, that provoked the most negative response.
Pierre Monteux’s concert performance—without the dancing—at the Casino de Paris the following Spring marked the start of the score’s success as pure music. On that occasion, Stravinsky was carried in triumph from the hall on the shoulders of his admirers.
Shortly before his death in 1929, Sergei Diaghilev, who had commissioned Stravinsky’s score, was enthusiastically quoting a review in the London Times that suggested (perhaps ironically) that the “Rite of Spring” would be for the 20th century what Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was for the 19th.
Well, that has rather turned out to be the case, in fact, and by 2013, a piece of orchestral music that in 1913 was considered almost unplayable is routinely programmed as a classic orchestral showpiece.
One New York Times critic even wrote “… now everybody knows “The Rite.” [It’s] an audition piece that every music student practices, so that now any conservatory orchestra can give a fleet and spiffy performance of what used to stump their elders, and professional orchestras can play it in their sleep, and often do…”
Music Played in Today's Program Igor Stravinsky — The Rite of Spring (Cleveland Orchestra; Pierre Boulez, cond.) DG 435 769
On This Day Births * 1860 - Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz, in Camprodón; * 1873 - Estonian composer Rudolf Tobias, in Kaina on Haiiumaa Island; * 1897 - Austrian composer Eric Wolfgang Korngold, in Brno; * 1922 - Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, in Braila, Roumania; * 1948 - English composer Michael Berkley, in London; He is the son of English composer, Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903-89);
Deaths * 1910 - Russian composer Mily Balakirev, age 73, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: May 16); * 1911 - British lyricist Sir William S. Gilbert (of "Gilbert & Sullivan" fame), age 74, from a heart attack after rescuing a drowning woman, at Harrow Weald, England; * 1935 - Czech composer Josef Suk, age 61, in Benesov; * 1951 - Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster, age 91, in Vestec, near Stará Boleslav;
Premieres * 1901 - Paderewski: "Manru," in Dresden; Also staged at the Metropolitan Opera in 1902; * 1905 - Scriabin: Symphony No. 3 ("'Divine Poem"), in Paris, Arthur Nikisch conducting; * 1913 - Stravinsky: "Le Sacre du printemps" (The Rite of Spring), in Paris, by Diaghilev's Ballet Russe, Pierre Monteux conducting; * 1954 - Cowell: Symphony No. 11 ("Seven Rituals"), by the Louisville Orchestra, Robert S. Whitney conducting; * 1970 - Rautavaara: Piano Concerto, in Helsinki, with composer as soloist, and the Finnish Radio Symphony, Paavo Berglund conducting;
Others * 1873 - American premiere of Brahms's Serenade No. 1 in D, at Steinway Hall, by the New York Symphony, Theodore Thomas conducting; * 1963 - The New York Philharmonic "Promenade" concert series is inaugurated.
Links and Resources * On Igor Stravinsky * More on "The Rite of Spring" * Video of recreated original 1913 choreography for "The Rite of Spring"
Synopsis Unless you’re Tony Soprano, if your boss turns to you and says, “Murder can be fun,” the prudent reaction would be to: a) start looking for a new job, and b) wait for a discrete opportunity to call the police.
But in 1975, when Alfred Hitchcock made that statement to composer John Williams, Williams probably just nodded in agreement. After all, it was a great honor to be asked by Alfred Hitchcock to write music for what would turn out to be the last film completed by the famous Master of Suspense.
That film was “Family Plot,” and Williams completed its music for recording sessions at Universal Studios early in 1976. Williams recalled that the already-ailing Hitchcock stayed just an hour, pronounced the music “fine,” and said, “I’ll leave this to you,” before departing.
Now, film buffs will recall that Hitch, a notorious micro-manager, had abruptly fired composer Bernard Herrmann, his legendary former collaborator, during a recording session for his 1966 film “Torn Curtain,” when Hitchcock realized Herrmann had NOT followed his instructions for a trendy pop music score.
“Family Plot,” was shown at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival but was not officially entered in the competition. Still, it’s ironic that on today’s date that year, the Festival’s top prize, the coveted Palme d’Or, was awarded to “Taxi Driver,” a film by Martin Scorsese, with – you guessed it – music by Bernard Herrmann.
Music Played in Today's Program John Williams (b. 1932) — Closing Credits music, from Family Plot (Utah Symphony) Varese-Sarabande VCD-47225
Synopsis The American composer Jennifer Higdon is used to having her new works premiered by some of this country’s major orchestras. The Philadelphia Orchestra, for example, gave the premiere performance of her “Concerto for Orchestra” in 2002.
The following year, another Higdon work, a piece for wind band entitled “Rhythm Stand,” premiered in Philadelphia. Now, if Higdon’s “Concerto for Orchestra” was composed for the virtuoso members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, “Rhythm Stand” was intended for amateur musicians—middle-school students, to be precise, and its premiere was given by the kids of the Baldi Middle School Band, led by Sandra Dylan.
“Rhythm Stand” was commissioned by the American Composers Forum for their “BandQuest” series of new scores, all written by leading composers, but intended for young performers.
Higdon explains the title of her new piece as follows: “Composing is merely the job of combining interesting sounds into interesting patterns. And interesting patterns create cool rhythms. So... I'm making a STAND FOR RHYTHM… rhythm is everywhere… ever listened to the tires of a car running across pavement, or a train on railroad tracks? Because music can be any kind of sound arranged into an interesting pattern, I added sounds that you normally wouldn’t hear coming from band instruments, sounds created out of ordinary things that might be nearby… like music stands and pencils, for example…. And some performers in this piece get even more basic...they snap their fingers.”
Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) — Rhythm Stand (University of Minnesota Symphonic Band; Craig Kirchoff, cond.) Hal Leonard (full score, parts and CD) HL-04002285
Synopsis In 1923, the Chicago North Shore Festival sponsored a competition for new orchestral works. Of the 47 scores submitted, five finalists were selected by a distinguished panel of judges that included two leading American composers of that day: George W. Chadwick and Henry Hadley. Two of the five works that made the final cut were by the same composer, a 33-year-old Illinois native named Edward Collins.
On today’s date in 1923, conductor Frederick Stock and his Chicago Symphony played through the five finalists’ scores at a public event at Northwestern University, with Collins in attendance to hear his two contrasting pieces. The first was called “Mardi Gras,” and, as you might expect, it was an upbeat work in a party mood.
The second Collins piece was entitled “1914”—a grim orchestral evocation of World War I that Collins later retitled “Tragic Overture.” It was that work that won the competition’s $1000 first prize, and so impressed conductor Stock that he performed the piece in New York and Chicago.
Although Collins was famous in his day, after his death in 1951, his music was largely forgotten. Perhaps his unabashedly Romantic style seemed dated in the avant-garde 50s and 60s. After more than half a century after his death, a series of new recordings of Collins’ orchestral works made by the Concordia Orchestra under Marin Alsop have helped to reintroduce his music to a new generation.
Music Played in Today's Program Edward Collins (1889 - 1951) — Mardi Gras and Tragic Overture (Concordia Orchestra; Marin Alsop, cond.) Albany 267
Synopsis When the United States entered World War I, American animosity against all things German resulted in a ban on German symphonic music and operas. During the Second World War however, musically-speaking, things were VERY different. With America at war with Germany and Italy, music by Wagner and Verdi, for example, continued to be performed in our concert halls and opera houses.
In fact, just as the Nazis tried to appropriate German classical music for their propaganda purposes, the Allies adopted the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth as a Morse Code "V" for Victory motive, and in OUR wartime propaganda, Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," accompanied images of Allied bombers racing through the clouds to strike German cities.
On May 25, 1944, the combined orchestras of the New York Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony presented a Red Cross Benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, with Arturo Toscanini conducting. The first half of the program was all-Wagner, the second half, all-Verdi. During the intermission, New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia auctioned off maestro Toscanini's baton.
As a grand finale, after the German and Italian music, Toscanini closed with a rousing all-American encore—his own arrangement of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."
So, as Walter Cronkite would put it: "That's the way it was, May 25, 1944."
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) — Ride of the Valkyries, from Die Walküre (New York Philharmonic and NBC Orchestra; Arturo Toscanini, cond.) Radio Years 71/72
John Philip Sousa (arr. Toscanini) — Stars and Stripes Forever (New York Philharmonic and NBC Orchestra; Arturo Toscanini, cond.) Radio Years 71/72
Synopsis In 1935, a 26-year-old American named Elliott Carter returned to the States after composition studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Carter found work as the music director of Ballet Caravan, an ambitious and enterprising touring ensemble whose mission was to present specially-commissioned new dance works on quintessentially American themes. Virgil Thomson, for example, wrote a ballet entitled "Filling Station," and Carter himself, decades before the animated Disney movie, wrote a ballet version of the story of Pocahontas and John Smith.
While on tour, these new scores were presented in two-piano versions, but on today's date in 1939, the orchestral version of Carter's "Pocahontas" Ballet was presented by the Ballet Caravan at its home base at the Martin Beck Theater in New York.
The New York Times reviewer didn't much care for the staging or Carter’s music: "The costumes are in the manner of the old-fashioned cigar box Indian," he wrote, "and after the first amusing glimpse their psuedo-naiveté begins to grow irksome. Mr. Carter's music is so thick it is hard to see the stage through it."
The Times reviewer DID like another new ballet also receiving its orchestral debut that same night. This was Aaron Copland's "Billy the Kid.” "A perfectly delightful piece of work," enthused the same critic, concluding, "Aaron Copland has furnished an admirable score, warm and human, and with not a wasted note about it anywhere."
Music Played in Today's Program Elliott Carter (1908 - 2012) — Pocahontas Ballet (American Composers Orchestra; Paul Dunkel, cond.) CRI 610
Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990) — Billy the Kid Ballet (St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, cond.) EMI 73653
Synopsis An old music dictionary’s definition of “nocturne” reads as follows: “A night piece, a musical composition that suggests a nocturnal atmosphere, for example Haydn’s ‘Notturno’ or Mozart’s ‘Serenata Notturna,’ but more specifically a short piece of romantic character. First to use this title for this genre was John Field, followed by Chopin.”
Hundreds of composers since Field and Chopin have tried their hand at writing nocturnes. This particular one was written for flute and guitar by the Boston-based composer Daniel Pinkham, as part of a five-movement suite of Nocturnes, all premiered on today’s date in 1993, at the First and Second Church in Boston.
Now, as any insomniac will tell you, there are all sorts of night moods, and the descriptive titles of Pinkham’s set of five “Nocturnes” ranges from the sprightly to the serene, with others entitled “brooding,” “sultry,” and “restless” tossed in for good measure.
Daniel Pinkham was particularly fortunate in his teachers. Imagine studying composition with Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, and Samuel Barber, or harpsichord with Wanda Landowska and organ with E. Power Biggs. Pinkham did – and in turn became a successful teacher himself, with a long tenure at the New England Conservatory of Music. He served as music director of Boston’s historic King’s Chapel, and as a composer was particularly honored by his church musician colleagues for his many works for chorus and organ.
Music Played in Today's Program Daniel Pinkham (1923 - 2006) — Nocturnes (Fenwick Smith, flute; David Leisner, guitar) Koch 7423
Synopsis Today’s date marks the anniversary Richard Wagner’s birth. During Wagner’s lifetime, his most famous – and perhaps most perceptive – critic was a Prague-born Viennese writer on music named Eduard Hanslick.
Hanslick knew Wagner personally, and described him as follows: “A stranger would have seen in his face not so much an artistic genius as a dry Leipzig professor or lawyer. He spoke incredibly much – and fast – in a monotonous sing-song Saxon dialect and always of himself, his works, his reforms, his plans. If he mentioned the name of another composer it was always in a tone of disparagement.”
For Wagnerians, Hanslick was a crusty old conservative who preferred Brahms and was too thick-headed to appreciate the “Music of the Future” epitomized by Wagner’s operas. But if one actually reads Hanslick’s writings on Wagner, a more nuanced and balanced picture emerges.
“I know very well,” wrote Hanslick, “that Wagner is the greatest living opera composer and the only one in Germany worth talking about in a historical sense … But between this admission and the repulsive idolatry which has grown up in connection with Wagner and which he has encouraged, there is an infinite chasm.”
Upon learning of Wagner’s death in 1883, Hanslick wrote: “Wagner stands at the head of the moving forces of modern art. He shook opera and all its associated theoretical and practical issues from a comfortable state of repose bordering on stagnation.”
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) — Transformation music from Parsifal
Synopsis In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas penned a Latin hymn in praise of the holy sacrament of the last supper in which bread and wine are mystically changed into the body and blood of Christ. Aquinas’s text begins, “Pange lingua, gloriosi” or “Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s Glory.” Aquinas’s words have been set to a melody much older than his text, possibly derived from a Roman marching song or an even earlier Hebrew chant.
On May 21, 1983, this ancient text and tune underwent yet another transformation at the hands of the American composer and jazzman Dave Brubeck, when his “Pange Lingua Variations” for chorus, jazz ensemble and orchestra had its premiere at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, California.
In Brubeck’s setting, each stanza is sung first in original Gregorian chant style, followed by a variation. Brubeck said, “I searched for the meaning of each stanza, and tried to convey that thought musically, so that each variation is a miniature meditation.” The third variation, taking its cue from the music’s possible origin as a Roman marching tune, is given an appropriately martial treatment by both the chorus and jazz ensemble.
While jazz fans associate Dave Brubeck with the sophisticated jazz he developed in the 50s and 60s, many church musicians also know him as the composer of many oratorios on sacred themes, which often incorporate jazz elements into their scoring.
Music Played in Today's Program Dave Brubeck (1920 - 2012) — "Pange Lingua" Variations (Brubeck Quartet; London Voices; London Symphony; Russell Gloyd, cond.) Telarc 80621
Synopsis It was the fashion in the late 19th century to decorate concert halls with the names of famous composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Of course, over time some composers once very popular fell out of favor, and many old concert hall walls included names like Cherubini and Meyerbeer, composers who nowadays are performed only on rare occasions.
In Amsterdam, the main hall of the acoustically famous Concertgebouw boats a pantheon of over two dozen composers’ names as part of its interior decoration, and, not surprisingly, a few Dutch composers are included in the mix. Most of the native sons so honored are probably unfamiliar outside of the Netherlands, however. Take for example Alfons Diepenbrock, a self-taught composer and conductor born in Amsterdam who lived from 1862 to 1921. Diepenbrock composed a small body of big orchestral works in the late Romantic style of Gustav Mahler, who was a close friend.
In Amsterdam on today’s date in 1906, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Willem Mengelberg premiered a work of Diepenbrock’s entitled “In Great Silence – a Mood Poem based on an Aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche.” This music sounds a little like a lost movement from some big Mahler symphony, and while these days the name Diepenbrock might not be as familiar as Mahler, maybe that’s something we should work on correcting!
Music Played in Today's Program Alfons Diepenbrock (1862 - 1921) — In Great Silence (A Mood Poem based on an Aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche) (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, cond (live recording)) Royal Concertgebouw Recordings 97033
Synopsis Australian composer Jodie Blackshaw is passionate about music for wind band and is fond of quoting her famous compatriot composer Percy Grainger on the subject:
“Why this cold-shouldering of the wind band?” asked Grainger. “Is the wind band – with its varied assortments of reeds (so much richer that the reeds of the symphony orchestra), its complete saxophone family that is found nowhere else ... its army of brass – not the equal of any medium ever conceived? As a vehicle of deeply emotional expression it seems to me unrivalled.”
For her part, Blackshaw has chosen to compose primarily for wind band. She also appears as a guest clinician and adjudicator for band festivals throughout Australia. “The Wind Band offers a varied and colorful contribution to instrumental music,” says Bradshaw, “and with literally millions of children world-wide entering musical performance through this medium, it is worthy of our serious attention.”
On today’s date in 2014, a new work by Blackshaw intended for middle-school band students was premiered by the Rosemount Middle School Band of Rosemont, Minn., under the direction of John Zschunke. The new piece, “Letter from Sado," was inspired by a Japanese haiku and traditional Japanese taiko drumming. This work is part of the BandQuest series commissioned by the American Composers Forum, intended to offer young musicians a diverse variety of fresh new wind band works by leading composers of our day.
Music Played in Today's Program Jodie Blackshaw — Letter from Sado (University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble) Hal Leonard HL04004132 (sheet music)
Synopsis Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco is one of America’s foremost reform congregations. For some 50 years its cantor was Reuben Rinder, who, in addition to his liturgical duties, was a composer, impresario, and musical mentor. Cantor Rinder influenced the careers of two of the 20th century’s greatest violinists, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern, and also commissioned two of the 20th century’s most famous concert versions of the Jewish liturgy, the Evening and Morning Sabbath Service settings of Ernst Bloch and Darius Milhaud.
Milhaud’s Sabbath Morning Service was first heard at Temple Emanu-El on today’s date in 1949, with its composer conducting.
Milhaud was born in Provence and wrote that the Provencal Jewish tradition evoked in his score differs somewhat from the more standard Ashkenazi liturgy prevalent in most American synagogues then and now. The composer’s intention was to create a personal musical statement that could serve as both an actual liturgy for the faithful and as an ecumenical musical experience for any and all who hear the work, whether in temple or concert hall.
In that respect, Milhaud’s Sacred Service was a great success. Alongside Bloch’s setting, written in the early 1930s, shortly before the onset of the Holocaust, Milhaud’s setting, written in the years following the conclusion of World War II, remains a powerful and moving affirmation of religious faith.
Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) — Sabbath Morning Service (Prague Philharmonic Choir; Czech Philharmonic; Gerard Schwarz, cond.) Naxos 8.559409
Synopsis While many great composers have also been great conductors, this can be the exception rather than the rule. On today’s date in 1959, the American composer Ned Rorem tried his hand at conducting the premiere of one of his own compositions, a chamber suite entitled “Eleven Studies for Eleven Players.”
Rorem recalled: “I learned that the first requisite to becoming a conductor is an inborn lust for absolute monarchy, and that I, alone among musicians, never got the bug. I was terrified. The first rehearsal was a model of how NOT to inspire confidence. I stood before the eleven players in all my virginal glory, and announced: ‘I’ve never conducted before, so if I give a wrong cue, do try to come in right anyway.’”
Fortunately for Rorem, his eleven musicians were accomplished faculty at Buffalo University, and, despite his inexperience, Rorem certainly knew how his new piece should sound. Rorem’s Suite incorporated a few bits recycled from music he had written for a successful Broadway hit—Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer”—plus a bit from an unsuccessful play entitled “Motel” that never made it past a Boston tryout.
Rorem’s own tryout as a conductor convinced him to stick to composing, although he proved to be a fine piano accompanist for singers performing his own songs. As for “Eleven Studies for Eleven Players,” it’s gone on to become one of Rorem’s most-often performed chamber works.
Music Played in Today's Program Ned Rorem (b. 1923) — Eleven Studies for Eleven Players (New York Chamber Ensemble; Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, cond.) Albany 175
On This Day Births * 1866 - French composer Erik Alfred-Leslie Satie, in Honfleur; * 1901 - German composer Werner Egk, in Auchsesheim, near Donauswörth; His original last name was Mayer, and it is said (although denied by the composer) that the he chose the acronym E-G-K because it stood for "ein grosser Komponist" ("a great composer"); * 1923 - American composer Peter Mennin, in Erie, Pa.;
Deaths * 1935 - French composer Paul Dukas, age 69, in Paris;
Premieres * 1779 - Gluck: opera "Iphigénie en Tauride" (Iphigenia in Taurus), at the Paris Opéra; * 1890 - Mascagni: "Cavalleria Rusticana," in Rome at the Teatro Costanzi; * 1904 - Ravel: "Schéhérazade," in Paris, with vocalist Jane Hatto and Alfred Cortot, conducting; * 1919 - Ravel: "Alborado del gracioso" (orchestral version), in Paris at Pasdeloup Concert; * 1929 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3, in Paris, by the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris, with Pierre Monteux conducting; * 1933 - Cowell: "Reel," for small orchestra, in New York; * 1939 - Prokofiev: cantata "Alexander Nevsky," in Moscow; * 1946 - Martin: "Petite Symphonie Concertante," in Zurich, Paul Sacher conducting; * 1960 - Ned Rorem: "11 Studies for 11 Players," for chamber ensemble, at the State University of Buffalo (N.Y.), conducted by the composers; * 1990 - Rautavaara: "Vincent," in Helsinki at the Finnish National Opera; * 2000 - Michael Torke: "Corner in Manhattan," by the Minnesota Orchestra, Eiji Oue conducting; * 2001 - Christopher Rouse: Clarinet Concerto, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, with Larry Combs the soloist;
Others * 1922 - Music of "The President's Own" reached homes across the nation when the first Marine Band radio program was broadcast; * 1969 - Leonard Bernstein's last concert as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, having conducted 939 concerts with the orchestra (831 as its Music Director); Bernstein conducted 36 world premieres with the orchestra; He continued to appear with the Philharmonic as an occasional guest conductor until his death in 1990; * 1978 - Philips Electronics of The Netherlands announces a new digital sound reproduction system from flat, silver "Compact Discs."
Links and Resources * On Rorem * NY Times feature on Rorem at 95
Synopsis On today’s date in 1868, the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana helped lay the foundation stone for Prague’s future National Theatre. As the stone was driven into the soil with a ceremonial mallet, Smetana exclaimed, “In music is the life of the Czechs!” That same evening at Prague's New Town Theatre Smetana conducted the premiere performance of his new opera “Dalibor.” It’s worthy of note that one of the players in the orchestra was a 26-year old violist and fellow composer named Antonin Dvorak.
The subject matter of “Dalibor” seemed theatrically apt for the occasion: a Czech legend about a rebellious 15th century knight imprisoned for supporting a peasant uprising. During his imprisonment, according to the legend, Dalibor learned to play the violin so beautifully that people came to listen to him outside the window of the Prague Castle tower in which he was held.
Thirteen years after the premiere of “Dalibor,” the National Theatre opened on June 11, 1881. For that gala occasion, another Smetana opera, “Libuse,” received its premiere performance. Sadly, by that time Smetana was completely deaf, mentally ailing, and desperately poor.
To add insult to injury, the directors of the new theater had neglected to invite him to the gala premiere of his own opera! Despite the inexcusable snub, Smetana found his way into the theater, and, when called on the stage and recognized by the audience, was acknowledged with thunderous applause.
Music Played in Today's Program Bedrich Smetana — Act I Prelude and opening chorus,. fr "Dalibor" (Prague National Theatre Orchestra and Chorus; Zdenek Kosler, cond.) Supraphon SU0077-2 632
Synopsis The American composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and its Composer-in-Residence. He was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and his chamber and orchestra works, all infused with themes and musical elements from his Native heritage, have been performed by major orchestras like the Detroit Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Colorado Ballet, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
But during the fall of 2011, Tate began working with a non-professional ensemble closer to home—at Dickson Middle School in Dickson, Oklahoma. Tate had been commissioned by the American Composers Forum to write a new work for their ChoralQuest series for middle-school choirs. The resulting work, entitled Taloowa' Chipota, which in the Chickasaw language means “Children’s Songs,” was premiered on May 15, 2012, by the children at the Dickson School.
“The songs,” explained Tate, “are reminiscent of traditional stomp dancing and are based on old Chickasaw melodies. Stomp dances begin at dusk and end at dawn. The first movement depicts the beginning sunlight of the morning. The second is full of abstracted textures emulating the shell shaking in stomp dances.”
For his part, Tate says he’s pleased how it all turned out: “I was able to introduce a Chickasaw experience to a diverse group of students… I strengthened my own relationship with my Chickasaw community and demonstrated to the Chickasaws in the chorus how our culture can positively impact classical music.”
Music Played in Today's Program Jerod Tate (b. 1968) — Taloowa' Chipota (Children's Songs) (Minnesota Boy Choir) Hal Leonard 00119300 (sheet music)
Synopsis On today’s date in 1897, John Philip Sousa was in Philadelphia and leading his band in the premiere performance of “The Stars and Stripes Forever!” Sousa wrote his most famous march on Christmas Day, 1896, in a New York hotel room—completing the score, he said, in just a couple of hours. The work’s title was a tribute to one of Sousa’s mentors, another legendary bandmaster named Patrick S. Gilmore, whose favorite toast was, "Here's to the Stars and Stripes forever!”
The 1897 premiere of the march went over well, but at first sales didn’t surpass the other Sousa marches available at the time. It was the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the subsequent national eruption of patriotic fervor, and some cagey showmanship on Sousa’s part that catapulted “The Stars and Stripes Forever!” into its unique status. Sousa crafted a touring patriotic pageant involving hundreds of performers, which ended with “The Stars and Stripes Forever!” playing, as soldiers from all three branches of the military marched on-stage with flags unfurled, culminating in the entrance of an attractive local beauty decked out in red, white, and blue.
Despite the thousands of times Sousa and his band were required to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever!” they claimed they never tired of it. And in its now 100+ year history, it’s become one of the most frequently performed pieces of American music worldwide.
Music Played in Today's Program John Philip Sousa (1854 - 1932) — The Stars and Stripes Forever (Royal Artillery Band; Keith Brion, cond.) Naxos 8.559093
Synopsis On today’s date in 1862, the front page of The New York Times offered some encouraging news to the Northern side in the American Civil War: Union troops had captured Norfolk, Virginia, and there were other advances being made by General McClellan’s troops.
Under “Amusements” on the inner pages of that same edition could be found an announcement of a “Grand Vocal and Orchestral Concert” at Irving Hall to be conducted by a 27-year-old musician named Theodore Thomas.
Thomas had been a major figure on the New York music scene since 1855, performing as the principal violinist in that city’s first ensemble giving a regular series of chamber concerts. That chamber group presented hot-off-the-press works by Brahms and other ultra-modern composers of the day. This big orchestral concert, which marked Thomas’s debut as a conductor, was no different.
The Times noted, “We have never before had so much musical novelty presented to us. Such plentiful instrumental music equally new to our musical world, under the capable conductorship of the young musician, must insure a crowded audience of the more critical as well as the more fashionable portion of our public.”
Tickets were $1 each—quite a lot of money in 1862—and the program offered the American premieres of orchestral pieces by Wagner, Meyerbeer, and Liszt’s flashy orchestration of Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy.”
Music Played in Today's Program Schubert arr. Franz Liszt — Wanderer Fantasy (Leslie Howard, piano; Budapest Symphony; Karl Anton Rickenbacher, cond.) Hyperion 67403
Synopsis The American composer and singer songwriter Gabriel Kahane claims someone once described one of his songs as having been from the wastepaper basket of Schubert – but, Kahane hastens to add, “I think he meant that as a compliment.”
Certainly Kahane is a successful songwriter, and if not quite as prolific as the 19th century Viennese composer, is quite productive on a number of 21st century platforms and takes his inspiration from quintessential 21st century experiences. On today’s date in 2018, for example, the Oregon Symphony premiered his “Emergency Shelter Intake Form,” a song-cycle or oratorio inspired by the questionnaire homeless people have to take to secure a shelter bed.
“I live in Brooklyn,” said Kahane, “and I had volunteered at a shelter in Manhattan. I started thinking about the banality of going through that crushing bureaucracy on top of experiencing extreme poverty. That led to the intake form as a jumping-off point for the libretto. It is somewhere between found text and my own extrapolations that began with this sterile administrative form.”
The Oregon Symphony’s premiere performance of Gabriel Kahane’s “Emergency Shelter Intake Form” was recorded, and, in equally quintessential 21st century fashion, is available as a download.
Music Played in Today's Program Gabriel Kahane (b. 1981) – “What brings you here?” from “Emergency Shelter Intake Form” (Alicia Hall Moran, ms; Oregon Symphony; Carlos Kalmar, cond.) Digital download
Synopsis In 1987, Telarc Records asked the late conductor Lorin Maazel if he would make a purely orchestral distillation of the four operas that make up Richard Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelung.” Telarc wanted it all to fit on just one CD.
Now, with these four Wagner operas clocking in at about 15 hours, that’s a slimming-down assignment worthy of The Biggest Loser.
Maazel crafted a 75-minute sequence, played without pause, beginning with the opening pages of the first opera and ending with the closing pages of the last, with all the music appearing in the same order as it does in Wagner’s four operas.
For the Telarc CD release, Maazel recorded his “Ring without Words” with the Berlin Philharmonic. But what had started as a purely studio affair proved an attractive orchestral showcase for other ensembles, so on today’s date in 1990, Maazel led the Pittsburgh Symphony in the debut of his “Ring without Words” as a concert hall work. Since then, he has performed it with orchestras ranging from the New York to the Vienna Philharmonic.
Maazel confessed he resisted the idea at first. "I said… it would be desecrating a unique masterpiece. But they kept after me.” In the end, Maazel capitulated, but insisted there couldn't be one note by Lorin Maazel. When one instrumentalist shuddered at a particularly abrupt transition, Maazel told him, "Sorry! That's the composer."
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) arr. Lorin Maazel (1930 -2014) — Ring without Words (Berlin Philharmonic; Lorin Maazel, cond.) Telarc 80154.
Synopsis In 1970, British composer Peter Maxwell Davies moved to the remote and rugged Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. At first, he said, the natives thought he was just some weirdo from the south, and the more Puritanical islanders would pray the might find a more respectable means of earning a living than writing music.
But over time Davies and the islanders got used to each other. The composer found inspiration in the landscape and legends of the area, while the community warmed to the fact that the newcomer found them so fascinating. In 1978, Davies attended a neighbor’s wedding, which inspired a musical work he called “An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise.”
“It is a picture postcard,” said Davies, “We hear the guests arriving, out of extremely bad weather. This is followed by a processional and first glass of whiskey. The band tunes up and we get on with the dancing, which becomes ever wilder, until the lead fiddle can hardly hold the band together. We leave the hall into the cold night. As we walk home across the island, the sun rises to a glorious dawn.”
“The sun,” Maxwell Davies concluded, “is represented by the highland bagpipes, in full traditional splendor.”
Despite its local color, “An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise” was actually an AMERICAN commission from the Boston Pops, who gave its premiere on today’s date in 1985, with John Williams conducting.
Music Played in Today's Program Peter Maxwell Davies (1934 - 2016) — An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (George MacIlwham, bag-pipes; Royal Philharmonic; Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, cond.) Collins 1444
Synopsis One today’s date in 2004, a new concerto for marimba and orchestra had its premiere in San Francisco, with soloist Matthew Cannon and the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra.
The new concerto was written by Alexis Alrich, who studied composition out East at the New England Conservatory, and out West at Mills College, where one of her teachers was Lou Harrison, who introduced her to Asian music through Javanese gamelan. Her own music, she says, blends American minimalism, Asian music, and Western classical and folk music, a mix some have described as “California impressionism.”
“[My] Marimba Concerto,”says Alrich, “is highly demanding for the soloist and fully exploits the technical possibilities and sound palette of the five-octave marimba. The opening movement with its string tremolos and whispering wind motifs provides an atmospheric entrance for the solo marimba … The middle movement starts with a gently pulsating theme that recurs between contrasting sections, including one in Mexican folk style. The final movement climaxes with a multi-layered, Asian-inspired chorale … with a toccata-style cadenza for the soloist.”
In 2010 British percussion virtuoso Dame Evelyn Glennie and City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong gave the Asian premiere of the concerto and made its first recording.
Music Played in Today's Program Alexis Alrich (b. 1955) – Marimba Concerto (Evelyn Glennie, marimba; City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong; Jean Thorel, cond.) Naxos 8.574218
Synopsis Hold on tight—we’re about to cover 150 years of musical—and presidential—history in just 2 minutes!
On today’s date in 1821, back when James Monroe was president, Beethoven’s Second Symphony was performed in Philadelphia at a concert of the Musical Fund Society. That occasion marks the first documented performance of a complete Beethoven symphony in America and occurred when Beethoven was 50 years old and residing in Vienna.
In 1853, when Franklin Pierce was in the White House, the Germania Musical Society took Beethoven’s Second on its American tour, presenting it in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Chicago. That 1853 tour marked the first time an entire Beethoven Symphony was performed in the windy city. Additional 19th century “firsts” for the Second occurred over the next two decades in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and San Francisco, during the administrations of James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson.
Ulysses S. Grant was president in 1870, when Beethoven’s Second debuted in Washington DC, and Grant was still President in 1872, when the Second was the first symphony EVER to be performed in Minneapolis.
A hundred years later, in the NINETEEN-Seventies, when Richard Nixon was in the White House, you could hear performances of Beethoven’s Second from Maine to Hawaii, all while sitting comfortably in your own “Executive Mansion,” courtesy of your local government-assisted public radio station.
If you wish, you may now stand and salute your radio!
Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) — Symphony No. 2 (New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) Sony 61835
Synopsis On today’s date in 1947, a new opera entitled “The Mother of Us All” debuted at Columbia University in New York City.
The libretto was by the American poet Gertrude Stein, and dealt with the life and times of Susan B. Anthony, a 19th century champion of women’s rights. In Stein’s dream-like account, iconic figures from America’s past like President John Adams, orator Daniel Webster, and entertainer Lillian Russell interact even though they lived at different times in history. Two of the opera’s 27 characters, playwright Constance Fletcher and Yale librarian Donald Gallup, in fact, were contemporary friends of Stein’s.
The music was by the American composer Virgil Thomson, whose score evoked seemingly familiar 19th century hymns, sentimental ballads, circus band music, drum rolls, and fanfares. The tunes were, in fact, all original creations. The mix of Thomson’s music and Stein’s text results in a rambunctious opera about American life and politics, at turns both amusing and strangely touching. It became an unlikely success.
Thomson wrote two other operas: “Four Saints in Three Acts,” from 1933, was an earlier collaboration with Gertrude Stein, and “Lord Byron,” from 1972, sets a witty libretto by Jack Larson, an actor famous for his portrayal of Daily Planet cub reporter Jimmy Olson on the old “Superman” TV series. “Lord Byron” was intended for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but never made it there, and performances these days are rare.
Music Played in Today's Program Virgil Thomson (1896 - 1989) — The Mother of Us All (Santa Fe Opera; Raymond Leppard, cond.) New World 288
Synopsis On today’s date in 1992, Joel Revzen conducted the Albany Symphony in the premiere of the Third Symphony of American composer Libby Larsen.
Larsen subtitled her new work a “Lyric Symphony.” Now, the early 20th century Viennese composer Alexander Zemlinsky had written a “Lyric Symphony,” one that involved vocal soloists. As a composer, Libby Larsen is noted for her songs and choral works, but for her own “Lyric Symphony” she opted for a purely instrumental work that would be somehow quintessentially “American.” In program notes for her new symphony, Larsen wrote:
“As I struggle with the definition of ‘American’ music, it occurs to me that in all of our contemporary American genres, the dominating parameter of the music is rhythm. Rhythm is more important than pitch. This is a fundamental change in the composition of music in the 20th century. Here we speak American English, an inflected, complex, rhythmic language.
“What is lyric in our times?” continued Larsen. “Where is the great American melody? Found, I would say, in the music of Chuck Berry, Robert Lockwood, Buddy Guy, George Gershwin, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, James Brown, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, and those composers who create melodies that are defined more by the rhythm than their pitch. My Symphony No. 3—the Lyric, is an exploration of American melody.”
Music Played in Today's Program Libby Larsen (b. 1950) — Symphony No. 3 (Lyric) (London Symphony; Joel Revzen, cond.) Koch 7370
Synopsis The French composer Claude Debussy was too sick to be called up for service when World War I broke out in 1914. His private battle with cancer on top of his nation’s battle with Germany plunged him into depression. But by the spring of 1915, Debussy decided to keep on composing. “I want to work,” he wrote, “not so much for myself, but to give proof, however small it may be, that not even 30 million Boches can destroy French thought.”
He knew his remaining time was precious, so decided to write small chamber works rather than big orchestral pieces. Debussy planned to write SIX chamber sonatas but completed only three. Working, as he put it, “like a madman,” he finished a Cello Sonata and a Trio Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp by the fall of 1915.
In December of that year, the side-effects of radium treatments and morphine injections for his cancer brought Debussy’s Sonata project to a grinding halt. Rallying somewhat by the by the summer of 1916, Debussy vowed to keep on working. He wrote: “If I am doomed to vanish soon, I desire at least to have done my duty.”
On May 5, 1917, Debussy made his last public appearance in Paris at the Salle Gaveay, accompanying violinist Gaston Poulet in the premiere of his final work – a Sonata for Violin and Piano. Debussy would die the following spring.
Music Played in Today's Program Claude Debussy (1862–1918) — Violin Sonata (Midori, violin; Robert McDonald, piano) Sony 89699
Synopsis On today’s date in 1895, the New York Choral Society gave the premiere of a choral work by Antonin Dvorak entitled “The American Flag.” Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, who brought Dvorak to New York City to teach at her National Conservatory, had asked him to set a patriotic poem of that name. The idea was the new work would be performed to coincide with Dvorak’s arrival in the fall of 1892, and the big celebrations planned that year for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World.
Unfortunately, Dvorak didn’t get the text in time, and so another choral work, his recently completed “Te Deum” was performed during the big Columbus Quadricentennial. “The American Flag” was put on a back burner, as it were, and wasn’t performed until AFTER Dvorak returned to Prague. Dvorak never heard the work performed at all, in fact.
The blustery, outright chauvinistic tone of its pro-New World, anti-Old World text would hardly endear it to European audiences of his day. In fact, this work hasn’t proven to be a big hit with AMERICAN audiences, either.
“The American Flag” remains one of Dvorak’s least-performed pieces. Michael Tilson Thomas conducted a recording of it timed for release in 1976 during the American Bicentennial. Ironically for so “American” a work, that recording was made in Berlin with a German orchestra and chorus!
Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904) — The American Flag , Op. 102 (soloists; choirs; Berlin Radio Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond.) CBS/Sony 60297
Synopsis By the 1960s, the prevailing trends dictated that modern music should be austere, brainy, complex, and preferably written in the 12-tone “serial” technique developed by Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils. Igor Stravinsky had started writing serial pieces in the 1950s, and even Aaron Copland had a go at writing a 12-tone piece in his “Connotations” for Orchestra, composed for the opening of the New York Philharmonic’s new hall at Lincoln Center in 1962.
Well, the American composer Henry Cowell was not one to be so easily pigeon-holed. In 1962 he composed an airy little quartet for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord—a piece very much in the neo-classical style. Cowell then re-scored the harpsichord part for harp at the request of Mary Spalding Sevitzky, the harp-playing wife of the Russian émigré conductor Fabien Sevitzky, to whom the quartet was dedicated.
Sevitzky’s real last name was Koussevitzky, and, yes, he was the nephew of the famous Russian conductor and music patron Serge Kousseviztky. At his uncle’s request, to avoid confusion, Fabien shorted his last name to Sevitzky when he became a conductor in his own right. He led the People’s Symphony of Boston in the 1930s before becoming the director of the Indianapolis Symphony from 1937 to 1955. Like his more famous uncle, Fabien Sevitzky was a great champion of American composers. In his later years, he moved to Florida, where he taught and led the University of Miami Symphony. It was in Miami that a distinguished quartet—including Mrs. Sevitzky—premiered Henry Cowell’s quartet on today’s date in 1963.
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Cowell (1897 - 1965) — Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harp (Musicians Accord) Mode 72
Synopsis The catalog of the Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American composer George Walker includes two major pieces for winds: “Canvas,” written in 2000, is a large-scale work for wind band, percussion, and double bass; and “Wind Set,” a smaller chamber piece, written the previous year and for just five instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon.
In both works, Walker said he set out to do something had hadn’t done before, something new:
“I am trying to think that I am beginning fresh – that it's not something that I have done before … I try to find the kind of beginning, for me the beginning is so crucial, that is unlike something that I have done before… or like something that I might have heard. So the search process is really trying to find those initial notes that will convey the sense of freshness… Beyond that I think that I was able, from my point of view, to maximize the coloristic possibilities of the winds.”
“Wind Set” was commissioned by the New Jersey Chamber Music Society and received its premiere performance by them in Newark on today’s date in 1999.
Music Played in Today's Program George Walker (1922 – 2018) – Wind Set (Peggy Schecter, f; Richard Foley, ob; William Shadel, cl; Leonard Hindell, bsn; Jerome Ashby, fh.) Summit 274
Synopsis Today in 1825, a benefit concert was arranged in Boston for one of that city’s favorite musicians: Johann Christian Graupner—not a household name for music lovers today, but in the early 19th century, Graupner was an important musical link between the Old World and the New.
Graupner was born near Hanover in 1767. The son of an oboist, young master Graupner mastered that instrument, too—and many others. After service in a German military band, he made his way to London, where in 1791 he was picked as the principal oboist for the first of Haydn’s symphonic concerts there.
In 1797, Graupner’s itchy feet took him to Charleston, South Carolina, where he met and married a pretty English actress and opera singer. The couple moved to Boston and became active in the musical life there. Graupner opened a music store, importing from Europe both those newfangled fortepianos and the latest in sheet music. In 1810, he became the first president of Boston’s Philharmonic Society, and in 1815 helped organize that city’s Handel and Haydn Society—a performing organization that still exists today.
For Graupner’s benefit concert on May 1, 1825, Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 was included on the program, marking that symphony’s first documented performance in America. It was presumably an “authentic” performance, too, since Graupner had most likely played it under the composer’s own direction back in London some three decades earlier.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Josef Haydn (1732 - 1808) – Symphony No. 100 (Military) (London Classical Players; Roger Norrington, cond.) EMI 55192
Synopsis On today’s date in 2003, the Wind Ensemble of the University of Texas at Austin, led by Jerry Junkin, premiered a new work for wind band by the American composer David Del Tredici.
Its title was “In Wartime,” as its composition and premiere coincided with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by the United States alongside the United Kingdom and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, and Poland.
“’In Wartime,’ my first piece for wind symphony, was begun on November 16, 2002, and completed on March 16 (my birthday), in 2003 – as momentous a four-month period in U.S. history as I have experienced,” recalled Del Tredici.
“With my TV blaring, I composed throughout this period, feeling both irresistibly drawn to the developing news and more than a little guilty to be unable to turn the tube off. Composing music at such a time may have seemed an irrelevant pursuit, but it nevertheless served to keep me sane, stable and sanguine, despite the world's spiraling maelstrom.”
Del Tredici’s “In Wartime” has two sections: “Hymn” and “Battlemarch.” The first has the character of a choral prelude, with fragments of “Abide with Me” sounding through a welter of contrasting material. An ominous drum roll introduces the “Battlemarch” section, with the confrontation of East vs. West symbolized by musical quotes from “Salamti, Shah!” (the national song of Persia) and the opening of Wagner’s opera, “Tristan und Isolde.”
Music Played in Today's Program David Del Tredici (b. 1937) — In Wartime (University of Texas Wind Ensemble;Jerry Junkin, cond.) Reference Recording 104
Synopsis April 29th fell on Sunday in the year 1906, and readers of The New York Times photogravure supplement were able to view scenes of the terrible destruction in San Francisco that followed the great earthquake that struck that city just 11 days before. The paper was filled with accounts of the suffering caused by the quake, and undoubtedly, many New Yorkers asked themselves what they could do to help. The New York musical community provided one answer by quickly arranging a number of benefit concerts.
The largest of these occurred on today’s date that year at New York’s Hippodrome, and was organized by the popular composer Victor Herbert, who conducted his orchestra with Metropolitan Opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink as a featured soloist. The vast Hippodrome was completely sold out, with standing-room-only tickets filling the aisles. Seven thousand dollars were raised, which by today’s standards seems a rather modest sum, but by 1906 standards was impressive enough to make newspaper headlines.
Perhaps New York musicians and their audiences felt a personal affinity with the quake victims, as their own Metropolitan Opera Company, including its star tenor Enrico Caruso, was on tour in San Francisco when the quake struck on April 18th, and, as the Times reported, the Met’s touring orchestral musicians, almost without exception, lost their instruments.
That bit of news must have struck a special chord with Victor Herbert. In 1886, both he and his wife had come to America from Europe to join the Metropolitan Opera – he as an orchestral cellist, and she as a soprano soloist.
Music Played in Today's Program Victor Herbert (1859–1924) — Cello Concerto No. 1 (Lynn Harrell, cello; St. Martin's Academy; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) London 417 672
Synopsis Despite its relation to both the physics of sound and pure mathematics, music, for most people – including composers – is essentially an emotional language.
Despite its abstract sound, that’s the case of this orchestral piece, which premiered in Rochester, New York, on today’s date in 1938. The music was by a then 22-year-old American composer named David Diamond, and bears the title: “Elegy in Memory of Ravel.”
Nine years earlier, as a precocious adolescent, Diamond had met Ravel during the French composer’s American tour of 1928. Ravel was impressed with the lad’s talent, and encouraged Diamond to pursue a career in music, as did George Gershwin who served on a jury that awarded one of Diamond’s works first prize. Diamond lost both these important mentors in 1937, with the sudden deaths of first Gershwin, then Ravel. The day after learning of Ravel’s death, Diamond began work on his “Elegy.”
“It is an expression of terrible loss,” recalled Diamond in an interview many decades later. “As the piece began to take shape, almost unconsciously, I heard it as a ritual – an elegy, but a ritualistic one. I asked that there be no applause at the end.”
The work’s 1938 premiere performance was conducted by Howard Hanson, then the head of the Eastman School of Music and the conductor of its famous orchestra. Diamond’s modern, frankly dissonant idiom didn’t sit well with Hanson’s more conservative tastes. Diamond recalled Hanson asking “David, why do you have to write such modern music?” Even so, Hanson respected both Diamond and his music enough to conduct the new piece.
Music Played in Today's Program David Diamond (1915 - 2005) — Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel (Orchestra of St. Luke's; John Adams, cond.) Nonesuch 79249
Synopsis We have a special DATEBOOK birthday to note today, for on this date in 1894, one of music’s great “date-meisters,” Nicholas Slonimsky, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A self-described “failed wunderkind,” Slonimsky became an accomplished conductor and relentless new music promoter, giving the first performances of avant-garde works by Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Edgard Varese, to name just a few. A composer himself, Slonimsky’s own works include settings of actual advertisements he found in the Saturday Evening Post circa 1925, and a symphonic work that culminates in the triple-forte explosion of 100 colored balloons.
Slonimsky was an obsessive collector of the dates, venues, and premiere performers of concert music in the 20th century. Slonimsky’s chronicle, entitled Music Since 1900, runs well over 1000 pages and went through several editions during his long lifetime. Slonimsky also served as the editor for several editions of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary, writing many of the wittiest contributions himself.
Slonimsky’s scholarly writings include a 1947 Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, an inventory of all conceivable and inconceivable tonal combinations, a work that became a cult classic among BeBop jazz musicians, including the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane. In 1952, Slonimsky published his Lexicon of Musical Invective, a collection of some of the juiciest bits from the devastatingly bad reviews many musical masterpieces received at the hands of contemporary critics, and in 1968, for the Music Library Association of America, a painstakingly researched report entitled Sex and the Music Librarian.
Nicolas Slonimsky died in Los Angeles in 1995, just 4 months shy of his 102nd birthday.
Music Played in Today's Program Charles Ives (1874-1954) — Three Places in New England (San Francisco Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond.) BMG 63703
Synopsis On today’s date in 1891, a small group of music patrons gathered at one of New York’s docks to greet the Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who had been invited to America to take part in the grand opening of a new music hall. Back then, it was just called “The Music Hall,” but over time it took on the name of the wealthy steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, who funded its construction.
“Carnegie is an amazing eccentric,” wrote Tchaikovsky to his friends back in Russia. “He rose from being a telegraph boy, transformed with the passing of years into one of America’s richest men, but one who has remained a simple, modest man who does not at all turn up his nose at anyone.”
And, despite his legendary melancholic funks and chronic bouts of homesickness, the composer admitted he found the rest of New York rather impressive: “American customs, American hospitality, the very appearance of the town, the remarkable comfort of my accommodations – this is all very much to my taste and if I were younger I would probably be greatly enjoying my stay in an interesting new country.”
On the down side, Tchaikovsky reported you couldn’t buy cigarettes on a Sunday, and it was sometimes hard to find a public bathroom when you needed one – a common complaint of New York tourists even today!
“All told,” Tchaikovsky concluded, “I am a much bigger fish here than in Europe. Incidentally, Central Park is magnificent.”
Music Played in Today's Program Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) — Orchestral Suite No. 3 (Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond.) Chandos 9419
Synopsis Today’s date marks the anniversary of the first performance of two 20th century chamber works.
On April 25, 1931, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 1 received its premiere performance by the Brosa Quartet at the Library of Congress. Accepting the commission from the Library’s Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, Prokofiev set about studying pocket scores of the string quartets of Beethoven, which he perused on trains while shuttling between concert engagements.
Prokofiev himself described the work’s opening as “rather classical,” but when the new quartet was premiered in Moscow, the verdict of the all-powerful Association of Proletarian Musicians was that it was too “cosmopolitan,” a pejorative adjective in Soviet arts criticism in the Stalinist Era that meant something like “unacceptably modern.”
Our second chamber music premiere occurred on April 25th in 1980, when the Octet for Winds and Strings by the American composer George Rochberg was performed for the first time at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. The occasion was a concert by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, who had commissioned the new piece.
At the time, Rochberg was a rather controversial figure for shifting from his earlier, strictly atonal style into a more emotionally charged neo-Romantic approach to music making, often referencing earlier composers and musical styles of the past. The music critic of The New York Times thought he heard a touch of Rachmaninoff in Rochberg’s new piece – an observation that some at the time would translate as really meaning the work was “unacceptably old-fashioned.”
Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) — String Quartet No. 1 (St. Petersburg String Quartet) Delos 3247
George Rochberg (1918-2005) — Octet (A Grand Fantasia) (New York Chamber Ensemble; Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, cond.) New World 80462
Synopsis “In an ideal musical world,” says composer Joan Tower, “a composer should have a friendly, creative, and ongoing working relationship with performers for whom she writes.”
For Tower, who has emerged as one of the most successful American composers of her generation, a friendly, creative, and ongoing relationship with chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras, and soloists has resulted in a number of musical works.
Tower’s Violin Concerto, for example, was written for the American violin virtuoso Elmar Oliveira, who gave its premiere performance on today’s date in 1992, at a Utah Symphony concert.
Tower wrote the piece with Oliveria in mind: “A lot of violinists are speed freaks,” she wrote, “but Elmar can play both virtuosically and with an innate singing ability.” The more lyrical and emotional heart of the work was written as memorial to Olivera’s older brother, also a violinist, who died of cancer during work on the new concerto. That’s not to say Tower didn’t supply some flashy, pyrotechnical passages for her star soloist, however.
As Oliviera put it: “It’s the kind of flashiness an audience can relate to. Joan doesn’t need avant-garde gimmicks, because now she’s completely comfortable speaking her own language, one that is expressive and natural to her.”
Or, as Tower herself put it: “Sometimes it’s a struggle to find out what you’re good at. It took me a number of years to decide how I wanted to write with my own voice.”
Music Played in Today's Program Joan Tower (b. 1938) — Violin Concerto (Elmar Oliveira, violin; Louisville Orchestra; Joseph Silverstein, cond.) D'Note 1016
Synopsis On today’s date in 2004, the Utah Symphony and conductor Keith Lockhart premiered “Three Latin-American Dances” by the American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Just a few days later, the same forces recorded Frank’s music for a release, to be sandwiched between Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” and Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances.”
Frank’s first dance, entitled “Jungle Jaunt” opens with what she calls “an unabashed tribute” to the URBAN jungle evoked in Bernstein’s “West Side Story.” Her second dance, “Highland Harawi,” is more melancholy, perhaps a nod to that strain in Rachmaninoff’s music, and evokes the sounds of the bamboo quena flute of the Andes.
Her third dance is titled “The Mestizo Waltz,” a pun on the famous “Mephisto Waltz” by Franz Liszt. As Frank explains: “This final [dance] is a lighthearted tribute to the mestizo or mixed-race music of the South American Pacific coast. It evokes the romancero tradition of popular songs and dances that mix influences from indigenous Indian cultures, African slave cultures, and western brass bands.”
Frank herself is of mixed Peruvian and Jewish background. When asked about how her heritage affects her music, she replied: “Sometimes the Latin influences are quite evident, and sometimes they are quite subtle. And of course, ‘Latin’ can mean so many different things. There is no one single Latin identity, as any Latino/Latinoamericano would tell you.”
Music Played in Today's Program Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972) — Three Latin American Dances (Utah Symphony; Keith Lockhart, cond.) Reference Recording 105
Synopsis Today is Earth Day – an annual event started in 1970 by then-Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin as an environmental teach-in.
Senator Nelson wasn’t the only one concerned back then, either: the Czech-born composer Karel Husa had noticed dead fish floating on a lake located near a power plant. “The plant was producing hot thermal pollution which in turn killed all those fish,” Husa recalled. “In addition, I noticed more beer cans in the water and algae in greater quantities.”
A wind band commission provided Husa with an opportunity to create a work he called “Apotheosis of This Earth.” In explaining its title, Karel Husa wrote:
“Man’s brutal possession and misuse of nature’s beauty – if continued at today’s reckless speed – can only lead to catastrophe. The composer hopes that the destruction of this beautiful earth can be stopped, so that the tragedy of destruction – musically projected here in the second movement—and the desolation of its aftermath – the “postscript” of this work – can exist only as fantasy, never to become reality.”
“Apotheosis of this Earth” was commissioned by the Michigan School Band and Orchestral Association, and its premiere performance took place on April 1, 1970, with Husa himself conducting the University of Michigan Symphony Band at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. It proved a powerful piece of music.
“As the Postscript finished,” recalled the composer, “I saw that the students in the band were somehow moved – there were even some tears.”
Music Played in Today's Program Karel Husa (b. 1921) — Apotheosis of This Earth (Ithaca College Wind Ensemble; Rodney Winther, cond.) Mark 3170
Synopsis On today’s date in 1937, one of Aaron Copland’s least known works had its premiere performance. This was an opera written for high school students, New York’s Henry Street Settlement Music School, to be exact, and entitled “The Second Hurricane.”
In his memoirs, Copland recalled that at the time he wrote it, he was living at the Empire Hotel in Midtown Manhattan for $8.50 a week, and that he wrote the score in a studio he rented, located at what is now the site of Lincoln Center. To direct the premiere of his school opera, Copland hired a young actor-director named Orson Welles. Copland’s score also called for some adult performers as well, including one professional actor by the name of Joseph Cotton, who was paid $10 for his performance.
“The newspapers seem to enjoy the idea that a dyed-in-the wool modernist was writing an opera for schoolchildren,” recalled Copland, “so they gave a great deal of attention to every step along the way, particularly the casting. Those kids must have gotten a kick out of seeing their names in the Times and Tribune! The idea of an opera for high school performers appealed to the press, I suppose, for the same reason it appealed to me. My motives were not all unselfish, either: the usual run of symphony audiences submitted to new music when it was played at them, but never showed signs of really wanting it. The atmosphere had become deadening. Yet the composer must compose. A school opera seemed a good momentary solution for one composer, at any rate.”
Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990) — The Second Hurricane (High School of Music and Art; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) Sony 60560
Synopsis Religious music, like the religious experience itself, comes in all shapes, forms, moods, and colors.
On today’s date in the year 2002, for example, this setting of the Song of Isaiah had its premiere performance at the Milwaukee Art Museum during a concert by the Present Music ensemble. The composer of the new setting was a native of Milwaukee named Michael Torke, who writes:
“I have always considered that a central religious experience is one of uplifting joy, as opposed to other spiritual expressions of pleading, suffering, atonement, or wrath. It is that state of joy and thanksgiving I am trying to express.”
Song of Isaiah was commissioned for Present Music's 20th anniversary, and to honor the Archbishop Rembert Weakland. The piece is scored for a singer, clarinet, bass clarinet, string quintet, piano, vibraphone, and a percussionist who plays the rhythmic underpinning with a tambourine, claves, and in the center of the piece, a triangle.
“This spirited rhythm,” writes Torke, “embodies slower embedded forms that are etched out melodically by the clarinets in octaves, and also by the strings and piano in octaves. In essence, there are no climaxes, as I wish the music to be a meditation, though the feeling is quite lively. Nine sections of the piece serve as episodic variations, and explore different small chunks of text from the Book of Isaiah. The form is a mirror: the first and ninth sections relate, as do the second and eighth, and so on; the fifth section (using the triangle) is in the exact center.”
Music Played in Today's Program Michael Torke (b. 1961) — Song of Isaiah (Present Music) innova 590
Synopsis In the 19th century, Richard Wagner composed a cycle of four operas collectively titled “The Ring of the Nibelungen,” lasting 16 hours in performance. In the 20th century, another German composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, wrote a cycle of seven, collectively titled “Light,” which runs about 29 hours. Not to be out-done, for several decades now a 21st century American composer has been working on a cycle of TWELVE operas, titled “Trillium,” which, if completed, will probably last much longer.
This composer’s name might not be familiar to opera fans, since MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Anthony Braxton is better known in jazz circles. As a saxophonist, Braxton has made over a hundred recordings, sometimes with jazz greats like Dave Brubeck or Chick Corea. Braxton resists being labeled, however, stating, “Even though I have been saying I'm not a jazz musician for the last 25 years, in the final analysis, an African-American with a saxophone? Ahh, he's jazz!”
The sixth opera in the Braxton’s cycle, “Trillium J, or The Non-Unconfessionable,” had its first complete performance at Roulette in Brooklyn on today’s date in 2014. To the question “why write operas,” Braxton says, “I believe the medium of opera is directly relevant to cultural alignment and evolution." Time will tell if Braxton’s “Trillium” project unfolds a culturally relevant message to rival Wagner and Stockhausen’s, or simply acts as a framework for the wide-ranging moods and colors of Braxon’s music.
Music Played in Today's Program Anthony Braxton (b. 1945) — excerpt from Act 2 of “Trillium J” (soloists and ensemble; Anthony Braxton, cond.) New Braxton House 906
Synopsis On today’s date in 1942, Warner Brothers released a film entitled “King’s Row,” which included in its cast a 31-year-old actor named Ronald Reagan, who claimed the film “made me a star.” The film’s musical score was by someone already a star – the Austrian-born Erich Wolfgang Korngold, famous for his earlier work for Hollywood swashbucklers like “Captain Blood” and “Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn.
Korngold’s music for “King’s Row” proved unusually popular, and Warner Brothers prepared a form letter politely declining inquiries for sheet music or recordings. Back then, film score recordings were not common, and the big studios were jealously protective of anything – including music – that they owned. It wasn’t until 1979 – 37 years after the release of the movie – that a full soundtrack recording of “King’s Row” was released, produced by the composer’s son, George, who was responsible for a major revival of interest in his father’s work.
In fact, Korngold’s main title music from “King’s Row” may have provided the model for the American composer John Williams when he wrote his main title music for the 1977 sci-fi swashbuckler “Star Wars.” It’s also curious to note that the main title music for “King’s Row” was requested by the White House in 1981 for use at the inauguration of President Reagan, who, you may recall, later promoted a ballistic missile defense shield nicknamed by its critics – wait for it – “Star Wars.”
Music Played in Today's Program Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 -1957) — “Main Title,” fr “King’s Row” (National Philharmonic; Charles Gerhardt, cond.) RCA LSC-3330 (LP) & 7890-2-RG (CD)
Synopsis The British composer Gustav Holst lived and worked in a West London neighborhood called Hammersmith for many years – and in 1930, Holst gave that name to a work for wind band he wrote on commission from the BBC.
“Hammersmith” opens with a "Prelude" representing the river Thames, which, said Holst, "goes on its way unnoticed and unconcerned." A “Scherzo” section represents the hustle and bustle of Hammersmith’s market, exemplified, according to Holst’s daughter, by a large woman at a fruit stand who always called her father 'dearie' when he bought oranges for their Sunday picnics.
In 1931, “Hammersmith” was first performed in England in the composer’s own orchestral arrangement by the BBC Symphony led by Adrian Boult – and the piece was booed. Holst’s bad luck continued the following year: He was scheduled to conduct the premiere of the band version of “Hammersmith” on today’s date at the 1932 American Bandmasters Association Convention in Washington, D.C., but had to cancel his trip due to illness. The DC premiere took place as scheduled, but with the U.S. Marine Band led by Taylor Branson, rather than the composer.
For the next 22 years, the original, wind band version of “Hammersmith” remained neglected until Robert Cantrick and the Carnegie Institute of Technology Kiltie Band in Pittsburgh gave what they thought was its world premiere performance in 1954. It seems even Holst’s publisher had forgotten all about its 1932 American premiere.
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Holst (1874-1934) — Hammersmith (Dallas Wind Symphony;Howard Dunn, cond.) Reference Recordings 39
Synopsis In the years following the end of World War II, the “baby boom” led to a dramatic rise in the number of high school and college music programs across the country. By the mid-1950s, a number of well-known American composers started receiving commissions from these schools for new works for wind band.
In the past half-century, the Symphony for Band, by American composer Vincent Persichetti, has been one of the most frequently performed. It was commissioned by the Washington University Chamber Band, and received its first performance by the ensemble in St. Louis, Mo., on today’s date in 1956.
In keeping with this tradition, in the late 1990s the American Composers Forum started commissioning major composers to write new works for middle-school bands. The series was dubbed BandQuest, and in addition to new scores by composers like Chen Yi, Michael Colgrass, Libby Larsen, Robert X. Rodriguez, and Alvin Singleton, the series offers music teachers interactive content, which places each piece of music in a wider cultural and historical context.
This music is from Alegre, by Cuban-born composer Tania Leon. “Alegre” is a Spanish word meaning “joyful,” and Leon’s piece is meant to demonstrate the link in Latin culture between music and dance. That’s something the New York-based Leon knows more than a little about — she was a founding member and the first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. A music educator as well as a composer, she also set up the theater’s music school and orchestra.
Music Played in Today's Program Vincent Pershichetti (1915–1987) — Symphony No. 6 (Symphony for Band) (Eastman Wind Ensemble; Frederick Fennell, cond.) Mercury 432 754
Tania Leon (b. 1943) — Alegre (American Composers Forum Bandquest CD-ROM) Hal Leonard
Synopsis A few years back, when RCA records issued a boxed set of 100 favorite Boston Pops recordings made by Arthur Fiedler, they included Handel’s celebrated “Largo.”
Over a hundred years earlier, the Theodore Thomas Orchestra had established this melody as a favorite with 19th century American audiences. Back then, Handel was best-known for his sacred oratorios, and his “Largo” acquired a kind of honorary “halo” by association. Also, the Italian text for the melody began “Ombra mai fui,” and since “ombra” meant shade, many music lovers probably assumed it had something to do with the dear departed shade or spirit of a loved one – hence its melancholic solemnity.
In fact, this melody originated in a decidedly secular, downright whimsical context: as the opening aria of an opera by Handel that premiered in London on today’s date in 1738. The opera was entitled “Xerxes,” and dealt with the real-life Persian King who invaded ancient Greece. In the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxes is depicted as an all-powerful despot, whose every whim became law. As evidence of the irrational effect of absolute power, Herodotus tells of Xerxes’ fondness for a certain plane tree that he ordered decorated with gold ornaments and put under perpetual military guard as a sign of royal favor. In Handel’s opera, the famous “Largo” is actually Xerxes’s dreamy song to this famous tree – and the “shade” referred to is the sort to be found under its gold-bedecked branches.
Music Played in Today's Program George Frederic Handel (1685-1759) — Largo, from Xerxes (Boston Pops; Arthur Fiedler, cond.) BMG 62698
Synopsis A number of the quintessentially “French” operas are set in other lands. Bizet’s “Carmen” is set in Spain and Gounod’s ”Faust” is in Germany, to cite just two examples. But Spain and Germany were familiar next-door neighbors for 19th century Frenchmen, and in that colonizing age, Parisian audiences also enjoyed traveling to much more exotic corners, all the while safely ensconced in their plush balcony seats, of course. One of the grandest of French grand operas, Meyerbeer’s “L’Africaine,” has as its eponymous heroine the African Queen of an imaginary East Indian isle, with none other than European Vasco da Gama as her love interest.
Another famous French opera set in the mysterious East had its premiere performance on today’s date in 1883, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. This was “Lakmé” by Leo Delibes. In this one, the title heroine is an East Indian priestess of Brahma whose taboo love for an English Colonial officer leads to tragedy and death—but not before lots of gorgeous singing.
The popular “Flower Duet” from “Lakmé” achieved a particularly late 20th-century brand of fame when it was used as the soundtrack to a British Airways TV commercial.
Music Played in Today's Program Léo Delibes (1836 - 1891) — Flower Duet, from Lakmé (BBC Concert Orchestra; Barry Wordsworth, cond.) London 473 371
Léo Delibes — Flower Duet, from Lakmé (Natalie Dessay and Delphine Haidan, sopranos; Toulouse Capitole Orchestra; Michel Plasson, cond.) EMI 67830
Synopsis In 1952, the West Point Military Band celebrated that famous military academy’s Sesquicentennial by asking prominent composers to write celebratory works to mark the occasion. Among those who responded was the American composer Morton Gould, whose “West Point Symphony” received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1952, at a gala concert featuring the West Point Academy.
There are two movements in Gould’s “West Point Symphony.” They are titled “Epitaphs” and “Marches,” and the composer himself provided these descriptive comments:
“The first movement is lyrical and dramatic… The general character is elegiac. The second and final movement is lusty… the texture a stylization of marching tunes and parades cast in an array of embellishments and rhythmic variations… At one point,” concludes Gould, “there is a simulation of a Fife and Drum Corp, which, incidentally, was the instrumentation of the original West Point Band.”
Of all the pieces written in honor of West Point’s Sesquicentennial in 1952, Gould’s Symphony is probably the best-known.
The score of the West Point Symphony calls for a “marching machine,” but on this classic 1959 recording under the late Frederick Fennell, the required sound was provided by the very real marching feet of 120 Eastman School of Music students.
Music Played in Today's Program Morton Gould (1913-1996) — West Point Symphony (Symphony for Band) (Eastman Wind Ensemble; Frederick Fennell, cond.) Mercury 434 320
On This Day Births * 1810 - French composer Felicien David, in Cadenet, Vaucluse; * 1816 - English composer Sir William Sterndale Bennett, in Sheffield; * 1938 - American composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski, in Westfield, Mass.;
Deaths * 1756 - Burial date of the German composer and keyboard virtuoso Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, age c. 29, in Dresden; * 1826 - German composer Franz Danzi, age 62, in Schwetzingen; * 1944 - French composer and pianist Cécile Chaminade, age 86, in Monte Carlo;
Premieres * 1742 - Handel: oratorio, "Messiah,"in Dublin (Gregorian date: April 24); * 1789 - Mozart: Divertimento in Eb (K. 563) for string trio, in Dresden, by Anton Teiber (violin), Anton Kraft (cello), and the composer (viola); * 1943 - Randall Thompson: "A Testament of Freedom" for men's voices and piano, at the University of Virginia; The orchestral version of this work premiered in Boston on April 6, 1945; * 1952 - Morton Gould: Symphony No. 4 ("West Point Symphony") for band, during the West Point Military Academy Sesquicentennial Celebration in West Point, N.Y, by the Academy Band, with the composer conducting; * 1961 - Luigi Nono: opera "Intolerance 1960," in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice; * 1992 - Schnittke: opera "Life with an Idiot," in Amsterdam at the Dutch Opera; * 1997 - Morten Lauridsen: "Lux Aeterna"for chorus and chamber orchestra, at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Paul Salamunovich conducting; * 2000 - Danielpour: Piano Trio ("A Child's Reliquary"), at Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa, by the Kalichstein-Robinson-Laredo Trio;
Others * 1823 - Franz Liszt, age 11, performs at the Imperial Redoutensaal in Vienna; Legend has it that Beethoven attended this performance and planted a kiss on the young performer's forehead, but in fact Beethoven did not attend the concert; According to Liszt, the incident occurred a few days before at Beethoven's home, after Liszt had performed one of Beethoven's works; See Dec. 1, 1822, for Liszt's Vienna debut; * 1896 - The American Guild of Organists is founded in New York City; * 1958 - American pianist Van Cliburn wins the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the first American to do so.
Links and Resources * On Morton Gould
Synopsis Today’s date marks the birthday of a significant American composer with an intriguing name, sounding at once both French and Slavic. Henri Lazarof was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, on April 12, 1932, and began his musical studies at the age of 6. He graduated from the Sofia Academy at the age of 16, studied composition in Rome with the Italian modernist Goffredo Petrassi, came to the United States in 1957 for further study, and eventually settled in California, securing a teaching position at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught not only composition, but French language and literature as well.
Lazarof organized L.A.’s first festival of contemporary music in 1963 and has continued enthusiastically promoting new music. In a Festival brochure, Lazarof once wrote that his music series was “dedicated to the presentation of the entire broad range of this historically evolving art without adopting a single ideology but the one of continuity – accepting tradition and altering it in terms of contemporary experimentation, which in turn is to become the legacy for the next generation to alter."
Music Played in Today's Program Henri Lazarof (1932 - 2013) — Violin Concerto (Yukiko Kamei, violin; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, cond.) Naxos 8.559159
Synopsis On today’s date in 1689, London celebrated the coronation of William and Mary of Orange as the new Protestant monarchs of Britain. Thirty-nine musicians participated in the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, all wearing specially-tailored scarlet robes. One of them was Henry Purcell, today regarded as the greatest British composer of his time.
That same date is sometimes offered as marking the premiere performance of Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas” a few miles away in Chelsea at Josias Priest’s School for Young Ladies. This exact date and circumstance of this work, widely regarded as the first great British opera and one of Purcell’s masterworks, remains very uncertain. April 30th is also cited as a possibility for its premiere, being the date of Queen Mary’s birthday. In any case, the premiere occurred sometime that year, as the libretto by Nahum Tate was published in London that December.
Three years earlier Tate had written a poem that compared the deposed Catholic King James II to Aeneas, and constructed an allegory implying that James had been led astray by witches, the result being that he abandoned the British people, just as the legendary Trojan Prince Aeneas had abandoned Queen Dido of Carthage in order to found a new empire in Rome. Since the Catholic King James II had also fled to Rome, some have speculated that Purcell’s opera was a political allegory, commissioned by Mr. Priest’s School for Young Ladies to celebrate either the coronation or birthday of the new Protestant Queen.
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Purcell (1659–1695) — Dido and Aeneas Suite (Freiburg Baroque Orchestra; Thomas Hengelbrock, cond.) Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77231
Synopsis In 1960, composer and conductor Stanislaw Skrowaczewski emigrated from Poland to become the music director of the Minneapolis Symphony, as the Minnesota Orchestra was called in those days.
In the decades that followed, Skrowaczewski, or “Stan” as his friends and admirers affectionately called him, became one of the most respected conductors of our time, famous for his interpretations of a wide range of repertory from Bruckner, Bartok and Stravinsky to the works of his Polish contemporaries, Lutoslawski and Pendereceki.
Skrowaczewski was born in Lwow in 1923. He composed an orchestral overture at age 8, played a piano recital at age 11, and at 13 performed Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, conducting from the keyboard. His career as a budding piano virtuoso ended when his hands were injured by a collapsing brick wall during a World War II bombing near his home. After the war he won a French scholarship that enabled him to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and conducting with Paul Kletzki. His American debut occurred with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1958.
Skrowaczewski’s busy career as a conductor left little time to nuture his own talents as a composer, but even so he wrote a respectable number of chamber and orchestra works, including this one entitled “Passacaglia Immaginaria,” which received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1996, at a Minnesota Orchestra concert. A few of his works have made their way onto recordings, including this recording of “Passacaglia Immaginaria” by the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony, conducted by Skrowaczewski himself.
Music Played in Today's Program Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (1923 - 2017) — Passacaglia Immaginaria (Saarbrucken Radio Symphony; Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, cond.) Albany 481
Synopsis In 1943, before allied bombing made it unsafe, Vienna was the primary residence of the German composer Richard Strauss. Now, in a city mad about music and opera, the presence of a composer of Strauss’s stature was not something that went unnoticed or unappreciated. The previous year, the Vienna City Council awarded Strauss its Beethoven Prize, and the composer, for his part, felt obliged to write a little something as a thank-you gesture.
The resulting piece was entitled “Festival Music for the City of Vienna,” and was scored for a brass ensemble sufficiently large to provide pomp and pageantry – and written in a style guaranteed to swell the breasts of the City Council with civic pride. Strauss himself conducted the Vienna Trumpet Corps in the premiere at the city’s Town Hall on April 9, 1943.
It’s a stirring piece, and went over so well that Strauss quickly made an arrangement for a smaller ensemble than the original, rather lavish, version for ten trumpets, seven trombones, two tubas, and timpani. It’s also quite possible that working on this piece reminded Strauss of some of his earliest compositions, which were also written for wind ensembles.
In any case, to keep himself busy while the disastrous course of the war meant the closure of theaters and fewer commissions for new music, Strauss began work on a piece for a small ensemble of wind and brass instruments, which would become his Sonatina No. 1.
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864-1949) — Festmusik der Stadt Wien (Locke Brass Consort;James Stobart, cond.) Chandos 8419
Synopsis Songs form a significant part of the output of the American composer Libby Larsen. Like many other composers, she’s set poems of Emily Dickinson and Rainer Maria Rilke – but she has also penned a song-cycle entitled “Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII.” Another, for mezzo-soprano and handbell choir entitled “Hell’s Belles,” is set to words of formidable women such as Talulah Bankhead, Billie Jean King, and Gertrude Stein.
On today’s date in 1989, Larsen’s “Songs from Letters: Calamity Jane to her Daughter, Jenny” had its premiere performance in New York City. As the title indicates, the texts are drawn from the correspondence of Martha Jane Canary, popularly known as “Calamity Jane,” a hard-drinking, gun-toting woman of the Wild West, who lived from 1848 to 1903. Calamity Jane had a daughter, possibly by Wild Bill Hickok. Calamity Jane sent the child to live with a man she called a "normal daddy,” her friend Jim O'Neil, paying child support by both legal and not-so legal means. As Calamity Jane put it: “I ain’t no lady.”
Larsen says she was fascinated by “the struggle of an individual soul, a woman and pioneer on many frontiers.” As Larsen put it: “Calamity Jane was a working woman, good in her profession, doing what she loved and making choices because of her will to work. In her time she was odd and lonely. She chose rough-tough words to describe her life to her daughter. I'm interested in that rough-toughness and in Calamity Jane's struggle to explain herself honestly.”
Music Played in Today's Program Libby Larsen (b. 1950) — Songs from Letters (Benita Valente, soprano; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Joel Revzen, cond.) Koch 7481
Synopsis In 1723, the Leipzig Town Council appointed Johann Sebastian Bach as the new Kantor of St. Thomas Church. Despite what Bach might have felt about the workload, he apparently did like the Church: it was there that his family worshipped and 12 of his 20 children were baptized.
But Bach was responsible for music at TWO Leipzig churches: St. Thomas and St. Nikolaus Church.
In Bach’s day, St. Thomas was regarded as the lesser of the two, with St. Nikolaus Church the official venue for most important occasions, including the premiere performances of many of Bach’s sacred works. For example, it was at St. Nikolaus Church on today’s date in 1724 that Bach’s “Passion According to Saint John” was premiered.
Bach apparently intended his new Passion to be performed at St. Thomas Church, ignoring the Council’s specific request for the other venue, and changed his plans ONLY after the Council authorized more space for performers in the choir loft at St. Nikolaus—and after they repaired that church’s harpsichord.
Chalk up one victory for the cagey cantor!
Alas, Bach’s tussles with the Council didn’t end there. While posterity regards Bach’s years in Leipzig as one of the most glorious epochs in music history, it’s quite likely that both Bach AND his employers might have recalled it as one long battle of wills over matters large and small.
Music Played in Today's Program Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) — St. John Passion (Collegium Vocale; Philippe Herreweghe, cond.) Harmonia Mundi 90.1748/49
Synopsis On today’s date in 2013, the Jamaican-American pianist and composer Donald Shirley died at age 86 in New York City.
His death set into motion a plan that had been long in the works: a movie based on Shirley’s concert tour to the deep South in 1962, accompanied by Tony “the Lip” Vallelonga, a bouncer at the famous Copacabana night club who Shirley hired for protection.
In the 1960s Shirley was at the height of his popularity as the leader of a jazz trio he founded after being told by the great concert impresario Sol Hurok a career as a classical pianist was impossible due to his skin color.
In the 1980s, Vallelonga’s son Nick told Shirley and his father he wanted to make a movie about the indignities they suffered during that 1962 tour and the life-long friendship that developed between them. Shirley agreed, but said only after his death. "'You should put in everything your father told you, and everything I told you,” said Shirley. "'You tell exactly the truth, but wait until I pass.'"
In 2018, five years after Shirley’s death, the film was released, titled GREEN BOOK, after a guide for Negro motorists listing hotels and restaurants open to them in segregated states. Fact-checkers confirm the film is largely accurate, and, yes, for over 50 years Shirley did live in an elegant apartment over Carnegie Hall, where his jazz trio often performed.
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) arr. Don Shirely (1927 – 2013) — “This Nearly Was Mine,” from “South Pacific” (Don Shirely, p; Juri That, vcl; Ken Fricker, db.) Cadence LP CLP-25046
Synopsis In a 1964 essay, the American composer Samuel Barber wrote: “I want my music to be of use to people, to please them, to enhance their lives... I do not write for posterity.” And in a 1979 interview, he said: “I write for the present, and I write for myself... I think that most music that is really good will be appreciated by the audience – ultimately.”
Barber was 35 years old when he composed his Cello Concerto in 1945, finishing the work around the same time he was discharged from the U.S. Army Air Corps. The Concerto was written for the cellist Raya Garbousova, who gave the premiere performance of the work with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky on today’s date in 1946.
The new Concerto was warmly received in Boston, and even won an award from New York music critics. Oddly enough, soon after its premiere, Barber’s Cello Concerto was pretty much ignored for several decades, and to date has yet to catch on with performers or audiences to the same degree as his earlier Violin Concerto – another work that took quite a while to become popular.
Still, in recent years both performers and audiences seem more than willing to revisit ALL of Barber’s scores, including his Cello Concerto, and a major reappraisal of Barber seems well underway, and, to paraphrase the composer himself, we think most of Barber’s music that is really good will be appreciated by audiences – ultimately.
Music Played in Today's Program Samuel Barber (1910 -1981) — Cello Concerto (Yo Yo Ma, cello; Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, cond.) CBS/Sony 44900
Synopsis For many years, the BBC celebrated April Fools’ Day by trying to pull people’s legs with outrageously fabricated news stories. One year, for example, BBC TV aired footage of an Italian spaghetti farm where happy peasants harvested that year’s crop from bushes that the BBC production crew had draped with limp noodle.
On another April 1st, the BBC’s classical service profiled an eccentrically reclusive 19th century French composer who concocted unplayable works in his apartment on a bizarre instrument that combined an organ pedal board with a grand piano. He was, the story claimed, as fantastic a performer as Liszt or Chopin, and supposedly was crushed to death by his own bookcase when he attempted to remove a heavy volume from its top shelf. Only in this case, the story was actually more or less true, and the composer, Charles-Valentin Alkan, was a very real person.
Alkan was born in Paris in 1813 and was buried there on today’s date in 1888. Only the bit about Alkan’s “death by bookcase” in the BBC profile is disputed by some historians. That story originated with Isidore Philipp, one of only four mourners who attended Alkan’s April 1st burial, and who claimed to have been present when the composer’s body was found in his apartment. Philipp was a highly respected and long-lived French composer and piano teacher who came to America in 1940 and died here in 1958. He seems a credible witness – so who to believe?
Music Played in Today's Program Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) — Bombardo-Carillon (Caroline Clemmow and Anthony Goldstone, pedal-piano) Symposium 1062
Synopsis We tend to think of the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak as a 19th century composer – but he lived a few years into the 20th and one of his major works, his opera “Rusalka,” had its premiere in Prague on today’s date in 1901. We also think of Dvorak as primarily a composer of symphonies and chamber works, but forget that in his final years, Dvorak devoted himself chiefly to opera – and for reasons that might surprise us today.
In a 1904 interview, given just two months before his death, Dvorak said: “Over the past five years I have written nothing but operas. I wanted to devote all my powers, as long as the dear Lord gives me health, to the creation of opera … because I consider opera to be the most suitable medium for the Czech nation and the widest audience, whereas if I compose a symphony I might have to wait years before it is performed.”
Dvorak was gratified that his opera “Rusalka” was a big success at its 1901 premiere and would subsequently become one of his most popular works with Czech audiences, but ironically, outside Czech-speaking lands, most of his other operas, unlike his symphonies, are rarely performed.
Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvořák (1841–1904) — O Silver Moon, fr Rusalka (Renée Fleming, soprano; London Symphony; Sir Georg Solti, cond.) London 455 760
On This Day Births * 1732 - Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn, in Rohrau; * 1872 - Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, in Gruzino, Novgorod district (Julian date: Mar. 19);
Deaths * 1880 - Polish composer and violinist Henryk Wieniawski, age 44, in Moscow; * 1901 - British composer Sir John Stainer, age 60, in Verona, Italy;
Premieres * 1723 - Handel: Concerto in F (HWV 331) (Julian date: March 20); * 1739 - Handel: Organ Concerto in A (HWV 296a) (Julian date: March 20); * 1745 - Rameau: opera-ballet, "Platée," at Versailles; * 1784 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 16 in D, K. 451, in Vienna, with composer as soloist; * 1794 - Haydn: Symphony No. 100 ("Military"), conducted by the composer on his 62nd birthday, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London; * 1841 - R. Schumann: Symphony No. 1 ("Spring"), by Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Felix Mendelssohn conducting; * 1901 - Dvorák: opera "Rusalka," in Prague at the National Theater; * 1913 - Webern: "Six Pieces" for orchestra, in Vienna; * 1932 - Chávez: ballet "Horsepower," in Philadelphia; * 1947 - Ulysses Kay: "Short Overture," in New York City; * 1949 - William Grant Still: opera "Troubled Island," in New York City; * 1951 - R. Strauss: "Munich Waltz," posthumously in Vienna; This music was originally written for the 1939 film; * 1961 - Françaix: "L'Horloge de Flore," by oboist John de Lancie, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; * 2001 - Peter Lieberson: Piano Quintet, at Carnegie Hall, by pianist Peter Serkin with the Orion String Quartet;
Others * 1837 - Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg, the two reigning virtuosi of their day, perform a sort of pianistic "duel" at a benefit concert in aid of Italian refuguees at the Parisian salon of Princess Cristina Belgiojso-Trivulzio.
Links and Resources * On Antonin Dvořák * Video of Renee Fleming singing "Song to the Moon," from "Rusalka"
Synopsis By the time of his death in 1949, the German composer Richard Strauss was famous worldwide as the composer of operas like “Der Rosenkavalier” and tone-poems like Don Juan and “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks.” These operas and tone-poems are so famous, we tend to forget that Strauss also composed symphonies – two of them, both written when the young composer was just starting out.
Strauss’s Symphony No. 1 was premiered in his hometown of Munich on today’s date in 1881, when the composer was just 16. That performance was given by an amateur orchestra but was conducted by one of the leading German conductors of that day, Hermann Levi, who would lead the premiere of Wagner’s “Parsifal” the following year. Another eminent Wagnerian conductor, Hans von Bulow, subsequently took up the teenager’s symphony, and also commissioned him to write a Suite for Winds.
The American conductor Theodore Thomas was an old friend of Richard Strauss’s father, Franz Strauss, and while in Europe during the summer of 1884, Thomas looked over the score for the younger Strauss’s Second Symphony, and immediately arranged for its premiere in New York City the following winter.
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) — Symphony in d (Bavarian Radio Symphony; Karl Anton Rickenbacker, cond.) Koch/Schwann 365 322
On This Day Births * 1935 - American composer Gordon Muma, in Framingham, Mass.;
Deaths * 1764 - Italian composer Pietro Locatelli, age 68, in Amsterdam;
Premieres * 1725 - Bach: "St. John Passion" (S. 245, second version) performed at Vespers on Good Friday as part of Bach's second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25); The first version had premiered on Good Friday in 1724 (April 7); * 1881 - R. Strauss: Symphony in d, in Munich, with Hermann Levi; This was Strauss' first major orchestral work; * 1951 - Piston: Symphony No. 4, by the Minneapolis Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting; * 2000 - Corigliano: "Phantasmagoria" (Suite from the opera "The Ghosts of Versailles"), in Minneapolis, by the Minnesota Orchestra, Giancarlo Guerrero conducting.
Links and Resources * On Richard Strauss
Synopsis On today’s date in the year 2000, at the University of Richmond in Virginia, the Shanghai Quartet premiered the String Quartet No.4 by composer Bright Sheng.
Sheng was born in Shanghai in 1955, but since the 80s he’s made the United States his home and has earned an enviable reputation as both a composer and teacher. But back in the late 1960s, during the tumultuous years of Madame Mao’s “Cultural Revolution,” Sheng worked as a pianist and percussionist in a Chinese folk music and dance troupe near the Tibetan border. Sheng’s String Quartet No. 4 is subtitled “Silent Temple.” He explains that title as follows:
“In the early 1970s I visited an abandoned Buddhist temple in north-west China. As all religious activities were completely forbidden at the time, the temple, still renowned among the Buddhist community all over the world, was unattended and on the brink of turning into a ruin… In spite of the appalling condition of the temple, it was still a grandiose and magnificent structure … I could almost hear the praying and chanting of the monks, as well as the violence committed to the temple and the monks by the Red Guards.”
Music Played in Today's Program Bright Sheng (b. 1955) — String Quartet No. 4 (Silent Temple) (Shanghai Quartet) BIS 1138
Synopsis On today’s date in the year 1801, the world, or at least that portion of it seated in the Imperial Court Theater in Vienna, heard for the very first time a new ballet. The real draw that evening was the prima ballerina of the company, a certain Fraulein Cassentini.
The music was by a young, emerging composer named Ludwig van Beethoven, and his ballet was called “The Creatures of Prometheus.” The “creatures” referred to in the title are two stone statues that are brought to life by Prometheus, the legendary Greek figure who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind.
Beethoven’s commission came from an Italian dancer named Salvatore Vigano, who had been working in Vienna since 1793, and was – like Beethoven – seeking the attention and possible patronage of the culture-loving Austrian Empress Maria Theresa.
Although Beethoven’s ballet was given 14 times the first season, and nine more the next, it was never published in his lifetime. Beethoven was evidentially pleased with at least ONE of its themes, a tune he recycled twice: first in the finale of his mammoth “Eroica” and again in a set of 15 Variations for Solo Piano.
Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) — The Creatures of Prometheus (Orpheus Chamber Orchestra) DG 453 713
Synopsis In the winter of 1807, a group of music-loving Viennese, frustrated that their chances to hear orchestral and symphonic music seemed rather sporadic, decided to sponsor a series of symphonic concerts themselves. Their organization was called, simply “The Concert of Music Lovers,” with performing forces made up – as a Viennese newspaper put it – of “the best local amateurs, with a few wind instruments only: French horns, trumpets, etc., drafted from Viennese theaters.” And the audience, according to the same source, comprising “exclusively the nobility of the town, foreigners of note, and selected cognoscenti.” Twenty concerts were staged in all, most of them in a large hall of the Vienna University.
The final concert in the series occurred on today’s date in 1808: a performance of Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation.” The work was sung in Italian, and the conductor on that occasion was the famous Italian composer Antonio Salieri.
Haydn was living in a suburb of Vienna at the time and arrived in Prince Ezterhazy’s coach. Haydn was carried into the hall on an armchair lifted high so that all could see him. The orchestra played a fanfare and shouts of “Long live Haydn!” rang from the audience – which included Ludwig van Beethoven.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Josef Haydn (1732 - 1808) — The Creation (English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond.) Archiv 449 217
On This Day Births * 1851 - French composer Vincent d'Indy, in Paris; * 1892 - American composer and arranger Ferde Grofé, in New York;
Deaths * 1757 - possible death date for the Bohemian-born composer and violinist Johann (Jan) Wenzel (Waczlaw /Václav) Anton (Antonin/Antonín) Stamitz, age 39, in Mannheim; He was buried in Mannheim on March 30; * 1975 - British composer Sir Arthur Bliss, age 83, in London;
Premieres * 1745 - Handel: oratorio "Belshazzar," at the King's Theater in London (Gregorian date: April 7); * 1897 - Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1, in St. Petersburg, conducted by Alexander Glazunov (Julian date: Mar. 15); * 1914 - Vaughan Williams: original version of Symphony No. 2 ("A London Symphony"), at Queen's Hall in London; * 1917 - Puccini: opera "La Rondine" (The Swallow), in Monte-Carlo at the Opéra du Casino; * 1925 - Edward Joseph Collins: Piano Concerto No. 1 in Eb, by the Chicago Symphony, Frederick Stock conducting and the composer as soloist; * 1960 - Mayuzumi: "Mandala-Symphonie," in Tokyo; * 1984 - Andrew Lloyd Webber: musical "Starlight Express," in London; * 2001 - Kevin Volans: String Quartet No. 6, in London, by the Vanbrugh Quartet;
Others * 1808 - Franz Joseph Haydn makes his last public appearance at a performance of his oratorio "The Creation" in Vienna in honor of the composer's approaching 76th birthday; Beethoven and Salieri attend the performance and greet Haydn.
Links and Resources * On Haydn
Synopsis For the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a major international arts festival was planned, and, as its centerpiece, a gigantic day-long music-theater work designed and coordinated by the avant-garde American director Robert Wilson.
Wilson titled the work “the CIVIL warS: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down,” with a story line loosely inspired by Matthew Brady’s famous photographs from America’s Civil War, but also incorporating myths, images, and historical icons from around the world.
The idea was that the various sections of the work would be contributed by a team of composers, each section connected by what Wilson called “knee plays” – short “joints” if you will, linking the parts to the whole. The “knee play” music was contributed by the American pop musician David Byrne, a member of the “Talking Heads.”
The Fifth and final act of “Civil Wars,” was written by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. It was dubbed “The Rome Section,” since it was commissioned and premiered as a separate work by the Rome Opera on today’s date in 1984.
In the end, Wilson’s ambitious day-long epic wasn’t staged in Los Angeles as planned. The reason given at the time was “funding problems.”
Music Played in Today's Program Philip Glass (b. 1937) — Rome Section, fr The Civil Wars (Giuseppe Sabbatini, tenor; American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, cond.) Nonesuch 79487
Synopsis On today’s date in 1965, “Lizzie Borden” premiered at the New York City Opera. The new opera by American composer Jack Beeson depicted a fictionalized version of a real-life event: a gruesome double axe-murder of Andrew and Abby Borden that occurred in Fall River, Mass., in 1892. Andrew Borden’s daughter, Lizzie, was accused of the murder of her father and stepmother. Many at the time thought her guilty. As a famous children’s rhyme of the period put it:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
Lizzie Borden was acquitted for the murders, which remained unsolved.
Jack Beeson thought Lizzie’s story resembled the ancient Greek legend of Elektra, already the subject of a famous opera by Richard Strauss. And like Strauss’s Elekra, Beeson’s Lizzie is the central character in an angst-ridden, Freudian tale of a dangerously dysfunctional family.
Beeson says: “A lot of Lizzie Borden is very dissonant. It was even thought to be a twelve-tone piece back in 1965. There’s not a 12-tone row in it, but the agonized situation in much of Lizzie seemed to me to require that kind of music.”
Music Played in Today's Program Jack Beeson (b. 1921) — Lizzie Borden (New York City Opera; Anton Coppola, cond.) CRI 694
Synopsis “Commedia dell’arte” was a kind of theater popular throughout Italy during the 18th century. In this improvised, rough and tumble genre, a group of stock figures with names like “Harlequin,” “Pierrot,” and “Punchinello” would appear in awkward and farcical situations which modern audiences might recognize from the TV sitcoms – only the earthy 18th century version often more “R-Rated.”
These characters were attractive to many of the 20th century’s greatest composers: Schoenberg’s “Pierrot lunaire” sets dreamy, surreal texts sung by a love-sick commedia dell’arte clown; Richard Strauss’s opera “Ariadne auf Naxos” offers an earthy commedia dell’arte troop as unlikely commentators on a serious Greek legend; and Stravinsky’s ballet “Pulcinella” recasts elegant 18th century musical forms into a robust modern score whose title character, according to Stravinsky was “a drunken lout whose every gesture was obscene.”
On today’s date in 1996, a more refined chamber work inspired by commedia dell’arte characters received its premiere at Boston College. It was commissioned and premiered by the Artaria Quartet, and was given the punning title, “ART: arias & interludes.” The music is by the Chinese-born American composer Thomas Oboe Lee, with each movement of Lee’s work related to a different commedia dell’arte figure.
Music Played in Today's Program Thomas Oboe Lee (b. 1945) — ART: arias and interludes (Hawthorne String Quartet) Koch 7452
Synopsis When your instrument is nicknamed “the burping bedpost,” it’s hard to get respect in refined circles. So it’s understandable that the bassoon section of, say, a major London orchestra might indulge in a bit of day-dreaming in which a gang of hot-rodding motorcycling bassoonists blow into town and take over a concert hall. And guess what? That is EXACTLY the scenario of a piece written for Britain’s Philharmonia Orchestra by the American composer Michael Daughtery.
“Hell’s Angels” is a concerto for bassoon quartet that received its premiere in London on today’s date in 1999, with Daughtery commenting: “I find the bassoon to be an instrument with great expressive and timbral possibilities, ranging from low and raucous rumbling to plaintive high intensity.”
Daugherty often takes inspiration from icons of American pop culture, so it’s not surprising that he should choose “Hell’s Angels” for inspiration.
After all, he writes: “the bassoon is similar in size and shape to the drag pipes found on Harley Davidson motorcycles … When the noise-curbing mufflers are illegally removed from the drag pipes, they create a deafening roar. I have removed the traditional mufflers on the bassoon repertoire in order to compose [my] concerto for bassoon quartet and orchestra.
Music Played in Today's Program Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) — Hell's Angels (Oregon Symphony; James DePreist, cond.) Delos 3291
On This Day Births * 1834 - German composer, pianist and organist Julius Ruebke, in Hausneindorf, near Quedlinburg; * 1878 - Austrian composer Franz Schrecker, in Monaco; * 1895 - French-born American composer, painter and mystical philosopher Dane Rudhyar, in Paris;
Premieres * 1731 - Bach: "St. Mark Passion" (S. 247, now lost) performed in Leipzig at Vespers on Good Friday; * 1748 - Handel: oratorio "Alexander Balus" in London at the Covent Garden Theater; The event possibly included the premiere of Handel's "Concerto a due cori" No. 1 as well (Gregorian date: April 3); * 1783 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 13 and final version of Symphony No. 35 ("Haffner"), at the Vienna Burgtheater, with composer as piano soloist and conductor; An earlier version of the symphony was performed in Salzburg at private concerts arranged by the wealthy Haffner family in the summer of 1782; * 1792 - Haydn: Symphony No. 94 ("Surprise"), conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London; * 1828 - Beethoven: String Quartet in F, Op. 135 (posthumously, and almost one year to the day after the composer's death on March 26, 1827), in Vienna, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet; * 1886 - Tchaikovsky: "Manfred" Symphony (after Byron), in Moscow (Julian date: Mar. 11); * 1912 - Gliere: Symphony No. 3 ("Ilya Murometz") in Moscow (Julian date: Mar. 10); * 1917 - Bloch: "Trois poèmes juifs" (Three Jewish Poems), in Boston, with the composer conducting; * 1923 - de Falla: opera "El retrablo de maese Pedro" (Master Peter's Puppet Show) (concert version), in Seville at the Teatro San Fernando; * 1935 - Barber: "Music for a Scene from Shelley," by the New York Philharmonic; * 1939 - Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2, by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg conducting and Zoltán Székely as the soloist; A live recording of this premiere performance has been issued on both LP and CD; * 1944 - Cowell: "Hymn and Fuguing Tune" No. 2 for strings, in New York on a WEAF radio broadcast featuring Henri Nosco and his Concert Orchestra; The first concert hall performance took place at Town Hall in New York on October 8, 1944, with the Daniel Saidenburg Little Symphony; * 1945 - Copland (and 9 other composers): "Variations on a Theme by Eugene Goosens," by the Cincinnati Symphony; * 1946 - Marc Blitzstein: "Airbourne Symphony," in New York City; * 1962 - Irving Fine: "Symphony 1962" by the Boston Symphony, Charles Munch conducting; * 1969 - Gene Gutchë: "Genghis Khan," by American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; * 1999 - James MacMillan: "Cumnock Fair" for piano and strings, at Cumnock Academy by members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra;
Others * 1703 - Antonio Vivaldi becomes a Roman Catholic priest at age 25; * 1721 - Handel completes the composition of Act 3 of "Muzio Scevola," as part of a "competition" arranged by the directors of the Royal Academy of Music to settle the rivalry between their three house composers (Filippo Amadei composed Act 1, Giovanni Bononcinni Act 2, and Handel Act 3); Handel was deemed the victor in this "contest" (Gregorian date: April 3); * 1729 - J.S. Bach visits Coethen to perform funeral music for his former employer, Prince Leopold; * 1743 - London premiere of what is billed as "A New Sacred Oratorio" by Handel(Gregorian date: April 3); This was his "Messiah" which had its first performance in Dublin the previous year;
Links and Resources * On Michael Daugherty
Synopsis On this day in the year 1886, critic Gustav Dompke wrote these lines in the “German Times” of Vienna, after attending a performance of one of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies: “We recoil in horror before this rotting odor which rushes into our nostrils from the disharmonies of this putrefactive counterpoint... Bruckner composes like a drunkard!”
Today, with Bruckner’s symphonies performed and recorded so often, it’s doubtful many listeners “recoil in horror” from his rich Romantic harmonies, but he’s always been a little controversial. Bruckner’s European contemporaries and his early American audiences found his approach to symphonic composition puzzling, bizarre, or, more often than not, simply boring.
The vogue for Bruckner symphonies in America had to wait until the latter part of the 20th century, a full century after many of them received their premiere performances in Europe.
In 1941, for example, when Bruno Walter conducted Bruckner’s giant Eighth Symphony at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic, music critic Olin Downes lamented that Walter hadn’t chosen a “more interesting” program and noted that the Bruckner symphony “sent a number from the hall before it had finished.”
Music Played in Today's Program Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896) — Symphony No. 8 (Concergebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, cond.) London 466 653
Synopsis One of the most serious – and daunting – of musical forms is the passacaglia, in which an unchanging melodic pattern repeats itself while other lines of melody offer elaboration and counterpoint to the unwavering tread of the repeated motive. The result tends to be deliberate, somber, and imposing. The most famous passacaglia in all of Western classical music is the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, whose birthday we observe on today’s date.
After Bach’s high-water mark, it takes more than a little courage for modern composers to tackle this form. One of those brave souls who tried – and succeeded – is the American composer Ron Nelson.
Nelson’s “Passacaglia, “subtitled “Homage on B-A-C-H” utilizes the melodic motive represented in German musical nomenclature by B-flat, A, C, and B natural – in German B natural being represented by the letter H). Nelson’s wind band Passacaglia was was commissioned to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 1992. It didn’t prove an easy task, recalls Nelson: “It evolved very slowly … The trick was … to make it seamless and inexorable. Of all my compositions, this is the tightest. I cannot imagine changing one note.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ron Nelson (b. 1929) — Passacaglia (Dallas Wind Symphony;Ron Nelson, cond.) Reference Recordings RR-76
Synopsis In 2010, the American Composers Forum launched ChoralQuest, a specially-commissioned series of works written especially for middle and junior high school choirs. The idea was to expand the available repertoire for young choirs, introduce them to contemporary composers, and give composers the chance and challenge of writing for young voices.
One of these new works received its premiere on today’s date in 2011 with the Oak Grove Middle School Singers in Bloomington, Minnesota. Bryan Blessing conducted his young singers in lines from “Tintern Abbey” by the 19th century British poet William Wordsworth set to music by the 21st Century composer Stephen Paulus, who titled his piece “Through All Things.” “I chose a poem that conveys some deep thoughts,” says Paulus. “People often underestimate the sophistication of young people… The Wordsworth poem speaks about ‘a motion and a spirit that rolls through all things.’”
“But a composer really needs to know the range of young singers and what they can do,” admits Paulus, who spent time with the Oak Grove Singers and confessed it’s not just the kids who benefited. “You’re never too old or too experienced not to learn something from writing a new piece, whether it’s for kids or professional musicians.”
Music Played in Today's Program Stephen Paulus (1949 - 2014) — Through All Things (Minnesota Boychoir; Todd Price, p.Mark S. Johnson, cond.) ACF score and recording (ISBN 0983388709)
Synopsis The opening of Edith Wharton’s novel, “The Age of Innocence,” takes place at New York’s old Academy of Music in the early 1870s, during a performance of Gounod’s “Faust,” a French opera based on a German play by Goethe. At the time specified in Wharton’s novel, Gounod’s opera was still “new” music, having premiered about a dozen years earlier in Paris on today’s date in 1859.
Gounod’s “Faust” became a worldwide success, and was quickly translated into many languages. In Wharton’s fictional New York performance, for example, the real-life Swedish diva Christine Nilsson sang the role of Marguerite, the pure German maiden seduced and abandoned by Faust. As Wharton puts it: “She sang, of course, ‘m’ama!” and not “he loves me,’ since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.”
Nilsson, again singing in Italian, sang Marguerite at the 1883 gala opening night performance of “Faust” at New York’s newly built Metropolitan Opera House. “Faust” was performed so often there that the building was soon dubbed the “Faust-spielhaus,” a pun on Wagner’s “Festpielhaus” or “Festival Theater” in Bayreuth.
Music Played in Today's Program Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893) — Faust Ballet Music (St. Martin's Academy; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) Philips 462 125
Synopsis All artists, including composers, are frequently urged to “write what they know.”
Well, if that’s the case, then any new and sleep-deprived parent can relate to music which depicts a late-night session with a new-born baby. It’s the middle movement of a Piano Concerto that was given its premiere on today’s date in 1994 by the Kansas City Symphony, with Bill McGlaughlin conducting and pianist Richard Cass.
This new Concerto was by the Kansas City composer James Mobberley, who writes: “The piece is in three movements, each of which reflects a different emotional side of parenthood. The first movement represents the excitement and hysteria of forthcoming childbirth. The middle movement begins with amazingly soft moments following childbirth but leads into the period of sleeplessness and total chaos that inevitably follows. The final movement represents the wonderful fun and unpredictable interactions that start to happen, beginning with the child’s first smile.”
Composer James Mobberley was born in Iowa in 1954, raised in Pennsylvania, and balances teaching duties at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, with his composition work, which includes a wide range of concert and theatrical pieces, some combining electronic and live performing elements.
Music Played in Today's Program James Mobberley (b. 1954) — Piano Concerto (Richard Cass, piano; Czech National Symphony; Paul Freeman, cond.) Albany 335
Synopsis Today we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Boston (where else?), noting two musical premieres that occurred in that Celtic city.
The first premiere was in March of 1922, when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere of three of the “Five Irish Fantasies” by the German-born American composer Charles Martin Loeffler. These were settings for solo voice and orchestra of poetry by William Butler Yeats, and, for their Boston premiere, the vocalist was none other than THE great Irish tenor, John McCormack.
The second premiere dates from 1947, when the Eire Society of Boston commissioned another American composer, Leroy Anderson, to write an “Irish Suite” for its annual Irish night at the Boston Pops. Anderson used six popular Irish tunes, ranging from the sentimental to the exuberant, for his suite… skillfully arranging them into an immediate hit and lasting success.
Arthur Fiedler conducted the premiere and the work soon became a staple item for St. Patrick’s Day concerts in Boston and concert halls all across the United States.
Music Played in Today's Program Charles Martin Loeffler (1861 - 1935) — Five Irish Fantasies (Neil Rosenshein, tenor; Indianapolis Symphony; John Nelson, cond.) New World 332
Leroy Anderson (1908 - 1975) — Irish Suite (Decca studio orchestra; Leroy Anderson, cond.) MCA 9815
Synopsis On today’s date in 1968, a 72-year-old Italian-born American composer named Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco died in Beverley Hills. As a young man, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was already known as a rising composer, concert pianist, music critic and essayist. In 1939 he left Mussolini’s Italy and came to America, and like a lot of European musicians of the time, he found work writing film scores for major Hollywood studios.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco became an American citizen, and eventually taught at the Los Angeles Conservatory, where his pupils included many famous names from the next generation of film composers, including Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Andre Previn, Nelson Riddle and John Williams.
In addition to film scores, Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed a signifigant body of concert music, including concertos for the likes of Heifetz and Segovia.
A number of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s works are directly related to his Jewish faith, including a choral work from 1947, entitled “Naomi and Ruth.” The composer’s mother was named Naomi, and he claimed the faithful Ruth in the Biblical story reminded him of his own wife, Clara. “In a certain sense,” he wrote, “it was really my symbolic autobiography, existing before I decided to write – to open my heart – in these pages.”
Music Played in Today's Program Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968) — Naomi and Ruth (St.Martin's Academy and Chorus; Sir Neville Marriner, cond.) Naxos 8.559404
On This Day Births * 1937 - American composer David Del Tredici, in Cloverdale, Calif.;
Deaths * 1736 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, age 26 (of consumption), in Pozzuoli; * 1881 - Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (Gregorian date: Mar. 28) * 1968 - Italian-born American composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, age 62, in Los Angeles; * 1985 - American composer Roger Sessions, age 88, in Princeton, N.J.;
Premieres * 1735 - Handel: Organ Concertos Op. 4, nos. 2-3 (Julian date: March 5); * 1750 - Handel: oratorio "Theodora," in London at the Covent Garden Theater; At the same event, the possible premiere of Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 5, as well (Gregorian date: March 27); * 1751 - Handel: oratorio "The Choice of Hercules" in London at the Covent Garden Theater; At the same event, Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 3 premieres following Act II of a revival performance of Handel's cantata "Alexander's Feast" on the same program (Gregorian date: March 27); * 1833 - Bellini: opera "Beatrice di Tenda" in Venice at the Teatro la Fenice; * 1870 - Tchaikovsky: fantasy-overture "Romeo and Juliet," in Moscow, with Nicolas Rubinstien conducting (Julian date: Mar. 4); * 1871 - Tchaikovsky: String Quartet in D, Op. 11, in Moscow, by members of the Russian Musical Society (Gregorian date: Mar. 28); * 1879 - Dvorák: choral setting of Psalm No. 149, Op. 79, in Prague; * 1888 - American premiere of the revised version of Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic"), with New York Philharmonic-Society conducted by Anton Seidl; In the preface to a book on Bruckner, the elderly conductor Walter Damrosch claimed he conducted the American premiere of this symphony (His memory played him false: Damrosch led the first American performance of Bruckner's THIRD Symphony; * 1894 - Massenet: opera "Thaïs," at the Paris Opéra; * 1938 - Martinu: opera "Julietta," in Prague at the National Theater; * 1942 - Martinu: "Sinfonietta giocosa," for piano and chamber orchestra, in New York City; * 2002 - Paul Schoenfield: "Nocturne" for solo cello, oboe and strings, by cellist Peter Howard, with oboist Kathryn Greenbank and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Gilbert Varga conducting.
Links and Resources * On Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Synopsis For their February 2013 cover story, the editors of BBC Music Magazine, came up with a list of the 50 most influential people in the history of music. Bach was on it, as you might expect – but so was Shakespeare.
Any music lover can see the logic in that, and cite pieces like Mendelssohn’s music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or Tchaikovsky’s Overture-Fantasy entitled “Romeo and Juliet,” or all the great operas based on Shakespeare’s plays, ranging from Verdi’s “Falstaff” to a recent setting of “The Tempest” by Thomas Adès.
And speaking of “The Tempest,” in New York on today’s date in 1981, Sharon Robinson premiered a new solo cello suite she commissioned from the American composer Ned Rorem, a work titled “After Reading Shakespeare.”
“Yes,” says Rorem, “I was re-reading Shakespeare the month the piece was accomplished… Yet the experience did not so much inspire the music itself as provide a cohesive program upon which the music be might formalized, and thus intellectually grasped by the listener.” Rorem even confessed that some of the titles were added AFTER the fact, “as when parents christen their children.“
After all, as Shakespeare’s Juliet might put it, “What’s in a name?”
Music Played in Today's Program Ned Rorem (b. 1923) — After Reading Shakespeare (Sharon Robinson, cello) Naxos 8.559316
On This Day Births * 1835 - Austrian composer and conductor Eduard Strauss, in Vienna; He was the youngest son of Johann Strauss, Sr.; * 1864 - Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist Johan Halvorsen, in Drammen; * 1901 - American composer Colin McPhee, in Montréal, Canada; * 1926 - American composer Ben Johnston, in Macon, Ga.; * 1928 - American composer Nicolas Flagello, in New York City;
Deaths * 1842 - Italian composer Luigi Cherubini, age 81, in Paris; * 1918 - French composer Lili Boulanger, age 24, in Mezy; * 1942 - Austrian composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, age 70, in Larchmont, N.Y.;
Premieres * 1807 - Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 (first public performance), in Vienna, at a benefit concert conducted by the composer; * 1885 - Franck: symphonic poem "Les Dijinns" (The Genies), in Paris; * 1897 - Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 (Gregorian date: Mar. 27); * 1908 - Ravel: "Rapsodie espagnole" (Spanish Rhapsody), in Paris; * 1911 - Scriabin: Symphony No. 5 ("Prometheus: Poem of Fire"), in Moscow, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky and with the composer performing the solo piano part (Julian date: Mar. 2); * 1981 - Stockhausen: opera "Donnerstag, aus Licht" (Thursday, from Light), in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala; This is one of a projected cycle of seven operas, each named after a day of the week; * 1994 - Peter Maxwell Davies: "Chat Moss" (the name of a quagmire in Lancashire) for orchestra, in Liverpool by the orchestra of St. Edward's College, John Moseley conducting; * 2000 - Corigliano: "Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan," at Carnegie Hall, by soprano Sylvia McNair and pianist Martin Katz; An orchestrated version of this song-cycle premiered in Minneapolis on October 23, 2003, with soprano Hila Plitmann and the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Robert Spano;
Others * 1895 - Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, age 22, makes his operatic debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, singing the lead tenor role in Domenico Morelli's comic opera "L'Amico Francesco."
Links and Resources * On Ned Rorem * An essay on "Shakespeare and Music"
Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, a new Violin Concerto received its premiere by the Boston Symphony and German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, with the new work’s composer, Sir Andre Previn conducting. Previn was born in Berlin, came to the United States in 1939, and became an American citizen in 1943.
His Concerto reflects a homecoming of sorts in its third movement, subtitled “From a Train in Germany.” In 1999, while riding on a German train Previn had telephoned a birthday greeting to his manager, who suggested that the new composition he was planning for Boston might reflect that return to the country of his birth. And so its 3rd movement ended up incorporating a German children’s song suggested by Anne-Sophie Mutter, one that Previn had known as a child.
Autobiographical inferences throughout the Concerto are also suggested by an inscription from T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” which reads: “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.” And, as if to underscore the autobiographical interplay of life and art, Mutter and Previn were married on August 1, 2002, five months after the premiere of “their” Concerto.
Music Played in Today's Program André Previn (b. 1930) — Violin Concerto (Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; Boston Symphony; André Previn, cond.) DG 474500
On This Day Births * 1681 - German composer Georg Philipp Telemann, in Magdeburg; * 1727 - Baptism of German composer and keyboard virtuoso Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, in Danzig (now Gdansk); * 1804 - Austrian composer and conductor Johann Strauss, Sr., in Vienna;
Premieres * 1734 - Handel: anthem "This is the day which the Lord hath made" in London at the French Chapel of St. James's Palace, for the wedding of Princess Anne and Prince Willem, the Prince of Orange (Gregorian date: March 25); * 1824 - Schubert: String Quartet in a (D. 804) in Vienna, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet; Published the following September, this was the only chamber work of Schubert's published in his lifetime; * 1847 - Verdi: opera "Macbeth," in Florence at the Teatro della Pergola; * 1885 - Gilbert & Sullivan: operetta "The Mikado," at the Savoy Theatre in London; * 1963 - Simpson: Symphony No. 3, in Birmingham, England; * 1975 - Ulysses Kay: Quintet Concerto for brass and orchestra, in New York City; * 1976 - Paul Creston: "Hyas Illahee" for chorus and orchestra, in Shreveport, La.; * 1986 - Harrison Birtwistle: "Earth Dances" for orchestra, at Royal Festival Hall in London by the BBC Symphony, Peter Eotvos conducting; * 1996 - Leo Ornstein: Piano Sonata No. 6, at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, by pianist Marvin Tartak; * 2000 - David Maslanka: Wind Quintet No. 3, in Columbus, Mo., by the Missouri Quintet; * 2001 - Danielpour: Cello Concerto No. 2 ("Through the Ancient Valley"), by the New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur conducting, with soloist Yo-Yo Ma; * 2002 - Previn: Violin Concerto, by the Boston Symphony with the composer conducting and soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter; * 2003 - Jim Mobberley: "Vox Inhumana" for live and prerecorded sounds, in Kansas City, by the NewEar ensemble.
Links and Resources * On André Previn * More on Previn
Synopsis In 1986, the city of Chicago celebrated its 150th anniversary, and an anonymous music patron was willing to back the commission of a big new orchestral work for the pride of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its superstar conductor back then, namely Sir George Solti.
The manager of the Chicago Symphony approached the American composer George Rochberg about writing something, suggesting that the patron specifically wanted a concerto for brass and orchestra. Not that surprising, since the Chicago Symphony then and now has special reason to be proud of its brass section. Rochberg’s counter-proposal was that he would write a symphony, reassuring the orchestra’s manager: “When I write my new Symphony, I will not neglect the brass.”
Some months later, the composer met with Solti to outline his revised plans for the Chicago commission. When Solti requested extra brass and percussion, Rochberg recounted the story of the anonymous patron’s commission of a “Concerto for Brass,” to which Solti, smiling broadly, replied: “Oh, that was me!” – and readily agreed to a symphony instead of a concerto.
Rochberg’s brassy Symphony No. 5, was premiered by Solti and the Chicago Symphony on today’s date in 1986.
Music Played in Today's Program George Rochberg (b. 1918) — Symphony No. 5 (Saarbrucken Radio Symphony; Christopher Lyndon-Gee, cond.) Naxos 8.559115
Synopsis At the end of one of his parables, Jesus says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” That was also the spirit of a group called “Ears Open,” formed , to raise the profile of new music in Finland by Esa Pekka Salonen and Magnus Lindberg back when they were both students at the Helsinki Academy.
Years later, after Salonen became the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he gave Lindberg his first major American commission, a work called “Fresco,” which had its world premiere in Los Angeles on today’s date in 1998.
In contrast to the chilly Northern landscapes of Finland, the title, Fresco, invokes much warmer places, and Lindberg has described it as reflecting Indonesian gamelan ensembles, exotic percussion music designed for outdoor ceremonial purposes or for intimate indoor use.
Both East and West Coast critics were impressed, The LA Times wrote: "The interplay of light and dark, of colors and textures commands attention.” And, according to the New York Times: "Lindberg raises orchestral color to the level of line, rhythm, and counterpoint... Layers of timbre fall away and new ones are added, easing one episode smoothly into the next..."
Music Played in Today's Program Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) — Fresco (Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, cond.) Sony 89810
Synopsis These days if someone goes to all the trouble to write a symphony, they’re lucky to hear it performed ONCE – and it might be years before a second hearing. But back in 1791, when Haydn paid his first visit to England, Londoners were so enthusiastic about his new symphonies they asked for repeat performances as soon as possible. On today’s date in 1791 the work we know as Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 had its London premiere, and, “by particular desire,” as they phrased it back then, was repeated a week later and again the following month.
And when Haydn paid a visit to Oxford University that summer to receive an honorary doctorate, he led a performance of this same symphony at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre. Ever since, this particular English favorite has been nick-named Haydn’s “Oxford” Symphony.
Haydn, being a politically astute sort of chap, didn’t publicize to his British fans that one of their favorite symphonies was actually commissioned by a French Count who had sponsored a series of Haydn concerts in Paris some five years earlier. One wonders how the music-loving Count fared during the French Revolution, which was well underway in 1791.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Josef Haydn (1732 - 1808) — Symphony No. 92 (Oxford) (Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra; Adam Fischer, cond.) Nimbus 5269
Synopsis Following the successful premiere of his First Symphony in 1876, the New England composer John Knowles Paine finished a Second, which he gave a German subtitle: “Im Fruehling” or “In Springtime.” In 19th century America, “serious” music meant German music, and “serious” musicians like Paine all studied in Germany. Returning home, Paine became the first native-born American to win acceptance as a symphonic composer, and, accepting a teaching post at Harvard, became that school’s first professor of music.
On today’s date in 1880, when Paine’s “Spring” Symphony was premiered at Sanders Theater, the normally staid Bostonians went nuts. One critic who was present, recalled that “ladies waved their handkerchiefs, men shouted in approbation, and the highly respected John S. Dwight, arbiter in Boston of music criticism, stood in his seat frantically opening and shutting his umbrella as an expression of uncontrollable enthusiasm.”
Paine’s music remained tremendously popular in his own day. In 1883 George Henschel, then the conductor of the Boston Symphony, was sent the following poetic suggestion about his programming:
Let no more Wagner themes thy bill enhance
And give the native workers just one chance.
Don’t give that Dvorák symphony a-gain;
If you would give us joy, oh give us Paine!
Music Played in Today's Program John Knowles Paine (1839 - 1906) — Symphony No. 2 (New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, cond.) New World 350
On This Day Births * 1839 - American composer and organist Dudley Buck, in Hartford, Conn.; * 1844 - Spanish composer and violinist Pablo de Sarasate, in Pamplona; * 1892 - French composer Arthur Honegger, in Le Harve; * 1903 - American composer and jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, in Davenport, Iowa;
Deaths * 1832 - Italian-born composer Muzio Clementi, age 80, in Evesham, England; * 1870 - Czech-born composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles, age 75, in Leipzig; * 1910 - German composer Carl Reinecke, age 85, in Leipzig; * 1991 - American composer Elie Siegmeister, age 82, in Manhasset, N.Y.;
Premieres * 1785 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467, at the Burgtheater in Vienna, with the composer as soloist; * 1837 - Mercadante: opera "Il Giuramento" (The Oath), in Milan; * 1875 - Goldmark: opera "Die Königin von Saba" (The Queen of Sheba), in Vienna at the Court Opera (Hofoper); * 1877 - Borodin: Symphony No. 2, in St. Petersburg, by the Russian Musical Society, Eduard Nápravik conducting (Julian date: Feb. 26); * 1880 - Paine: Symphony No. 2 ("Spring"), at Sanders Theater in Boston, by the Boston Philharmonic, Bernard Listermann conducting; The following day, the orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association performed the same work downtown at Boston's Musical Hall, with Carl Zerrahn conducting; * 1888 - Franck: symphonic poem "Pysché," in Paris; * 1912 - Gliere: Symphony No. 3 ("Ilya Murometz") in Moscow (Gregorian date: Mar. 23); * 1916 - Granados: "Intermezzo & Epilogue," from "Goyescas," by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; * 1922 - Loeffler: "Irish Fantasies" (Nos. 2, 3 & 5 only) for voice and orchestra, by the Boston Symphony, with Pierre Monteux conducting and tenor John McCormack the soloist; * 1932 - Wallingford Riegger: "Dichotomy" for orchestra, in Berlin; * 1952 - David Diamond: Quintet for clarinet and strings, at Town Hall in New York City, by clarinetist David Oppenheim, Nathan Gordon and Lillian Fuchs (violins), and Aaron Twerdowsky and Bernard Greenhouse (cellos); * 1963 - Henze: opera "Il re cervo" (The Stag King), in Kassel at the Staatstheater; This is the 2nd version of Henze's opera "König Hirsch" which was first staged in an abridged version in Berlin on September 24, 1956; The complete original version of the opera was eventually staged in Stuttgart on May 7, 1985; * 1964 - John Harbison: "Sinfonia," in Cambridge, Mass., with violinist Rose Mary Harbison and the Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard, Gregory Biss conducting; * 1977 - John Harbison: "Diotima" for orchestra, in Boston, with the Boston Symphony, Joseph Silverstein conducting;
Others * 1937 - Frank Capra's film "The Lost Horizon" opens at the Four Stars Theater in Los Angeles, featuring a classic film score composed by Dmitri Tiomkin (and conducted by Max Steiner).
Links and Resources * On John Knowles Paine * More on Paine at Harvard
Synopsis On today’s date in 1706, the German composer and organist Johann Pachelbel was buried in Nuremberg, the town where he was born some 53 years earlier.
In his day, Pachelbel was regarded as an innovative composer of Protestant church music and works for harpsichord and organ. Pachelbel was acquainted with the Bach family, and was, in fact, the teacher of the teacher of J.S. Bach, and served as godfather to one J.S. Bach’s older relations.
Johann Pachelbel would be pretty much forgotten by most music lovers until late in the 20th century, when an orchestral arrangement of a little Canon he had written would suddenly become one of the best-known classical themes of our time. In 1979, the American composer George Rochberg, even included variations on Pachelbel’s famous Canon as the 3rd movement of his own String Quartet No. 6.
Like Bach, some of Johann Pachelbel’s children also became composers, and one of them, Karl Teodorus Pachelbel, emigrated from Germany to the British colonies of North America. As “Charles Theodore Pachelbel,” he became an important figure in the musical life of early 18th century Boston and Charleston, and died there in 1750, the same year as J.S. Bach.
Music Played in Today's Program George Rochberg (b. 1918) — Variations on the Pachelbel Canon (Concord String Quartet) RCA/BMG 60712
On This Day Births * 1737 - Bohemian composer Josef Mysliveczek, in Ober-Sarka; He was a friend and colleague of Mozart; * 1839 - Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (Gregorian date: Mar. 21); * 1910 - American composer Samuel Barber, in West Chester, Pa.; * 1930 - American composer and jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, in Forth Worth, Texas;
Deaths * 1706 - Burial date of German composer Johann Pachelbel, age c. 52, in Nuremberg;
Premieres * 1740 - Handel: oratorio "L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato," and Organ Concerto in Bb, Op. 7, no. 1, in London (Julian date: Feb. 27); * 1748 - Handel: oratorio "Joshua," in London at the Covent Garden Theater; The event possibly included the premiere of Handel's "Concerto a due cori" No. 1 as well (Gregorian date March 20); * 1842 - Verdi: opera "Nabucco" (Nabucodonosor), in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala; * 1844 - Verdi: opera "Ernani," in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice; * 1849 - Nicolai: opera "Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor" (after Shakespeare's play "The Merry Wives of Windsor"), in Berlin at the Königliches Opernhaus; * 1868 - Thomas: opera "Hamlet," (after Shakespeare's play "Hamlet") at the Paris Opéra; * 1877 - Tchaikovsky: symphonic-fantasy "Fancesca da Rimini," in Moscow (Julian date: Feb. 25); * 1924 - Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 5 (first version), in Paris, by the composer; A revised version of this sonata premiered in Alma-Ata (USSR) on February 5, 1954, by Anatoli Vedernikov; * 1930 - Weill: opera "Die Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny" (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), in Leipzig at the Neues Theater; * 1941 - Cowell: Symphony No. 2 ("Antropos"), in Brooklyn; * 1951 - Honegger: Symphony No. 5 ("Di tre re"), by the Boston Symphony, Charles Munch conducting; * 1980 - Earle Brown: "Caldar Piece," for percussionists and mobile, in Valencia, Calif.; * 1982 - Berio: opera "La vera storia" (The True Story), in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala;
Others * 1831 - Italian violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini makes his Parisian debut a the Opéra; Composers in the audience include Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Halvéy; and Franz Liszt (who transcribes Pagnini's showpiece "La Campanella" for piano); Also in attendance are the many famous novelists and poets, including George Sand, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Mussset and Heinrich Heine.
Links and Resources * On Johann Pachelbel * On George Rochberg
Synopsis In Bucharest on today’s date in the year 1903, a 21-year-old Romanian composer named Georges Enescu conducted the premiere of two “Romanian Rhapsodies” he had written. These flashy orchestra showpieces quickly became his most popular works – a little to the composer’s later chagrin. He came to feel – and quite rightly – that the huge success of these toe-tappers had come to overshadow all his other compositions and accomplishments.
Enescu had good reason to be proud: In addition to being a fine composer and conductor, he was one of the great virtuoso violinists of his day. As both a conductor and violinist he appeared with most of the great orchestras of Europe and America. Enescu wrote impressive symphonies, chamber music, and even an opera based on the Greek legend of Oedipus. As a teacher and general musical mentor, Enescu could count the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin as one of his star pupils and most devoted admirers.
Enescu died in Paris in 1955. Even though he had severed relations with his now Communist homeland, the Romanian government revered him as their great national composer: His native village, a street in Bucharest, and the State Philharmonic were all renamed in his honor.
Music Played in Today's Program Georges Enescu (1881 - 1955) — Romanian Rhapsody No 1 (Dallas Symphony; Eduardo Mata, cond.) RCA/BMG 63586
Synopsis The Viennese are notorious for the passion with which they can despise composers one moment – and lionize them the next. Here, for example, is one music critic’s reaction to the 1886 Viennese premiere of the Symphony No. 4 by Johannes Brahms:
“Conspicuous is the crab-like progress in the output of Brahms. It has, to be sure, never reached beyond the level of mediocrity, but such nothingness, emptiness, and hypocrisy as prevails throughout this symphony has not appeared in any previous work of Brahms so alarmingly. The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found in Brahms its worthiest representative. Just like the good Lord, Herr Brahms is a master at making something from nothing.”
And yet, 11 years later, on today’s date in 1897, when this same symphony was performed again in Vienna, each movement was greeted by prolonged cheers from the audience. Not only had the Viennese come to admire the music, but they knew the now-beloved Herr Brahms was dying. And so, when the gaunt and sickly composer attended a matinee performance of his 4th symphony at the Vienna Philharmonic’s Golden Hall, the audience took the opportunity to acknowledge him and his music for the very last time.
Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) — Symphony No 4 in e (Vienna Philharmonic; Carlos Kleiber, cond.) DG 457 706
Synopsis On today’s date in the year 2000, the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen gave the premiere of a new opera entitled “The Handmaid’s Tale,” based on the dystopian novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood.
The book and opera tell of a nightmarish future: following a nuclear disaster in the United States, infertility rates have soared, and a religious sect has staged a military coup, enslaving the few fertile women who remain as breeders, or “handmaids,” for the military and religious commanders of their sect. Says Atwood, "There is nothing new about the society I depicted in The Handmaid's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about have been done before – more than once, in fact."
Despite its grim subject matter, Danish composer Poul Ruders says he saw "huge operatic potential" when he first read the book back in 1992.
The original production in Copenhagen was sung in Danish, but Ruders says he conceived the work in English. The opera was staged in that language first in London at the English National Opera, and subsequently, at the opera’s American premiere, in St. Paul by The Minnesota Opera, to great critical acclaim.
Music Played in Today's Program Poul Ruders (b. 1949) — The Handmaid's Tale (Royal Danish Orchestra; Michael Schonwandt, cond.) DaCapo 9.224165-66
On This Day Births * 1844 - Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Gregorian date: Mar. 18); * 1870 - Austrian operetta composer Oscar Straus, in Vienna;
Deaths * 1932 - American composer and bandleader John Philip Sousa, age 77, in Reading, Pa.; * 1967 - Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, age 84, in Budapest;
Premieres * 1791 - Beethoven: "Ritterballett" (Knightly Ballet), in Bonn; * 1825 - Beethoven: String Quartet in Eb, Op. 127, in Vienna, the Schuppanzigh Quartet; This premiere was under-rehearsed and poorly performed (the Quartet had only received the music two weeks earlier), and Beethoven arranged for a second performance by a quartet led by violinist Joseph Boehm on March 26, which was better rehearsed and better received; * 1831 - Bellini: opera "La Sonnambula" (The Sleepwalker), in Milan at the Teatro Carcano; * 1853 - Verdi: opera "La Traviata" (The Lost One), in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice; * 1896 - Arthur Foote: Suite in d, by the Boston Symphony, Emil Paur conducting; * 1917 - Rachmaninoff: "Etudes-tableaux," Op. 39 (first complete performance of the set of nine), in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), by the composer (Julian date: Feb. 21); * 1926 - Hindemith: "Concerto for Orchestra," by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting; * 1927 - Prokofiev: Quintet for winds and strings, Op. 39, in Moscow; * 1933 - Varèse: "Ionisation," in New York City, with Nicholas Slonimsky conducting; * 1934 - Piston: "Concerto for Orchestra," in Cambridge, Mass.; * 1947 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 25, at the Moscow Conservatory by the USSR State Symphony, Alexander Gauk conducting; * 1984 - John Harbison: "Ulysses' Raft," by the New Haven Symphony, Murray Sidlin conducting; * 2000 - Poul Ruders: opera "The Handmaid's Tale," in Copenhagen, by the Royal Danish Theater, Mark Schönwandt conducting; * 2003 - John Harbison: "Requiem," by vocal soloists Christine Brewer, Margaret Lattimore, Paul Groves, and Jonathan Lemalu, with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the Boston Symphony conducted by Bernard Haitink.
Links and Resources * On Poul Ruders * More on "The Handmaid's Tale"
Synopsis The eastern Russian city of Kuibyshev might seem an unlikely site for an important symphonic premiere, but from 1941 to 1943, Kuibyshev was the temporary capital of the Soviet Union. As German and Finnish troops advanced from the west, the Russian government and its cultural institutions moved east. Among the refugees relocated to Kuibyshev were the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra from Moscow and the composer Dimitri Shostakovich from Leningrad. And so, on today’s date in 1942, Kuibyshev was the venue for the world premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, subtitled “Leningrad.”
A microfilm copy of the new score was flown to Tehran, then transported by car to Cairo, then flown to Brazil for transfer by the U.S. Navy to New York, where the American premiere was given on July 19, 1942, by the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini.
Less than a month later, on August 9, 1942, the “Leningrad” symphony was even performed in the besieged and starving city of Leningrad. The few musicians still capable of performing were given extra rations to keep up their strength, and, to ensure a measure of quiet during their performance, a Russian artillery commander ordered an intensive artillery bombardment on the enemy troops surrounding the city.
Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) — Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad) (Kirov Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic; Valery Gergiev, cond.) Philips 376-02
Synopsis At Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1893, the New York Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new symphony by a 37-year-old American composer and New York native named George Templeton Strong, Jr. This was a pretty big deal at a time when the Philharmonic rarely played works by non-European composers.
As the Philharmonic’s program book put it, somewhat defensively: “The acceptance of a work for performance is to a certain extent a declaration that it belongs to the very best class of contemporaneous literature according to the unbiased judgment of those who are entrusted with these concerts.”
Strong’s Symphony No.2, subtitled “Sintram,” was inspired by a literary work of that name depicting the victory of good over evil. The New York Times review gave it high marks, praising the composer’s imagination and mastery of instrumentation, but ventured to suggest the new symphony WAS a tad long and “unremittingly serious in tone.”
Strong himself was not present. He was in Switzerland, a country he was soon to adopt as his permanent home. His absence on the American scene caused his music, despite its merits, to be soon forgotten on this side of the Atlantic.
Music Played in Today's Program George Templeton Strong (1856–1948) — Symphony No. 2 (Sintram) (Moscow Symphony; Adriano, cond.) Naxos 8.559018
Synopsis The German composer Richard Wagner tried to limit performances of his final opera, “Parsifal,” to his own theater in Bayreuth, hoping it would provide a source of income for his family after his death. “Parsifal” premiered at Bayreuth in 1882, and after Wagner died the following year, his widow forbade rental of the music for performances elsewhere.
Naturally, Wagner enthusiasts all over the world were eager to hear the new work. One of them was a German-born American named Walter Damrosch, who, at the tender age of 23, headed both the New York Symphony and Oratorio Society, and was a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera.
While visiting London in 1885, Damrosch had bought a miniature score of “Parsifal.” The purchase gave him no right to perform the work, but he discovered the monetary fine for doing so was so small that he hired copyists to prepare orchestral parts for a concert performance in America at the old Metropolitan Opera House on today’s date in 1886.
Unfortunately for Damrosch, Anton Seidl, a close friend of Wagner’s widow was hired as the new music director of the Met. Seidl apparently took offense at Damrosch’s audacity, and so limited Damrosch to only non-Wagnerian repertory!
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Wagner (1813–1883) — Parsifal (excerpt) (SW German Radio Symphony; Erich Leinsdorf, cond.) Hannsler 93.040
On This Day Births * 1891 - Spanish composer Federico Moreno Torroba, in Madrid;
Deaths * 1768 - Italian composer Nicola Porpora, age 81, in Naples; * 1824 - Italian composer and violin virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti, age 68, in London; * 1932 - British-born German composer and pianist Eugène d'Albert, age 67, in Riga;
Premieres * 1793 - Haydn: Symphony No. 101 ("The Clock"), conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London; * 1842 - Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 ("Scottish"), by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, with the composer conducting; * 1853 - revised version of R. Schumann: Symphony No. 4, with the Düsseldorf Municipal Orchestra, conducted by the composer; An earlier version of this symphony premiered in Leipzig in 1841 as Schumann's Symphony "No. 2," but the composer withdrew the score and composed and premiered a new Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3 before revising and reintroducing this symphony as "No. 4"; * 1870 - Brahms: "Alto Rhapsody," by the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, in Jena, Germany; * 1875 - Bizet: opera "Carmen," in Paris at the Opéra-Comique; * 1893 - George Templeton Strong, Jr.: Symphony No. 2 ("Sintram"), at a public afternoon rehearsal by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, with Anton Seidl conducting; The "official" premiere concert took place the following evening; * 1899 - R. Strauss: tone-poem "Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life), in Frankfurt, with Strauss conducting; * 1918 - Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17, in Budapest, by the Waldbauer Quartet; * 1944 - Barber: Symphony No, 2, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; * 1951 - Otto Luening: "Kentucky Concerto" by the Louisville Orchestra, with the composer conducting; * 1959 - Cowell: Symphony No. 13 ("Madras") in Madras, India; * 1963 - Menotti: television opera "Labyrinth," broadcast over the NBC network;
Others * 1886 - American premiere (in a concert version) of Wagner's "Parsifal" at the Old Metropolitan Opera House, by the New York Symphony and Oratorio Society conducted by the 24-year old Walter Damrosch; The soloists included soprano Marianne Brandt, who had alternated the role of Kundry with soprano Amalie Materna in the premiere staged performances of the opera in Bayreuth in July of 1882; The first fully staged presentation of "Parsifal" in the U.S. did not occur at the Met until Dec. 24, 1903; * 1922 - U.S. premiere of concert version of Stravinsky's ballet score, "The Rite of Spring," in Philadelphia, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.
Links and Resources * On Wagner's "Parsifal" * On Walter Damrosch
Synopsis Ask a serious music lover to name major figures in 20th century music and it’s likely the names Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Bartók will crop up. But in addition to those Austrian, Russian, and Hungarian composers, a lively group of Italian modernists were also active throughout the 20th century – only their names and music are not so well-known.
One of them was Goffredo Petrassi, born in 1904. Petrassi became one of the leading figures in a group of Italian composers that included Luigi Dallapiccola, Alfredo Casella, and Gian Francesco Malipiero. This group tried to compensate for Italy’s almost total preoccupation with opera by concentrating more on instrumental pieces.
Petrassi’s own musical influences range from the Italian Renaissance music he sang as a young choirboy in Rome to the works of abstract painters like Jackson Pollock that he viewed when visiting America.
Petrassi’s largest body of work was his eight Concertos for Orchestra composed between 1933 and 1972, but in his final years he turned to chamber works, such as this “Autumn Sestina” completed in 1982, scored for six instruments. When asked where the “Autumn” in the title came from, the 78-year-old Petrassi responded: “Perhaps it’s got something to do with my age.”
Music Played in Today's Program Goffredo Petrassi (1904 - 2003) — Sestina d'autunno (Compania; Andrea Molino, cond.) Stradivarius 33347
On This Day Births * 1824 - Bohemian composer Bedrich Smetana, in Leitomischl; * 1900 - German-born American composer Kurt Weill, in Dessau; * 1905 - American composer Marc Blitzstein, in Philadelphia; * 1917 - British composer John Gardner, in Manchester; * 1921 - British composer Robert Simpson, in Leamington;
Deaths * 1959 - Finnish composer Yrjö (Henrik) Kilpinen, age 97, in Helsinki; He was the most famous Finnish composer of art songs (lieder); * 2003 - Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi, age 98, in Rome; * 2003 - Australian composer Malcolm Williamson, age 71, in Cambridge, England; In 1975 he became the first non-British born composer to serve as the Queen's Master of Music;
Premieres * 1724 - Handel: opera "Giulio Cesare" in London (Julian date: Feb. 20); * 1744 - Handel: oratorio "Joseph and his Brethren" in London at the Covent Garden Theater (Gregorian date: March 13); * 1792 - Haydn: Symphony No. 98, conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London; * 1795 - Haydn: Symphony No. 103 ("The Drumroll"), conducted by the composer, at the King's Theater in London; * 1874 - Rimsky-Korsakov: Symphony No. 3, in St. Petersburg, with the composer conducting; This was a benefit concert for the victims of the Volga famine, and marked Rimsky-Korsakov's debut as a conductor (Julian date: Feb. 18); * 1887 - R. Strauss: "Aus Italien" (From Italy), in Munich; * 1911 - Scriabin: Symphony No. 5 ("Prometheus: Poem of Fire"), in Moscow (Gregorian date: Mar. 15); * 1961 - Copland: Nonet for Strings, at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., by members of the National Symphony conducted by the composer; * 1977 - Benjamin Lees: "Dialogue" for cello and piano, in New York City.
Links and Resources * On Petrassi * Petrassi obit from 2003
Synopsis Claude Debussy probably never saw the reviews his symphonic suite “La Mer” (“The Sea”) received after its American premiere on today’s date in Boston in 1907 – and that was probably for the best.
Musicologist Nicholas Slonimsky, who collected notably bad reviews in his notably excellent “Lexicon of Musical Invective,” says the 1907 Boston audience was a tough crowd, composed of – as Slonimsky put it – “easily discomfited dowagers, quiet academically minded New England music lovers, and irascible music critics.”
The Boston newspaper reviews of the 1907 audience’s reaction to Debussy’s “La Mer” included some real zingers like: “Frenchmen are notoriously bad sailors, and we clung like a drowning man to a few fragments of the tonal wreck.”
An even more graphic critic said: “It is possible that Debussy did not intend to call it La Mer, but Le Mal de Mer, which would at once make the tone-picture as clear as day. It is a series of symphonic pictures of seasickness. The first movement is Headache. The second is Doubt, picturing moments of dread suspense… The third movement, with its explosions and rumblings, has now a self-evident purpose: The hero is endeavoring to throw up his boot heels!”
Music Played in Today's Program Claude Debussy (1862–1918) — La Mer (Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal; Charles Dutoit, cond.) London/Decca 430240
Synopsis Maurice Ravel’s orchestral suite "Le Tombeau de Couperin" was premiered in Paris on this day in 1920. It had started out as a suite of solo piano pieces, intended as a tribute to the great French Baroque composer François Couperin – or, as Ravel wrote, “not so much to Couperin himself, as to 18th-century French music in general.”
Although the French word “tombeau” translates literally as “tomb,” it also signifies a musical piece paying tribute to a past master, in the English sense of “in memoriam.” In that spirit, Ravel dedicated each movement of his suite to friends of his killed during World War I.
Although the “tombeau” as a musical form has been associated almost exclusively with French composers, one contemporary American composer has used the form as well, albeit with more wickedly satirical intent. Michael Daugherty’s “Tombeau de Liberace” jokingly references the late pianist and showman, a kitschy icon of 20th century American pop culture.
Michael Daugherty says (quote), “Starting from the vernacular idiom, I have composed ‘Le Tombeau de Liberace’ as a meditation on the American sublime: a lexicon of forbidden music. It is a piano concertino in four movements, each creating a distinct Liberace atmosphere.”
Music Played in Today's Program Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937) — Le tombeau de Couperin (Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff, cond.) Teldec 74006
Synopsis Today’s date marks the birthday of a 20th century Czech composer you perhaps have never heard of. Viktor Kalabis was born in 1923 and by age 6, was giving public piano performances. All the signs pointed to a brilliant career. But first Kalabis had to face – and surmount–two major political hurdles.
First, his formal musical studies were delayed by the Nazi occupation of his country in 1938, when he was forced into factory work; then, after the war, Kalabis met and married a young harpsichordist named Zuzana Ruzickova, who was a concentration camp survivor. Victor was a Gentile, but in Stalinist Czechoslovakia, anti-Semitism was rampant and marrying a Jew was frowned upon. To make matters worse, both Victor and Zuzana refused to join the Communist Party, hardly what one would call “a smart career move” in those years.
Even so, Kalabis began to attract commissions and performances of his music at home and abroad, and following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Kalabis assumed a more prominent position in his country’s musical life.
His symphonies, concertos, and chamber works are now regarded as some of the most important contributions to Czech music in the late 20th century.
Music Played in Today's Program Viktor Kalabis (1923 – 2006) — Piano Concerto No. 1 (Zuzana Ruzickova, p; Czech Philharmonic; Karel Sejna, cond.) MRS Classics MS-1350
On This Day Births * 1848 - English composer (Sir) Hubert Parry, in Bournemouth;
Deaths * 1887 - Russian composer Alexander Borodin, age 53, at a fancy dress ball in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Feb. 15);
Premieres * 1729 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 159 ("Sehet, wie gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem") probably performed in Leipzig on Estomihi Sunday as part of Bach's fourth annual Sacred Cantata cycle (to texts by Christian Friedrich Henrici, a.k.a. "Picander") during 1728/29; * 1737 - Handel: opera “Giustino,” in London (Julian date: Feb. 16); * 1740 - Handel: oratorio “L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato,” in London at Lincoln’s Inn Field, with the premiere of Handel’s Organ Concerto in Bb, Op. 7, no. 1 (Gregorian date: Mar. 9); * 1814 - Beethoven: Symphony No. 8, in Vienna, with composer conducting; * 1908 - Amy Beach: Piano Quintet, at Boston's Potter Hall, with the Hoffmann Quartet and the composer at the piano; * 1913 - Walter Damrosch: opera, "Cyrano de Bergerac," at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; * 1915 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 3, in Moscow (Julian date: Feb. 14); * 1940 - William Schuman: String Quartet No. 3, at Town Hall in New York City, by the Coolidge Quartet; * 1945 - Amy Beach: opera "Cabildo," by the Opera Workshop at the University of Georgia in Athens, directed by Hugh Hodgson; The first professional production occurred on May 13, 1995, at Alice Tully Hall in New York City as a "Great Performances" telecast conducted by Ransom Wilson; * 1947 - Hindemith: Piano Concerto, by the Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell conducting, with Jesús Maria Sanromá the soloist; * 1947 - Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 3, by the New York Philharmonic, Walter Hendel conducting; * 1949 - Elliott Carter: Woodwind Quintet, at Times Hall in New York City, at a new music concert of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors, sharing a program with Henry Cowell's Suite for Wind Quintet, Vincent Perischetti's "Pastorale," Richard Franko Goldman's Duo for Tubas, Ingolf Dahl's "Music for Five Brass Instruments," and a revised version of Carl Ruggles; "Angles" for seven brass instruments; * 1949 - Wm. Schuman: Symphony No. 6, by the Dallas Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting; * 1950 - Elliott Carter: Cello Sonata, at Town Hall in New York, by cellist Bernard Greenhouse and pianist Anthony Markas; * 1958 - Peter Mennin: Piano Concerto, by the Cleveland Orchesttra conducted by George Szell, with Eunice Podis the soloist; * 1984 - Libby Larsen: "Parachute Dancing" for orchestra, by the American Composers Orchestra, Tom Nee conducting; * 1986 - U. Zimmermann: opera "Weisse Rose" (White Rose), in Hamburg by the Opera stabile; * 1999 - Peter Lieberson: Horn Concerto, at Carnegie Hall, with soloist William Purvis and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Others * 1885 - First documented American performance of Handel's Concerto Grosso in B Minor (op. 6, no.12), by the Boston Symphony, William Gericke conducting.
Links and Resources * On Viktor Kalabis * Kalabis tribute (PDF)
Synopsis On today’s date in 1946, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra gave the premiere of a new oboe concerto by the German composer Richard Strauss, then in his 80s. The soloist was a Swiss oboist named Marcel Saillet, to whom the work is dedicated.
The concerto owes its existence, however, to a 20-something American oboist and GI named John de Lancie, who was then stationed in Germany and who visited Strauss at his Bavarian home shortly after the end of World War II.
“I asked him,” recalled de Lancie, “in view of the numerous beautiful, lyric solos for oboe in almost all his works, if he had ever considered writing a concerto for oboe. He answered ‘No,’ and there was no more conversation on the subject.”
But de Lancie’s question did plant a seed, and after returning to civilian life in the states in 1946, de Lancie got a letter from Strauss’s publisher offering him the work’s American premiere.
As it turned out, the American premiere of the Strauss Concerto was given by another oboist named Mitchell Miller – a musician who some of us “of a certain age” remember as an energetic choral conductor of a sing-along TV show entitled “Sing Along with Mitch.”
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864 — 1949) Oboe Concerto (John de Lancie, oboe; Chamber Orchestra; Max Wilcox, cond.) RCA/BMG 7989
Synopsis Like Rodney Dangerfield, the viola is often an instrument that “gets no respect“ – so no viola jokes, today, folks. Quite the opposite, in fact.
For its 150th Anniversary celebration, the New York Philharmonic commissioned a number of new orchestral works. One of them premiered at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall on today’s date in 1993: the Third Symphony of the American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
It’s no exaggeration to suggest that Zwilich knows the symphony orchestra from inside out: for seven years she was a violinist in the American Symphony Orchestra, a New York-based ensemble conducted by Leopold Stokowski when Zwilich was a player.
For her Third Symphony, Zwilich confessed she had an often-neglected section of the orchestra in mind:
“I had noticed over the years the rising quality of viola playing,” she said in an interview, “and I thought that the Philharmonic’s section was absolutely amazing. So when I had this commission .... I really wanted to put the spotlight on the viola section and give THEM a great deal to do, not only in terms of virtuosity, but of importance and centrality to the piece. This symphony really grew out of my love for this section of the orchestra.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) — Symphony No. 3 (Louisville Orchestra; James Sedares, cond.) Koch 7278
Synopsis It’s quite likely that if we could ask him, the great 18th century composer George Frideric Handel would have described himself first and foremost as a composer of Italian operas.
For most of the 19th century, however, it was chiefly Handel’s English-language sacred oratorios that kept his fame alive. It wasn’t until the 20th century that curiosity about Handel’s Italian operas led to revivals, recordings, and their eventual return to the repertory of opera companies worldwide.
On today’s date in 1711, Handel’s opera “Rinaldo” had its premiere performance in London at the Queen’s Theater in the Haymarket. This was the first Handel opera produced in London, and the first Italian opera written specifically for that city. It was designed to be a spectacle, full of heroic chivalry and stage magic including live birds and flying machines, a kind of 18th century “Star Wars,” if you will.
It was a tremendous success, and, like “Star Wars,” was SO popular that it became fit material for parody.
Handel’s Act III march of Christian Crusaders resurfaced as a chorus of highway robbers in John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera” of 1728, a spoof poking fun at both contemporary politics and the conventions and pretensions of Italian-style opera.
Music Played in Today's Program George Frederic Handel (1685 — 1759) Lascia ch'io pianga , from Rinaldo Barbra Streisand, soprano; Columbia Symphony; Claus Ogerman, cond. CBS/Sony 33452
John Gay (1685 — 1732) The Beggar's Opera The Broadside Band; Jeremy Barlow, cond. Hyperion 66591
Synopsis Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is a collection of 48 preludes and fugues for solo keyboard in two sets, each covering all 24 major and minor keys. This music has become a Bible for pianists as well as a challenge for subsequent composers to try to imitate. In the early 1990s, American composer and pianist Henry Martin tossed his hat into the ring with the completion of his own first set of 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, and soon after published a second set of 24.
On today’s date in 1992, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., pianist Sara Davis Buechner performed three of Martin’s Preludes and Fugues for broadcast on NPR and later made recordings of all of Martin’s “48.”
One enthusiastic reviewer of those recordings, Michael Barone, host of American Public Media’s PIPEDREAMS organ program, wrote of Martin’s music, “We get shades of Debussy's impressionism, the vibrant jazzy riffs of Art Tatum, the spacey harmonies of John Coltrane, and the sophisticated improvisations of Bill Evans … but Martin's own individual genius shines brightly.”
Barone’s enthusiasmresulted in his commissioning Henry Martin to compose another set of 24 preludes and fugues – this time for organ! We think Bach would have approved.
Music Played in Today's Program Henry Martin (b. 1950) — Prelude & Fugue #1 in G (Ken Cowan, organ) Pipedreams 1004
Synopsis Mountains can have unforeseen consequences on the imagination.
For Philadelphia-native Melinda Wagner, serving as a composer-in-residence at a music festival in Vail, Colorado, this resulted in the composition of a new Trombone Concerto, a piece tailor-made for Joseph Alessi, the principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic.
“During my free moments in Vail,” said Wagner, “I found myself gazing – in disbelief really – at the jagged, youthful beauty of the Rockies. By comparison, ‘my’ mountains – the old Endless, Allegheny, and Pocono ranges of Pennsylvania – seemed to be no more than a set of soft wrinkles in the skin of the earth!
“Nobility and power, hallmarks of the trombone sound, are words that come to mind in the presence of mountains, old and new. And a truly great musician, as I learned while hearing Joseph Alessi play, can coax so much more out of the trombone: aching tenderness, sadness, lyricism, mirth.”
Alessi gave the premiere performance of Wagner’s new Concerto on today’s date in 2007, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lorin Maazel. She’s also written three major orchestral works for the Chicago Symphony, including a piano concerto for Emanuel Ax entitled “Extremity of Sky.”
Music Played in Today's Program Melinda Wagner (b. 1957) — Trombone Concerto (New York Philharmonic; Lorin Maazel, cond.) Bridge 9345
Synopsis On today’s date in 1929, the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi capped his trilogy of symphonic tone poems based on Roman scenery and history with the premiere performance of his “Roman Festivals.”
Unlike the first two installments, “The Fountains of Rome” and “The Pines of Rome,” which were both premiered in Rome by Italian orchestras, “Roman Festivals” premiered in America at Carnegie Hall, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
“All three of the compositions are [full of] brilliant instrumental effects,” wrote music critic Olin Downes in his New York Times review the following day. “’Roman Festivals’ however, fairly caps the climax for sheer orchestral sonority … The first part … is really wild and brutal music, the dramatic idea being the howls and cries of the crowd at the Circus Maximus, the salutations for Nero, the opening of the iron gates and the roaring of beasts, the hymn of the Christians about to be slaughtered... The passage is short, but of a stunning power."
But Olin Downes ended his review with a Nero-esque thumbs-down: "All this program material furnishes Mr. Respighi opportunity for descriptive writing,” concludes the review, “but the music is of no merit.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ottorino Resphigi (1879 — 1936) — Roman Festivals (Philadelphia Orchestra; Riccardo Muti, cond.) Angel/EMI 47316
On This Day Births * 1801 - Czech composer Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, in Prague; * 1836 - French composer Léo Delibes, in St. Germain du Val, Sarthe; * 1844 - French composer and organist Charles Marie Widor, in Lyons;
Deaths * 1996 - American composer and conductor Morton Gould, age 82, in Orlando, Fla.
Premieres * 1727 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 52 ("Ich habe genug") performed on the Feast of the Purification as part of Bach's third annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1725/27); * 1744 - Handel: oratorio “Semele,” in London (Julian date: Feb. 10); * 1749 - Handel: oratorio “Susanna” in London (Julian date: Feb. 10); * 1886 - Mussorgsky (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov): opera “Khovanschchina,” posthumously, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Feb. 9); * 1907 - Delius: opera, "A Village Romeo and Juliet," in Berlin; * 1909 - Liadov: “Enchanted Lake” for orchestra, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Feb. 8); * 1917 - Rachmaninoff: “Etudes-tableaux,” Op. 39 (Gregorian date: March 6); * 1920 - Milhaud: ballet "Le Boeuf sur la toît," in Paris; * 1929 - Respighi: orchestral suite, "Roman Festivals," by the New York Philharmonic, Toscanini conducting; * 1946 - Roy Harris: "Memories of a Child's Sunday," by the New York Philharmonic with the composer conducting; * 1948 - Cowell: Suite for Woodwind Quintet, by an ensemble at the McMillan Theater of Columbia University in New York City; This work was written in 1933 for the French flutist Georges Barrère, but the score and parts remained lost until 1947.
Links and Resources * On Respighi and his music
Synopsis Today marks the birthday of the British composer Ruth Gipps, who lived from 1921 to 1999. She wrote five symphonies, dozens of concertos, chamber works, and vocal scores.
Gipps said she found it “difficult to understand young people who don’t know what they want to be when they grow up.” She published her first music at 8, and by her twenties had also become a professional oboist and pianist. Her triple career peaked in 1945, when in Birmingham, she performed the Glazunov Piano Concerto on the first half of a concert, then, on the second, played the English horn part in the premiere performance of her own First Symphony.
Vaughan Williams was one of her composition teachers, and her music was, like his, firmly based in melody and traditional harmony. Ironically, this counted against her in the years following World War II when music that wasn’t atonal and avant-garde was deemed old-fashioned.
Even so, in 1981, Gipps was included in the Queen’s Honors List, but Dame Ruth probably derived as much pleasure from her MG as her MBE: an avid sports car enthusiast, her obituary noted that, heavily swathed, Gipps enjoyed driving her roadster though whatever the British climate threw at her.
Music Played in Today's Program Ruth Gipps (1921 – 1999) — Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 (Munich Symphony Orchestra; Douglas Bostock, cond.) Cameo Classics 9046 (also Classico 274)
Synopsis In February of 1794, the Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn arrived in England for his second visit, and the premiere performances of some of his newest symphonies, beginning with one in E-flat Major that we know as his Symphony No. 99.
Haydn would write 104 symphonies in all – an astonishing accomplishment, considering both their quantity and quality. In typically modest fashion, Haydn once commented:
“I compose music so that the weary and worn, or the man burdened with affairs, may enjoy a few moments of solace and refreshment. I know that God has bestowed a talent upon me, and I thank Him for it. I think I have done my duty and been of use in my generation by my works. Let others do the same.”
Well, these days, as in Haydn’s, to write a symphony one needs talent AND an orchestra willing to perform it. The American composer Daniel Asia has a way to go before matching Haydn’s output, but has composed at least SIX symphonies to date. The first was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony, and received its premiere performance in Seattle, Asia’s hometown, on today’s date in 1990.
Music Played in Today's Program Franz Josef Haydn (1732 — 1808) — Symphony No. 99 (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Sir Colin Davis, cond.) Philips 442 614
Daniel Asia (b. 1953) — Symphony No. 4 (New Zealand Symphony; James Sedares, cond.) Summit 256
Synopsis In a creative life that spanned over 60 years, the American composer Howard Hanson never wavered in his belief that music should be tonal in nature and fundamentally Romantic in style, with strong and clear melodic lines.
By the mid-1950s, many other European and American composers were espousing a far different approach to music, favoring an abstract and often densely complex style, more in harmony with the non-representational canvases of the painter Jackson Pollack than the meticulous realism of, say, Norman Rockwell.
On today’s date in 1955, this music, Hanson’s Symphony No. 5, had its premiere performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. It’s the most compact of Hanson’s seven symphonies, a single-movement work in three sections lasting just 15 minutes. Hanson titled the work “Sinfonia Sacra” or “A Sacred Symphony,” and suggested it was inspired by the account of Christ’s resurrection in the Gospel of St. John.
“The Sinfonia Sacra does not attempt programmatically to tell the story of the first Easter,” wrote Hanson, “but does attempt to invoke some of the atmosphere of tragedy and triumph, mysticism and affirmation of this story, which is the essential symbol of the Christian faith.”
Music Played in Today's Program Howard Hanson (1896 - 1981) — Symphony No. 5 (Sinfonia Sacra) (Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, cond.) Delos 3130
On This Day Births * 1632 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Vitali, in Bologna; * 1864 - American music publisher Gustave Schirmer, Jr., in New York City, son of the German-born music publisher Gustave Schirmer, Sr. * 1915 - French composer Marcel Landowski in Prêt L'Abbé (Finistère); * 1939 - Brazilian composer, conductor and pianist Marlos Nobre, in Recife;
Deaths * 1956 - French composer French composer Gustave Charpentier, age 95, in Paris;
Premieres * 1743 - Handel: oratorio “Samson,” at Covent Garden Theatre in London, and possibly the premiere of Handel’s recently-completed Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 2 at the same concert (Gregorian date: Mar. 1); * 1874 - Rimsky-Korsakov: Symphony No. 3, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Mar. 2); * 1893 - Berlioz: "La Damnation de Faust" (as a staged opera), in Monte Carlo with a cast headed by tenor Jean de Reske; Berlioz conducted the first concert performance of this work (as an oratorio) at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on Dec. 6, 1946; * 1893 - Brahms: Intermezzo No. 1, for piano, from Op. 117, in Vienna; * 1895 - Loeffler: Quintet for three violins, viola and cello, at Boston's Union Hall by the Kneisel Quartet joined by violinist William Kraft; * 1916 - Daniel Mason: First Symphony (first version), by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting; * 1919 - Deems Taylor: chamber suite "Through The Looking Glass," by the New York Chamber Music Society; * 1947 - Menotti: one-act opera "The Telephone," in New York City at the Heckscher Theater; * 1952 - Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante, Op. 125 (as "Cello Concerto" No. 2), in Moscow, with Sviatoslav Richter conducting and Mstislav Rostropovich the soloist; * 1955 - Hanson: Symphony No. 5 ("Sinfonia Sacra"), the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; * 1965 - Ginastera: Harp Concerto, by harpist Nicanor Zabaleta , with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; * 1998 - Thea Musgrave: "Phoenix Rising," at the Royal Festival Hall in London, by the BBC Symphony, Andrew Davis conducting.
Links and Resources * On Howard Hanson
Synopsis The American composer Elliott Carter has a reputation for writing some of the thorniest, most abstract and most technically difficult orchestral scores of the 20th century.
But for a few moments at least, during the opening of Carter’s “Symphony of Three Orchestras,” which had its premiere performance on today’s date in 1977 at a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Pierre Boulez, audiences must have been surprised by an impressionistic, almost Romantic tone. In notes for the new piece, Carter admitted the opening of the new work was inspired by the poetry of Hart Crane, specifically Crane’s description of the New York harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge. Both those New York landmarks were a short walk away from Carter’s lower Manhattan apartment.
Carter’s 15-minute “Symphony of Three Orchestras” quickly shifts into his more recognizably dense style, however, and, as the title indicates, employs three orchestras on one stage, playing with and against each other at various points.
As the New York Times reviewer wrote: “It will take many hearings for the relationships of the score to assert themselves, though one can be confident that Mr. Carter, one of the most accomplished constructionists of the age, has assembled everything with pin-point logic.”
Music Played in Today's Program Elliot Carter (1908 - 2012) — Symphony for Three Orchestras (New York Philharmonic; Pierre Boulez, cond.) Sony 68334
Synopsis Today’s date marks the birthday in 1938 of the American composer John Corigliano, and also, in 2005, of the premiere of his Symphony No. 3, scored for large wind ensemble. The premiere was given in Austin by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble led by Jerry F. Junkin.
Corigliano titled his new symphony “Circus Maximus,” explaining : “The Circus Maximus of ancient Rome was … [the] largest arena in the world, it entertained over 300,000 spectators daily for nearly a thousand years. Chariot races, hunts, and battles satisfied the Roman public’s need for grander and wilder amusements as the Empire declined. Many of us [today] have become as bemused by the violence and humiliation that flood the 500-plus channels of our television screens as those mobs of imperial Rome who considered the devouring of human beings by starving lions just another Sunday show.”
In performance, Corigliano asks that a huge array of brass, wind, and percussion surround the audience on all sides. As brass instruments roar and cheer all around them, the audience is meant to feel more like the watched than the watchers, and Corigliano ends the work with a bang – literally – as a shotgun blast provides the symphony’s final exclamation point!
Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938) — Circus Maximus (University of Texas Wind Ensemble; Jerry Junkin, cond.) Naxos 8.559601
Synopsis Rhode Island natives of a certain age wax nostalgic about Rocky Point, a popular family vacation spot on the Narragansett Bay side of Warwick, which operated from the late 1840s until its close in 1995. There was an amusement park with rides like “The Russian Toboggan,” “The Wildcat” and “Cyclone,” for the kids, while mom and pop might opt for a table at the Rocky Point Chowder House.
In 1966, the American composer Ron Nelson spent a summer holiday there. “It's such a small state, there aren’t that many places to go,” he later recalled. Still, his “Rocky Point Holiday” provided the inspiration – and the title – for a work commissioned by Dr. Frank Bencriscutto for his University of Minnesota Concert Band.
“Rocky Point Holiday” was first performed under Bencriscutto’s direction on today’s date in 1967, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during the annual convention of the College Band Director’s National Association. But the piece really took off – a little like “The Russian Toboggan” perhaps? – when Bencriscutto’s band toured the Soviet Union in 1969.
Frank wanted an ‘American’ piece to open the program,” Nelson recalled, and “Rocky Point Holiday” fit the bill perfectly, and the jaunty score became a classic in the wind band repertory.
Music Played in Today's Program Ron Nelson (b. 1929) — Rocky Point Holiday (Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, cond.) Reference Recording RR-76
Synopsis These days, it’s still considered “news” when the Metropolitan Opera stages an opera by a female composer, so one might assume that in the 19th century, the performance of any opera written by a woman would have been even more sensational.
Well, that wasn’t the case on today’s date in 1895, when the Paris Opera staged “La Montagne noire,” or “The Black Mountain,” by Augusta Holmes, or “Augusta Holmès” as she was known in France. Her opera was performed 13 times. The jaded French audiences were already quite familiar with the sensational Mademoiselle Holmès, it seems.
Born in Paris in 1847 of Irish parents, Augustawas a prodigy as a child, a stunning beauty as a young woman, and a diligent composition student of César Franck’s. And, rare for her time, she was a financially independent artist due to a fortune inherited from her father. Rarer still: Augusta’s scores were championed and premiered by Parisian orchestras, and she received major commissions for elaborate national celebrations.
By the time of her death in 1903, however, Augusta Holmès was regarded as a curious but minor figure in the history of French music. In our time, her works are being reappraised and occasionally performed.
Music Played in Today's Program Augusta Holmès (1847 – 1903) — Irlande (Ireland), Symphonic Poem (Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic; Samuel Friedmann, cond.) Marco Polo 8.223449
Synopsis On today’s date in 1996, a trio of soloists joined forces with the Minnesota Orchestra for the premiere performance of a new concerto by the American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. This “Triple Concerto” was commissioned by those soloists – pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Sharon Robinson – and no less than five orchestras in addition to Minnesota’s.
Now, the MOST famous Concerto for Piano, Violin, Cello and Orchestra is by Beethoven, as Zwilich well knows. “My Triple Concerto is scored for exactly the same instrumentation as Beethoven’s,” she writes, “although Beethoven would certainly be startled by some of the American jazz techniques and the extraordinary facility the modern timpanist can be expected to have at his fingertips... My piece has other vague and hidden references to Beethoven, as a kind of homage to a composer who has deeply affected my life."
“As contemporary artists always have,” continues Zwilich, “today’s composers exist at a juncture between past and present. And all of us, whether we write, perform, or listen to music, face a similar challenge: how to relate meaningfully to the past without becoming imbedded in it; how to press toward the future without abandoning the richness of our heritage.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ellen Taafe Zwilich (b. 1939) — Triple Concerto (Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; Florida State University; Michael Stern, cond.) Koch 7537
Synopsis On today’s date in 2009, Hilary Hahn premiered a new violin concerto by the American composer Jennifer Higdon, a work tailor-made for the violinist, according to Higdon: “She’s got gorgeous tone in the top register, but also down really low, so I tried to utilize her entire range, her lyrical gift, her ability to play super fast and negotiate through complex meter changes.”
When asked if it wasn’t intimidating writing a violin concerto in the 21st century, considering the incredible legacy of great violin concertos already written, Higdon said a little intimidation is a good thing: “There's nothing like fear to get the imagination running. Starting a piece is the worst,” says Higdon, “and that can stretch from one day to three weeks of agony. The cats run and hide.”
Higdon’s Violin Concerto for Hilary Hahn won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the composer said she found that out in a very 21st century fashion, when she noticed her cell phone was suddenly flooded with dozens and dozens of messages.
“I jumped up and down a little,” confesses Higdon – and that probably scared her cats, too.
The cats’ names, for the record, are Beau and Squeak.
Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) — Violin Concerto (Hilary Hahn, vn; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Vasily Petrenko, cond.) DG 146980-2
Synopsis In Vienna, on today’s date in 1907, the String Quartet No. 1 of the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg had its first performance by the Rosé Quartet, an ensemble headed by Arnold Rosé, the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustav Mahler’s brother-in-law.
One eye-witness reported as follows: “Many found the work impossible, and left the hall during the performance, one rather humorously through the emergency exit. As the hissing continued afterward, Gustav Mahler, who was present, approached one of the unsatisfied and said: ‘You should not hiss!’ – to which the unhappy audience member responded: ‘Don’t worry – I hiss your symphonies, too!’"
In 1936, Schoenberg was living in Los Angeles, where one of his students was the Hollywood composer Alfred Newman. Newman arranged to have all four of Schoenberg’s Quartets recorded by the visiting Kolisch Quartet at the United Artists Studios in Hollywood. To do this, Newman had to first obtain permission from none other than film mogul Samuel Goldwyn himself.
“And so,” recalled Newman years later, “a hack movie-musician, a movie producer, and a movie studio made possible the recording of four important modern compositions. Once in a while, you see, we CAN be unfaithful to the great god Profit.”
Music Played in Today's Program Arnold Schoenberg (1874 — 1951) — String Quartet No 1, Op 7 (Kolisch Quartet) Music and Arts 1056
Synopsis In Boston on today’s date in 1945, the Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness served as both the soloist and conductor in the first performance of a piano concerto entitled “Lousadzak.” The exotic title, Hovhaness explained, was a “made-up” Armenian word meaning “dawn of light.”
When Hovhaness repeated his new concerto at Town Hall in New York, one newspaper sent the composer Lou Harrison as its music critic to cover the event.
“[It] was the closest I’ve ever been to one of those renowned artistic riots,” recalled Harrison. “In the lobby, the Chromaticists and the Americanists were carrying on at high decibels. What had touched it off was the fact that here was a man from Boston whose obviously beautiful music had nothing to do with either camp and was its own very wonderful thing. My guest John Cage and I were very excited, and I dashed off [to] a rave review while John went back to the Green Room to meet Alan.”
For his part, Hovhaness said: “I believe in melody, and to create a melody one needs to go within oneself. I was very touched when John Cage said my music was like inward singing.”
Music Played in Today's Program Alan Hovhaness (1911 - 2000) — Lousadzak (Keith Jarrett, piano; American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, cond.) MusicMasters 60204
Synopsis Chinese New Year, or “Spring Festival,” is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays and its observance traditionally begins on the first day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar.
“Spring Festival” is also the title Chinese composer Chen Yi gave to a work for wind band that she wrote in 1999 on commission from American Composers Forum and published as part of their “BandQuest” new music series for young performers.
“Spring Festival” draws on a southern Chinese folk tune called “Lion Playing Ball,” but its formal structure is mathematical in nature and based on the ancient Greek idea of the “Golden Ratio,” traditionally thought to represent an aesthetically pleasing proportion.
Chen Yi received her Master’s degree in music composition from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in New York City, and now teaches at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
It was in Kansas City that Chen developed “Spring Festival” during workshops with the young musicians of the Smith-Hale Junior High School Band, and the finished score received its premiere performance on today’s date in the year 2000 by that band under the direction of Jan Davis.
Music Played in Today's Program Chen Yi (b. 1953) — Spring Festival (University of Minnesota Symphonic Wind Ensemble; Craig Kirchhoff, cond.) HL-04001978
Synopsis Today marks the birthday of the Viennese violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler, who was born on today’s date in 1875.
Kreisler’s talent was apparent at a very early age, and at 7 he entered the Vienna Conservatory where his theory teacher was Anton Bruckner. Young master Kreisler (as he was known at the time), made his Viennese debut at age 9, and his American debut at 13. Sir Edward Elgar composed his Violin Concerto for Kreisler, who premiered the work in London in 1910. The rise of Nazism in the 1930s forced Kreisler to America, where he became a naturalized citizen.
Kreisler made hundreds of recordings, mainly of his own compositions, including original works written in the style of earlier composers. Kreisler’s interest in early music was deep and genuine, as was his passion for old books and ancient languages.
In 1941, while crossing a New York street, he was hit by a truck and nearly killed. Awaking from a month-long coma, the multi-lingual Kreisler could at first only communicate in Latin and ancient Greek. The 66-year-old eventually recovered, however, and continued to perform in public until 1950.
He died in New York City, a few days short of his 87th birthday, in 1962.
Music Played in Today's Program Fritz Kreisler (1875 - 1962) — Violin Concerto (in the style of Vivaldi) (Gil Shaham, violin; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra) DG 449 923
Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, a tone poem by the American composer Michael Torke had its premiere performance at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, at a concert by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop. Torke was the orchestra’s composer-in-residence at the time and wrote “An American Abroad” to fulfill his second commission for the Scots.
Here’s how Torke himself describes the piece: “Unfolding melodies and themes express the natural naïveté an American might feel traveling abroad. Wonderment and curiosity kindles the traveler’s energy, yet there remains an unintended lack of sophistication. Being an outsider, how can a traveler truly understand the depths and subtleties of a new culture?”
Or, as a Scottish newspaper critic put it, “the gee-whiz factor Scots know only too well when we spot a guddle of Americans gawping at Edinburgh Castle.”
Actually, the piece could just as well be titled “A European in America,” as Torke explained: “I currently live in New York City, and when visitors from the ‘outside’ are in town, I am inspired by their simple energy and appreciation of what my hometown has to offer, which often opens my eyes to new ways of seeing New York.”
Music Played in Today's Program Michael Torke (b. 1961) — An American Abroad (Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Marin Alsop, cond.) Naxos 8.559167
Synopsis In the rarified world of contemporary music, composers often “challenge” performers – pushing the envelope of instrumental technique and difficulty. But in the fall of 1999, it was the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass himself who was challenged: he was commissioned by the American Composers Forum to write a piece for their BandQuest series, intended to provide high-quality new music for young performers.
Specifically, Colgrass was asked to write for the Winona Drive Senior School Band of Toronto. Far from professional musicians, some of these were kids just learning to play their instruments. Their conductor was the hard-working Louis Papachristos, who, in addition to leading three bands, also coached boys’ and girls’ basketball.
Colgrass rose to the challenge, and the resulting work, “Old Churches,” was premiered on this date in 2000. Colgrass employed elements of Gregorian chant to evoke an ancient monastery, and easy graphic notation to introduce students to improvisation and the compositional process itself. “Keeping the music simple was a challenge,” says Colgrass, “but it struck me that Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for amateurs without ‘dumbing down’… am I a good enough composer to write a simple theme that can be genuinely exciting or moving, the way they did?”
Music Played in Today's Program Michael Colgrass (b. 1932) — Winds of Nagual (North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaron Corporon, cond.) GIA 880
Synopsis Today a salute to a remarkable American composer and performer – the cornet virtuoso Herbert Lincoln Clarke.
Clarke was born in Wolburn, Massachusetts on September 12, 1867, into a peripatetic musical family. He began to play his brother’s cornet and was soon earning fifty cents a night playing in a restaurant band. At age 19, Clarke won first prize at a cornet competition in Indiana, and, in 1893, after many years on the road, Clarke got the call from John Philip Sousa to join his illustrious organization as its star soloist, a position he held for over 20 years.
From 1900 on, Clarke began to compose and make recordings of his own music. In 1904, while on a return voyage from England with the Sousa Band, Clarke completed one of his best-known pieces, a work originally titled “Valse Brilliante.” While waiting to dock in New York, however, at Sousa’s suggestion, Clarke changed the title to “Sounds from the Hudson.”
Herbert L. Clarke eventually settled in California and died there on today’s date in 1945. But the much-traveled composer and performer was buried on the opposite coast – in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. – near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa.
Music Played in Today's Program Herbert L. Clarke (1867 - 1945) — Sounds from the Hudson (Valse brillante) (Wynton Marsalis, cornet; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, cond.) CBS 42137
Synopsis In New York City on today’s date in 2008, The Juilliard School’s FOCUS! Festival showcased music from the opposite coast, including the world premiere of a new string quartet by Californian composer John Adams.
Some 14 years earlier, Adams had written a work for the Kronos Quartet and pre-recorded tape that he titled “John’s Book of Alleged Dances,” because, as he said, “the steps for the dances had yet to be invented.”
His new work for 2008 had a more serious title: simply, “String Quartet,” and was premiered by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Adams had heard the Saint Lawrence Quartet perform his “Book of Alleged Dances,” and was so impressed he wanted to write a new work for the ensemble, but found it an intimidating experience, given the great string quartets written by composers of the past ranging from Haydn to Ravel.
“String quartet writing is one of the most difficult challenges a composer can take on,” confessed Adams. “Unless one is an accomplished string player and writes in that medium all the time – and I don’t know many these days who do – the demands of handling this extremely volatile and transparent instrumental medium can easily be humbling, if not downright humiliating.”
Music Played in Today's Program John Adams (b. 1947) — String Quartet (No. 1) (St. Lawrence String Quartet) Nonesuch 523014
On This Day Births * 1715 - Austrian composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil, in Vienna; * 1782 - French composer Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, in Caen; * 1852 - British composer Frederic Hymen Cowen, in Kingston, Jamaica; * 1862 - English composer Fritz (Frederick) Delius, in Bradford, Yorkshire; * 1876 - English composer Havergal Brian, in Dresden, Staffordshire; * 1924 - Italian composer Luigi Nono, in Venice;
Deaths * 1946 - British composer Sydney Jones, age 84, in London, age 84; * 1962 - Austrian composer and violinist Fritz Kreisler, age 86, in New York City;
Premieres * 1728 - Gay & Pepusch: ballad-opera, “The Beggar’s Opera,” at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London; This work, mounted by the London impresario John Rich, proved so popular that it was staged 62 times that season; As contemporary wags put it, the wildly successful work “made Gay Rich and Rich Gay”(Gregorian date: Feb. 9); * 1781 - Mozart: opera, "Idomeneo" in Munich at the Hoftheater; * 1826 - Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, "Death and the Maiden," as a unrehearsed reading at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, two amateur musicians; Schubert, who usually played viola on such occasions, could not perform since he was busy copying out the parts and making last-minute corrections; * 1882 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera "The Snow Maiden," in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Feb. 10); * 1892 - Chadwick: “A Pastoral Prelude,” by the Boston Symphony. Arthur Nikisch conducting; * 1916 - Prokofiev: "Scythian" Suite ("Ala and Lolly"), Op. 20, at the Mariinsky Theater in Petrograd, with the composer conducting (Julian date: Jan. 16); * 1932 - Gershwin: "Second Rhapsody" for piano and orchestra, in Boston, with the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky and the composer as soloist; * 1936 - Constant Lambert: "Summer's Last Will and Testament" for chorus and orchestra, in London; * 1981 - John Williams: first version of Violin Concerto (dedicated to the composer's late wife, actress and singer Barbara Ruick Williams), by Mark Peskanov and the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin; Williams subsequently revised this work in 1998; This premiere date is listed (incorrectly) as Jan. 19 in the DG recording featuring Gil Shaham;
Links and Resources * More on John Adams * More on the string quartet and its history
Synopsis Many good things come in threes – at least William Bolcom seems to think so.
On today’s date in 1971, in a converted garage next to a graveyard in Newburgh, New York, American composer and pianist William Bolcom put the finishes touches to the second of three piano pieces he collectively titled “Ghost Rags.”
“Ghost Rag” No. 2 was titled “Poltergeist” and dedicated to Tracey Sterne, who at that time was a dynamic record producer at Nonesuch Records. In her youth Sterne pursued a career as a concert pianist, but in the 1960s and 70s was responsible for assembling the Nonesuch label’s astonishingly diverse catalog of old, new and world music.
“Ghost Rag” No. 3, titled “Dream Shadows,” was described by Bolcom as a “white rag” which evoked “the era of white telephones and white pianos” and “was in the white key of C Major.” Bolcom dedicated this rag to his fellow composer, William Albright.
And Bolcom’s ‘Ghost Rag” No. 1, which has proved to be the most popular of the three, was titled “Graceful Ghost.” Bolcom dedicated this music to the memory of his father, whose benign spirit Bolcom said he often felt hovering around his piano while he played at night.
Music Played in Today's Program William Bolcom (b. 1938) — Graceful Ghost Rags (Paul Jacobs, piano) Nonesuch 79006
On This Day Births * 1791 - French opera composer Louis Joseph F. Herold, in Paris; * 1898 - Italian-American composer Vittorio Rieti, in Alexandria, Egypt; * 1944 - British composer Sir John Tavener, in London;
Deaths * 1935 - Russian composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, age 75, in Moscow; * 1947 - Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn, age 72, in Paris;
Premieres * 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 92 ("Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn") performed on Septuagesimae Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25); * 1828 - Schubert: Piano Trio in Bb, Op. 99 (D. 898), at a private performance by Ignaz Schuppanzigh (violin), Josef Linke (cello), and Carl Maria von Bocklet (piano); * 1830 - Auber: opera "Fra Diavolo" in Paris at the Opéra-Comique; * 1876 - Tchaikovsky: "Serenade mélancolique" for violin and orchestra, in Moscow (Julian date: Jan. 18); * 1897 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 5, in London; * 1915 - Ravel: Piano Trio in a, in Paris, by Gabriel Wilaume (violin), Louis Feuillard (cello), and Alfredo Casella (piano); * 1916 - Granados: opera "Goyescas," at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; * 1927 - Copland: Piano Concerto, by the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, with the composer as soloist; * 1941 - Copland: "Quiet City," at Town Hall in New York City by the Little Symphony conducted by Daniel Saidenberg; This music is based on incidental music Copland wrote for Irwin Shaw's play of the same name produced by the Group Theater in New York in 1939; * 1944 - Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 ("Jeremiah"), at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh by the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by the composer, with mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel as vocal soloist; * 1972 - Scott Joplin: opera "Treemonisha" (orchestrated by T.J. Anderson), in Atlanta; * 1990 - Joan Tower: Flute Concerto, at Carnegie Hall in New York, with soloist Carol Wincenc and the American Composers Orchestra, Hugh Wolff, conducting; * 1995 - Elinor Armer: “Island Earth” (to a text by Sci-Fi writer Usula K. Le Guin), at the University of California, Berkeley, by the various San Francisco choirs and the Women’s Philharmonic, conducted by JoAnn Falletta; On the same program were the premiere performance’s of Chen Yi’s “Antiphony” for orchestra and Augusta Read Thomas’s “Fantasy” for piano and orchestra (with piano soloist Sara Wolfensohn); * 1997 - Morten Lauridsen: “Mid-Winter Songs” (final version) for chorus and orchestra, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, John Currie conducting; Earlier versions of this work with piano and chamber orchestra accompaniment had premiered in 1981, 1983, and 1985 at various Californian venues; * 2000 - André Previn: "Diversions," in Salzburg, Austria, by the Vienna Philharmonic, the composer conducting;
Others * 1742 - Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin (and the author of "Gulliver's Travels"), objects to the cathedral singers taking part in performances of Handel's works while the composer is in that city (Gregorian date: Feb. 8); Rehearsals for the premiere performance of Handel's "Messiah" would begin in April of that year, involving the choirs of both Christ Church and St. Patrick's Cathedrals in Dublin; * 1971 - William Bolcom completes his "Poltergeist" Rag (dedicated to Teresa Sterne, a one-time concert pianist who was then a producer for Nonesuch Records); According to the composer's notes, the "Poltergeist" Rag was written "in a converted garage next to a graveyard in Newburgh, N.Y."
Links and Resources * On William Bolcom
Synopsis “English Horn” is an odd name for an instrument – for starters, it’s not English and it’s not a brass instrument like the French horn. The English horn is, in fact, a double reed instrument, a lower-voiced cousin of the oboe. The “English” part of its name is probably a corruption of “angle,” since it has a bend to its shape. Until late in the 20th century its primary role was to add a darker tone color to the reed section of the orchestra, and performers who played the English horn had precious few solo concertos written to showcase their dusky-voiced instrument.
One performer, Thomas Stacy, decided to do something about that. He’s commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for his instrument. One of them – a concerto by the American composer Ned Rorem – Stacy premiered on today’s date in 1994 with the New York Philharmonic.
Ned Rorem is perhaps best-known as a composer of art songs, but has also composed successful orchestral and chamber works. “My sole aim in writing the Concerto for English horn,” said Rorem, “was to exploit that instrument’s special luster and pliability... to make the sound gleam through a wash of brass and silver, catgut and steel.”
Music Played in Today's Program Ned Rorem (b. 1923) — Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra (Thomas Stacy, eh; Rochester Philharmonic; Michael Palmer, cond.) New World 80489
Synopsis Today’s date marks an important anniversary in the history of the American symphony. It was on January 26, 1876, that the Symphony No. 1 in c minor of John Knowles Paine was premiered in Boston. This was the first American symphony to be generally acknowledged both here and abroad as being on a par with the symphonies of the great European composers.
American musical life in the 19th century was heavily influenced by German models – and Paine’s Symphony No. 1 takes its key and much of its musical style from Beethoven’s Fifth. The contemporary American composer and conductor Gunther Schuller once quipped that Paine’s First was “the best Beethoven symphony that Beethoven didn’t write himself.”
Even so, Paine’s 1876 Symphony is a landmark in American musical history, as was one of Paine’s earlier works – a grandiose Mass in D Major for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, which was premiered in Berlin in 1867 and successfully revived by Gunther Schuller in Boston in 1972.
John Knowles Paine is remembered for other reasons as well: He was one of the founders of the American Guild of Organists, and he founded the music department at Harvard and became the mentor for a new generation of American composers.
Music Played in Today's Program John Knowles Paine (1839-1906) — Symphony No. 1 in c (New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, cond.) New World 374
Synopsis Many political deals started in smoke-filled rooms, but not many piano trios can claim such a venue for their inspiration. On today’s date in 1987, composer and pianist Paul Schoenfield joined a violinist and cellist from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for the premiere of one of them: a new piano trio the orchestra had commissioned, a work Schoenfield titled “Café Music.”
Here’s how Schoenfield explains it: “The idea came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge in Minneapolis. Murray’s employed a house trio which played entertaining dinner music in a wide variety of styles. My intention was to compose a kind of high-class dinner music – music which could be played at a restaurant but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall.” Much to Schoenfield’s surprise, “Cafe Music” did indeed become a concert hall hit.
Schoenfield said he had two lasting memories of that night he filled in at Murray’s: first, a realization of what hard work it was to play dinner music for hours on end, and second – in the days before smoke-free restaurants – how his clothes smelled of cigars and cigarettes for days afterwards!
Music Played in Today's Program Paul Schoenfield (b. 1947) — Café Music (Eroica Trio) EMI 56482
Synopsis “We are NOT amused,” is the dour statement attributed to the matronly Queen Victoria in her later years, although some historians dispute she ever really said it.
But as a young woman, in her diary Queen Victoria did write, “I was VERY MUCH amused indeed!” after seeing the Italian opera singer Giulia Grisi on stage. The young Queen was a fan, and made a drawing of the singer in a role she created: that of Elvira in Vincenzo Bellini’s opera “I Puritani,” or “The Puritans,” which debuted in Paris on today’s date in 1835.
When Bellini’s brand-new opera came to London later that same year, with Grisi in the cast, the young Queen attended several performances, and the opera she called “Dear Puritani” became a life-long favorite, perhaps because it was the first she attended with her husband-to-be, the young Prince Albert.
The opera is set in 17th century England during the Civil War between Royalist supporters of the deposed King Charles I and Puritan rebels led by Oliver Cromwell. Its plot involves a Romeo and Juliet-like love story between a delicate Puritan soprano and a dashing Royalist tenor. Unlike Shakespeare’s tragedy, however, Bellini’s opera provides a happy ending for its politics-crossed lovers.
Music Played in Today's Program Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835) — Sinfonia (Overture), fr I Puritani (Philharmonia Orchestra; Riccardo Muti, cond.) EMI 09149
Synopsis On today’s date in 1935, at the Church of Saint François-Xavier in Paris, organist Geneviève de la Salle gave the first complete performance of the three-movement Suite, Op. 5, by the French composer, teacher, and virtuoso organist Maurice Duruflé.
If you sing in a choir or are a fan of choral music, you’re probably familiar with Duruflé’s serene and tranquil “Requiem,” Op. 9, which premiered some 12 years later.
Duruflé’s Op. 5 premiered in 1935, his Op. 9 in 1947, so you might reasonably conclude the composer was a slow worker – which he was. He was also a very self-critical perfectionist whose catalog of works is rather small, but exquisitely crafted. In all, Duruflé’s output comprises less than 15 published works, of which seven are for organ.
Duruflé’s music is firmly embedded in the French tradition of organ composers like César Franck and Louis Vierne, and orchestral composers like Debussy, Ravel, and Duruflé’s own composition teacher, Paul Dukas. The great French organist Marie-Claire Alain, when asked to describe Duruflé’s music, replied "it is a perfectly honest art… He was not an innovator but a traditionalist… Duruflé evolved and amplified the old traditions, making them his own."
Music Played in Today's Program Maurice Durufle (1902-1986) — Organ Suite, Op. 5 (Todd Wilson, o (Schudi organ at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Dallas, Texas)) Delos 3047
On This Day Births * 1752 - Italian composer Muzio Clementi, in Rome; * 1878 - English composer Rutland Boughton, in Aylesbury;
Deaths * 1837 - Irish composer John Field, age 54, in Moscow (Julian date: Jan.11); * 1908 - American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell, age 47, in New York; * 1981 - American composer Samuel Barber, age 70, in New York;
Premieres * 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 73 ("Herr, wie du willst, so schicks mit mir") performed on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24); * 1729 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 156 ("Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe") probably performed in Leipzig on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's fourth annual Sacred Cantata cycle (to texts by Christian Friedrich Henrici, a.k.a. "Picander") during 1728/29; * 1895 - MacDowell: Suite No. 2 (":Indian"), at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, by the Boston Symphony, with Emil Paur conducting; On the same program, MacDowell appeared as the soloist in his own Piano Concerto No. 1; * 1933 - Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2, in Frankfurt, with Hans Robaud conducting and the composer as soloist; * 1936 - Chavez: "Sinfonia India," on a radio broadcast by the Columbia Symphony, conducted by the composer; * 1948 - Diamond: Symphony No. 4, by the Boston Symphony, Leonard Bernstein conducting; * 1963 - Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 7, by the Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell conducting; * 1973 - Elliott Carter: String Quartet No. 3, in New York City, by the Juilliard String Quartet; This work won the Pulitzer Prize for music in that year (This was Carter's second Pulitzer Prize); * 1999 - Thea Musgrave: "Three Women," in San Francisco, by the Women's Philharmonic, A. Hsu conducting;
Others * 1894 - Czech composer Antonin Dvorák presents a concert of African-American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York, using an all-black choir, comprised chiefly of members of the St. Philip's Colored Choir; On the program was the premiere performance of Dvorák's own arrangement of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which featured vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh; * 1943 - Duke Ellington and his orchestra present their first concert at Carngie Hall in New York, presenting the "official" premiere of Ellington's "Black, Brown and Beige" Suite (This work had received its world premiere at a trial performance the preceding day at Rye High School in Rye, New York).
Links and Resources * On Dvořák * On Ellington
Synopsis One of the 20th century’s most important – and most lurid – operas had its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on today’s date in 1907.
Richard Strauss’s “Salome” is a faithful setting of Oscar Wilde’s play about the decadent Biblical princess who, after her famous “dance of the seven veils,” demands the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward. She then confesses her love to the severed head and kisses it. This scene, accompanied by Strauss’s graphic music, proved too much for early audiences to take.
“A reviewer,” wrote The New York Tribune, ”should be an embodied conscience stung into righteous fury by the moral stench with which Salome fills the nostrils of humanity.” The Met cancelled the rest of the scheduled performances, and “Salome” was not staged there again until 1934.
Closer to our time, the American composer Terry Riley put a more positive spin on the legend of Salome. In the 1980s, Riley wrote some string quartets collectively titled “Salome Dances for Peace.” “I conceived my quartets as a kind of ballet scenario,” said Riley, “in which contemporary world leaders like Reagan and Gorbachev are seduced by a reincarnated Salome into realizing world peace.”
Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864-1949) — Dance of the Seven Veils, from Salome (New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond.) DG 7890
Terry Riley (b. 1935) — Good Medicine, from Salome Dances for Peace (Kronos Quartet) Nonesuch 79217
Synopsis The English lutenist and songwriter John Dowland is one of the best-known composers from the age of Shakespeare, but there’s much about him that we don’t know. Dowland wrote that he was born in 1563 but didn’t say where. Early biographies said he died in London on today’s date in 1626, but a mid-February date seems more likely. Dowland was 63 when he died – a ripe old age in a time of Plague.
One early biographer described Dowland as “a cheerful person, passing his days in lawful merriment,” but his most famous works are deeply introspective in tone, in keeping with the then-fashionable cult of melancholy and its preoccupation with tears, darkness, and death.
Dowland lived in a dangerous period of bitter religious conflict. He once wrote a frantic letter from Germany warning of a Catholic plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. But in that same letter Dowland confessed his own Catholic sympathies, yet at home and abroad worked for eminent Protestant families and royalty. The last record we have of him as a performer dates from May of 1625 when he played at the funeral of King James the First – a fitting finale to a remarkable composer of that remarkable age.
Music Played in Today's Program John Dowland (1563-1626) — Melancholy Galliard/Allemande (Ronn McFarlane, lute) Dorian 90148
Synopsis In 1940, the choreographer Léonide Massine, approached composer Paul Hindemith, with the idea of having him arrange pieces by the 19th century Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber into a ballet score. At first Hindemith was intrigued, but Massine wanted straight arrangements and Hindemith wanted to write something original in the spirit of Weber, so the ballet idea was scrapped.
Oh well, what Hindemith finally did come up with turned out to be one of his most successful and popular orchestral works, a piece entitled “Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber,” which received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1944 at a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Artur Rodzinski.
Now, Hindemith had a reputation for being serious and rather “Germanic,” so The New York Times critic had a little fun with that image of the composer, writing:
“Sometimes [Hindemith’s] counterpoint has been as busy and energetic as the works of an automobile – and as meaningless. Sometimes it has been thick and overstuffed in its style. This metamorphosis employs counterpoint as a matter only incidental to the gay development of ideas, and there is sunshine in every nook and cranny of the transparent, debonair score.”
Music Played in Today's Program Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963) – Symphonic Metamorphosis (San Francisco Symphony, Herbert Blomstedt, cond.) London/Decca 421523)
Synopsis When boomers wax nostalgic about the Kennedy Administration, it’s Lerner & Loewe’s musical “Camelot” they start to hum. After all, “Camelot” opened in 1960 just a month after John F. Kennedy was elected, and, a week after his assassination in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy told historian Theodore H. White that they owned the original cast album and liked to play it before retiring at night. She quoted a phrase—"one brief shining moment"—from “Camelot’s title song as how she wished his presidency to be remembered.
But early in 1961, everyone was looking forward, not backwards. The President-elect had asked Frank Sinatra to help arrange a musical gala to be held on January 19, 1961, the eve of his Inauguration, and Leonard Bernstein was tapped to represent classical music. Bernstein had known Kennedy since the mid-1950s, and, after all, they both were Harvard men.
As luck would have it, a rare blizzard hit Washington D.C. that night, snarling traffic, and a police escort had to rush Bernstein to the Gala. There was no time for him to change into formal attire, so Bernstein appeared onstage in a hastily-borrowed and much-too-large dress shirt to conduct the world premiere of his “Fanfare for JFK.”
After the premiere of his “Fanfare,” Bernstein conducted a more familiar wind band standard—Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
Music Played in Today's Program Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) — Fanfare for JFK ()
Synopsis Composers can be quite superstitious about numbers. Gustav Mahler, for example, was reluctant to assign the number “9” to his song cycle symphony, “Das Lied von der Erde,” fearing it would turn out to be his last: after all, Beethoven and Bruckner had only completed nine symphonies. Ironically, Mahler DID go on to complete a ninth, but died before he could finish work on his tenth.
Most American composers have avoided this problem by rarely if ever producing more than one or two symphonies of their own. Naturally there are exceptions.
On today’s date in 1963, the Ninth Symphony of the American composer Roy Harris was given its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, who had commissioned it. Like many other symphonies by Harris, his Ninth has a patriotic program, with each movement having a subtitle from either the American Constitution or Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”
Harris went on to write thirteen Symphonies in all – although, perhaps submitting to a bit of numerological superstition himself – when his symphony No. 13, a Bicentennial Commission, was first performed in Washington, D.C. in 1976, it was billed as his Symphony Number Fourteen!
Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911) — Symphony No. 9 (New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond.) Sony 60597
Roy Harris (1898 - 1979) — Symphony No. 9 (Albany Symphony; David Alan Miller, cond.) Albany 350
Synopsis When TIME magazine chose Albert Einstein as their Millennium “Person of the Century” in 1999, their profile catalogued his achievements in physics and philosophy but made no mention of Einstein’s interest in music – or music’s interest in him. That’s where we come in.
In addition to being a brilliant thinker, Einstein was a talented amateur violinist. On this day in 1934, he even performed the second violin part of Bach’s Double Concerto at a private recital in New York to raise money for scientists who had suffered at the hands of Hitler.
So, was Einstein any good? After that concert, the “Musical America” critic wrote, “The press had been asked not to criticize Professor Einstein’s playing. Unofficially, however, they confessed to being impressed. He played, according to their report, as all great artists play, with ‘technique,’ ‘expression’ and a complete absorption in his music.”
And Einstein himself has inspired more than a few musical works. The 1976 opera “Einstein on the Beach” by Philip Glass, for example, features a solo violinist dressed as Einstein who wanders in and out of scenes. Music from Glass’s opera was quoted as an in-joke during a TV commercial showing Einstein trying to choose between Coke and Pepsi.
Music Played in Today's Program Philip Glass (b. 1937) — Cadenza, from Einstein on the Beach (Philip Glass Ensemble; Michael Riesman, cond.) Nonesuch 79323
Synopsis Today marks the anniversary of the creation of a famous classical music nickname, “Les Six” – French for “The Six.” That’s what Parisian music critic Henri Collet dubbed six composers in a magazine article on this day in 1920.
Three of the composers Collet named are performed more often these days – Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Francis Poulenc – while the other three composers – George Auric, Louis Durey, and the only woman in the group, Germaine Tailleferre – are heard less frequently.
Though Tailleferre is counted among the neglected half of Les Six, her music has been having something of a revival lately, perhaps it’s a belated recognition that much of her work remains fresh and appealing. This music is from her Violin Sonata No. 1, composed in 1921 and dedicated to the great French violinist Jacques Thibaud.
Born near Paris in 1892, Tailleferre was a prodigy with an astounding memory. Erik Satie proclaimed her his “musical daughter,” and she was also close friends with Maurice Ravel. Two unhappy marriages and resulting financial insecurity inhibited Tailleferre’s talent in later years, and dimmed her fame, but she continued to compose and teach until her death at age 91, in 1983.
Music Played in Today's Program Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) — Violin Sonata No. 1 (Renate Eggebrecht, violin; Angela Gassenhuber, piano) Troubadisc 1406
Synopsis The French composer Olivier Messiaen played the piano part in one of the strangest premiere performances of the 20th century on today’s date in 1941. As the composer himself puts it: “My ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ was conceived and written during my captivity as a prisoner of war and received its premiere at Stalag 8a in Görlitz, Silesia.”
One of the four performers was cellist Etienne Pasquier, who offered this recollection:
“We were captured at Verdun. Our entire company was initially held in a large field near Nancy. Among our comrades was a clarinetist who had been allowed to keep his clarinet. Messiaen started to write a piece for him… as he was the only person there with an instrument. [That] solo was later to become the third movement of the Quartet. The clarinetist practiced in the open field and I acted as his music stand. The piece seemed too difficult… and he complained about it to Messiaen. “’You’ll manage,’ was Messiaen’s only reply.”
Pasquier said the Quartet’s premiere was a great success and led to the release of Messiaen and his three colleagues, because the Germans assumed – wrongly, it turns out – that the four musicians must have all been non-combatants.
Music Played in Today's Program Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) — Quartet for the End of Time (Tashi) RCA/BMG 7835
Synopsis Some instruments seem to have all the luck – or at least all the concertos!
If you play piano or violin, you have hundreds of concertos to choose from. But if your instrument is the harp – and you will forgive the pun – the pluckings are slim.
This hardly seems fair to one of mankind’s oldest instruments, depicted on murals from ancient Egypt and traditionally associated with King David in the Bible. In the 18th and early 19th century, there are a handful of great classical harp concertos by Handel, Mozart, and others. In the 20th century, things start to improve a little, with modern concertos by Gliere, Pierne, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Rodrigo.
On today’s date in 1955, we’re happy to report, one of the finest modern works for harp and orchestra had its premiere performance when harpist Nicanor Zabeleta premiered a new harp concerto by the prolific Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos – with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by the composer.
One more recent addition came in 2000 from the pen of the Finnish composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara. His harp concerto was commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra, who premiered the new work with the Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä and Kathy Kienzle as soloist.
Music Played in Today's Program Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887 - 1959) — Harp Concerto (Catherine Michel, harp; Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra; Antonio de Almeida, cond.) Philips 462 179
Einojuhani Rautavaraa (1928 - 2016) — Harp Concerto (Marielle Nordmann, harp; Helsinki Philharmonic; Leif Segerstam, cond.) Ondine 978
Synopsis On today’s date in 1945, Sergei Prokofiev conducted the Moscow Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his Fifth Symphony. Written when the tide of the Second World War was turning in the favor of the Allies, the premiere came one day after news reached Moscow that Soviet troops had begun a successful counteroffensive against the Germans.
The symphony proved to be one of Prokofiev’s strongest works, and in the context of 1945 must have had an incredible emotional impact. It was a tremendous success in Moscow, and also in Boston, where Serge Koussevitzky conducted the American premiere later that same year. Prokofiev even made the cover of Time magazine. As musicologist Michael Steinberg puts it: “No question, the Fifth was a repertory piece from Day One.”
How sad, then, to realize how soon things would change for the man who wrote it. In three years Prokofiev – along with Shostakovich and others – would be denounced by Soviet authorities for supposedly straying from the party line. In five years, when the Red Scare in America turned our one-time Ally into Public Enemy No. 1, conductor Maurice Abravenel received a death threat when the Utah Symphony announced the Salt Lake City premiere of Prokofiev’s Fifth.
Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) — Symphony No. 5 in Bb, Op. 100 (St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Yuri Temirkanov, cond.) RCA/BMG 60984
Synopsis On today’s date in 1961, a new work by the German-born American composer Ingolf Dahl received its premiere performance in Los Angeles. Entitled “Sinfonietta for Concert Band,” it was commissioned by the College Band Directors National Association, who were eager to expand band repertory with major new works of the highest quality.
Dahl had emigrated to the United States in 1938 and settled in Los Angeles, where he met and befriended Igor Stravinsky, who gave him some practical advice about composing for wind band: “You must approach this task as if it had always been your greatest wish to write for these instruments,” suggested Stravinsky, “as if all your life you had wanted to write a work for just such a group."
“This was good advice,” recalled Dahl. “[And] after the work was done that it turned out to be indeed the piece that I had wanted to write all my life. I wanted it to be a substantial piece that, without apologies for its medium, would take its place alongside symphonic works of any other kind.”
Dahl and the College Band Directors National Association must have been pleased to see their “Sinfonietta” rapidly become an established classic of the wind band repertory.
Music Played in Today's Program Ingolf Dahl (1912 - 1970) — Sinfonietta (DePaul University Wind Ensemble; Donald DeRoche, cond.) Albany 435
Synopsis As 1999 drew to a close it was a matter of debate whether – chronologically speaking – the new Millennium really began in 2000 or 2001. As far as the musical world was concerned, why wait? The shift from 1999 to 2000 occasioned hundreds of celebratory concerts and special commissions worldwide.
While not originally intended as a Millennium commission, a major new work of the American composer John Adams had its European premiere in December of 1999 and its American debut in January of 2000. Years before, the San Francisco Symphony had asked Adams to write a big work for their chorus and orchestra. Then came a request from the Châtelet Theater in Paris for a new opera. Adams combined both requests, folding in a dream of his own. As he put it: “I wanted to write a Messiah.” The result was a Nativity oratorio titled “El Nino” – a work for soloists, chorus and orchestra that could be performed as either a concert hall piece or a fully staged theatrical work.
Kent Nagano conducted El Nino’s world premiere in Paris on December 15, 1999, and the same cast and conductor gave its American premiere in San Francisco on today’s date in 2000.
Music Played in Today's Program John Adams (b. 1947) — excerpts from El Niño (soloists; Kent Nagano, cond.) Nonesuch 79634