SynopsisThe real story behind Richard Strauss’ decision to use a chamber orchestra for his opera Ariadne on Naxos — which premiered in Stuttgart on today’s date in 1912 — is complicated and a little mundane. We prefer a more “colorful” version that some in Stuttgart have proffered.When a new opera house was being planned for that city, Strauss was asked how large the orchestral pit should be. “Oh, it should hold about 100 players,” he suggested. So, to determine the size required, the architects rather naively asked the local military band to assemble 100 players, have them stand at attention, and measured the amount of space they occupied.Now, soldiers standing at attention take up a lot less space than an equal number of seated symphonic musicians. And so, the resulting space in the new theater could only accommodate a chamber orchestra.The Stuttgart Opera also wanted to launch their new theater with a brand-new opera commissioned from Strauss. When he learned what had happened, being the eminently practical sort he was, simply wrote his new opera for chamber ensemble of about 40 players.Fact or fantasy, that’s how some like to tell it in Stuttgart.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1861-1949): Ariadne auf Naxos; Vienna Philharmonic; James Levine, conductor; DG 419 225

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1930,  Howard Hanson led the premiere performance of the full orchestral version of William Grant Still’s symphonic poem, Africa at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.Still had originally conceived Africa as a chamber work, dedicated to and premiered by great French flutist Georges Barrère earlier that same year.In a letter to Barrère, he said his new work depicted “the Africa of my imagination,” explaining: “An American Negro has formed a concept of the land of his ancestors based largely on its folklore, and influenced by his contact with American civilization. He beholds in his mind’s eye not the Africa of reality, but an Africa mirrored in fancy, and radiantly ideal.”That said, the Africa of Still’s imagination included not only serene, pastorale moments, but also — according to his wife — the surfacing of “unspoken fears and lurking terrors.”In its revised full symphonic version, Africa proved successful recalls the colors of Rimksy-Korsakov’s reimagined pagan Russia, and as an orchestral showpiece proved successful in subsequent performances in Europe, but, for some reason known only to Still, Africa remained unpublished during his lifetime.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Grant Still (1895-1978): Land of Romance and Land of Superstition, from Africa; Fort Smith ASym; John Jeter, conductor; Naxos 8.559174

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1959, the Detroit Symphony, led by eminent French conductor Paul Paray, gave the first performance of new music by American composer Walter Piston. He had studied in Paris with famous French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger and great French composer Paul Dukas, so perhaps this was an astute paring of composer and conductor.In any case, to help celebrate the 100th Worcester Festival, Paray and the Detroit orchestra were on hand in Massachusetts for the premiere of Piston’s Three New England Sketches, an orchestral suite with three movements: Seaside, Summer Evening, and Mountains.Piston didn’t intend these titles to be taken literally. “[They] serve in a broad sense to tell the source of the inspirations, reminiscences, even dreams that pervaded the otherwise musical thoughts of one New England composer,” he noted.Piston certainly qualified as a bonafide New England composer. He was born in Rockland, Maine, in 1894, taught at Harvard, had a vacation home in Vermont, and died in Belmont, Massachusetts in 1976.Even so, the most striking hallmark of his music remains its quite cosmopolitan style and neo-classical form — the lasting influence, perhaps, of his two famous French teachers.Music Played in Today's ProgramWalter Piston (1894-1976): Three New England Sketches; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3106

SynopsisHandel is the composer credited with “inventing” the organ concerto in the 18th century. Handel was a virtuoso performer on the organ, and, as a special added attraction during the London performances of some of his oratorios, one of his concertos would be featured as a kind of intermission feature. This served to showcase his skill as an organist — and perhaps to give his singers a chance to catch their breath between sections of the full-length oratorio.Since then, a number of composers have added to the organ concerto repertory started by Handel.On today’s date in 1990, on a CBC radio broadcast from the Calgary Organ Festival Competition, Snow Walker, a new organ concerto by the American composer Michael Colgrass had its premiere performance. Colgrass’ concerto is cast as an impressionistic musical picture of the Far North and the fortitude, humor and spirituality of Canada’s native Inuit peoples. The work is dedicated to Farley Mowat, the author of a true-life story of life in the Far North, Never Cry Wolf, familiar from a popular Disney movie. The Colgrass concerto provides musical evocations of a polar landscape, Inuit throat singing and a rambunctious dance finale.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1757): Organ Concerto, No. 4; Simon Preston, organ; Festival Orchestra; Yehudi Menuhin, conductor; EMI 72626Michael Colgrass (1932-2019): Snow Walker; David Schrader, organ; Grant Park Orchestra; Carlos Kalmar, conductor; Cedille 90000 063

SynopsisLet’s face it. Brevity and wit are not always qualities one associates with new music.But today we offer a sample: this comic overture is less than five minutes long, and opens, as you just heard, with a Fellini-esque duet for piccolo and contrabassoon.Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark is a rather burlesque celebration of modern theoretical physics. Its alliterative title evokes those subatomic particles known as “quarks” that, we’re told, make up our universe. And, since this music changes time signature so often, perhaps Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” is thrown in for good measure.The music is by Marga Richter, who was born on this date in 1926 in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Richter received her early music training in Minneapolis, and then moved to New York’s Juilliard School. By the time of her death in 2020, she had composed over 75 works including an opera and two ballets, as well as two piano concertos and a variety of solo, chamber and symphonic works.“Composing is my response to a constant desire to transform my perceptions and emotions into music … music is the way I speak to the silence of the universe,” Richter said. Music Played in Today's ProgramMarga Richter (1926-2020): Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark; Czech Radio Orchestra; Gerard Schwarz; MMC 2006

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1950, famous oboist Marcel Tabuteau gave the premiere performance of this Pastorale for solo oboe, harp, and strings, with his colleagues from the Philadelphia Orchestra.The music was by Howard Hanson, who dedicated the piece to his wife Peggy.Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1896. As a talented teenager, he recalls a German-born musician in New York asking him, “Well, now, Hanson, why do you waste your time at futile efforts in composition when you could became a great concert pianist?” This, he said, from someone who had never heard one note he had written. “In the true German tradition, he figured that nobody from Nebraska could possibly write good music. It took 40 years to get rid of that kind of thinking in the U.S. — and we’re not over it yet,” Hanson recalled. Hanson was a successful composer, conductor and educator in his early 80s when he made those comments, but he retained his sense of humor, as evidence by this comment from the octogenarian: “Peggy will say to me, ‘What are you going to do now?’ and I’ll say, ‘I’m going upstairs to waste my time in futile efforts at composition.’”Music Played in Today's ProgramHoward Hanson (1896-1981): Pastorale; Randall Ellis, oboe; Susan Jolles, harp; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3105

SynopsisAccording to Wikipedia, an art song is “a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment … often a musical setting of an independent poem or text intended for the concert repertory as part of a recital.”The 600-plus art songs of the Viennese composer Franz Schubert are the most familiar examples of the genre and rank among the greatest achievements of the Romantic Era in music.On today’s date in 1814, Schubert was just 17 when he finished one of the most famous of them, Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel, a remarkably empathetic setting of a scene from Goethe’s Faust in which the naïve young Gretchen confesses being both terrified and thrilled by falling passionately in love.British pianist Graham Johnson has recorded all 600-plus Schubert songs with some of the greatest singers of our day, and said, “The most amazing thing is that a 17-year-old boy can somehow enter into the female psyche with such an incredible amount of understanding as if he himself had experienced such feelings … there is a real distinct feeling of Schubert blown away by the drama and the story he has read.”Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Schubert (1797-1828): Gretchen am Spinnrade, D118; Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano; Phillips 420870

SynopsisIn 1958, Minnesota was celebrating its centennial and decided to commission a symphony in honor of the occasion.Just about everyone these days knows there are a lot of Norwegians in Minnesota, but even back in 1958, that was still fairly obvious, and so it seemed a good idea to ask a Norwegian composer to write a Minnesota Symphony.And who better than Harald Saeverud, one of the most distinguished composers of that day, and a composer who had just been granted Norwegian knighthood in the order of Saint Olaf, no less.Nor was Saeverud new to the symphony-writing game. His Minnesota Symphony was his Symphony No. 8. Its premiere performance occurred at Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1958, with the Minneapolis Symphony led by Antal Dorati. The capacity audience of 4000 gave Saeverud and his symphony a warm welcome.For his part, Saeverud was equally gracious, writing, “With the map of Minnesota above my desk and with my thoughts and feelings concentrated on Minnesota’s history, I dove into the work, which proved increasingly fascinating as I became aware that it was simultaneously growing into a history of mankind.” Music Played in Today's ProgramHarald Saeverud (1897-1992): Symphony No. 8 (Minnesota); Stavanger Symphony; Ole Kristian Ruud, conductor; BIS 972

SynopsisBy the mid-1940s, famous American bandleader Paul Whiteman was not as popular as he once was during the 20s and 30s. Even so, his name and orchestra were still a draw, and Whiteman was ever hopeful of introducing new pieces that might prove as popular as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite — both commissioned by Whiteman in those earlier decades.In 1944, Whiteman commissioned a number of short chamber orchestra works, or “symphonettes” as he dubbed them, for his new radio show Music out of the Blue, which aired at midnight. “So if the pieces are too bad, few people will know it,” Whiteman explained to his radio bosses. And so it was on today’s date in 1944 that one of these new pieces, commissioned from Aaron Copland, had its radio premiere. Its title was A Letter from Home.In the context of an America still at war in Europe, this title had a special resonance for those with loved ones serving abroad. Copland himself had a brother in the army, and wrote the work while living in Mexico, where he, too, received letters from his sister back home.Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Letter from Home; St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; EMI 49766

SynopsisThere are some operas which are rarely — if ever — staged, but whose music becomes famous — even wildly popular — in the concert hall. Everyone has heard the overture to Rossini’s William Tell, for example, but only a few fortunate (or very determined) opera fans ever get to see the whole opera staged.Zoltán Kodály’s opera Háry János falls into this strange class of works both popular and obscure. This comic opera debuted at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest on today’s date in 1926 and recounts the adventures of an old veteran of the Napoleonic Wars named Háry János.In the village tavern, Háry boasts of his heroic exploits: how he singlehandedly won a battle against Napoleon, for example, and how the emperor’s wife fell in love with him, and she would have run off with him if he’d wanted, but he chose to remain true to his Hungarian sweetheart back home.You get the idea. Kodály’s opera was a hit in Budapest but was not taken up elsewhere. But a concert suite of excerpts from its brilliant score depicting Háry János’s imaginary adventures became a popular showpiece for orchestras, an unbeatable combination of great tunes, colorful orchestration and smile-inducing wit.Music Played in Today's ProgramZoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Háry János Suite; Budapest Festival Orchestra; Ivan Fischer, conductor; Philips 462 824

SynopsisExpatriate American composer Conlon Nancarrow came to the conclusion that the rhythmically complex, intricate contrapuntal music he wanted to write would be too difficult for mere mortals to tackle, so he composed for a mechanical instrument: the player piano. Despite its complexity, Nancarrow’s music drew some of its inspiration from the human, all-too-human jazz stylings of Art Tatum and Earl Hines, and the complex rhythmic patterns of music from India.Nancarrow was born in 1912 in Texarkana, Arkansas. At 18, he heard Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which sparked his life-long interest in rhythmic complexity. Soon after, Nancarrow began private studies with American composers Roger Sessions and Walter Piston. He moved to Mexico City in 1940, where he lived and worked until his death.Nancarrow composed in almost total isolation until the late 1970s, when some of his piano roll compositions appeared on record. These created quite an impact, and the MacArthur Foundation awarded him its Genius Award. Late fame even brought a series of commissions from performers willing to take on the challenge of performing his difficult music. One of these pieces, his String Quartet No. 3, was premiered on today’s date in 1987 by the Arditti Quartet.Music Played in Today's ProgramConlon Nancarrow (1912-1997): String Quartet No. 3; Arditti Quartet; Grammavision 79440

SynopsisImagine the cocktail party bragging rights you’d have if you had attended the first night of Girl Crazy, a musical that opened in New York on today’s date in 1930. That show marked the Broadway debut of Ethel Merman, and co-starred Ginger Rogers.But that’s just for starters. The pit orchestra that night included Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey and Jack Teagarden — gentlemen who would all go on to become famous band leaders in their own right.Speaking of band leaders, for the opening night of Girl Crazy, the show’s composer, George Gershwin himself, was there conducting that all-star ensemble.For his part, Gershwin recalled, “With the exception of some dead head friends of mine, especially the critics, I think the notices, especially of the music, were the best I have ever received.”Gershwin was right; Girl Crazy included two songs that quickly became classics: “I Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You.” The show ran for 272 performances — an impressive statistic in the first year of the Great Depression, and Hollywood produced not one but two cinematic versions of the show in 1932 and 1943. Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Gershwin (1898-1937): Girl Crazy; Studio Cast Recording; Sony 60704

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1944, 29-year-old American composer David Diamond had his Symphony No. 2 premiered by the Boston Symphony under the famous Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky.Diamond said he had written this music for charismatic Greek maestro Dimitri Mitropoulos, then the music director of the Minneapolis Symphony. “Mitropoulos had given a fine performance of my Symphony No. 1,” Diamond said. “When I showed him the score of the Symphony No. 2 he said, ‘you must have the parts extracted at once!’ As these were readied, I asked him whether he was planning to perform the work. He then told me he thought he would not stay on in Minneapolis, but said, ‘Why don’t you send it to Koussevitzky?’ I did so, and Koussevitzky [invited me to a] trial reading at Symphony Hall. When it was over, the orchestra applauded like crazy. Koussevitzky turned to me and said, ‘I will play!’”Successful as Diamond was back in 1944, for many decades thereafter his neo-Romantic symphonic scores were neglected until Gerard Schwartz’s CD recordings of some of them with the Seattle Symphony sparked a revival. By then, Diamond was in his 70s, and commented, “The romantic spirit in music is important because it is timeless.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Diamond (1915-2005): Symphony No. 2; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3093

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1945, Serge Koussevitzky conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere performance of the Symphony No. 3 by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu.Martinu had finished the first two movements of his symphony as World War II was rushing to a close and later claimed he had Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the Eroica, very much on his mind, convinced that there was somehow an ethical force at work in the creation of a symphony, and, just as in Beethoven’s Eroica, it was possible to express moral and ethical ideals in music. As an exile from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and France, Martinu had come to the United States in 1941, and his mood is understandable in the anxious yet hopeful spring and summer of 1945.After liberation of Czechoslovakia, he returned to his homeland and was offered a teaching post in Prague. Martinu, unhappy with Czechoslovakia’s new Communist rulers, declined the offer, and returned to America, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1952. After his death in 1957, his remains were eventually returned to his family mausoleum in Czechoslovakia, and in 1990, the centenary of his birth was celebrated in that country as a major cultural event.Music Played in Today's ProgramBohuslav Martinu (1890-1959): Symphony No. 3; National Orchestra of Ukraine; Arthur Fagen, conductor; Naxos 8.553350

SynopsisIf imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then composers must really have a thing about birds. For centuries, composers have imitated bird song. Vivaldi’s Goldfinch concerto for flute is one of the best-known examples from the 18th century, and there are a flock of other examples.On today’s date in 1953, at the Donaueschingen Music Festival in Germany, one of the most famous 20th century examples of “music for the birds” had its premiere performance. Le Réveil des Oiseaux, or The Awakening of the Birds, was a piece by French composer Olivier Messiaen for piano and orchestra. The musical themes for this work were all based on Messiaen’s precise notation of the songs of 38 different French birds. The piece’s structure progresses from midnight to midday, with the birds’ actual “awakening” occurring precisely at 4 a.m. at the first light of a spring day.Messiaen’s interest in bird songs and nature was as deep as his religious faith. As he put it, “I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none."Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Flute Concerto (Goldfinch); Patrick Gallois, flute; Orpheus Orchestra; DG 437 839Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): Le Reveil des Oiseaux; Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano; Cleveland Orchestra; Pierre Boulez, conductor; DG 453 478

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1943, Cuban Independence Day was celebrated with a big concert at Carnegie Hall. The first half of the concert, which was relayed to Cuba and South American by NBC radio, was devoted solely to works by Ernesto Lecuona, the best-known and most successful Cuban composer of the day.Lecuona was born in Havana in 1895, when Cuba was still part of the Kingdom of Spain. He died in 1963, as an expat of choice after Fidel Castro came to power. In the 1920s, after successful piano recitals in Paris, Lecuona’s popularity brought him to concert halls in not only Europe, but North and South America as well. His over 600 compositions include songs, zarzuelas for the stage, contributions to musical films, and pieces for solo piano and symphony orchestra.His most famous concert work, Rapsodia Negra, or Black Rhapsody, for piano and orchestra, received its premiere at the 1943 Carnegie Hall concert. As the New York Times review noted, “[Lecuona] may be termed the Gershwin of Cuba, … like Gershwin [he] is an outstanding performer of his own music at the piano and has composed music of the more serious type, based on the popular idiom.”Music Played in Today's ProgramErnesto Lecuona (1895-1963): Rapsodia Negra; Thomas Tirino, piano; Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; Michael Bartos, conductor; BIS CD-754

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1999, the Lyric Opera of Chicago premiered a new opera by American composer William Bolcom, based on A View from the Bridge, a powerful play by Arthur Miller.Now, not all stage plays “translate” well into opera, as Bolcom was well aware. “In theater, you have the text and then below it you have the subtext,” Bolcom said. “In opera it is pretty much the opposite, the subtext is what you are really dealing with first and foremost: big, raw emotions, which are supported by the text.”In fact, Miller’s play, although set in Brooklyn in the 1950s, has often been likened to a Greek tragedy, a theatrical form in which the chorus plays an important role.Bolcom saw that as a real opportunity: “If you are going to do an opera from a play, it better have a dimension that the play doesn’t. In a play, you can’t have your chorus speak because it is financially prohibitive: as soon as the chorus opens up its mouth the price goes up because of actors’ equity. So, naturally one of the great resources of opera houses is an opera chorus, a resource you can use much more easily.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Bolcom (b. 1938): A View from the Bridge; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; New World 80558

SynopsisThe Russian Revolution of 1917 wiped out many family fortunes, and many penniless Russian émigrés who fled the Bolsheviks had to start from scratch in exile.Natalie Koussevitzky, however, was not one of them. Her family fortune was fairly diversified, which meant that even the loss of her large Russian holdings left her with considerable wealth elsewhere. And since she was married to the Russian émigré music publisher, conductor and new music impresario Serge Koussevitzky, that meant a number of famous 20th century composers benefitted as well. It’s not an exaggeration to say that, culturally speaking, without her fortune, the history of 20th century music would have been noticeably poorer.When Natalie died, Serge Koussevitzky established a Music Foundation in her honor. One of the Foundation’s memorial commissions was premiered on today’s date in 1943 by the Boston Symphony, led by Serge Koussevitzky. This was a three-part symphonic Ode written by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, and dedicated to Natalie’s memory.Curiously, the second movement of Stravinsky’s Ode was actually a bit of recycled film music originally intended for the Orson Welles version of the English novel Jane Eyre. In the final cut, Welles opted for a Bernard Herrmann score instead.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Ode; London Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; BMG 68865

SynopsisFrom 1976 to 1984, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt kept revising and adjusting his chamber piece If Bach had Raised Bees. On today’s date in 1983 one version of this piece — for harpsichord, electric bass guitar, tape and small chamber ensemble — received its premiere performance at a new music festival in Graz, Austria.Pärt’s work opens like a minimalist piece, with repeated notes perhaps imitating the buzzing of the bees mentioned in the title. What he meant by If Bach had Raised Bees is open to various interpretations, but technically speaking, the piece is a slow transformation of an instrumental humming in the key of B-flat into a Bach-like cadence in the key of B-minor. Was the deeply religious-minded Estonian composer suggesting that bees somehow symbolized a harmonious community of God’s creatures? Or was the title, in English at least, a pun on the shifting key of “BEE-flat” to “BEE-minor?”In any case, this piece was one of several Bach-inspired works, “Bach collages,” as Pärt called them, each he said “an attempt to replant a flower in alien surroundings … if they grow together into one, then the transplantation was the right move.” Music Played in Today's ProgramArvo Pärt (b. 1935): If Bach had Raised Bees; Philharmonia Orchestra; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 9134

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1991, the American Composers Orchestra gave a concert at Carnegie Hall, celebrating the 80th birthday of Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness. Hovhaness was on hand, and conducted the world premiere performance of his Symphony No. 65.By the time of this death in 2000, Hovhaness had composed 67 symphonies, and ranks as one of the most prolific composers of symphonies in the 20th century. “I write too much, far too much,” he once wrote to a friend. “This is my insanity.” Even so, performers and audiences seemed to respond to the emotional forthrightness of his music.Hovhaness rejected the mid-20th century trends towards complexity and atonality, and instead turned to archaic and Eastern musical models. Many of his works were inspired by Armenian themes, real or imagined.In reviewing the premiere of his Symphony No. 65, the New York Times critic wrote, “Mr. Hovhaness seems to have used liturgical roots to create his own imaginary Armenia, a music that may exist only in [his] imagination.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAlan Hovhaness (1911-2000): Symphony No. 2 (Mysterious Mountain); Chicago Symphony; Fritz Reiner, conductor; RCA 61957

SynopsisIf, on today’s date in 1930, you happened to be flipping through the pages of the New York Times, you would have seen several ads for radios, including one that argued that purchasing a radio was a good investment.This was only one year after the infamous 1929 stock market crash, so New Yorkers might have been a little leery of investing in anything, and disposable income for most Americans was severely limited during the Great Depression that followed.Still, that same October 5 edition of the Times announced that the New York Philharmonic would commence live nationwide broadcasts of its Sunday afternoon concerts that very day, with visiting German conductor Erich Kleiber leading the orchestra. The rest of the Philharmonic’s 1930-31 season, led by the orchestra’s new music director, Arturo Toscanini, would also be broadcast live on subsequent Sunday afternoons.For music lovers, that radio purchase started to look like a pretty good investment after all.And over the following decades, in addition to Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, the New York Philharmonic’s radio audiences coast-to-coast were introduced as well to new works of American composers like Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 39; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 60973Roy Harris (1898-1979): Symphony No. 3; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 60594

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1910, a young Austrian composer had his first major work staged at the Vienna Court Opera. It was quite a prestigious affair, all in all, with the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit and none other than Franz Josef, the Austrian Emperor, in the audience.All that was enough to go to any young composer’s head — and the composer in question, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, was very young indeed. He was 13 when his ballet-pantomime The Snowman premiered in Vienna. Actually, he’d written the piano version of The Snowman in 1908, when he was 11. Korngold’s teacher, composer Alexander von Zemlinsky, orchestrated the piece for the Vienna Court Opera performance, but it wasn’t very long before little Erich was preparing his own orchestrations, thank you very much.By his 20s, Korngold was celebrated throughout Europe as composer of operas and concert hall works. Korngold settled in Hollywood in the late 1930s, as his Jewish heritage made a career in Nazi Europe impossible. His film scores for classic Errol Flynn adventure movies — “SVASH-boo-klers” as Korngold called them in his thick Viennese accent — made him famous in America. Music Played in Today's ProgramErich Wolfgang von Korngold (1897-1957): The Snowman; Northwest German Philharmonic; Werner Andreas Albert, conductor; CPO 999 037Erich Wolfgang von Korngold (1897-1957): Violin Concerto; Chantal Juillet, violin; Berlin Radio Symphony; John Mauceri, conductor; London 452 481

SynopsisOne of the last chamber works by American composer Aaron Copland received its first performance on today’s date in 1971 in Philadelphia as a benefit for that city’s Settlement Music School. Copland was present for the premiere of his Duo for flute and piano. The work was commissioned by friends and students of William Kincaid, who had been the principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra for many years.By 1971, thorny, complex, and atonal music was the fashion in both Europe and America. Copland, for his part, had composed some challenging orchestral works along these lines as well. His Duo, however was unashamedly lyrical.As Copland put it: “What can you do with a flute in an extended form that would not emphasize its songful nature? Lyricism seems to be built into the flute. Some expressed surprise at the tonal nature of my Duo, considering that my recent works had been in a more severe idiom.”Copland needn’t have worried. As music critic Michael Steinberg put it, reviewing its first performance in Boston, “Copland’s Duo is a lightweight work of a masterful craftsman. It is going to give pleasure to flutists and their audiences for a long time.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Duo; Jennifer Stinton, flute; Malcolm Martineau, piano; Collins 1385

SynopsisToday we celebrate the birthday of Leroy Bernard Shield, an American composer whose name might not ring a bell, but whose music you might instantly recognize — and with a smile.Shield’s name rarely appeared on the credits for the classic Our Gang and Laurel & Hardy comedies from the 1930s, but his music was used in most of them.Shield was born in Waseca, Minnesota, on today’s date in 1893. At five he was already an accomplished pianist and organist, and by 15 a professional arranger, composer and concert pianist. In 1923, he joined the staff of the Victor Talking Machine Company, supervising their East Coast recording sessions. Then in 1930, he was appointed Victor’s Musical Director in charge of Hollywood, California, Activities, and it was in this capacity that he wrote and oversaw the recording of music for the famous comedies produced by the Hal Roach Studios. In 1945, Shield moved back to New York and became the orchestral contractor for the NBC radio network and worked closely with the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini and his NBC Symphony. He retired in 1955, moved to Florida, and died in Fort Lauderdale in 1962.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeroy Shield (1893-1962): Good Old Days and Hide and Go Seek; Beau Hunks Orchestra; Koch 8702

SynopsisToday’s date in 1922 marks the birthday of Héctor Campos Parsi, one of Puerto Rico’s finest composers.Campos Parsi originally planned to become a doctor, but after a meeting with the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez, ended up studying music at the New England Conservatory in 1949 and 1950 with the likes of Aaron Copland, Olivier Messiaen and Serge Koussevitzky, and between 1950 and 1954 with Paul Hindemith at Yale and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.Returning to Puerto Rico, Campos Parsi pursued a dual career: as a writer, he contributed short stories, essays, poems to Puerto Rican magazines, and wrote music reviews and articles for island newspapers. As a composer, he wrote instrumental and vocal works for chamber, orchestral, and choral ensemble. Two of his best-known works are Divertimento del Sur, written for string orchestra with solo flute and clarinet, and a piano sonata dedicated to Puerto Rican pianist Jesús María Sanromá. As a musicologist, Campos Parsi wrote entries for music encyclopedias and served as the director of the IberoAmerican Center of Musical Documentation and as composer-in-residence at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, where died in 1998 at 75.Music Played in Today's ProgramHéctor Campos Parsi (1922-1998): Divertimento del Sur; Members of the Casals Festival Orchestra; Milton Katims, conductor; Smithsonian Folkways COOK-01061

SynopsisThe old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” pretty much sums up the career of the French composer Georges Bizet. Bizet died at 36 in 1875, the same year his opera Carmen premiered. Now, Carmen soon became acknowledged as one of the great masterworks of French opera, but poor Monsieur Bizet wasn’t around to experience any of that.Moreover, Carmen was preceded by Bizet’s no less than 30 attempts writing a hit opera. Most never made it to the stage, and the few that did, achieved only modest success.Set in exotic Ceylon, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, or The Pearl Fishers, the most famous of the “pre-Carmen” Bizet operas premiered on today’s date in 1863. It ran for 18 performances, and, although applauded by its first audiences, was roundly panned by the press. Only one music critic saw any merit in Bizet’s opera, and that critic just happened to be the great French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz.Even so, Pearl Fishers wasn’t revived until long after Bizet’s death, and some 30 years after its premiere. Today, after Carmen of course, it’s his second most popular opera.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorges Bizet (1838-1875): Prelude from The Pearl Fishers; Mexico City Philharmonic; Enrique Batiz, conductor; ASV 6133Georges Bizet (1838-1875): Au Fond du Temple Saint, from The Pearl Fishers; Placido Domingo, tenor; Sherrill Milnes, baritone; London Symphony; Anton Guadagno, conductor; BMG 62699

SynopsisYes, Juliet, a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a catchy title alone can’t help a piece of music that’s uninspired or just plain boring. An intriguing title, however can sometimes help put audiences into a more receptive frame of mind — or at least pique their curiosity.From the very beginning of his career in the 1980s, the young American composer Michael Torke had the knack of coming up with evocative titles. His early works had titles like Ecstatic Orange and Bright Blue Music. A piece composed for the 1994 Olympic Games in Atlanta was titled Javelin, and this music, an orchestral suite that premiered in Amsterdam on today’s date in 1997, was titled Overnight Mail.And each of the three movements of his orchestral suite had an additional title, as Torke explains:“The titles of the suite’s three movements, Priority, Standard, and Saturday Delivery present the options for expediency when sending things, but musically, they represent different reactions to an abstract compositional problem I set up for myself … for me this was important, because I want to write music that follows all the old rules of voice leading and counterpoint, but sounds fresh.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMichael Torke (b. 1961): Overnight Mail; Orkest de Volharding; Jurjen Hempel, conductor; Argo 455 684

SynopsisToday’s date in 1913 marks the birthday of American composer Vivian Fine in Chicago.At the tender age of five, she became a scholarship piano student at the Chicago Musical College. As she grew up she became enthralled with the great composers and performers she heard at her regular visits to the Chicago Symphony. Fine initially intended to be a concert pianist, but theory studies with American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger nudged her towards composition.  Fine became an avid follower of the emerging Ultra-Modern school of composers, including Henry Cowell, who proved to be one of her early mentors. Her debut as a composer came in Chicago when she was 16, and at 17 she moved to New York City to she studied composition with Roger Sessions and orchestration with George Szell.When Roger Sessions saw her sketches for her Concertante for Piano and Orchestra in 1944, he commented, “Now we are colleagues,” and George Szell praised its orchestration. Teaching became an important part of Fine’s own professional life, first at New York University and Juilliard, and ultimately at Bennington College. Following a traffic accident in Vermont, Fine died at 86 in March of 2000.Music Played in Today's ProgramVivian Fine (1913-2000): ‘Concertante’; Reiko Honsho, piano; Japan Philharmonic; Akeo Watanabe, conductor; CRI 692

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1956, the English composer Gerald Finzi died in Oxford at 55. Finzi suffered from Hodgkin’s disease, and shortly before his death had caught chickenpox from some children he had visited, an infection that proved fatal.Finzi was born into a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family. His mother was musical, and an amateur composer. Even with talent, wealth, support from the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams and several golden opportunities for career advancement, Finzi proved to be a rather diffident soul who seemed to prefer to work in seclusion and relative obscurity.He collected rare books and scores by 18th century English composers but is most famous for his settings of poems by Thomas Hardy, a contemporary of his parent’s generation.Himself an agnostic, Finzi produced a small body of sacred choral works, as well as two instrumental pieces that have endeared him to clarinetists: a set of clarinet Bagatelles from 1943 and this Clarinet Concerto from 1949.British critic Norman Lebrecht offers this assessment of Finzi’s appeal: “a confluence of Elgar without bluffness and Vaughan Williams at his most delicate. His concerto for clarinet and strings is a light and lovely lament for lost times.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGerald Finzi (1901-1956): Clarinet Concerto; Richard Stoltzman, clarinet; Guildhall String Ensemble; Robert Slater, conductor; BMG 60437

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2000, King’s Chapel in Boston presented a festival of music by the early American composer William Billings, honoring the 200th anniversary of his death in 1800.  As the Chapel’s records of 1786 stated, Billings taught singing “to such persons of both sexes as incline to sing psalm-tunes.” They must have liked him, because in 1790, when Billings was in financial trouble, the Chapel held a benefit concert for him.When Billings was born in 1746, America was still a British colony. The last record we have of him as a composer dates from 1799, when he wrote music for a memorial concert for George Washington, the first president of the United States, who had died in December of that year.Today, Billings is regarded as America’s first truly original composer. His contemporaries agreed. The Reverend William Bentley of Salem was moved to write in his diary: “Many who have imitated him have excelled him, but none had better original powers … he was a singular man, short of one leg, with one eye, and with an uncommon negligence of person. Still, he spake and sung and thought as a man above common abilities.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Billings (1746-1800): Emmaus and Shiloh; His Majestie's Clerkes; Paul Hillier, conductor; Harmonia Mundi 90.7048

SynopsisIn the 1920s, German composer Paul Hindemith wrote a set of seven concertos, which he collectively titled Kammermusik or Chamber Music. This generic title was part of Hindemith’s goal to foster a more “objective” musical style, modeled on 18th century composers like J.S. Bach.Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 4, a work for solo violin and chamber orchestra, had its first performance in Dessau on today’s date in 1925. The soloist was Licco Amar, the first violinist of the Amar String Quartet, an ensemble in which Hindemith played viola.Hindemith’s father had been killed in World War I, and Hindemith himself had been called up, but avoided being sent to the front by forming a string quartet that played nightly to ease the nerves of his commanding officer. Then during the World War II, despite being considered a so-called “Aryan” composer, Hindemith fell out of favor with the Nazi regime and eventually emigrated to America, where he became a very influential teacher.To address the role of music in society, Hindemith suggested composers should revive the idea of writing works amateur musicians could play at home with family and friends.“People who make music together cannot be enemies,” he observed, “at least while the music lasts.”Music Played in Today's ProgramPaul Hindemith (1895-1963): Kammermusik No. 4; Konstanty Kulka, violin; Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, conductor; London 433 816

SynopsisToday’s date in 1914 marks the birthday of Polish-born composer and conductor Andrzej Panufnik, whose life was dramatic — and romantic — enough for a Netflix mini-series. It involved resisting the Nazis in war-torn Warsaw, struggles with the Communist Party in the post-war years, a daring Swiss escape to Great Britain worthy of a John Le Carré novel, love affairs and marriages with beautiful women, the tragic death of one of his children, and long years trying to balance the demands of his conducting and composing careers. And, despite the admiration of some of the biggest names in classical music, for years his music met with indifference from the general public. But at this point in the mini-series, cue the triumphant grand finale soundtrack theme. In the closing decades of his life, Panufnik won increasing recognition as one of the 20th century’s finest composers and was showered with high-profile commissions by major orchestras around the world. Panufnik refused to return to Poland until democracy was restored in 1990. Shortly before his death in 1991, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and posthumously awarded the Polonia Restituta Medal by his native land.Music Played in Today's ProgramAndrzej Panufnik (1914-1991): Old Polish Suite; Polish Chamber Orchestra; Mariusz Smolij, conductor; Naxos 8.570032

SynopsisIt was on today’s date in 1835 that Romantic opera composer Vincenzo Bellini died at a country home near Paris. He was only 34 but had achieved great fame in his brief lifetime. The long, elegant melodic lines Bellini spun out in his operas were much admired and proved to be a major influence on the solo piano works of his contemporary, Frederic Chopin.Bellini’s first success was Il Pirata or The Pirate from 1827, and just three years later, he could truthfully report:  “My style is now heard in the most important theatres in the world …and with the greatest enthusiasm.” He settled in Paris, where his final opera, I Puritani di Scozia or The Puritans of Scotland premiered early in 1835.If Bellini’s life had followed the Romantic story-lines of his operas, he would have been a dispossessed outcast who dies for love. In fact, Bellini was financially successful, moved in the highest social circles, and — rather than dying for love — was planning to marry for money at the time he succumbed to chronic gastroenteritis. At his requiem mass, four leading composers of his day, Paer, Cherubini, Carafa and Rossini, each held a corner of the coffin shroud.  Music Played in Today's ProgramVincenzo Bellini (1801-1835): Sinfonia from Il Pirata; German Opera Orchestra, Berlin; Marcello Viotti, conductor; Berlin Classics 11152

SynopsisToday we celebrate the birthday of Leonardo Balada, an American composer born in Barcelona on today’s date in 1933. After studying at the Barcelona Conservatory, the 20-something composer came to New York on a musical scholarship.Balada recalls his arrival as both a cultural and climatic shock: “When I landed in New York — on a freezing day in 1956 — little did I know of the mental turmoil I would experience in the next few years. That city had become the focal point for the latest music and arts. New York shook my musically conservative upbringing to its roots.”Like most composers of his generation, Balada had to decide whether to follow the path of the abstract serialists who dominated music at that time or find his own path.“I felt a strong necessity to … look to the future and not be criticized as a reactionary,” recalls Balada. “How could it be otherwise for a liberal young fellow brought up in Spain, opposed to Franco’s conservatism?”With encouragement from great Spanish guitarist Narciso Yepes, Balada began to draw on his own imagination and cultural heritage, blending contemporary techniques with elements of a more traditional language, often infused with Spanish themes.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonardo Balada (b. 1933): Concierto Magico; Eliot Fisk, guitar; Barcelona and Catalonia National Orchestra; Jose Serebrier, conductor; Naxos 8.555039

Synopsis“Are people still writing concertos for harpsichord?” you ask. Well, today, we have an answer, which is “Yes!”On today’s date in 2002, this new Concerto for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra by Philip Glass had its premiere performance at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. Glass was asked to write a new Harpsichord Concerto for the Northwest Chamber Orchestra and says he found the commission intriguing.“For one, I have always been an admirer of the literature for harpsichord and have played a bit it myself,” Glass wrote. “Secondly, I knew that the modern-day harpsichord was capable of a fuller, more robust sound than was available in ‘period’ instruments and might make a handsome partner to a modern chamber orchestra.”Glass’ concerto is in the traditional three movements of a Baroque era concerto, with a slower, more lyrical middle movement flanked by speedier, flashier outer movements. And perhaps surprisingly for a “minimalist” composer famous — or infamous — for his loping, seemingly endless repeated patterns, this Harpsichord Concerto, despite being recognizably a work by Philip Glass, is more varied and mercurial than usual, with a final movement in which the harpsichord soloist really needs to “go for Baroque!”Music Played in Today's ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1937): Concerto for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra; Christopher D. Lewis, harpsichord; West Side Chamber Orchestra/Kevin Mallon; Naxos 8.573146

SynopsisWhen we think of Russian music in Paris, the name Sergei Diaghilev comes first to mind. In the early years of the 20th century, that famous Russian impresario saw to it that not only the new music of Stravinsky was performed in the French capital, but also a historical panorama of earlier Russian works, including Mussorgsky’s opera, Boris Godunov.But even before Diaghilev, Russian music figured prominently at the famous Universal Expositions held in Paris in the latter 19th century. On today’s date in 1878, for example, Tchaikovsky’s Valse-Scherzo for violin and orchestra received its premiere at an Exposition concert conducted by the composer’s compatriot Nicolai Rubinstein. In addition to this brand-new work, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and symphonic fantasia The Tempest were also performed.Tchaikovsky was back home in Russia, curious to know how his works fared in Paris. He wrote to a friend: “Have you been to any of the Russian concerts in Paris? According to some newspapers my compositions were a great success, to others a failure. I cannot get at the truth.” Fortunately, when Rubinstein returned to Russia, he was able to report first-hand that Tchaikovsky’s music had, indeed, been very well received.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): The Firebird (1919 revision); Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, conductor; Reference 70Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Valse-Scherzo; Gil Shaham, violin; Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, conductor; DG 457 064

SynopsisDuring his later years, German composer Johannes Brahms was a frequent visitor to the town of Meiningen, where the Grand Duke had a fine orchestra that gave stellar performances of Brahms’ music.Early in 1891, Brahms heard one member of that orchestra, the clarinetist Richard Mülhfeld, perform chamber works by Mozart and Weber. Brahms was so impressed that they became fast friends. Listening to Mülhfeld play, Brahms became so enthusiastic about the clarinet’s possibilities that he began writing chamber works for his new friend. Brahms was always particularly fond of the female alto voice whose timbre is similar to that of the clarinet, so Brahms promptly nicknamed Mülhfeld “Fraeulein Clarinet” and the “new prima donna.”For Mülhfeld, Brahms wrote a clarinet trio, which was followed by a clarinet quintet, and finally, a pair of clarinet sonatas, both composed in the summer of 1894.These two sonatas were first played by Mülhfeld with Brahms at a private performance in the home of the sister of the Duke of Meiningen on today’s date that year. In November, the pair also gave private performances in Frankfurt for Clara Schumann and at Castle Altenstein for the Duke of Meiningen. The first public performances occurred in Vienna in January of 1895. Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): Clarinet Sonata No. 2; Michael Collins, clarinet; Mikhail Pletnev, piano; Virgin 91076

SynopsisAmerican composer Virgil Thomson was fond of writing what he called “portraits”: musical sketches of people he knew. When asked how he did this, Thomson replied: “I just look at you and I write down what I hear.”One of these works — a portrait in disguise — premiered on today’s date in 1954 at the Venice Festival in Italy. Identified simply as his Concerto for Flute, Strings, Harp, and Percussion, Thomson later confessed it was in fact a musical portrait of Roger Baker, a handsome young painter he had recently befriended.Thomson was born in Kansas City in 1896, studied music at Harvard, lived in Paris through much of the 1920s and 30s, and in 1940 became the music critic of The New York Herald-Tribune, a post he held until 1954. He once defined the role of music critic as one who “seldom kisses, but always tells.”But in 1954, he decided fourteen years as a music critic was enough, and it was time to concentrate on his own music for a change. Perhaps not by coincidence, one of the friends who encouraged him to do so was Roger Baker, the artist portrayed by Thomson in his 1954 concerto.Music Played in Today's ProgramVirgil Thomson (1896-1989): Flute Concerto; Mary Stolper, flute; Czech National Symphony; Paul Freeman, conductor; Cedille 046

SynopsisIn 1871, one year after the premiere in Munich of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre, German-born American conductor Theodore Thomas wrote Wagner asking if he might perform excerpts of this new work in the United States. Wagner turned him down, worried that loose American copyright laws might not protect his new music.Undeterred, Thomas turned to famous German conductor Hans von Bulow for advice, who suggested he try to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Wagner to plead his case. After all, Bulow told Thomas, Wagner was actually quite interested in America. The meeting never took place, but somehow Thomas secured a manuscript of what would become the most popular orchestral excerpt from Die Walküre, its famous Ride of the Valkyries.No one knows how Thomas managed it. Some speculate von Bulow himself provided the music. Others suggest the American conductor got his copy from Franz Liszt.In any case, on today’s date in 1872, Ride of the Valkyries was performed for the first time in America at one of Theodore Thomas’ concerts in Central Park.It proved to be a smash hit with Manhattanites. As Thomas recounted in his memoirs, “the people jumped up on their chairs and cheered.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813-1883): Ride of the Valkyries; from Die Walküre; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 471 627

SynopsisThe book Great Operatic Disasters chronicles the sometime humorous — and sometimes harrowing — mishaps that have befallen opera singers and productions over the last few centuries. According to that book, September 16 seems to have been a particularly unlucky day.Consider that on today’s date in 1782, Italian castrato Farinelli, one of the most celebrated opera stars of the 18th century, died in Bologna after his dismissal from the Spanish court; on September 16th in 1920, great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso would make his last records in Camden, New Jersey; and in 1977, opera diva Maria Callas dropped dead of a heart attack in Paris.On today’s date in 1966, the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center opened with a gala production of a new opera commissioned by American composer Samuel Barber. Despite an all-star cast headed by Leontyne Price and a lavish stage production designed by Franco Zefferelli — you guessed it — the opera was a flop.Maybe everyone expected too much, or perhaps the lavish sets were too distracting. Whatever the reason, despite its gorgeous music, even today Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra, has never found a lasting place in the repertory.Music Played in Today's ProgramSamuel Barber (1910-1981): Anthony and Cleopatra; Spoleto Festival soloists and orchestra; Christian Badea, conductor; New World 322

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1946, at the Yaddo Music Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York, the Walden Quartet gave the first professional performance of the String Quartet No. 2 by American composer Charles Ives.Ives’ String Quartet No. 1 was his first major work — its manuscript is dated 1896, back when Ives was a 21-year old student at Yale. While Ives’ first quartet was written under the watchful eye and conservatively tonal ear of the Yale music professor Horatio Parker, his second, composed between 1907 and 1913, is more often than not a wildly atonal work that would have given poor Professor Parker a heart attack.On the first page of its score, Ives provided a kind of program. It reads: “String Quartet for four men who converse, discuss, argue politics, fight, shake hands, shut up, and then walk up the mountainside to view the firmament.”Judging from some musical quotations in the first movement of Ives’ quartet, it seems the American Civil War was one of the political topics fought over by the four men mentioned, and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is quoted, along with Ives’ perennial favorite, Columbia, Gem of the Ocean. Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Ives (1874-1954): String Quartet No. 2; Emerson Quartet; DG 435 864

SynopsisToday’s date marks the birthday in 1885 of María Joaquina de la Portilla Torres, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Under her married name of María Grever, she became the first female Mexican composer to achieve international fame. She composed her first song at age four, studied in France with Claude Debussy among others, and at 18, one of her songs sold 3 million copies. At 22, she married Leo A. Grever, an American oil company executive, moved to New York City, and by the 1930s was composing for Paramount and 20th Century Fox films. Her best-known song is probably “What A Difference A Day Makes” (originally “Cuando Vuelva a tu Lado”), written in 1934. Her songs have been recorded by singers ranging from the Andrews Sisters and Frank Sinatra to Dinah Washington and Aretha Franklin to Plácido Domingo and Juan Diego Flórez.“I am interested in jazz and modern rhythms,” Grever said, “but above all, in Mexican music … There is such a cultural richness in Mexican music, its Hispanic and indigenous origins ... It is my wish and yearning to present these native rhythms and tunes from a real perspective, but with the necessary flexibility to appeal to a universal audience.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMaría Grever (1885-1951): Júrame; Juan Diego Flórez, tenor; Fort Worth Symphony; Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor; Decca 4757576

SynopsisThe Grove Dictionary of Music defines “aleatory” as follows: “music whose composition and/or performance is, to a greater or lesser extent, undetermined by the composer.”But isn’t music supposed to be organized, planned, determined sound? Isn’t “aleatoric music” a contradiction in terms? Well, not necessarily. Musicians throughout the ages have delighted in spontaneous, improvised sound, or musical games in which the results will be different with each performance.In the 20th century, American composers like Charles Ives and Henry Cowell often gave performers a great deal of freedom in the realization of their scores, and John Cage developed what he called “chance operations” into an art form all its own.On September 13, 1986, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, Leonard Bernstein conducted the Israel Philharmonic in the premiere of his new Concerto for Orchestra, subtitled Jubilee Games, which incorporates some aleatoric elements. Bernstein explained, “Its first movement is musical athletics, with cheers and all. It is also charades, anagrams, and children’s counting games … therefore aleatoric, ranging from structured improvisation to totally free orchestral invention. It is thus inevitable that the movement will vary considerably from one performance to another, and even one rehearsal to another.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1900-1990): Concerto for Orchestra (Jubilee Games); Israel Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; DG 429 231

SynopsisIn 1840, immensely talented German pianist Clara Wieck was eagerly awaiting the eve of her 21st birthday, when she would be free to legally marry the 30-year-old composer and music critic Robert Schumann. The couple had hoped to wed years earlier, but the match was bitterly opposed by Clara’s father.Clara and Robert kept in touch by letters, which were sometimes intercepted by Papa Wieck.Early in 1840, Clara wrote, “Dear Robert, I love you so much it hurts my heart. Tell me what you’re writing. I would so love to know, oh please, please. A quartet, an overture — even perhaps a symphony? Might it by any chance be — a wedding present?”The marriage finally took place on today’s date in 1840. As she had guessed, Robert presented Clara with a musical wedding present: not a quartet, overture, or symphony, but a set of 26 songs, published as his Opus 25.The opening song, Dedication, is a Rückert poem which contains this refrain: “You are my heart and soul, my bliss and pain, you are the world I live in and the heaven I aspire to, my good angel, my better self.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRobert Schumann (1810-1856): (transcribed by Franz Liszt) Widmung; Michael Ponti, piano; Marco Polo 223.127Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Widmung; Sophie Daneman, soprano; Julius Drake, piano; EMI 72828

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1733, French composer François Couperin, known as “François Couperin the Great,” died in Paris. The building where Couperin lived for the last decade of his life still stands in Paris, and like the building, the high esteem afforded this Baroque composer has stood the test of time.François Couperin is known as “The Great” for two reasons: first, to distinguish him from other talented Couperins, who like the Bach Family, were also well-known musicians, and second, because, well, he was great — a strikingly original composer, admired for his harmonic invention and programmatic wit.Couperin is most famous for his 226 pieces for solo harpsichord, many with descriptive titles indicating they were portraits or caricatures of real people or recognizable types of people. Others have poetically ambiguous or rather baffling titles like The Mysterious Barricades. Were these titles private “insider” jokes for himself and his friends? Who knows? Maybe not knowing the secret “program” is even part of the music’s appeal.Couperin was admired by fellow composers ranging from Bach to Brahms and Ravel, and some of his harmonically adventurous keyboard pieces have been orchestrated by Richard Strauss in the 20th century and Thomas Ades in the 21st.Music Played in Today's ProgramFrançois Couperin (1688-1733): Les Baricades Misterieuses, from 2nd Livre de Clavecin; Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord; Harmonia Mundi 190354/56

SynopsisThe average music lover, if asked to name some notable Baroque composers, will probably answer Bach, Handel, Telemann or Vivaldi. But decades before most of those composers flourished, a number of bold pioneers of the early Baroque period were busily developing new musical forms and techniques.Like most composers born before 1700, details about their lives and careers tend to be skimpy at best. Take the case of the Italian composer Marco Uccellini, who was born somewhere in Italy around 1603, and died on today’s date in 1680.We know that for Italian noble families in Modena and Parma, Uccellini composed operas and ballets, but none of them survive. His lasting claim to fame rests on a series of instrumental works, mainly sonatas for violin, which were published during his lifetime.British violinist Andrew Manze, who has recorded some of Uccelini’s sonatas, offered this assessment: “Uccellini’s pioneering spirit led him to seek new colors, explore strange keys, and to boldly go higher than any violinist had gone before. His [high] G was a world record that stood until the Austrian composer Heinrich von Biber squeaked a tone higher in a violin sonata published the year after Uccellini’s death in 1680.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMarco Uccellini (1603-1680): Aria IX and Corrente XX; Romanesca; Harmonia Mundi 90.7196

SynopsisIn September of 1825, Englishman Sir George Smart came to Vienna, hoping to meet Beethoven. Smart had conducted the British premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and wanted, as he put it in his journal, “to ascertain from Beethoven himself the exact tempos of the movements of his sinfonia.”By luck, Smart arrived in time to attend the first reading of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, which occurred on today’s date that year in a private room at the Viennese Tavern Zum Wilden Mann.Smart recalled:  “… we took ourselves to the Wilden Mann … as there was an assembly to hear Beethoven’s new manuscript quartet. It is most chromatic and there is a slow movement entitled ‘Praise for the recovery of an invalid.’ Beethoven intended it to allude to himself, I suppose, for he was very ill during the early part of this year. Beethoven directed the performers, and took off his coat, the room being warm and crowded. A staccato passage not being expressed to the satisfaction of his eye, for alas, he could not hear, he seized the violin and played the passage himself — a quarter of a tone too flat.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): String Quartet No. 15, Emerson Quartet; DG 447 075

SynopsisThe year 2000 marked both the arrival of a new millennium and the 250th anniversary of the death of great German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.The International Bach Academy in Stuttgart decided to mark the occasion by commissioning four composers to write four new passion settings, one each after the Gospel accounts of the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. German composer Wolfgang Rihm was chosen for the St. Luke Passion; Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina for St. John’s; Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov for St. Mark’s; and Chinese composer Tan Dun for the Passion according to St. Matthew.And on today’s date in 2000, Helmuth Rilling conducted the world premiere of Dun’s Water Passion after St. Matthew. Dun said he was struck by the references to water in St. Matthew’s gospel, so his setting includes seventeen large, illuminated bowls of water, positioned on stage in the form of a cross. These divide the chorus, with three percussionists and a group of additional soloists stationed at the four points of this cross.In Water Passion, natural sounds of water mix with a wide range of vocal techniques, including Tuvan throat singing and the stylized virtuosity of Peking Opera.Music Played in Today's ProgramTan Dun (b. 1957): Water Passion; Stephen Bryant, bass; Mark O’Connor, violin; ensemble; Tan Dun, conductor; Sony 89927

SynopsisIn Pittsburgh on today’s date in 1996, the Latin-American Quartet of Mexico gave the premiere of the String Quartet No. 3 by American composer David Stock. Stock was probably best known for his orchestral music and served as composer-in-residence with both the Pittsburgh and Seattle Symphonies, writing large-scale works for those ensembles, but he wrote 13 string quartets as well. The first was a student work that premiered in Paris. The second is subtitled Speaking Extravagantly after a quote by Charles Ives: “Perhaps music is the art of speaking extravagantly.” Stock’s String Quartet No. 3 is a more personal work: its scherzo movement concludes with a set of variations on “Happy Birthday” — a tribute to the his wife on the occasion of her turning 50.In addition to composing and teaching, Stock was an advocate for other composers’ works. For 23 years, Stock served as director of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and as host of a weekly radio series on WQED in that city. And speaking of radio, in 2001 Stock conducted the Charlottesville Symphony in the premiere of his piece Drive Time, which Stock described as “an updated version of the music usually programmed on Public Radio during the morning and evening drive time slots.“Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Stock (1939-2015): String Quartet No. 3; Cuarteto Latinoamericano; Innova 563

SynopsisToday we note the birthday anniversary of American composer and teacher Wayne Barlow, who was born in Elyria, Ohio on today’s date in 1912, and died in Rochester, New York, in 1996.As a composer, Barlow is mostly remembered for a single work: a rhapsody for oboe and strings entitled The Winter’s Past, first performed at the Eastman School of Music in 1938 by the Rochester Civic Orchestra under the direction of another noted American composer, Howard Hanson, with Eastman faculty oboist Robert Sprenkle as the soloist.Barlow received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Eastman and taught there for over 40 years, eventually becoming chairman of the composition department, director of the school’s electronic music studio, and dean of graduate studies. He also served as organist and choirmaster at two churches in Rochester and composed a set of hymn voluntaries for organ, covering the church year.Barlow once said, “While it’s impossible to know everything involved in the art of music, it’s just as impossible to be a totally successful teacher, or composer, or musicologist, or theorist, or performer or conductor without knowing something about how all these pieces of the art fit together.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWayne Barlow (1912-1996): The Winter’s Past; Humbert Lucarelli, oboe; Brooklyn Philharmonic; Michael Barrett, conductor; Koch 7187

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1980, Satyagraha, an opera by the American composer Philip Glass had its premiere in Rotterdam by the Netherlands Opera. Four years earlier, Glass’ first opera, Einstein on the Beach, had scored a big hit not only in Avignon, France, where it had premiered, but also at a special, non-subscription performance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.But Einstein had been written for Glass’s own electronic keyboard ensemble, while the new opera Satyagraha was written for the more traditional opera pit orchestra of strings, winds, and brass — in some ways, a new language for Glass to learn.And speaking of new languages, for opera singers used to singing in Italian, French or German, the libretto for Satyagraha, crafted by Glass and Constance DeJong was to be sung in ancient Sanskrit, based on texts from the Bhagavad Gita. “Satyagraha” is a Sanskrit word meaning “truth force.” While the text is ancient, the story of the opera is set in modern times and deals with Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa and his development of non-violent protest as a political tool.Satyagraha is the second in Glass’ opera trilogy about men who changed the world: Einstein, Gandhi and the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten.Music Played in Today's ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1937): Satyagraha; New York City Opera; Christopher Keene, conductor; Sony 39672

SynopsisAt New York City’s Town Hall on today’s date in 1968, the New England Festival Quartet premiered a new chamber work by American composer George Walker. Walker’s String Quartet No. 2 was sandwiched on the program between the String Quartet No. 11 by Beethoven and Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, with Walker performing the piano part in the Schumann — not surprisingly, since in addition to studying composition at the Curtis Institute, Walker had also studied piano, with Rudolf Serkin, no less.  “What was gratifying was the fact that the Walker Quartet held up very well between two such strong works,” The New York Times music critic wrote the following day. 28 years later, in 1996, Walker would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music — the first African-American composer to do so. But then, that was only one of his remarkable firsts. He was also the first Black graduate of the Curtis Institute in 1945, the first Black musician to play New York’s Town Hall that same year, the first Black recipient of a doctorate from the Eastman School in 1955, and the first Black tenured faculty member at Smith College in 1961.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Walker (1922-2018): String Quartet No. 2; Son Sonora String Quartet; Naxos 8559659

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1806, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote to his publishers Breitkopf and Härtel, “you may have at once three new string quartets.” These were three new works Beethoven had written on commission from the wealthy Russian ambassador to Vienna, Count Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky.Beethoven was stretching the truth a bit when he told his publisher they could have the quartets “at once,” since as per the Count’s commission, Razumovsky had exclusive rights to the music for a full year. But then, Beethoven had also promised the Count that he’d weave authentic Russian melodies in all three quartets but ended up doing so in just two of them. Today, these Razumovsky Quartets rank among Beethoven’s most popular chamber works, but initially they were not well received. When shown the music prior to publication, a professional Viennese quartet assumed Beethoven was playing a practical joke on them. The second movement of the first quartet, with its cello solo on just one note, provoked particular disdain. Muzio Clementi, who had seen these quartets in manuscript, remarked to Beethoven, “Surely you don’t consider these works to be music!” To which Beethoven replied, “Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): String Quartet No. 1; Orford Quartet; CBC 2020

SynopsisImagine a crisp, blue Northern sky, a Canadian Mountie in a bright red tunic, and — what else? — an elaborately coiffed operatic soprano singing in the middle of the woods. Yes, it was on today’s date in 1924, at the Imperial Theater in New York that “Indian Love Call” was first heard in Rose-Marie, a musical written by American composer of Bohemian birth named Rudolf Friml.This one-time Dvořák pupil was born in Prague in 1879. He scored such a hit when he debuted his own Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall in 1904 that he decided to make America his home. His early years as an American composer were disappointing, but in 1912, The Firefly, his first musical, proved a hit.Friml followed that with a string of increasingly popular Broadway shows, including Rose-Marie in 1924 and The Vagabond King in 1925, but by the mid-1930s Friml’s old-world musical style was judged too old-fashioned for the hip New York of George Gershwin and Cole Porter. Ironically, it was just then that Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald films based on Friml musicals broke box office records. These campy films are now treasured precisely for their sweet, if rather affected, “period” flavor. Music Played in Today's ProgramRudolf Friml (1879-1972): Indian Love Call from Rose Marie; Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, vocalists; Pro Arte 491

SynopsisIn the 19th century, European composers began celebrating their own national diversity, tapping into their native folk music for inspiration and musical themes. This trend continues in our own time with composers from the Pacific Rim and Middle East.Take this music, written for the modern flute and cello, two traditional European instruments, but influenced by the folk music and native instruments of Persia. The performers are asked at times to play and sing simultaneously. For the flute, this results in overtones and a timbre similar to the Persian bamboo flute. The cellist, by sharply plucking some strings or striking them with the wooden part of his bow, also imitates Persian percussion instruments. The composer of this Folk Song Suite, based on real and imagined Persian themes, is Reza Vali. He was born in Ghazvin, Iran, on today’s date in 1952, and began his musical studies at the Conservatory of Music in Tehran. In 1972, Reza Vali traveled to Austria to study at the Vienna Academy of Music, then came to the United States, earning his doctorate in music theory and composition from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985, and subsequently joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University. Music Played in Today's ProgramReza Vali (b. 1952): Folk Songs Set No. 9; Alberto Almarza, flute; Alvaro Bitran, cello; New Albion 077

SynopsisThe Radetzky March is undoubtedly Johann Strauss, Sr.’s most famous work. Its performance has become obligatory at the New Year’s concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic — it’s that piece that involves audience participation in the form of a “clap along.” The premiere of this familiar music took place on today’s date in 1848 with a distinct political subtext — back then, not everyone back then was clapping along.Field Marshall Radetzky was the commander of the Austrian forces that rather brutally put down “insurgent democrats” in Italy during the liberal revolutions of 1848, and, as such, became a counter-revolutionary hero in Europe. The premiere of Radetzky March occurred at a concert attended chiefly by monarchists and the Austrian military, and the tune quickly became the unofficial anthem of the Austrian military and ultra-conservatives — the “far right” of that time.Curiously enough, Johann Strauss, Jr. held diametrically opposite, and considerably liberal, political sympathies from his father. By the end of the 19th century, however, the bloody political troubles of 1848 were diplomatically swept under the collective Austrian carpet, and Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Blue Danube Waltz became the unofficial anthem for all Austrians, right, left and center. Music Played in Today's ProgramJohann Strauss, Sr. (1804-1849): Radetzky March; Vienna Philharmonic; Willi Boskovsky, conductor; London/Decca 460250

SynopsisToday we celebrate the birthday of American composer David Schiff, who was born in New York City on today’s date in 1945.Schiff’s best-known work, the 1979 opera Gimpel the Fool, is based on a story by the beloved Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer that tells the tale of a Jewish baker in Eastern Europe who takes everything at face value and so is lied to and cheated by everyone he meets. Rather than take revenge, Gimpel becomes a wandering holy man, convinced that God will not lie or cheat him.Schiff’s opera premiered in New York City in 1979, and shortly thereafter he arranged its themes into an instrumental divertimento, the first of many works written for clarinetist David Shifrin and Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Writing for those musicians, says Schiff, his given him what he calls, “a wonderful sense of how Haydn must have felt as court composer at Esterházy.”The divertimento from Gimpel the Fool draws on Jewish liturgical modes and Klezmer music, and its fourth movement references “Who Knows One?” — a traditional song in Passover. Like the story of Gimpel, the song is meant to be humorous, while still imparting an important lesson.Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Schiff (b. 1945): ‘Divertimento’ from ‘Gimpel the Fool’; David Shifrin, clarinet; Theodore Arm, violin; Warren Lash, cello; David Oei, piano; Delos DE-3058

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1981, at a house concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, Courtship Songs, a chamber work by the American composer Stephen Paulus received its first performance. It was commissioned to celebrate the 15th wedding anniversary of Jack and Linda Hoeschler and scored for the instruments the couple and their two children played: flute, oboe, cello and piano. The commissioning bug caught on, and anniversary commissions became a family tradition.Eventually the Hoeschlers and some of their friends started up a Commissioning Club. Modeled along the lines of an investment club, the purpose was to commission American composers including Paulus, Paul Schoenfield, Steve Heitzeg and Augusta Read Thomas, for premieres by ensembles like New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Washington D.C.’s 20th Century Consort, as well as the Minnesota Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.In 1996, one Commissioning Club premiere reached an audience of millions when Paulus’s setting of Pilgrim Jesus, by English poet Kevin Crossley-Holland, was performed at King’s College, Cambridge as part of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast live on both the BBC’s World Service and public radio stations across America.Not a bad return on their investment!Music Played in Today's ProgramStephen Paulus (1949-2014): Courtship Songs; Jane Garvin, flute; Merilee Klemp, oboe; Mina Fisher, cello; Jill Dawe, piano; Innova 539

SynopsisIn Weimar, Germany, on today’s date in 1850, Hungarian composer Franz Liszt conducted the first performance of Lohengrin, a new opera by German composer Richard Wagner. Liszt was determined to make Weimar famous, musically-speaking, despite the rather provincial nature of the forces he had at his disposal. Liszt had to go out and buy a bass clarinet, since the Court orchestra didn’t own one, and he beefed up the number of violins from the usual 11 players to a grand total of 18.The title role of Lohengrin was sung by a tenor named Karl Beck, who was also a local baker. Even so, Liszt’s unprecedented 46 rehearsals apparently paid off: the premiere of Lohengrin was a big success and helped put both Weimar and Wagner on the map.Ironically, Wagner was unable to attend the premiere. He was a wanted man on German soil, having participated in the unsuccessful Dresden uprising of 1849, and there was a warrant out for his arrest. Liszt had helped him escape to Switzerland, and while his opera was being staged in Weimar, Wagner was at a hotel in Lucerne, listening in his imagination, he later told Liszt, as each scene unfolded.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813-1883): Lohengrin; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra; Peter Schneider, conductor; Philips 438 500

SynopsisToday marks the birthday of a remarkable British composer who spent a good deal of her life in the United States. Her name was Rebecca Clarke, born in Harrow, England, on today’s date in 1886 to an American father and German mother.Clarke studied at the Royal Conservatory in London, where she became the first female composition student of the Victorian composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. As a professional violist, she was one of the first women to be admitted as a member of the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, an ensemble led by Henry Wood. Many of the chamber works Clarke composed were written for and premiered by professional colleagues.Based in London from 1924 to 1939, Clarke toured extensively, performed with a number of ensembles, and broadcast over the BBC. At the outbreak of World War II, she found herself stranded in the U.S. In 1944, she married pianist James Friskin, who had been a fellow student at the Royal College and had settled in New York.Clarke lived long enough to experience what she called “a little renaissance” of interest in her music around the time of her 90th birthday. She died at 93 in 1979.Music Played in Today's ProgramRebecca Clarke (1886-1979): Piano Trio; Clementi Trio of Cologne; Largo 5103

SynopsisThe life of British composer James Bernard reads like a PBS mini-series: as a schoolboy, he meets Benjamin Britten, who encourages his interest in music; during WWII he joins the R.A.F., works with the team breaking the German Enigma code, and takes occasional breaks from this top-secret work to turn pages for Britten at London recitals during the Blitz; after postwar study at the Royal College of Music, he starts writing music for radio and stage plays.Then by chance another composer booked to score a British science-fiction movie falls ill, and Bernard is asked to step in. The film The Quatermass Xperiment, was released on today’s date in 1955, proved a hit, and was even shown in the U.S., retitled The Creeping Unknown.The Creeping Unknown would become James Bernard’s bread and butter, since the Hammer Film studio, who made The Quatermass Xperiment, kept Bernard on to score their horror films starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein. Unlike most film composers, Bernard orchestrated his own work, and helped establish the “Hammer sound,” lushly romantic or frantically hair-raising as needed. After his death in 2001, a biography was titled James Bernard – Composer to Count Dracula.Music Played in Today's ProgramJames Bernard (1925-2001): Opening Credits and Dracula’s Blood, from Taste the Blood of Dracula; Studio orchestra; Philip Martell, conductor; GDI GRICD-010

SynopsisMany operatic works have been described as “revolutionary,” but on today’s date in 1830, a performance of an opera helped to spark a real, take-to-the-streets kind of revolution.The opera in question was by the French composer Daniel Auber, and entitled La Muette di Portici, or The Mute Girl of Portici. The opera’s story concerns a 17th century uprising by some patriots in Naples against their Spanish rulers ends with an erupting Italian volcano.On today’s date in 1830 it was being staged at the Theatre La Monnaie in Brussels, a country then under the control of the Dutch. The opera’s story of evil occupiers and patriotic rebels must have touched a raw nerve in many in the Belgian audience.Upon hearing the line in the opera, “a slave knows no danger, as death is better than living in chains,” some in the audience began a demonstration against the hated Dutch authorities. The demonstration grew more and more heated, and then, just like the volcano in Auber’s opera, erupted out of the theater and into the streets. Symbols of Dutch authority were attacked, a new provisional government was formed, and by November that same year Belgium had declared its independence.Music Played in Today's ProgramDaniel Auber (1782-1871): La Muette de Portici; soloists; Monte Carlo Philharmonic; Thomas Fulton, conductor; EMI 49248

SynopsisLooking back on a famous person’s life and career, one often notes quirky patterns of coincidences. Take American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, for example. On today’s date in 1943, Bernstein was one day short of his 25th birthday, and, at the Public Library in Lenox, Massachusetts, accompanied the singer Jennie Tourel in the premiere of a new song cycle for which Bernstein had composed both the words and the music. The song cycle, I Hate Music!, offered — from a child’s perspective — some devastatingly direct observations on art and life.The following day, the New York Philharmonic’s music director, Artur Rodzinski, invited Bernstein to become Assistant Conductor of the orchestra.Now, fast forward to November 13 that same year: Jennie Tourel and Bernstein were at Town Hall, giving the New York premiere of I Hate Music!. The very next day, Bernstein was asked to step in at short notice for the indisposed Bruno Walter, making his New York Philharmonic debut conducting the orchestra during their live national Sunday afternoon radio broadcast from Carnegie Hall.Bernstein’s surprise — and successful — conducting debut made the front page of the New York Times, and a legendary career was launched.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): I Hate Music!; Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano; Leonard Bernstein, piano; Sony 60697Miklos Rosza (1907-1995): Theme, Variations and Finale; The New Zealand Symphony; James Sedares, conductor; Koch 7191

SynopsisThe first railway line in Russia opened in 1837 and ran from St. Petersburg to Pavlovsk. In the summers, tourists from St. Petersburg would travel to Pavlovsk to visit the site of an 18th century royal palace, to dine at the elegant Vauxhall restaurant, or take in an orchestral concert. Johann Strauss’ orchestra performed at Pavlovsk in the 1850s, and it remained a popular summertime concert venue for decades.On today’s date in 1913, Sergei Prokofiev traveled to Pavlovsk to appear as the soloist in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 2 — and the music of the young firebrand composer-performer proved to be far from the standard light classical fare normally offered in Pavlovsk.One reviewer wrote, “Prokofiev’s music left listeners frozen with fright, their hair standing on end.” Another critic wrote, “One couple stood up and ran for the exit, commenting, ‘Such music is enough to drive you crazy! Is he making fun of us? We came here to enjoy ourselves.’”Even so, one calmer review concluded, “This means nothing. Ten years from now the public will atone for the catcalls by applauding unanimously a new composer with a European reputation.”Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Prokofiev (1892-1953): Piano Concerto No. 2; Alexander Toradze, piano; Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Philips 462 048

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1980, at a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Colin Davis led the London Symphony in the premiere of a Triple Concerto for violin, viola and cello with orchestra, a new work by British composer Michael Tippett.The central slow movement of the new Triple Concerto, marked “very slow — calmer still,” proved to be one of Tippett’s most lyrical and colorful moments, and with it, Tippett joined a long line of Western composers, including Claude Debussy, Benjamin Britten, and Lou Harrison, who have been inspired by Asian music: specifically the traditional bronze gong orchestras of the islands of Indonesia, known as “gamelan.”Shortly before he composed his Triple Concerto, Tippet had visited Java and Bali, and had experienced first-hand performances of gamelan music in the palaces, temples and gardens of Indonesia.In describing the role of the artist as he saw it, Tippett suggested “the creation of images of vigor for a decadent period, images of calm for one too violent, images of reconciliation for a world torn by divisions, and in an age of mediocrity and shattered dreams, images of abounding, generous, exuberant beauty.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMichael Tippett (1905-1998): Triple Concerto; Kovacic-Caussé-Baillie Trio; BBC Philharmonic; Michael Tippett, conductor; Nimbus 5301

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1893, French composer Lili Boulanger was born in Paris.In 1913, when she was 20, Boulanger became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome for her cantata Faust and Helen, an achievement which was headline news in those days. Her father, Ernst, had he lived to see it, would have been especially proud, since he too, was a composer and had won the Prix de Rome in 1835.The Boulangers were a remarkably talented family, it seems, and it’s one of music history’s saddest “what-might-have-beens” to consider what Lili might have accomplished if she had lived as long as her gifted older sister, Nadia, who died at 92 after a long career as the world’s most famous composition teacher. Nadia could count among her pupils several generations of famous American composers, ranging from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass.Boulanger suffered from Crohn’s disease, and died at just 24, in 1918. Despite her frail health and tragically short life, she left behind a small body of vocal and instrumental works that are still performed. Her Psalm settings in particular are admired for their solemnity and deep spirit.Music Played in Today's ProgramLili Boulanger (1893-1918): D’un Matin de Printemps; Olivier Charlier, violin; Emile Naoumoff, piano; Marco Polo 8.223636

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2020, the University of Maryland launched PriceFest — an annual festival devoted to American composer Florence Price. The plan was to stage performances of works in the context of lectures and panels devoted to this long-neglected African-American composer. The COVID-19 outbreak forced the first PriceFest to be an online event only, but that worked so well the 2021 PriceFest arranged for more livestreamed and interactive Zoom events.When Florence Price died at 66 in 1953, she left behind instrumental, orchestra and vocal works that languished unperformed for decades until a revival of interest in music by women composers and composers of color led to a serious second look at her compositions and a rediscovery of their quality and importance.In 2009, a couple renovating an abandoned and dilapidated house in St. Anne, Illinois once owned by Price found a substantial collection of previously unknown Price scores.  As Alex Ross, writing in The New Yorker, commented, “not only did [Florence] Price fail to enter the canon; a large quantity of her music came perilously close to obliteration. That run-down house in St. Anne is a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history.” Music Played in Today's ProgramFlorence Price (1887-1953): Mississippi Suite; Women’s Philharmonic; Apo Hsu, conductor; Koch 75182

SynopsisMost of us — if we’re lucky — chug along more or less contentedly in an uneventful day-by-day routine, a little like the opening of this chamber work by American composer John Howell Morrison.But sometimes, in some lives, something happens that suddenly disrupts the uneventful, comfortable routine, something that knocks all routine and normality straight out of the ballpark: perhaps it’s the loss of a job, bad medical news, the death of a friend or spouse, or a worldwide pandemic, perhaps, and suddenly routine physical or mental health is so shaken that the soundtrack of life shifts to something uncomfortably similar to that of a bad horror film.But most of us — if we’re lucky — somehow survive, and perhaps even grow a bit stronger from the experience.As the old saying goes: Hard Weather Makes Good Wood — and that’s the title Morrison gave this piece, scored for string quartet and electronic tape, recorded on today’s date in 2002 as the title track on a collection of his chamber works.And, yes, Morrison confesses that Hard Weather Makes Good Wood, was, in fact, composed during a period of intense personal struggle in his own life.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Howell Morrison (b. 1956): Hard Weather Makes Good Wood; Intergalactic Contemporary Ensemble; Innova 584

SynopsisThe 1985 Salzburg Festival boasted a quite unusual premiere: a 17th century Venetian opera by Italian Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi entitled Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, or The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland, as arranged and orchestrated by the contemporary German composer Hans Werner Henze.The surviving music for Monteverdi’s opera does not exist in what we now call “full score.” Monteverdi wrote down a bare 5-part accompaniment to the vocal lines of his opera, without indicating what specific instruments he meant to play those notes. This means for any modern performance someone needs to make those decisions.For their 1985 summer season, the Salzburg Festival commissioned Henze to prepare a new orchestration of Monteverdi’s Return of Ulysses 245 years after its first performance in Venice back in 1640.The music critics, in the main, were complimentary after Henze’s version premiered in Salzburg, noting his scoring somehow managed to sound both ancient and modern at the same time.Even though we’ll never know exactly how the opera sounded when Monteverdi heard it back in 1640, thanks to modern technology, that 1985 Salzburg performance can be sampled in both audio and video recordings.Music Played in Today's ProgramClaudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) arr. Hans Werner Henze: Ulysses’ Homecoming; soloists; Vienna Radio Symphony; Jeffrey Tate, conductor; Orfeo 528 003

SynopsisWhen asked to name some important musical works associated with World War II, music lovers are apt to think of the sonatas and symphonies Prokofiev and Shostakovich wrote during those years. But three symphonies by Swiss composer Arthur Honegger form another compelling war triptych.Honegger spent the war years in occupied France, and his Symphony No. 2, which premiered in 1942, might be considered a symphony of the grim wartime resistance. It is scored for strings alone, but at the very end includes an optional trumpet solo, a dramatic gesture that seems an emotional call to action.Honegger’s Symphony No. 3, which premiered on August 17, 1946, is titled A Liturgical Symphony, with the titles of each of its movements taken from the Latin Mass for the Dead. Considering the great loss of life on all sides of the conflict just ended, this work, too, packs an emotional wallop.And to round out the triptych, Honegger’s Symphony No. 4, from 1947, is subtitled The Delights of Basel. This music captures the elusive and bittersweet mood of a Europe tentatively groping its way back to normal life, closing with a decidedly wistful evocation of carnival time in the Swiss city of Basel.Music Played in Today's ProgramArthur Honegger (1892-1955): Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 Oslo Philharmonic; Mariss Jansons, conductor; EMI 55122Arthur Honegger (1892-1955): Symphony No. 4 (Deliciae Basiliensis) Lausanne Chamber Orchestra; Jesus Lopez-Cobos, conductor; Virgin 91486

SynopsisIt might seem odd that during his long career, Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály wrote only nine works for orchestra. When someone asked him about this, he replied, “I was busy with more important work: I had to educate a public.”Kodály and his countryman Béla Bartók were pioneers in the collection and study of Hungarian folk music, and, on top of that, his lifelong concern was to instill this rich heritage into the Hungarian people through an extensive and innovative program of musical education.So successful was Kodály that even outside Hungary, the so-called “Kodály method” has been adapted for music education worldwide. Given his tireless educational efforts, it’s surprising he had any time or energy left for composing at all. For example, his started writing a symphony in the 1930s at the request of Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.The Symphony finally received its premiere decades later at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland on today’s date in 1961, and by that time Toscanini had been dead for several years. Even so, Kodály did not forget the original request for the work, and dedicated his only Symphony to the memory of the great conductor.In fact, Toscanini was also responsible for the creation of one of Kodály’s most popular orchestral works: it was at Toscanini’s prompting that Kodály orchestrated his Marosszék Dances, a set of folk tunes he had originally arranged for solo piano. Music Played in Today's ProgramZoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Symphony and Dances of Marosszék; BBC Philharmonic; Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor; Chandos 9811

SynopsisIn the 1930s, American composer Ferde Grofé was on a roll. During the previous decade, as staff arranger for the Paul Whiteman orchestra, Grofé had orchestrated all the music that popular ensemble had premiered, including George Gershwin’s 1924 jazz classic Rhapsody in Blue. But by the late 1920s, Grofé was composing his own original scores, and in 1931 finished his Grand Canyon Suite.Around that time, Grofé left the Whiteman band, and signed on as staff conductor of the NBC Radio Network, and soon became a familiar figure on the American music scene from coast to coast.On today’s date in 1935, a new ballet score by Grofé premiered at the Hollywood Bowl. It took as its story line a familiar Hollywood theme: the exploited “double” who stands in for a starlet during the making of a film. The ballet music was later recast as Hollywood Suite, a concert work. In the 1960s, looking back on his long career in music, Grofé said, “Many of my compositions, I believe, were born of sight, sound, and sensations common to all of us. I think I have spoken of America in this music simply because America spoke to me.” Music Played in Today's ProgramFerde Grofé (1892-1972): Hollywood Suite; Bournemouth Symphony; William Stromberg, conductor; Naxos 8.559017

SynopsisYoung composers who came of age in the 1960s found themselves faced with a question: should they adopt the intellectually fashionable post-serial, atonal style of composition developed by Arnold Schoenberg’s followers, or return to a more accessible and tonal musical language, neo-Romantic, neo-Classical, or Minimalist in nature?For American composer William Bolcom, who turned 20 in 1958, the first option was not appealing. “I had the credentials and the chops to write like that if I wanted to,” he said, “but I said ‘to hell with it.’”According to Bolcom’s teacher and mentor, French composer Darius Milhaud, Bolcom was “as gifted as a monkey.” Bolcom was a fabulous pianist with a passion for American ragtime and popular song, and distinctly American elements and accents crop up in his compositions. Bolcom says he prefers to live, as he puts it, “in the cracks” between opera and musical theater, tonality and atonality, highbrow and lowbrow. Bolcom’s chamber work, Five Fold Five, for example, premiered on today’s date in 1987 at Saratoga Springs, New York, by pianist Dennis Russell Davies and the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. The piece starts off flirting with atonal elements, but ends with something that sounds a lot like boogie-woogie.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Bolcom (b. 1938): Five Fold Five; Detroit Chamber Winds; William Bolcom, piano; Koch 7395

SynopsisThe year 1960 marked the centenary of the birth of composer Gustav Mahler, and British musicologist Deryck Cooke hit upon the idea of preparing a performing edition of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, a work left unfinished at the time of Mahler’s death in 1911. This was a daunting task for two reasons.First, Mahler’s widow, Alma, had resisted efforts for a close examination of his manuscript for his 10th Symphony, as it was peppered with emotionally charged comments to her in Mahler’s hand, painful reminders that her husband had just discovered she was having an affair with another man.Secondly, although Mahler had sketched out his symphony in full, most of it was not orchestrated. Now, he was a master orchestrator, and many argued that only a similarly gifted composer could flesh out his sketches. Schoenberg and Shostakovich were both asked to do so, but both declined.Deryck Cooke, however, persisted, and completed his version of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 in time for some excerpts to be broadcast in 1960. Even Alma was impressed, and eventually relented, and so, on today’s date in 1964, the London Symphony gave the first complete concert performance of Cooke’s arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10.Music Played in Today's ProgramGustav Mahler (1860-1911) arr. Cooke: Symphony No. 10; Berlin Philharmonic; Sir Simon Rattle, conductor; EMI 56972

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1845, the sleepy little German town of Bonn played host to 5000 visitors. These ranged from curious natives and opportunistic pickpockets to famous composers, performers, and music lovers from many countries, including British monarch Queen Victoria and King Wilhelm the IV of Prussia.The occasion? The unveiling of a bronze statue of great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who had been born in Bonn 75 years earlier. A festival of Beethoven’s music was in progress, and German composer Ludwig Spohr conducted Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at the Bonn Cathedral before the unveiling of the statue.For almost a decade, Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt had been tirelessly fundraising for this event and was the largest contributor the Beethoven statue fund.Alas, the local planning committee was totally unprepared for the huge crowd that descended on Bonn, and woefully incompetent in managing just about every aspect of the occasion. How incompetent? Well, consider this: as their majesties Queen Victoria and King Wilhelm the IV of Prussia looked on, with great fanfare the shroud fell from Beethoven’s statue — only to reveal the statue’s back facing the vast assembled crowd.Oops.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Congratulations Minuet; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 453 713

SynopsisIn 1906, Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff had his heart set on turning popular Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Monna Vanna into an opera.Unfortunately, Rachmaninoff began work on Monna Vanna before he had secured the rights to do so. Rachmaninoff had already finished parts of a piano score for his opera when in 1907 he learned that Maeterlinck had granted the rights to another composer. Rachmaninoff was crushed with disappointment and stopped work on his opera, but years later when Rachmaninoff sat down at the piano to play for friends, he would sometimes include melodies from his abandoned project.One of those who heard him play those melodies was the much younger Russian conductor Igor Buketoff, who said he was too embarrassed at the time to ask the composer to identify the unfamiliar music. Decades later, Buketoff was startled to recognize those same tunes as he looked over Rachmaninoff’s unfinished piano score for Monna Vanna, which had ended up at the Library of Congress. Buketoff orchestrated the surviving portions of Rachmaninoff’s opera for their premiere performances, which occurred on today’s date in 1984, at a summertime music festival in Saratoga Springs, New York.Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) arr. Igor Buketoff: Monna Vanna; soloists; Iceland Symphony; Igor Buketoff, conductor; Chandos 8987

SynopsisAugust may seem an unlikely time for Advent music, liturgically speaking, but it was on today’s date in 1992 that a remarkable work entitled Veni, Veni, Emmanuel received its premiere at Royal Albert Hall in London. This was during the 1992 Proms at a concert by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra showcasing the talents of virtuoso Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie.The music with the Advent title was a concerto for percussion and orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan, who explained that the work was started on the first Sunday of Advent in 1991, and completed on Easter Sunday the following year, and based on the ancient Advent Latin plainsong Veni, Veni, Emmanuel or, in its more familiar English translation: O come, O Come Emmanuel.Many of the orchestral works of James Macmillan are based on religious or liturgical themes, a reflection of the Scottish composer’s own deep Catholic faith, and his percussion concerto Veni, Veni Emmanuel was no exception.“There’s very strong and powerful analogies between religion and music, and between music and spirituality,” MacMillan said. “It’s because of those connections that I’m determined to explore what the connections might be and for that reason I’m entirely at ease with giving space in my music for these considerations.”Apparently percussions, orchestras, and audiences are willing to spend some time with MacMillan’s musical considerations. Veni, Veni Emmanuel has been performed over 300 times since its 1992 premiere.Music Played in Today's ProgramJames MacMillan (b. 1959): Veni, Veni, Emmanuel; Evelyn Glennie, percussion; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor; BMG/Catalyst 61916

SynopsisToday’s we tackle a vexing P.C. issue — not “political correctness,” mind you, but “pronunciation correctness,” a passionate matter for classical radio announcers, of course.  Now there was a French composer who lived from 1912 to 1997 whose first name was Jean and whose last name was spelled “F-R-A-N- C cedilla-A-I-X.”Most people pronounce his name “Jean Frahn-SAY,” which has come to be the accepted pronunciation. The problem is that the composer’s family and close friends pronounced it “Frahn-SEX.”Years ago, an announcer at a station in New York requested the definitive answer from the composer himself, and was told, yes, technically it was “Frahn-SEX,” but that he was used to being called “Frahn-SAY” and had given up correcting people, joking that perhaps “Frahn-SAY” sounded more French, or maybe people just didn’t want to say “sex” out loud.This witty composer grew up in a musical family in Les Mans and claimed that by the age of twelve, knew all the piano music from Scarlatti to Ravel.Both Jean Frahn-SEX and Jean Frahn-SAY were very prolific composers of works large and small, including a delightful Symphony in G Major, which premiered on today’s date in 1953 at the summer music festival in La Jolla, California.Music Played in Today's ProgramJean Francaix (1912-1997): Symphony in G Major; Ulster Orchestra; Thierry Fischer, conductor; Hyperion CDA-67323

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1976, the American composer David Del Tredici conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the first performance of Illustrated Alice, Two Scenes from Wonderland. These two scenes would eventually form bookend movements of a much longer Alice Symphony, which premiered 15 years later in August of 1991 at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts.Back in the late 1960s, Del Tredici had become fascinated with the works of Lewis Carroll, whose Alice in Wonderland books have captivated both children and adults for generations.  Del Tredici then devoted the rest of his career to setting Carroll’s creation to music in a series of increasingly tonal works — something that must have come as a surprise to those familiar with his earlier atonal music.“I couldn’t imagine setting a Carroll text to dissonant music,” explained Del Tredici. “Dissonant music can’t possibly project the mood that surrounds Carroll’s writings. In order to create that mood I had to rethink everything I had done up to that time. I had to think about tonality again, not because I was trying to bring back the music of an older period, but because my musical imagination had seized upon that language.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Del Tredici (b. 1937): Acrostic Song; Carol Wincenc, flute; David Del Tredici, piano; Nonesuch 79114

SynopsisSummer music camps offer young talent a chance to rub shoulders with seasoned professional musicians and to perform both old and new musical works. On today’s date in 1977, American composer, conductor and educator Howard Hanson led the premiere of his Symphony No. 7 at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. Hanson subtitled his Seventh A Sea Symphony, and it includes a choral setting of passages from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. For 40 years, Hanson headed the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. And years later, Eastman professor Augusta Read Thomas follows in Hanson’s footsteps as composer-in-residence at various summer music camps. On today’s date in 2001, at the annual Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, her piece Murmurs in the Mist of Memory received its world premiere.Speaking of music in general, Thomas says, “Music of all kinds constantly amazes, surprises, propels and seduces me into a wonderful and powerful journey. I am happiest when listening to music and in the process of composing music. I care deeply that music is not anonymous and generic or easily assimilated and just as easily dismissed.”Music Played in Today's ProgramHoward Hanson (1896-1981): Symphony No. 7 (A Sea Symphony); Seattle Symphony and Chorale; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3130Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964): Wind Dances; Louisville Orchestra; Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor; Albany/Louisville First Edition 010

SynopsisFew 19th-century composers chose their parents as wisely as Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. Papa was a wealthy banker in Berlin who held Sunday afternoon chamber concerts for his musically gifted children at their home. The kids could perform their own pieces, and if young Felix had composed a little symphony for strings, Papa would just hire the necessary musicians to have it performed.In July of 1826, when he was 17, Mendelssohn wrote to a friend, “I have grown accustomed to composing in our garden. Today or tomorrow I am going to dream there A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”Mendelssohn had been reading a German translation of Shakespeare’s comedy, and on today’s date in 1826, completed a concert overture for the play. Felix and Fanny gave the first performance in a two-piano version at one of the family concerts, and a private home orchestral reading followed later.Mendelssohn intended his piece to represent the whole of the drama in miniature. He wrote, “At the end, after everything has been satisfactorily settled and the principal players have joyously left the stage, the elves and fairies bless the house, and disappear with the dawn. So the play ends, and my overture, too.”Music Played in Today's ProgramFelix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, conductor; Teldec 46323

SynopsisIn the summer of 1764, eight-year-old child prodigy Wolfgang Mozart was in England, accompanied by his 13-year-old sister, Nanerl, and their father, Leopold. The Mozarts had arrived in London wearing what back home in Salzburg would have passed as fashionable French-style clothing back home in Salzburg. But since England had just ended the Seven Years War with France, this faux pas resulted in the Mozarts receiving some rude comments and even ruder gestures from London street urchins, so Papa Leopold quickly acquired more “politically correct” attire for himself and the children.On August 5, 1764, the family settled in at a quiet house in Chelsea, as Papa Leopold had taken ill. While his father recovered, Wolfgang was temporarily forbidden to practice piano or make any noise, so he decided to try his hand at writing his first symphony. Perhaps as compensation for having to keep so quiet, Mozart suddenly was keen on writing for as many instruments as possible. As Nanerl later recalled, “While he composed and I copied, he said to me, ‘Remind me to give the horn something worthwhile to do!’”And so, Mozart’s first symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns and strings.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 1; Prague Chamber Orchestra; Charles Mackerras, conductor; Telarc 80256The “bad news” relates to Bach’s previous employer, namely the Duke of Weimar, who was not exactly pleased that Bach had accepted the new job. Court intrigue complicated the matter, and the Prince’s “poaching” of Bach might have been perceived as just another indirect slap at the Duke maneuvered by a long-standing feud between the two noblemen. The upshot was that Bach was put on the Prince’s payroll effective in August of 1717, but the Duke didn’t accept Bach’s resignation until five months later, and then only after throwing Bach in jail for almost a month to teach him a lesson, as the court secretary put it, “for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal.”In an age when Dukes and Princes could do as they pleased, it seems giving two weeks notice was a tad more complicated than it is today!Music Played in Today's ProgramJ. S. Bach (1685 - 1750) — Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 (Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; David Shifrin, cond.) Delos 3185

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2006, at the open-air Tanglewood Festival in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, the Boston Symphony and cellist Yo-Yo Ma premiered Azul (“blue” in Spanish), a new cello concerto by Osvaldo Golijov.Golijov was born and grew up in Argentina, but his background — like his music — is cosmopolitan: his parents were Romanian Jews who immigrated to Argentina, and when he was 23, Golijov immigrated to Israel. Three years later, he came to the U.S. to study with American composer George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, and then settled in Massachusetts.At first, Golijov imagined Azul as evoking his own experiences of hearing bucolic summertime Tanglewood concerts under a canopy of blue sky. But after its premiere, Golijov had second thoughts, and by the time Yo-Yo Ma finally recorded the work 10 years later, Golijov had revised his concerto.  Golijov said he wanted to “earn” its blissful opening mood through a journey backwards through musical time and space, and the revised score backs up the cello with a neo-Baroque continuo comprised of a hyper-accordion (souped up with digital processing) and a battery of exotic percussion instruments like a wind whistle and goat hoof rattle.Music Played in Today's ProgramOsvaldo Golijov (b. 1960): Azul; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; The Knights, Eric Jacobsen, conductor; Warner Classics 9029587521

SynopsisIn the summer of 1941, the winds of war hadn’t yet blown to Pearl Harbor, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and all was pretty much right with the world. The Dodgers were doing well — so well that they would eventually win the pennant, only to lose the World Series to the hated Yankees that October. But in August of 1941, that ignominious defeat was still a few months off, and Brooklyn fans were understandably optimistic.One of them was the American composer Robert Russell Bennett, whose Symphony in D premiered early in August 1941. The composer let it be known that the D stood for Dodgers. Bennett’s Symphony in D for the Dodgers was performed but never published. We’re not sure if the Dodgers’ eventual defeat had anything to do with that — but let the record state the Dodgers eventually did beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series.Another composer and avid baseball fan was John Philip Sousa. Sousa’s march The National Game was composed in 1925 at the request of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, major league baseball’s first high commissioner. In his march, Sousa includes some interesting percussive effects involving, what else, a baseball bat!Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Philip Sousa (1854-1932): The National Game; Royal Artillery Band; Keith Brion, conductor; Naxos 8.559092

SynopsisWhen grandma turns 90, you can bet by her age she’s gotten just about everything imaginable as a birthday gift. That was the quandary facing the Prince of Wales in 1990, when his granny, Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England (the mother of Queen Elizabeth II) — or “The Queen Mum” as just about everybody called her — was about to celebrate her 90th.As Prince Charles wrote, “The idea for a concert came to me when I was trying to think of an original birthday present for my grandmother. It suddenly struck me that here was a wonderful reason for commissioning some new music to celebrate a very special occasion.”Since Charles liked the music Scottish composer Patrick Doyle had written for Kenneth Branagh’s film of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Doyle was asked to write a song cycle. Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich heard about the planned birthday concert, and for his part commissioned British composer David Matthews. Swiss conductor and new music impresario Paul Sacher commissioned a third new work by British composer Patrick Gowers.All three pieces were premiered in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on today’s date in 1990, two days before the Queen Mum’s 90th birthday. Music Played in Today's ProgramPatrick Doyle (b. 1953): The Thistle and the Rose; Marie McLaughlin, sopranoPatrick Gowers (1936-2014): Suite for Violin; Jose Luis Garcia, violinDavid Matthews (b. 1943): Romanza; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; English Chamber Orchestra; Raymond Leppard, conductorAll three pieces on EMI 54164

SynopsisFor many professional musicians, summertime is spent away from home at one or more music camps and festivals. And if the camp or festival just happens to be in a gorgeous mountain or lakeside setting, well, so much the better.Since 1987, musicians have made the climb to scenic Vail, Colorado, at this time of year for the Bravo! Music Festival. And on today’s date in 1993, it was at the Bravo! Festival that a new Concerto for Horn and Strings by the American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich received its premiere.The concerto was a triple commission from the Rochester Philharmonic, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York-based French horn virtuoso David Jolley, who was the soloist for the Vail premiere. Zwilich wrote: “While I think of the solo horn as a heroic figure, I enjoyed the interplay and dialogue between horn and strings and allowed the character and nature of the horn to influence the strings and vice-versa. For me, the combination of solo horn and string orchestra is rich and evocative, as is the unique nature of the horn: its warmth and color, its dramatic legato as well as its pungent staccato, the sheer breadth of its sound.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEllen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Horn Concert; David Jolley, horn; MSU Symphony Orchestra; Leon Gregorian, conductor; Koch 7487

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1938, at the New York Philharmonic’s summertime concert home at Lewissohn Stadium, a 24-year-old American composer named Morton Gould conducted the first performance of his American Symphonette No. 2. The new piece was in three movements, and the second, Pavanne, proved especially popular. It fused elements of jazz in swing time with the form of the old-fashioned courtly dance made famous by Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for Dead Princess. In the published score, Gould spelled Pavanne with two n’s. “At the time I wrote the piece, ’pavane’ was not a well-known word. Those who knew their Ravel could spell and say it right, but the people who knew only mine had difficulty in pronouncing the title. So I decided to use two n’s to give at least some idea of what the phonetic sounds were,” said Gould. For many decades, Gould was much in demand as a conductor and arranger, but writing original music was what he loved best. “Composing is my life blood,” he claimed. “That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life — conducting, arranging, playing piano, and so on — what is fundamental is my being a composer.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMorton Gould (1913-1996): Pavanne, from American Symphonette No. 2; St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; RCA 60778

SynopsisIn the summer of 1829, German composer Felix Mendelssohn was touring Scotland in the company of a friend from Berlin who held a post in London. He saw all the sights: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Inverness, Loch Lomond, and the Hebrides Islands. He was not impressed by the food or friendliness of the somewhat surly natives, but he loved the Scottish scenery. Mendelssohn made a point of paying a courtesy call on the famous novelist Sir Walter Scott, whose Romantic historical tales of love and tragedy were wildly popular throughout Europe in Mendelssohn’s day. And very likely, it was through the Romantic filter of Scott’s novels that Mendelssohn viewed the Scottish landscape. On today’s date, they visited the ruined castle of Mary Queen of Scots, and Mendelssohn wrote back to his family back in Germany: “In darkening twilight today, we went to the Palace of Holyrood where Queen Mary lived and loved. The chapel has lost its roof and is overgrown with grass and ivy, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything there is ruined, decayed and open to the clear sky. I believe that I have found there today the beginning of my Scottish Symphony.” Music Played in Today's ProgramFelix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Symphony No. 3 (Scottish); London Symphony; Peter Maag, conductor; London 466 990

SynopsisAs a young man in his 20s, just starting out on his musical career, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák had a rough time making ends meet. He played viola in a theater orchestra, worked as a church organist, and took on music students.But by the time he hit his 30s, things started to click. His own music, composed in his rare, free moments, was starting to attact attention. The German composer Johannes Brahms took him under his wing and helped Dvořák find a publisher.The year 1878 was a particularly auspicious one for Dvořák. He was in his late 30s, and the publication of his first set of Slavonic Dances for piano four-hands had proven to be something of a smash hit with amateur musicians across Europe. Some of his orchestral and chamber works published that year were also doing very well.Dvořák was approached by the leader of the Florentine String Quartet and asked to write a chamber piece in his popular Slavonic style. The result was his String Quartet No. 10. Dvořák showed it to Brahms, who liked the new work and in turn showed it to some of HIS friends, including Josef Hellmesberger, whose String Quartet was the best in Vienna. But as it turned out, his new quartet was premiered in Berlin, on today’s date in 1879, by the Quartet headed by another of Brahms’ old friends, the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonín Dvořák (1841-1904): String Quartet No. 10; Takacs Quartet; London 466 197

SynopsisIn the decades since its founding in 1920, the annual Salzburg Music Festival in Austria has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the best — and priciest — summertime music venues in the world. The core repertory of the Festival has always been the music of Salzburg’s most famous native son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and other classical and romantic masters from the Austro-Germanic tradition.Fearing that the Salzburg Festival was becoming a bit too conservative and predictable, in the 1990s the festival’s directors began shake things up by including some challenging contemporary classics into the mix. On today’s date in 1997, for example, a car-horn overture signaled the Salzburg Festival premiere of a revised version of György Ligeti’s opera La Grand Macabre.In Ligeti’s opera, the world is fast approaching apocalypse, and the ultimate catastrophe is overseen by a rather ineffectual, and occasionally tipsy Grim Reaper. The libretto is silly and serious at the same time, and was devised by the composer and Michael Meschke, a master puppeteer. For the 1997 Salzburg production, the American director Peter Sellars set the work in a devastated Chernobyl-like landscape contaminated by a nuclear disaster.Music Played in Today's ProgramGyörgy Ligeti (1923-2006): Mysteries of the Macabre, from Le Grand Macabre; Sibylle Ehlert, soprano; Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony 62311

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1941, this notice appeared in the Radio Concerts section of The New York Times, as the 3:00 p.m. listing for New York’s WABC: “Bernard Herrmann directs the Columbia Symphony in the world premiere of his Symphony No. 1.” The notice also offered these words from the 30-year-old composer: “My symphony was written in my spare time during radio and motion-picture commitments.” Herrmann’s Symphony No. 1 was a joint commission by the CBS Network and the New York Philharmonic. Herrmann was a very busy young man much in demand in those days: he had composed and conducted music for Orson Welles’s radio plays, and in 1940 he wrote his first big film score for Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles. In the 1950s and 60s, Herrmann would provide the music for classic Alfred Hitchcock thrillers like Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho. But all that was still off in the future back in 1941 — and it’s possible the overworked Herrmann was a little more distracted than usual when conducted that radio premiere of his new symphony: his wife, Lucille, had gone into labor just prior to the broadcast and gave birth to their daughter two hours after the performance.Music Played in Today's ProgramBernard Herrmann (1911-1975): Symphony No. 1; National Philharmonic; Bernard Herrmann, conductor; Unicorn-Kanchana 2063

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1791 Mozart’s sixth child, christened Franz Xaver, was born in Vienna. Mozart nicknamed the new arrival “Wowi” and everyone said the baby was the spitting image of papa, even down to the distinctive Mozart ears. The baby’s mother, Constanze, claimed her husband predicted the child would become a musician when he noticed that it cried in tune with the music he was playing on the piano. Of Mozart’s six children, only two survived: Franz Xaver and his older brother Carl Thomas, who had no interest in music. Franz Xaver, however, did become a composer and performer, just as his father predicted. Wolfgang Mozart died shortly after Franz Xaver was born, so Constanze enlisted the aid of Haydn, Salieri, and Hummel, as the young boy’s teachers. Franz Xaver Mozart made his concert debut in 1805, and Constanze billed her son professionally as “Wolfgang Mozart II.” Franz Xaver toured widely, but eventually settled in Lemberg, where he remained for almost 30 years before returning to his native Vienna. Although his own music was well received, contemporaries realized Franz Xaver’s talent would never match his famous father’s. When he died in Karlsbad in 1844, his father’s Requiem Mass was sung at his funeral.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Xaver Mozart (1791-1844): Piano Concerto No. 1; Klaus Hellwig, piano; Cologne Radio Symphony; Roland Bader, conductor; Koch-Schwann 311004

SynopsisIn July 1936, this notice concerning an upcoming Hollywood Bowl concert appeared in The Los Angeles Times: “William Grant Still will conduct two of his own works.” The nonchalance of the paper’s music and dance critic overlooked the fact that the occasion marked the first time that an African-American conductor would lead a major American orchestra.On the second half of that July concert in Los Angeles, Still conducted his orchestral piece The Land of Romance, and the “Scherzo” from his Afro-American Symphony. The entire symphony had been premiered in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic — another landmark event, being the first time a symphonic work by an African-American composer was performed by an American orchestra.Meanwhile, at a 1947 outdoor concert in Philadelphia, composer and pianist Duke Ellington joined forces with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra to play his A New World A-Comin’, marking Ellington’s first appearance with a symphony orchestra. It wouldn’t be his last.In 1963, The Symphonic Ellington appeared, an album featuring Ellington and his band in recordings of original compositions recorded in Europe with symphony orchestras from Paris, Stockholm, Hamburg, and the Orchestra of La Scala in Milan.  Music Played in Today's ProgramDuke Ellington (1899-1974) (arr. Peress): New World A-Comin’; Sir Roland Hanna, piano; American Composers Orchestra; Maurice Peress, conductor; MusicMasters 7011

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1938, a new opera by 74-year-old German composer Richard Strauss premiered at the Munich National Theater. It was titled Friedenstag or Peace Day — a rather ironic title, considering that World War II was imminent. The opera takes place during the Thirty Years War in 17th century Germany. The military commander of a besieged town decides to blow the whole place up rather than surrender and is about to do so when he misinterprets a signal and opens the gates, allowing a peaceful takeover. The surprised commander is reconciled to his enemy, and everyone celebrates their deliverance from the horrors of war. Hitler did not attend the Munich premiere, and supposedly thought the historical peace following the Thirty Years War a disaster for Germany. But the opera could be interpreted many ways, and, after the “peaceful” takeover of Austria by Nazi Germany, Hitler did in fact attend the Viennese premiere of Peace Day in 1939. The new opera played in other German opera houses briefly, but after the outbreak of war was quickly dropped. And to this day, depending on whom you ask, Strauss’ ambiguous opera is either a work celebrating peace — or appeasement.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864-1949): Friedenstag; Bavarian Radio Symphony; Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor; EMI 56850

SynopsisToday is National Hot Dog Day, but we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the non-grill variety, namely the Weiner dog or dachshund, a breed beloved of some famous composers and performers. Leonard Bernstein was passionate about the many dachshund he owned, all named Henry, and once on a flight to Paris, booked a seat for a furry passenger named Henry Bernstein.When composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears moved into their house in Aldeburgh, the brick wall surrounding the property soon sported signs in English, German, and Latin, warning “Beware of the Dog,” “Bisseger Hund,” and “Caveat Canem,” lest passersby ankles be savaged by their classically-named dachshunds, Klithe and Jove.  Britten’s friend and frequent collaborator, the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, also a dachshund owner, presented Britten and Pears with an additional warning sign in Russian. We’re told Rostropovich’s miniature, long-haired dachshund, Pooks, upon command, would play the piano with its front paws, then, after the humans’ appreciative applause died down, would walk up and down the keyboard as an encore. “Pooks” even gets a shout-out in Slava!, Leonard Bernstein’s short orchestral tribute to Rostropovich — at one point in the score members of the orchestra are invited call out the talented dog’s name.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Slava! A Political Overture; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Naxos 8.559813

SynopsisThe Latin word “juvenilia” is used for works produced in an artist’s youth. Sometimes, as in the case of Mozart or Mendelssohn, these early works are still worth hearing. Other composer’s juvenilia, such as the early, bombastic concert overtures of Richard Wagner, are seldom granted more than one hearing — if that. Take his “Columbus” Overture; most musicologists — and modern audiences — have decided the title is probably the best thing about that work of the 20-something Wagner. But persistence pays, and some years later, on today’s date in 1844, a 31-year-old Wagner conducted the premiere in Dresden of an overture he wrote that still shows up occasionally on concert programs today. A Faust Overture was originally conceived as the first movement of a Faust symphony Wagner never got around to completing.In his autobiography, Wagner claimed Beethoven as a principal influence, but to modern ears it’s apparent that Wagner had been studying scores by his slightly older French contemporary, Hector Berlioz. Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet Symphony, in particular, seems to have impressed Wagner at the time, and so Wagner’s orchestra recounts the Faust legend with just the slightest hint of a French accent.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813-1883): A Faust Overture; Philadelphia Orchestra; Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor; EMI 56165

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1838, the crew of American ship Otis, docked at a harbor in Venezuela, discovered that one of their passengers had died in his cabin. He was the German inventor and one-time business associate of Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel. Maelzel was born in Regensburg in 1772, the son of an organ builder. Perhaps a childhood spent among the inner workings of pipe organs predisposed him to become an inventor of mechanical instruments. At 20, Maelzel moved to Vienna, and began peddling mechanical organs that could play short tunes by Haydn and Mozart on demand. Maezel didn’t stop there: he invented entire mechanical orchestras and other wonders for display in a museum he opened in 1812. Beethoven even composed Wellington’s Victory, a piece for Maelzel’s mechanical orchestra. The two collaborators soon fell out over who owned what, and Beethoven re-orchestrated Wellington’s Victory for human performers. Maelzel took his contraptions on tour and spent a good deal of his later life exhibiting them in the United States and the West Indies. Today, Maelzel’s musical inventions are regarded as obsolete curios — with one exception: he’s credited with finessing and popularizing the use of the metronome.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Haydn (1732-1809): Flute Clock Pieces; mechanical Flute Clock c. 1800; Candide 31093 (out-of-print LP recording)Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Wellington’s Victory; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 453 713

SynopsisToday’s date marks the premiere of two chamber works from the 1920s, both landmark and transitional works from two of the 20th century’s most influential composers. On this date in 1920, at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet led the first performance of a Grand Suite from Igor Stravinsky’s biting anti-war stage fable The Soldier’s Tale. During and immediately following World War I, Stravinsky had developed a spiky, jagged, and occasionally jazzy style, and music from The Soldier’s Tale is typical of this period. But Stravinsky did a compositional about-face that same year with one of his earliest neo-classical scores: the ballet Pulcinella, based on themes borrowed from 18th century composers. Stravinsky’s neo-classical period would last for another three decades until the 1950s, when he became fascinated with the 12-tone method of composition developed by the Austrian composer, Arnold Schoenberg. And speaking of Schoenberg, on today’s date in 1924, his Serenade received its premiere at the Fourth Donaueschingen Festival in Germany. Serenade was the first work in which Schoenberg employed his strict 12-tone method of composition, avoiding traditional 18th century rules of melody and harmony — and only its Mozartean sounding title could be considered neo-classical.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): L’histoire du Soldat Suite; Harmonie Ensemble; Steven Richman, conductor; Koch 7438Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Pulcinella Suite; Columbia Chamber Ensemble; Sony 64136Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): Serenade; Ensemble InterContemporain; Sony 48463

SynopsisIn 1961, a new and difficult work for strings announced the arrival of a composer with a new and difficult name for non-Polish speakers to pronounce: Krzysztof Penderecki. Having lived as a young man under Nazi occupation and then under Poland’s repressive and ultra-conservative Communist regime, it’s not surprising, perhaps, that as a young composer Penderecki developed an ultra-modern, rebelliously experimental musical style. The success of his “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” made Penderecki famous worldwide. Subsequent choral works, operas, and more experimental orchestral works followed for the next dozen years or so.By 1973, however, he accepted a commission for a symphony and on today’s date that year, Penderercki himself conducted the first performance of his First Symphony, with the London Symphony at Peterbourough Cathedral in central England.  While his First Symphony remained in his aggressively experimental style, Penderecki would go on to write several more, each in much more conservative musical language, influenced by more traditional composers like Bruckner and Shostakovich. "[My composing in this style],” explained Penderecki, “maybe goes a little back in time, but it goes back in order to go forward. Sometimes it's good to look back and to learn from the past."Music Played in Today's ProgramKrzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933): Threnody for the Victims for Hiroshima (National Polish Radio Symphony; Antoni Wit, cond.) Naxos 8.554491Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933): Symphony No. 1 (National Polish Radio Symphony; Antoni Wit, cond.) Naxos 8.554567

SynopsisToday we celebrate the birthday of one of Antonín Dvořák’s composition pupils: Julius Fucik, who was born in Prague on today’s date in 1872. Fucik studied with Dvořák at the Prague Conservatory, where he also took lessons in violin and bassoon — and perhaps only a bassoonist could have conceived of The Old Bear with a Sore Head, a work with a prominent bassoon part.In 1897, he was appointed bandmaster of the 86th Austro-Hungarian Regiment and started writing works for wind band. Fucik’s first appointment with the Regiment took him to Sarajevo, and in 1910 he became bandmaster of the 92nd Regiment stationed at Theresienstadt, or Terezin as the town is now called. In the years before World War I, “Sarajevo” and “Theresienstadt” did not have the ominous connotations of political assassination, concentration camps, and ethnic cleansing they do for us today.Fucik retired from the military in 1913 and died in Berlin in 1916. But speaking of connotations, even if you’ve never heard of Julius Fuick, chances are you’ve heard his Entry of the Gladiators, since it was taken up by American circus bands as the unofficial anthem of life under the big top.Music Played in Today's ProgramJulius Fucik (1872-1916): The Old Bear with a Sore Head; Alan Pendlebury, bassoon; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Libor Pesek, conductor; Virgin 59285Julius Fucik (1872-1916): Entry of the Gladiators; Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra; Frederick Fennell, conductor; Brain 7503

SynopsisToday’s date in 1935 marks the birthday of American composer Peter Schickele, best known for his outrageous musical parodies supposedly penned by the fictional P.D.Q. Bach, the “last and least of the great Johann Sebastian Bach’s 20-odd children, and the oddest.”  Some radio listeners may also have fond memories of the inventive radio series he created, Schickele Mix, dedicated to the proposition “that all musics are created equal.” Schickele was born in Ames, Iowa, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, where he began his study of composition. He later attended Swarthmore College and the Juilliard School, where one of his classmates was fellow composer Philip Glass. It was at Juilliard that Schickele’s talent for parody created the works of P.D.Q. Bach, and these humorous pieces proved so popular at Juilliard concerts that they were eventually presented at Lincoln Center and even Carnegie Hall.The tremendous success of P.D.Q. Bach’s music has overshadowed the more serious concert works written under Schickele’s own name. That’s not to say there’s a lack of wit in Schickele’s “serious” music — far from it. But while P.D.Q. Bach’s works may elicit belly laughs, Schickele’s music can evoke more pensive emotions, not without an occasional smile, of course.Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Schickele (1935-2024): Pentangle (Five Songs for French Horn and Orchestra); Kenneth Albrecht, French horn; Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor; Albany TROY-024

SynopsisFor most music lovers, the towering genius of Johann Sebastian Bach far overshadows all but a handful of other Baroque composers. But in his own time, there were many other composers far more famous than Bach.Take the case of Johann David Heinichen, who was buried in Dresden on today’s date in 1729. At the time, his royal patron, August the Strong of Saxony, made no attempt to fill the vacant post of Dresden court composer because, to his ears, no one could possibly be as good as Heinichen.The great 18th century music historian Charles Burney, impressed by Heinichen’s skill at colorful instrumentation, called him “the Rameau of Germany.” In 1739, ten years after Heinichen’s death, another contemporary music historian coined the phrase “the three H’s” to describe the importance of Hasse, Handel, and Heinichen to 18th century German music. During most of the 19th century, Heinichen’s music lay forgotten in a Dresden Library. Miraculously, these scores survived the Dresden fire-bombing of World War II. In 1993, a recording of some of Heinichen’s Grand Concertos performed by Musica Antiqua of Cologne won — belatedly — several awards and some renewed attention for the long-neglected Johann David Heinichen.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohann David Heinichen (1683-1729): Concerto in C; Musica Antiqua of Cologne; Reinhard Goebel, conductor; Archiv 437 549

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1959, the Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch died in Portland, Oregon, just short of his 79th birthday. Bloch came to America in 1916 when he was 36. His music made an immediate impression, and an all-Bloch orchestral concert in New York presented the premiere of his most famous work, Schelomo, a rhapsody for cello and orchestra titled after the Hebrew name for King Solomon. The success of that concert led to a contract with the publisher G. Schirmer, who published Bloch’s compositions with what was to become a trademark logo — the six-pointed Star of David with the initials E.B. in the center, an imprimatur that firmly established for Bloch a Jewish identity in the public mind.In 1924, Bloch became a naturalized American citizen, and in 1928, he composed an orchestral piece, America, which was selected as the winner of a Musical America competition for the best symphonic work glorifying American ideals. In the 1930s, Bloch returned to Switzerland for a time. However, with the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and Italy, he returned to America and settled in Agate Beach, Oregon where he continued to compose — and took up a new Oregon coast hobby: collecting and polishing agates.Music Played in Today's ProgramErnest Bloch (1880-1959): America; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3135

SynopsisA new guitar concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis received its premiere at a Minnesota Orchestra concert on today’s date in 1999. The idea for this concerto was prompted by a friend of Kernis, guitarist David Tanenbaum, who was looking for a new work for guitar and orchestra that he could pair with the most performed of all such works, Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. For his new concerto, Kernis reworked parts of two earlier works he had composed for Tanenbaum: part of a Partita for solo guitar became the concerto’s opening movement, followed by two movements from 100 Greatest Dance Hits, a Kernis chamber work for guitar and string quartet. The middle movement, “Slow Dance Ballad” is “the kind of music my parents would like — what they hope to find on the radio dial,” says Kernis. In its original form, this movement was titled “MOR, i.e. Middle of the Road: Easy Listening.” The concerto’s finale, “Salsa Posada,” is a Spanish pun referring both to the craze for old-fashioned salsa dancing and the condiment of the same name, perhaps a little “off” or past its prime.Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960): 100 Greatest Dance Hits; David Tanenbaum, guitar; The Chester Quartet; New Albion 083

SynopsisIn 1949, while on his deathbed, German composer Richard Strauss supposedly turned to his beloved daughter-in-law, and said, “Funny thing, Alice. Dying is just the way I composed it in Death and Transfiguration.” Strauss was referring to a tone-poem he had written some 60 years earlier depicting an artist on his deathbed, reviewing his life in art between bouts of an eventually fatal fever. On today’s date in 1951, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg was on his deathbed in Los Angeles — on a Friday the 13th, in fact. Now, Schoenberg had a “thing” about numbers. He developed an atonal 12-tone style of composition, and assigned a mystical, quasi-religious significance to numbers. One might imagine Schoenberg on his deathbed, turning to someone he loved and said, “Funny thing: I’m dying on Friday the 13th at the age of 76, which, numerically speaking, is 7+6, or 13, don’t you see.” We do know that in 1946, after suffering a near-fatal heart attack, Schoenberg wrote a string trio and told his friend Thomas Mann it was a musical representation of both that coronary incident and its subsequent medical treatment, including, at one point, the penetration of a hypodermic needle!Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864-1949): Death and Transfiguration; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 447 422Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): String Trio; Members of the Juilliard String Quartet; Sony 47690

SynopsisAmong the enduring souvenirs of the Paris World Exposition of 1889 was an impressive steel tower designed by Gustave Eiffel. Originally blasted as a grotesque eyesore by leading French artists — including the opera composer Charles Gounod — it was a smash hit with those attending the 1889 Exposition. Another great hit with attendees, including the impressionable French composer Claude Debussy, was the chance to hear exotic music from Java, Siam, and Egypt. Audiences at an orchestra concert at the Exposition’s Trocadero Palace on today’s date in 1889 could have heard — for them — exotic music by several composers from the United States as well. It was something of a milestone in the history of American music.George Whitefield Chadwick’s tone poem Melpomene was one of the works performed in Paris, along with orchestral pieces by Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, Dudley Buck, and John Paine. A perceptive French critic noted at the time there seemed to be a veritable “young American school” of composers, obviously influenced by German models ranging from Mendelssohn to Wagner. “Except for the lack of originality,” concluded the French critic, “the workmanship is serious, correct, solid, and always practical. And these young Americans appeared blessed with much energy.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931): Melpomene Overture; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Jarvi, conductor; Chandos 9439

SynopsisToday’s date in 1977 marks the birth of a composer whose debut release was greeted by critical raves. The New York Times noted “seemingly boundless textural imagination,” and National Public Radio hailed “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music.”  That debut disc was titled Rhízōma, a Greek word meaning “mass of roots.” In botany it refers to a subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots.  The roots and shoots of the composer whose works appeared on that debut seem firmly planted deep in her native Icelandic soil. Her name is Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and it’s not too fanciful to hear in her music the stark beauty of Iceland’s waterfalls, geysers, volcanoes, black sand beaches, and otherworldly lava fields.The opening track on her debut from 2011 was a work for chamber orchestra entitled Hrím, the Icelandic word for “frost.” In an interview Thorvaldsdottir says, “I was making up songs from an early age and studied a few different instruments before I found the cello which I became very passionate about. Then at around 19 years old I started to notate the music I had in my head and have been doing that ever since.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAnna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977): Hrím; Caput Ensemble; Innova 810 (original release) and Sono Luminus Editions 70018

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1942, the RKO studio released the film The Magnificent Ambersons, based on Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel chronicling the declining fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family and the massive social changes in American life caused by the arrival of the automobile.The film was written, produced, directed and narrated by Orson Welles, who hired the great film composer Bernard Herrmann to provide the film’s score.The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. You would think Welles and Hermann would be pleased — but quite the opposite was the case. As conceived by Welles, the film ran 131 minutes, but after unfavorable reactions by a preview audience, RKO took control of the film, cut 50 minutes and rewrote and reshot a more upbeat ending. Half of Herrmann’s score was also cut, and another composer brought in for the new scenes. In disgust, Hermann asked that his name be removed from the film’s credits.Despite RKO’s alteration of its creators’ vision, many still regard The Magnificent Ambersons, as one of the greatest films ever made, thanks to what remained of the original conception by Orson Welles and Bernard Herrmann.Music Played in Today's ProgramBernard Hermann (1911-1975): Pleasure Trip and End Title, from The Magnificent Ambersons original film score; Australian Philharmonic; Tony Bremer, conductor; Preamble CD 1783

SynopsisOn this date in 1842, Felix Mendelssohn presented himself at Buckingham Palace in London as the invited guest of Queen Victoria and the royal consort, Prince Albert. In 1842, Victoria was not the plump matron so familiar from later portraits, but a slim woman of 23. Elegant Prince Albert, a fine amateur musician and composer of some charming songs, was the same age. Mendelssohn himself was 33, although the 20-something Queen wrote in her diary that she thought he looked  “a bit older.” Mendelssohn played some of his Songs Without Words and improvised on “Rule Britannia” and the Austrian National Anthem. Victoria and Albert were impressed, so Mendelssohn was invited back for more visits. Victoria presented him with a ring engraved “V.R. 1842”—the initials standing for “Victoria Regina.” In return, Mendelssohn dedicated to her his newly completed Symphony No. 3, the Scottish Symphony, a work he had begun many years earlier during a walking tour of Scotland during his first visit to Britain. Curiously, although this Scottish Symphony was the fifth and final of Mendelssohn's symphonies to be completed, it was the third to be published, and so has subsequently been known as Symphony No. 3.Music Played in Today's ProgramFelix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Symphony No. 3 (Scottish); London Symphony Orchestra; John Eliot Gardiner, conductor; LSO 765

SynopsisGeorge Percy Aldridge Grainger was born on today’s date in 1882 in Brighton, Victoria. Although he was born in Australia, Grainger died in America at 79, in White Plains, New York, in 1961. Percy Grainger led a long and remarkable life as composer, concert pianist, and educator. He counted among his friends the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and the British composer Frederic Delius, and Grainger shared their enthusiasm for collecting and transforming folk music themes. From 1917 to 1919 he served in the U.S. Army, first playing oboe and saxophone, and later as a band instructor. Country Gardens, a piano setting of a Morris dance tune, was completed during Grainger’s Army years, and became his best-known composition after its publication in 1919. His subsequent work with wind bands culminated in a 1937 folksong suite, Lincolnshire Posy, a work Grainger once described as a “bunch of musical wildflowers.” Grainger idolized Nordic languages and culture and in 1928 Grainger married a Swedish woman, Ella Ström, whom he dubbed his “Nordic Princess,” at a very public ceremony at the Hollywood Bowl concert featuring the premiere of one of his own orchestral pieces titled (what else): To a Nordic Princess.Music Played in Today's ProgramPercy Grainger (1882-1961): Country Gardens; Martin Jones, piano; Nimbus 7703Percy Grainger (1882-1961): To a Nordic Princess; Danish National Radio Symphony; Richard Hickox, conductor; Chandos 9721

SynopsisYou might say that if anyone can claim credit for having written the “soundtrack of our times,” that person would be American composer and conductor John Williams. Somehow, between writing dozens and dozens of film scores for movies ranging from Star Wars to Schindler’s List, and as conductor of the Boston Pops or the Hollywood Bowl, Williams has also found time to conduct other composers’ concert works — and occasionally a few of his own. For example, Williams conducted the premiere performance of his own Cello Concerto, a work composed for Yo-Yo Ma, on today’s date in 1994 at a gala concert opening the new Seiji Ozawa Hall at the Boston’s Symphony summer home in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Williams recalls: “[It] resulted from a suggestion by Seiji that I write a piece for cello and orchestra expressly with Yo-Yo Ma in mind. I had known him for quite a few years before this event. Together we had performed concertos of Elgar, Dvorak, and Haydn, among others, and on several occasions I had accompanied him at the piano. Over the years we’ve become close friends.  Given the broad technical and expressive arsenal available in Yo-Yo’s work, planning the concerto was a joy.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Williams (b. 1932): Cello Concerto; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Los Angeles Recording Arts Orchestra; John Williams, conductor; Sony 89670

SynopsisIn the 18th century, the operas of Mozart were so popular in Prague that their tunes were arranged for small wind bands to play on street corners so musicians could collect the 18th century equivalent of a buck or two tossed into an open instrument case. Now, as popular as contemporary opera composer Aulis Sallinen might be in his native Finland, we doubt the same motivation was at work in the minds of a music foundation in Manchester, England, and the College Band Directors National Association of the United States when they commissioned Sallinen to write a piece for wind band. Sallinen crafted the new work based on tunes from his satirical opera The Palace. The premiere of Sallinen’s Palace Rhapsody was duly given by the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra at the Cheltenham Festival in the U.K. on today’s date 1997. Sallinen freely confessed he was thinking of those wind band arrangements of Mozart when he fulfilled his commission, however, which is not all that surprising, since the libretto for Sallinen’s 20th century opera is somewhat inspired by Mozart’s 18th Century opera, The Abduction from the Sergalio.Music Played in Today's ProgramAulis Sallinen (b. 1935): The Palace Rhapsody; Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic; Ari Rasilainen, conductor; CPO 999972

SynopsisChamber music is defined as “music written for and performed by a small ensemble, with one performer on a part.” The website of a Portland, Oregon, organization called Chamber Music Northwest, once added this description: “Music that is inspiring, stimulating and intensely personal.”On today’s date in 1990, Chamber Music Northwest premiered a quintet for clarinet and strings by the American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, who commented, “In writing chamber music, I am inspired by the electricity of a dialogue among equals. When a performer can be asked to be a brilliant soloist one moment and a responsive partner the next, the possibilities for musical discourse are seemingly endless.” Today’s date also marks the debut of another chamber work given in the Great Northwest: Partita Appassionata, by American composer Stephen Paulus, a work given its premiere by violinist William Preucil and pianist Arthur Rowe at the 1996 Seattle Chamber Music Festival. “One of the joys of writing chamber music is that often the composer also knows the performers. So, not only are you writing a work for an intimate gathering of musicians, but for your friends — and that often encourages a deeper and more meaningful musical dimension,” said Paulus. Music Played in Today's ProgramEllen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Clarinet Quintet David Shifrin, clarinet; Ida and Ani Kavafian, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Delos 3183Stephen Paulus (1949-2014): Partita Appassionata Troy Gardner, violin; Jill Dawe, piano; innova 539

SynopsisIt’s likely you’ll hear a good deal of American music today — and rightly so — but we’re taking a minute or two to acknowledge a special British composer’s anniversary, as today’s date marks the anniversary of the passing of William Byrd, one of England’s greatest composers, who produced both sacred and secular works that are still regularly performed today on both sides of the Atlantic. William Byrd was born in London around 1542 — we don’t know exactly when — and died on July 4, 1623, at the age of some 80 years — a remarkably long lifespan for that time. He was also a remarkably prolific composer, a master of intricate choral counterpoint and virtuosic keyboard pieces. He was the first Englishman to write madrigals in the Italian fashion, but his chief significance lies in his many sacred works. Byrd lived during the tumultuous period of the English Reformation, and produced works for both the Roman Catholic Church and England’s new Anglican service. Queen Elizabeth I was a great admirer of his music, so much so that she overlooked the fact that Byrd remained an unashamed Roman Catholic in Protestant England, and even granted him a royal patent related to publishing music.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Byrd (c. 1540-1623): Sanctus, from Mass for Five Voices; The Cardinall’s Musick; Andrew Carwood; Gaudeamus CD 206

SynopsisRemember Y2K — the Millennial Year 2000? It was a time of extravagant hopes and dire predictions, as pundits and prophets weighed in as the 20th century hastened to its end. Composers weighed in, too. The American Composers Forum and the National Endowment for the Arts collaborated on Continental Harmony, a project that commissioned new musical works for public celebrations in communities large and small in all 50 states. The ambitious commissioning project was even endorsed by the Clinton White House. Premieres of many Continental Harmony commissions occurred on or near the Fourth of July in the year 2000. On today’s date, for example, on the eve of the Fourth, the Richmond Symphony in Virginia premiered From Time to Time: Fantasias on Two Appalachian Folksongs, an orchestra work composed by Anthony Iannaccone, who explained the title of his new piece as follows: “The extraordinary beauty of Virginia and the resilient spirit of its people provided the inspiration for an extended tone poem based first on the folksong ‘Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair’... [and then] ‘Shenandoah,’ presented in fragments … the orchestra extracts the folk melody and recasts it as a kind of Fourth of July fireworks display.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAnthony Iannaccone (b. 1943): ‘From Time to Time’; Janacek Philharmonic; Anthony Iannaccone, conductor; Albany 486

SynopsisNothing is better than being outdoors on a glorious summer’s day listening to live music — at least that’s what American composer Libby Larsen thinks. “I grew up on outdoor concerts,” she recalls. “There was a bandstand by my house in Minneapolis, and all summer long, orchestras and bands would play there. There's something special about being outside and hearing music fill the air with sound.” On today’s date in 1983, Larsen’s own Deep Summer Music received its open-air premiere when the Minnesota Orchestra visited Terrance, a tiny rural community of some 200 people. But their concert drew an audience of 8000, luring music lovers from both Minnesota and neighboring South Dakota, who brought lawn chairs and picnic baskets. Deep Summer Music was written for the occasion, with long trumpet solos that could ring out in the open landscape.At first, says Larsen, she worried the large, festive crowd wouldn’t pay much attention to her new piece. Instead, she recalls, “There was the most beautiful blanket of quiet … and as one trumpet solo happened, a “V” formation of geese flew over and honked, seeming to echo the music. It was a lovely and peaceful experience — and you couldn’t have cued the geese any better!”Music Played in Today's ProgramLibby Larsen (b. 1950): Deep Summer Music; Colorado Symphony; Marin Alsop, conductor; Koch 7520

SynopsisBrowsing The New York Times for today’s date in 1867, under the banner “Amusements,” you would have seen this notice: “Mr. Theodore Thomas, returned home from his trip to Paris and Berlin, will resume personal control of the concerts given by his orchestra at Terrace Garden this evening.” Born in Germany in 1835, Theodore Thomas came to America when he was ten. By his 20s, as a young violinist, he was a major player on the New York music scene, and by his 30s, had his own orchestra.Thomas had a passion for introducing new works to American audiences. For example: Johann Strauss Jr.’s Blue Danube Waltz was played for the first time in Vienna in February 1867, and, thanks to Thomas, just five months later received its American premiere in midtown Manhattan on today’s date that same year. He had picked up the new score in Europe, hot off the presses, and played it at his first concert back home. During his long and energetic musical career in New York, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Chicago, Thomas presented amusing musical bonbons and challenging scores old and new, ranging from Bach to Offenbach, and from Johann Strauss to Richard Strauss. Music Played in Today's ProgramJohann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899): Blue Danube Waltz; Columbia Symphony; Bruno Walter, conductor; Sony 64467

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1826, Franz Schubert completed what would be his last string quartet, published posthumously as his Opus 161.1826 was a rather frustrating year for Schubert. Prospects for commissions didn’t pan out, and he wrote the following note to the oldest publishing house in Germany, Breitkopf & Härtel:“In the hope that my name is not wholly unknown to you, I am venturing to ask whether you would be disposed to take over at a moderate price some of my compositions, for I very much want to become as well-known as possible in Germany. Your selection could be made from the following: songs, strings quartets, piano sonatas, etc. etc. Signed, Franz Schubert, Auf der Wieden #100, in Frühwirth’s house, fifth staircase, second floor — Vienna”The publishing firm responded with a proposal to try out one or two of Schubert’s piano pieces, but as payment only offered him free copies of the printed music. Schubert was definitely not “as well-known as possible” in Germany, and nine years earlier, when he submitted his now-famous setting of Goethe’s poem, “The Erl King” to Breitkopf and Härtel, they confused him with another composer named Franz Schubert who lived in Dresden.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Schubert (1795-1828): String Quartet No. 15; Emerson String Quartet; DG 459 151

SynopsisAmerican composer Joan Tower says explaining her music is “sheer torture for me.” Understandably, she prefers to let her music speak for itself, and many of her works have simple, generic titles like Piano Concerto or Concerto for Orchestra. But audiences generally prefer more evocative titles, and on more than one occasion Tower has provided them. On today’s date in 1985, the Florida Orchestra premiered Island Rhythms, a celebratory work by Tower commissioned for the opening of Tampa’s Harbour Island. Tower suggested that Caribbean music influenced the livelier outer sections of her new piece, and its central, slower section evoked the image of an underwater swimmer rising slowly but steadily towards the light.For the St. Louis Symphony’s oboist, Peter Bowman, Tower composed Island Prelude for solo oboe and orchestra in 1989. When pressed to describe what sort of “island” she had in mind, Tower replied with her usual poetic eloquence: “The island is remote, lush and tropical with stretches of white beach interspersed with thick green jungle. Above is a large, powerful and brightly colored bird which soars and glides, … in complete harmony with its island home.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJoan Tower (b. 1938): Island Rhythms; Louisville Orchestra; Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor; Louisville 6Joan Tower (b. 1938): Island Prelude; Peter Bowman, oboe; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Nonesuch 79245

SynopsisInterest in the life of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has been on the rise since her death in 1954, so it’s not surprising that in 1991 she became the subject of the opera Frida, by American composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez, who was born in San Antonio on today’s date in 1946.Like Kahlo’s paintings, Rodriguez’ opera evokes Mexican folk traditions. As a composer, Rodriguez says he strives “to show how it feels to be alive … I’m also impatient with music that doesn’t laugh — or at least smile — as much as it weeps, sulks, or gnashes its teeth.” Rodriguez also has a wicked sense of humor, and perhaps even a sweet tooth: one of his works is titled Hot Buttered Rumba and another, a setting of texts from a cookbook, is titled Praline and Fudge. Another Rodriguez opera, Tango, is based on newspaper clippings circa 1914, documenting both the dance’s wild popularity and serious attempts in Boston and Rome to have it banned. In one scene, Cardinal Basilio Pompili, Vicar of Rome, delivers a thunderous sermon denouncing the tango — but getting caught up in the tango spirit, starts dancing it in spite of himself.Music Played in Today's ProgramRobert Xavier Rodriguez (b. 1946): Frida and Tango Suites; Voices of Change; Robert Xavier Rodriguez, conductor; CRI 824

SynopsisNo four notes in classical music are more familiar than those that open Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Their powerful psychological resonance has often extended beyond music into overtly political contexts.For example, on today’s date in 1941, the British Broadcasting Company began using those notes as a theme for radio shows beamed across Europe to boost morale during World War II. In Morse Code, the “dit-dit-dit-DAH” that opens the symphony stood for the letter “V,” which in turn stood for “victory.”  At the end of the war, in celebratory radio concerts on V-E Day and V-J Day, Arturo Toscanini conducted performances of Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 5 and No. 3. Some decades later, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was performed at the end of the Cold War, when, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leonard Bernstein conducted moving performances in East and West Berlin utilizing an orchestra with members drawn from Eastern and Western Europe, Israel and the U.S.  For those performances, which were recorded and broadcast around the world, Bernstein asked the chorus to substitute the word “freiheit” (freedom) for the word “freude” (joy) in the choral setting of Schiller’s poem, Ode to Joy, which closes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 5 & Symphony No. 9; Vienna Philharmonic; Simon Rattle, conductor; EMI 57445

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1995, the four members of the Arditti String Quartet entered four helicopters warming up their engines at an airfield in Holland. Followed by video cameras, each player’s image and audio was relayed to huge video displays and loudspeakers on the ground for the mid-air premiere of a work titled — what else — Helicopter Quartet by avant-garde German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Guided by click tracks, the Arditti Quartet coordinated their performance, which was mixed on the ground by the composer for an audience gathered in a concert auditorium during the 1995 Holland Festival.This music, like all the music Stockhausen wrote in the last years of his life, fit into his cycle of seven operas, collectively titled Light. Like Wagner’s Ring operas from the 19th century, Stockhausen’s operas attempted to synthesize world mythology into a visionary program for world salvation.Speaking of Wagner and helicopters automatically calls to mind the scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War film, Apocalypse Now, in which helicopters blare Wagner’s Ride of Valkyries from loudspeakers as they attack. By a bizarre coincidence, Wagner’s opera, Die Walküre, also had its premiere performance on June 26, 1870!Music Played in Today's ProgramKarlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007): Helicoptor Quartet; Arditti Quartet; Discques Montaigne Arditti Edition CD-35

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1910, one week after his 28th birthday, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky attended the premiere performance of his ballet, The Firebird, at the Paris Opera, staged by the famous Ballet Russe ensemble of Serge Diaghilev.Recalling the premiere, Stravinsky wrote: “The first-night audience glittered indeed, but the fact that it was heavily perfumed is more vivid in my memory … I sat in Diaghilev’s box, where, at intermission, a path of celebrities, artists, dowagers, writers and balletomanes appeared … I was called to the stage to bow at the conclusion … I was still on stage when the final curtain came down and saw coming toward me Diaghilev and a dark man with a double forehead whom he introduced as Claude Debussy. The great composer spoke kindly about the music and invited me to dine with him. [Later,] I asked him what he had really thought of The Firebird. He said: ‘Well, one has to start somewhere …’”Stravinsky himself had feared his ballet score would be thought a poor imitation of the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, his great teacher. Nevertheless, The Firebird was Stravinsky’s first big success, and remains one of his best-loved scores.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): The Firebird Ballet; Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, conductor; DG 453 434

SynopsisAccording to the Guinness Book of World Records, the biggest, longest, most massively orchestrated symphony of all time is the Gothic Symphony by British composer Havergal Brian.The symphony was composed between 1919 and 1922, but didn’t receive its first performance until 40 years later, on today’s date in 1961, when Bryan Fairfax conducted it for the first time in Westminster. Five years later, Adrian Boult conducted a performance with the BBC Symphony at Royal Albert Hall in London that created quite a sensation and has been preserved in a recording.Brian was born in 1876 to working class parents. His talent was encouraged his fellow English composers Edward Elgar and Granville Bantock, as well as leading German composer Richard Strauss, to whom Brian dedicated his Gothic Symphony. Despite that, his musical career never caught hold and for most of his life Brian toiled on in obscurity. By the time of his death in 1972, Brian had completed 32 symphonies. Although the BBC had committed to performing all of them, not a note of his music was commercially issued on record during his lifetime, and he died without ever having heard most of his symphonies performed.Music Played in Today's ProgramHavergal Brian (1876-1972): Symphony No. 1 (Gothic); Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra; Ondrej Lenard, conductor; Marco Polo 223280

SynopsisA New Yorker scanning the music pages of the New York Times for June 23, 1940 might have caught a headline announcing a new work by American composer William Grant Still, scheduled for its premiere the following day at an open-air concert by the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium. As bad luck would have it, storm clouds postponed the premiere until June 25.Storm clouds of war were also on the horizon in Europe in 1940, but Still’s new piece dealt with violence of a different sort. And They Lynched Him on a Tree was a choral setting of a poem describing the aftermath of a racially motivated killing.A crowd of 13,000 attended the Lewisohn Stadium program, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Artur Rodzinski, and singers from the New York Schola Cantorum and Wen Talbert Negro Choir.Still was not present; in the summer of 1940 he was writing movie music in Hollywood. In 1943, he would resign from a lucrative studio contract, in part to protest the depiction of African-Americans in the film Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Cab Calloway and Fats Waller. Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Grant Still (1895-1978): And They Lynched Him on a Tree; Plymouth Music Series Singers; Leigh Morris Chorale; Philip Brunelle, conductor; Collins Classics 14542

SynopsisOn this date in 1787, an obituary in London’s Morning Post noted the passing two days earlier of Carl Friedrich Abel, 63, a composer, concert impresario and viola da gamba virtuoso.The viola da gamba was the forerunner of the modern cello. Its heyday was in the 17th century, but soon after the softer-voiced gamba lost out to the more powerful cello. Abel’s obituary remarked: “his favorite instrument was not in general use and would probably die with him.”Well, as usual, the press got it partly right — the gamba did pass out of general use for almost 150 years, but the early music revival in the 20th century has renewed interest in the viola da gamba, and today there’s even new music being composed for this old instrument:  for example, Roy Whelden’s Prelude and Divisions on “She’s So Heavy” — based on the Beatles tune by Lennon and McCartney.Roy Whelden was born in 1950 in New Hampshire. Until 23, his instruments were the trumpet, and secondarily the cello, but he fell in love with the viola da gamba and ended up playing with and composing for period instrument groups like Ensemble Alcatraz and American Baroque.Music Played in Today's ProgramRoy Whelden (b. 1950): Prelude and Divisions on ‘She’s So Heavy’; Roy Whelden, viola da gamba; New Albion 59

SynopsisThere are dozens of famous cello concertos that get performed in concert halls these days, ranging from 18th century works by Italian Baroque master Antonio Vivaldi to dramatic 20th century works of Russian modernist Dmitri Shostakovich.American composer Sean Hickey was commissioned by Russian cellist Dmitry Kouzov to write a new one, which received its premiere performance on today’s date in 2009. “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,” Hickey said. “The Russian orchestra, after rehearsing the piece for days, even picked up on a buried quotation from Shostakovich’s 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,” he concluded. Music Played in Today's ProgramSean Hickey (b. 1970): Cello Concerto; Dmitry Kouzov, cello; St. Petersburg State Symphony; Vladimir Lande, conductor; Delos 3448

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1901, English composer Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his cheery, upbeat, and slightly rowdy Cockaigne Overture, a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society dedicated to his many friends in British Orchestras.Now Cockaigne does not refer to the schedule two narcotic, but rather an old nickname for the City of London, originating in a very old poem about a utopian land where rivers flow with wine and houses are made of cake and barley sugar.Elgar said he wanted to come up with something “cheerful and London-y, stout and steak … honest, healthy, humorous and strong, but not vulgar."The new overture proved an instant hit, and critics of the day compared it favorably to the festive prelude to  Act I of  Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger. Elgar made two recordings of the work, conducting the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra in 1926 and the BBC Symphony in 1933.By chance during that 1933 recording session, as a backup, some takes were cut simultaneously to two separate wax master recording machines from two separate microphones. This enabled engineers many decades later to blend the two simultaneous “takes” into an “accidental stereo” version of the old mono recording.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934): Cockaigne Overture; BBC Symphony; Edward Elgar, conductor; 1933 ‘accidental stereo’; Naxos 8.111022

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1926, avant-garde musical piece Ballet Mechanique, scored for multiple pianos and percussion, had its public premiere at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris. Its composer was a 25-year old American named George Antheil.Antheil’s piece had its private premiere earlier that year at the palatial Parisian home of a very beautiful — and very rich — young American who wanted to break into elite European society. He suggested the lure of cutting edge music and buckets of free champagne would win over her specially invited audience of Parisian blue bloods.Antheil described the scene as follows: “Eight grand pianos filled up the giant living room completely and without an extra inch of room, while the xylophones and percussion were located in the side room and on the giant staircase. [The conductor] stood at the top of the piano in the center. To this already jammed-packed house, add 200 guests!”Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the champagne, but it did the trick. “The last we saw of our beautiful young hostess that day,” Antheil recalled, “she was being thrown up and down in a blanket by two princesses, a duchess and three Italian marchesas.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Antheil (1900-1959): Ballet Mecanique; Ensemble Modern; H.K. Gruber, conductor; RCA 68066

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1985, a brand-new piece of music had its premiere in a brand-new concert hall in Minnesota. American composer Paul Fetler wrote his jaunty Capriccio to celebrate both the first concert of the seventh season of conductor Jay Fishman’s Minneapolis Chamber Symphony and the new Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, which had opened its doors to the public that year.“When Jay Fishman commissioned me to compose a dedicatory work for their opening concert, I immediately thought of a composition which would be light-hearted, buoyant, and playful,” Felter wrote, “I felt for once that the ‘serious’ contemporary music scene (which I often find to be super serious) could stand a bit of contrast. Perhaps the time is ripe to have a few pieces which are less ‘profound,’ something with the flair of Rossini to divert the listener from the daily burdens of life.”He concluded: “There is no story behind the Capriccio, but the whimsy and playfulness are intended to suggest a musical caper of a kind. To bring this out, I made primary use of the woodwinds, in particular the flute and piccolo, with their skips, runs, and arpeggios.”Music Played in Today’s ProgramPaul Fetler (1920-2018): Capriccio; Ann Arbor Symphony; Arie Lipsky, conductor; Naxos 8.559606

SynopsisAs Leipzig’s chief provider of both sacred and secular music, Johann Sebastian Bach probably gave a huge sigh of relief on today’s date in 1733.The death of Imperial Elector Friedrich Augustus the First of Saxony earlier that year had resulted in a four-month period of official mourning, which meant NO elaborate sacred music at Bach’s Leipzig churches, and certainly no frivolous secular concerts with the Collegium Musicum, an orchestra of professionals and amateurs that Bach assembled periodically at Zimmermann’s coffee house in that city.Finally, Frederich’s successor said, “Enough was enough,” and this notice appeared in a Leipzig paper:“His Royal Highness and Electorial Grace, having given kind permission for the [resumption of] music, tomorrow, on June 17, a beginning will be made by Bach’s Collegium Musicum at Zimmermann’s Garden, at 4:00 in the afternoon, with a fine concert. The concerts will be weekly, with a new harpsichord, such as had not been heard there before, and lovers of music are expected to be present.”So it’s not hard to imagine Bach at Zimmermann’s giving the downbeat to put the new instrument through its paces in one of his own harpsichord concertos.Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750): Harpsichord Concerto No. 4; Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord; Leonhardt Consort; Telefunken 97452

SynopsisToday we celebrate Francis Johnson, born in Martinque in the West Indies on today’s date in 1792. He emigrated to Philadelphia in 1809 at 17. As a teen, Johnson was a master of the violin and the keyed bugle, an early precursor of the trumpet. By his 20s, he was a popular bandleader around Philadelphia.Johnson experimented with various combinations of strings, winds and brass, and composed over 200 arrangements and original works in the popular forms of the day. In 1817, he became the first Black composer in America to have his music published.Johnson’s band toured here and abroad, and, in 1837, played before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. The young queen was so impressed that she gave Johnson a silver bugle as a memento.Besides entertaining white audiences abroad, Johnson performed at African American churches in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. In 1841 he organized a performance of Haydn’s Creation at the First African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.Francis Johnson died in 1844 in Philadelphia at 52. During his funeral march, hundreds of mourners, including his brass band, followed his casket, on which his silver bugle was placed.Music Played in Today's ProgramFrancis B. Johnson (1792-1844): The Philadelphia Gray’s Quickstep; Symphony Orchestra of America; Matthew Phillips, conductor; Albany TROY-103

Synopsis“Listening to inner voices” is a phrase that can mean a lot of things.For violists, providing those inner voices, musically speaking, is their daily bread and butter. In the modern orchestra, the viola provides the alto voice in the string choir, filling in harmonies and musical lines between the violins on top and the cellos and double basses on the bottom.But (unfortunately) occasionally violists like to step forward, front and center, as soloists. And some composers have shown a special fondness for the viola’s distinctive dusky color.According to American composer David Ward-Steinman, that color might well be likened to cinnabar, the ore of mercury, a crystallized reddish-brown mineral with flashes of quicksilver. Asked to write a solo for the 19th Annual Viola Congress held at Ithaca, New York, Ward-Steinman’s Cinnabar for solo viola and piano premiered on today’s date in 1991. David Ward-Steinman served as Composer-in-Residence at San Diego State University for many years. His own teachers included Wallingford Riegger, Darius Milhaud, Milton Babbitt, and Nadia Boulanger. Ward-Steinman’s catalog of original works ranges from solo pieces and chamber works like Cinnabar, to large-scale theatrical scores and ballets.Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Ward-Steinman (1936-2015): Cinnabar; Karen Elaine, viola; David Ward-Steinman, piano; Fleur de Son 57935

SynopsisBernstein, Blitzstein and Brecht … it sounds a little like a law firm, doesn’t it?But today, we celebrate the anniversary of an important musical partnership involving those three gentlemen.Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein were two American composers who shared a passion for musical theater. Bertolt Brecht was a German poet and playwright perhaps best known here for his collaboration with the composer Kurt Weill on The Three Penny Opera.The artistic careers of Bernstein, Blitzstein and Brecht came together on today’s date in 1952, when, as part of the First Festival of the Creative Arts held at Brandeis University, Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere of a new English-language version of Three Penny Opera.Blitzstein had seen the original 1928 production of Three Penny Opera when he was a student in Berlin, and some 20 years later had translated one of the show’s songs just for fun. He got the chance to perform his translation for Kurt Weill, and Weill was so impressed he encouraged Blitzstein to translate the entire work.The Blitzstein version of the Three Penny Opera proved so successful that when it opened in an off-Broadway New York production, it ran for 2,707 performances.Music Played in Today's ProgramKurt Weill (1900-1950): Little Threepenny Music; London Symphony members; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; CBS 44529

SynopsisOn this date in 1908, Thomas Greene Wiggins died in Hoboken, New Jersey at 59. Known as “Blind Tom Wiggins,” he was one of the most celebrated — and cruelly exploited — Black concert performers of the 19th century. Born enslaved in Georgia in 1849, Wiggins and his parents were offered for sale in an ad reading: “Price: $1,500 without Tom, $1,200 with him.” They were purchased by Georgia anti-abolitionist newspaper editor, James Bethune, who noticed the blind boy’s uncanny ability to mimic the sounds he heard played on the family’s piano. At five, Tom was playing original music of his own and was exhibited as a child prodigy by Bethune throughout Georgia. During the Civil War, Tom played only in Southern states, earning his owner more than $100,000 a year. In the Antebellum years, he toured extensively here and abroad.In addition to his own compositions, Wiggins played classical selections like Bach and Beethoven. Despite emancipation, Tom, who was perhaps autistic, remained a ward of and virtually indentured to the Bethune family for 38 years. By 1903, he was performing on the vaudeville circuit in New York and New Jersey before suffering fatal stroke in 1908.Music Played in Today's ProgramThomas Greene ‘Blind Tom’ Wiggins (1849-1908): The Battle of Manassas; John Davis, piano; Newport Classics 85660

SynopsisThere’s a long list of composers ranging from Vivaldi to Messiaen who have incorporated bird song into their musical works. Today we make note of one of them.On this date in 1893, great Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was vacationing with his family in Spillville, Iowa, spending the hot summer months with a small Czech community who had settled along the banks of the Turkey River. Dvořák liked to walk along the river listening to the birds, who, he said, helped him come up with musical ideas — ideas he would scribble in pencil on his stiff white shirt cuffs. Dvořák’s son, Otakar, eight years old at the time, reports that on June 12, 1893, a fishing trip along the Turkey River was cut short, much to his annoyance. When Otakar asked why, his father said simply: “My cuff is already full of notes — I’ve got to get home and copy them down.”In less than a week, Dvořák finished what would become one of his best-known and best-loved works — a string quartet in F Major nicknamed the American Quartet. The scherzo movement even includes a musical quotation from a particularly persistent American bird whose song Dvořák found a bit distracting.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonín Dvořák (1841-1904): String Quartet (American); Vlach Quartet; Naxos 8.553371

SynopsisOn this date in 1970, the New York Philharmonic, led by Andre Kostelanetz, introduced the world’s largest vocal soloists in the premiere performance of And God Created Great Whales, by American composer Alan Hovhaness.The New York Times review found the music accompanying the recorded songs of whales “fairly inconsequential,” but pleasant enough. “Faced with such an irresistible soloist, Mr. Hovhaness must have suspected he would be harpooned. But with his customary skill, he put up a battle … conjuring up the sea by unmeasured bowing and overlapping patterns and setting brass and percussion to echoing the real thing,” the review continued. Hovhaness died June 21, 2000 at 89, having written over 500 works, including 67 symphonies. He once said, “I’m very happy if somebody else likes [my music], but I don’t mind if anybody doesn’t, and I don’t have any respect for critics.”Hovhaness did have his champions, like conductor Leopold Stokowski, who asked for a new symphony in the early 1950s. He said Stokowski asked him to give it a title, since people liked titles, so Hovhaness called the symphony Mysterious Mountain. Stokowski was pleased — and right. Mysterious Mountain went on to become Hovhaness’s best-known work.Music Played in Today's ProgramAlan Hovhaness (1911-2000): And God Created Great Whales; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos DE-3157

SynopsisWynton Marsalis says it all began with a dare in the 1990s from German conductor Kurt Masur, then Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. “He came to a concert of mine when I was like 28 or 29, and said he wanted me to write for the New York Philharmonic. I started laughing like, man, I have never even written for a big band,” Marsalis said. Well, since then, jazz trumpeter Marsalis has written more than one work for a big bands like the New York Philharmonic, and in 2010 that ensemble, along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony, and the Berlin Philharmonic commissioned his Symphony No. 3 (Swing). It was the Berlin Philharmonic who gave the first performance of the work, and on today’s date in 2010, encored their premiere on the internet.Marsalis said, “Swing to a jazz musician means coming together, and in this case it’s about two orchestras coming together.” Marsalis included parts for himself and his jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in his new score, in contrast — and in harmony — with the forces of a traditional symphony orchestra.Music Played in Today's ProgramWynton Marsalis (b. 1961): Symphony No. 3 (Swing); Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra; St. Louis Symphony; David Robertson, conductor; Blue Engine Records BE-0017

SynopsisThe name Charles A. Lindbergh will forever be associated with two dramatic events: the first, Lindbergh’s historic nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in the airplane The Spirit of St. Louis; the second, the kidnapping and murder of his infant son.On today’s date in the year 2002, marking the centennial of Lindbergh’s birth and the 75th anniversary of his Atlantic crossing, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis premiered the opera Loss of Eden, a musical reflection on Lindbergh’s public triumph and personal tragedy.Composer Cary John Franklin reworked themes from his opera into a chamber piece for oboe and guitar, Falls Flyer. The title refers to both Lindbergh, who was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, and to the line of speedboats marketed under that name from the 1930s to the 1950s, whose sleek lines were modeled after the open cockpit of Lindbergh’s first plane.Franklin wrote, “Falls Flyer is derived from music that accompanies the major dramatic moments of the opera — the plane departing for Paris, the kidnapping, and the execution of the man convicted of the crime. The more lyrical sections suggest the serenity and solitude found floating through clouds — or drifting on the water.”Music Played in Today's ProgramCary John Franklin (b. 1956): Falls Flyer; Klemp-Kachian Duo; Schubert Club/Ten Thousand Lakes 115

SynopsisAmerican composer Elliott Carter lived to be 103, completing more than 40 works between ages 90 and 100, and 20 more after he turned 100 in 2008.On today’s date in 2012, a new chamber work by Carter with an odd title was premiered at a concert in the New York Philharmonic’s CONTACT! Series. Two Controversies and a Conversation 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 work, titled simply Conversations, had been premiered in the U.K. the previous year. The composer explained the title as follows: “How does one converse?” Carter asked. “One person says something and tries to get the other person to respond, or carry on, or contradict a statement. Those conversing are also playing a kind of game with each other. I tried to put all that into my music … after the [Aldeburgh] premiere of Conversations, [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 ProgramElliott Carter (1908-2012): Conversation, from Two Controversies and a Conversation; Eric Huebner, piano; Colin Currie, percussion; New York Philharmonic; David Robertson, conductor; NYP 20120112

SynopsisIt was on today’s date in 1922 that English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams conducted the American premiere of his Symphony No. 3 (Pastoral) at the Litchfield County music festival in Norfolk, Connecticut. It was his first trip to the U.S., and he reacted to American landscapes and customs with wonder and amusement. He found the Woolworth building in New York more impressive than Niagara Falls, writing to his friend Gustav Holst, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the Works of Man terrify me more than the Works of God.” He was also bemused by America’s summertime fondness for chicken salad, which he called “beyond powers of expression.” As for the premiere American performance of his Pastoral Symphony, he reported it had been “excellent.” Vaughan Williams would return to the United States twice more before his death in 1958. By that time his music had become very popular in American. George Szell in Cleveland, Rafael Kubelik in Chicago, and Dimtri Mitropoulos in New York were all in heated competition to secure rights to the American premiere of his Symphony No. 7, for example. Spoiler alert: Kubelik and the Chicago Symphony won out.Music Played in Today's ProgramRalph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): Symphony No. 3 (Pastoral); Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; Kees Bakels, conductor; Naxos 8.550733

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1885, George Bernard Shaw had these thoughts after a performance of Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni:“A century after Shakespeare’s death, it was fashionable to ridicule the pretensions of the author of Hamlet to intellectual seriousness and to apologize for his childishness. At present, a century after Mozart’s death, we have among us those who hold [similar views] of the composer of Don Giovanni. Now the truth about Shakespeare was never forgotten — never even questioned by the silent masses who read poetry, but skip notes, comments, and criticism … and the masses are similarly sound on the subject of Mozart, shown by the fact that Mozart will still draw a house when nothing else will.”Today, Shaw is chiefly remembered as a playwright, but his collected music criticism fills three stout volumes.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Don Giovanni; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon 419635Frederick Loewe (1904-1988): My Fair Lady; Original Soundtrack Recording; Sony 66711

SynopsisIn the 19th century, young, Boston-born American composer and pianist William Mason made a point of tracking down and visiting the most famous European composers of his day, including a politically controversial German named Richard Wagner, who was then living in exile in Zurich.The meeting took place on today’s date in 1852, when Mason was in his twenties, and the 30-something Wagner was just beginning to work on his epic cycle of operas entitled The Ring of the Nibelungen.“At that time, I had heard only The Flying Dutchman, but considered it a most beautiful work, and was eager to meet the composer,” Mason wrote. Wagner found the young American to be genial company for a few hours, during which (not surprisingly) Wagner did most of the talking. As a souvenir, Wagner presented his young American visitor with a few bars of music inscribed: “If you ever hear anything of mine like this, then think of me.”About quarter of a century later, in 1876, Mason did think of Wagner and that June afternoon when he heard his souvenir come to life as the ominous dragon motive heard at the opening of Siegfried, the third opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813-1883): Act I Prelude, from Siegfried; Vienna Philharmonic; Georg Solti, conductor; London 414 110

SynopsisIn the summer of 1853, Johannes Brahms had just turned twenty and was touring as the piano accompanist of 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, like Mendelssohn and Rossini. Now, in 1853, Brahms was not yet as famous, 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 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, and second, the melody Brahms jotted down in 1853 showed up again in the second movement of his Horn Trio, published 12 years later.Finally, there was a dispute about who had rediscovered the long-lost score: the auction house had the manuscript authenticated in 2011, but in 2012 British conductor Christopher Hogwood claimed he had discovered it while doing other research.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): Albumblatt (1853); Sophie-Mayuko Vetter, piano; Hännsler 98048

SynopsisLong before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker.  She was born Freda Josephine McDonald on today’s date in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. At 15, she talked her way into the chorus line at a local vaudeville theater; from there headed first to New York at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, and then on Paris and the Folies Bergère, where as a singer and dancer she quickly became a sensation. By that time, Freda Josephine McDonald had reinvented herself as Josephine Baker. She was for Parisians the embodiment of the Jazz Age, the “Black Venus,” and the hippest American on the planet.  She became a naturalized French citizen, married a wealthy French industrialist, and raised her 12 adopted children in France. In one of her most famous songs, she sang, “I have two loves, my country and Paris,” and proved as good as her word when during World War II she aided the French resistance. As she refused to perform for segregated audiences in America, she chose to remain in Europe.American composer Valerie Coleman attempted to capture something of the many facets of this remarkable woman and her journey from St. Louis to Paris in her wind quintet, Portraits of Josephine. Music Played in Today's ProgramValerie Coleman (b. 1970): Thank You Josephine (J’ai Deux Amours), from Portraits of Josephine; Imani Winds; Koch KIC-7696

SynopsisToday we remember two famous French composers, both organists, who came to dramatic ends in the month of June. On June 2, 1937, while playing his 1,750th recital at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, Louis Vierne suffered a sudden and fatal stroke, dying in the organ loft in the presence of one of his most promising pupils, Maurice Duruflé.Vierne was born nearly blind, but his exceptional musical ability eventually led to studies with the two greatest French organ composers of the 19th century, César Franck and Charles-Marie Widor. The piece that the 66-year-old Vierne was playing when he collapsed at Notre-Dame had the morbidly apt title Memorial for a Dead Child.Three years later, on June 20, 1940, another talented French organist and composer, Jehan Alain, was killed in action during the World War II.Alain’s compositions were considered experimental in both rhythm and modes. Even so, he had just won the French Premier Prix for organ in 1939 when the war broke out and he was called up for active service. Following the Battle of Saumur, his body was found by the roadside, with some of his music manuscripts scattered in the wind.Music Played in Today's ProgramLouis Vierne (1870-1937): Carillon de Longpont; Richard Proulx, organ; Sacred Heart 101Jehan Alain (1911-1940): Litanies; Carlo Curley, organ; Argo 430 200

SynopsisIn 1891, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was earning about $3000 a year teaching at the National Conservatory of Prague. Jeannette Thurber, the wealthy founder of the National Conservatory of New York offered Dvořák five times his Prague salary to come to America, where his teaching load would be significantly less.Even so, Dvořák was reluctant to leave his native land, but his wife suggested the family should vote on Thurber’s offer. Dvořák’s son, Otakar recalled the vote “for” America wasn’t unanimous but did prevail, so papa signed the contract — then let it sit on his desk until Mom took matters in her own hand — literally — and posted it back to America. Dvořák followed in due course.On today’s date in 1893, Dvořák wrapped up his first academic year in America by signing a receipt for his May salary before setting off with the family for a summer vacation in the Czech-speaking settlement of Spillville, Iowa. No doubt he would be astonished to learn that in our time a dealer in celebrity signatures put that receipt up for sale. The salary stub was for $937.50. The asking price for the yellowed slip of paper bearing Dvořák’s signature? $2750!Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonín Dvořák (1841-1904): String Quintet No. 3; Vlach Quartet; Naxos 8.553376

SynopsisIt’s an old story: a talented performer sacrifices everything, including his integrity, his happiness, his friends and even his lover to climb to the top, only to realize (too late!) what he has sacrificed along the way. Yes, thanks to countless Hollywood “show-biz” films, the basic outline is familiar, and, whether based on fact or fiction, has resulted in countless movies: some memorable, some not.In 1991, a French film was released that combined a little fact — and a lot of fiction — to tell the story of 17th century performer and composer Marin Marais, who was baptized in Paris on today’s date in 1656.Marais was a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, an early ancestor of the modern cello. Sparked by the period-instrument movement of the late 20th century, interest in Marais’ music had been growing for some time before the release of the film, which was titled Tous les Matins du Monde, which translates as “all the mornings of the world [leave] without [ever] returning.”Well, it does sounds a lot better in French, and whether or not the film tells the truth about Marais, it does conjure up some haunting images as a backdrop for some equally haunting music from the 17th century.Music Played in Today's ProgramMarin Marais (1656-1728): The Bells of St. Genevieve; Spectre de la Rose Ensemble; Naxos 8.550750

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1899, English composer Frederick Delius mounted at his own expense an all-Delius concert in London, performed by a hand-picked orchestra and well-rehearsed chorus.Although born and raised in England, Delius had been living as an expat in Europe, so this concert would be the first opportunity for British audiences to hear his music. The opening work on the program, Over the Hills and Far Away, could just as well have described the 37-year old composer’s prior career to the Brits.The good news was the concert was a great success, with one critic stating “a composer wholly unknown to this country burst upon us with something like the astonishing effect of an unexpected thunderstorm.”The bad news was almost immediately after the concert, Delius returned to France. The concert’s organizer wrote to him, “I was extremely sorry that you had to go … It was a business mistake, as you would have been the lion of the season … and would have made many useful musical and moneyed friends.”In fact, it wasn’t until 1907 that the musical and moneyed British conductor Thomas Beecham would discover and champion Delius’s music in his own homeland.Music Played in Today's ProgramFrederick Delius (1862-1934): Over the Hills and Far Away; Royal Philharmonic; Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor; EMI Classics 94653 and Warner Classics 47509

SynopsisIn all, American composer Henry Cowell composed 20 symphonies, and left sketches for a 21st. On today’s date in 1954, the Louisville Orchestra gave the premiere of Cowell’s Symphony No. 11 (The Seven Rituals of Music).“There are seven rituals of music in the life of man from birth to death,” so Cowell explained in program notes. He said that these musical rituals included work, play, dance, love, and war, bracketed by the mysteries of birth and death.Although interest in Cowell’s music has risen steadily since his death in 1965, performances of his symphonies are still rare events. Part of the problem lies in the eclectic range of styles to be found in his music. There is, for example, a Cowell Gaelic Symphony, another Icelandic Symphony, and yet another, influenced by Indian ragas and talas, the Madras Symphony.This didn’t bother Cowell at all. As he once explained, “I have never deliberately concerned myself with developing a distinctive personal style, but only with the excitement and pleasure of writing music as beautifully, as warmly, and as interestingly as I can.”Music Played in Today's ProgramHenry Cowell (1897-1965): Symphony No. 11 (Seven Rituals of Music); The Louisville Orchestra; Robert S. Whitney, conductor; First Editions 0003

SynopsisIf you wanted to make up a name for a patriotic conductor, bandmaster, impresario, and music publisher from the era of the American Revolution, you probably couldn’t top the name Josiah Flagg.Believe it or not, a real-life Colonial-Era musician named Josiah Flagg was born on today’s date in 1737, in Woburn, Massachusetts.He was a business associate of the legendary Paul Revere, who engraved the plates for Flagg’s first big collections of hymn-tunes, published in 1764. Although the music was all by a British composer, it was — symbolically — the first to be printed on American-made paper.Acting as an impresario, Flagg also organized concerts in Boston for about a decade and gave some of the first Boston performances of music by George Frideric Handel.In the fall of 1773, Flagg presented a gala concert at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, which proved to be his last. He included excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, but closed with his band’s rendition of the “Song of Liberty,” the marching hymn of the Boston patriots.Soon after, Flagg moved to Providence, served as a colonel in the Rhode Island regiment during the American Revolution, and disappeared from our early music history.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Greenwood The Hessian Camp First Michigan Colonial Fife and Drum Corps Private releaseG.F. Handel (1685 – 1757) Water Music English Concert; Trevor Pinnock, cond. DG 439 147

SynopsisMany baby boomers confess their introduction to classical music was via classic Warner Brothers Loony Tunes cartoons featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny. Okay, in those cartoons, classical music was parodied, but it was done with great wit and affection — and the tunes in those ‘toons stuck in your memory.Well, on today’s date in 2020, a new series of Looney Tunes cartoons began streaming online with the launch of HBO Max. Bugs was back, and so were the parodies of classical music.Joshua Moshier was one of the composers charged with scoring those new Looney Tunes. “It was certainly intimidating,” he said in an NPR interview. “There are cartoons like the Road Runner and the Coyote where there’s no dialogue except for a few ‘meep meeps’. But then you realize, ‘Oh — the dialogue is the music.’ The Coyote’s dialogue is the low meandering bassoon. For the Road Runner we referenced ‘The Dance of the Comedians’.”“Looney Tunes … are caricatures,” Moshier said, “and that allows the music itself to be a caricature. It’s a joy [for a composer] to participate in the comedy in such an overt way and be part of what’s making people laugh.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJoshua Moshier (b. 1986): Excerpts from ‘Buzzard School,’ and ‘TNT Trouble’; Studio orchestra; Joshua Moshier, conductor; From ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons Original Soundtrack: Music by Joshua Moshier and Carl Johnson’ digital albumCarl Stalling (1891-1972): ‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down’ (arr. Carl Johnson); Studio orchestra; Carl Johnson, conductor; From ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons Original Soundtrack: Music by Joshua Moshier and Carl Johnson’ digital album

SynopsisBritish poet Rudyard Kipling wrote: “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”But on today’s date in 1963, East did meet West at the premiere performance of a musical work by the American composer Lou Harrison, Pacifika Rondo Written for an Orchestra of Western and Oriental Instruments, at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii.For Lou Harrison, it was just one more stop on a journey he had begun decades earlier.In the spring of 1935, when he was a teenager, Lou Harrison enrolled in a course called “Music of the Peoples of the World” at the University of California extension in San Francisco. The course was taught by American composer Henry Cowell, who became Harrison’s composition teacher. Cowell urged his pupils to explore non-Western musical traditions and forms. Javanese gamelan music became a big influence in Harrison’s music, and, in 1961-62, a Rockefeller Foundation grant made it possible for him to study Asian music in Korea.The movements of Harrison’s “Pacifika Rondo” refer to various sections of the Pacific Basin.“In composing Pacifika Rondo,” wrote Harrison, “I have thought, with love, around the circle of the Pacific.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLou Harrison (1917-2003): Pacifica Rondo; Oakland Youth Orchestra; Robert Hughes, conductor; Phoenix 118

SynopsisIn 1967, the Beatles released a song about “a girl with kaleidoscope eyes,” but on today’s date in 1870, it was “a girl with enamel eyes” that was the subject of a ballet that debuted on today’s date at the Paris Opéra.The ballet’s full title was Coppelia, or the Girl with Enamel Eyes, and its story-line was based on a fantastic tale by German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, dealing with the mad toymaker Dr. Coppelius, his uncannily lifelike doll Coppélia and the complications she causes in the love life of a small Polish village.The music was provided by a 30-something French composer named Leo Delibes. Coppelia was a great success, much to Delibes’ relief. He had been juggling several jobs in Paris, but the new ballet’s financial success allowed him to concentrate on composing as his main career from then on.Delibes followed up on the success of Coppelia with another ballet, Sylvia, in 1876, and, in 1883, his opera Lakmé premiered at the Opéra-Comique.Along with the famous ballets of Tchaikovsky, Delibes’ Coppelia is now regarded as the culmination of the 19th century Romantic ballet.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeo Delibes (1836-1891): Coppelia; Lyons Opera Orchestra; Kent Nagano, conductor; Erato 91730

SynopsisIn 1895, H.G. Wells published The Time Machine, a sci-fi classic that fired the imagination of Victorian readers. How fantastic it would be to be able to experience past, present, and future at will!Well, on today’s date in 2019, Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir invited the audience at that year’s Point Music Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, to experience past, present and future all at once via the premiere of an orchestral work she titled Aiōn, after the ancient Greek god of time.The title is a metaphor, as Thorvaldsdottir put it, “connected to a number of broader ideas: How we relate to our lives, to the ecosystem, and to our place in the broader scheme of things, and how at any given moment we are connected both to the past and to the future, not just of our own lives but across — and beyond — generations.”At the 2019 premiere, dancers from the Iceland Dance Company moved in and around the players of the Gothenburg Symphony, creating striking visuals to accompany music one reviewer described as “weirdly unearthly, or awesome with oceanic majesty,” and another suggested that “[Aiōn] has the same archaic brutality as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAnna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977): Aiōn; Iceland Symphony Orchestra; Eva Ollikainen, conductor; innova 810 (original release) and Sono Luminus 92268

SynopsisIn 1805, a 56-year-old Italian man of letters immigrated to America.Now, there wasn’t much call for Italian men of letters in America in those days, so over the next twenty years, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, he was, by turns, a grocer, distiller, seller of patent medicines and owner of a dry goods shop. Eventually he was offered an honorary — that is to say unsalaried — position as Professor of Italian at Columbia University.In 1825, a troupe of Italian opera singers visited New York, and our Italian professor friend attended their performances. He introduced himself to the head of the troupe, famous singer Manuel García, who was astonished to learn the elderly Italian gentleman was none other than Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist of Mozart’s operas, The Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni.And so it came about, that on today’s date in 1826, the American premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni was given in New York City, with García in the title role, in the presence of the man who had penned the opera’s libretto almost forty years earlier, a 77-year-old American citizen named Lorenzo da Ponte.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) arr. Triebensee: Don Giovanni Suite; Amadeus Ensemble; Julius Rudel, conductor; MusicMasters 67118

SynopsisThe Cincinnati May Festival one of America’s oldest music festivals, with roots going back to the 1840s, and a formal launch dating from the 1870s. Over the course of its history, the Festival has performed great choral works of both European and American composers and commissioned and premiered many new works.On today’s date in 1998, for example, James Conlon conducted the premiere performance of PraiseMaker, a new work for chorus and orchestra setting texts by poet and screenwriter Susan Kougell to music by American composer Alvin Singleton.The title was inspired by the “praise singers” of Africa, who serve as the oral historians and celebrants of their community’s history and traditions. Susan Kougell’s text is a celebration of memory, expressed in simple, almost minimalist poetry. “Her poetry is so straightforward; you don’t have to work to figure it out,” said Singleton. For his part, Singleton scored PraiseMaker for chorus and orchestra, with a percussion section that includes temple bells, tubular bells and vibraphone.Reviewing a recording of PraiseMaker made by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, one critic wrote, “The score surprises you with its range of mood and even, in places, with its tenderness.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAlvin Singleton (b. 1940): PraiseMaker; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Robert Spano; Telarc 32630

SynopsisPopular as the imaginary purple dinosaur Barney was with American kids in the 1990s, he got some competition from another dinosaur: a T. Rex named Sue. Sue was the nearly complete fossilized skeleton of a female T. Rex discovered in South Dakota, named after paleontologist Susan Hendrickson, the woman who found her.Sue — the dinosaur, that is — ended up as a major display at the Field Museum in Chicago.As part of the festivities surrounding the opening of the exhibit, on today’s date in 2000, the Chicago Chamber Musicians premiered Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto, a work by American composer Bruce Adolphe that told Sue’s story. It was designed for children, in the style of Peter and the Wolf, or, in this case, “Sue eats Peter, the wolf, and anything else she can catch.” Adolphe was a good choice for the project for, in addition to being a composer, author, educator and performer, he admits to being a big kid at heart, eager to share his enthusiasm for music with audiences of all ages.Music Played in Today's ProgramBruce Adolphe (b. 1955): Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto; Chicago Chamber Musicians; Pollyrhythm Productions 30001

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1846, a Grand Festival Concert took place at New York’s Castle Garden, a popular spot for 19th century Manhattanites to enjoy fireworks, balloon rides, ice cream, and band concerts.The band on this occasion consisted of some 400 instrumentalists and singers, including members of the four-year-old New York Philharmonic. They gave, for the first time in America, a complete performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the Choral Symphony.In attendance was a 26-year-old lawyer named George Templeton Strong, whose diary recorded his impressions:“A splendid failure, I’m sorry to say,” he wrote. “The first movement was utterly barren … the minuet was well enough, quite brilliant in parts [and] the only point I found worth remembering in the whole piece … then came an andante (very tedious) ... then the fourth movement with its chorus, which was a bore …” “[But] after all,” Strong concluded, “‘tisn’t fair to judge, hearing it under so many disadvantages.”Fourteen years later, after a more advantageous Philharmonic performance in 1860, Strong changed his mind about Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and wrote, “Strange I should have missed its real character and overlooked so many great points when I heard it last. It is an immense, wonderful work.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 9 (Choral); Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 471 491

SynopsisIt’s ironic that Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns was more appreciated in England and the United States than in his native France.And so, it’s perhaps not surprising that his Symphony No. 3 (Organ), premiered not in Paris, but at St. James’ Church in London on today’s date in 1886, with the composer conducting as well as performing as the organ soloist.In addition to being a famous composer and brilliant pianist, Saint-Saëns was also an accomplished organist. In 1857, he became an organist at the famous Church of the Madeleine in Paris, and held that post for 20 years. Romantic composer Franz Liszt once hailed Saint-Saëns as the finest organist in the world. And so, again not surprisingly, Saint-Saëns dedicated the published score of the Organ Symphony to Liszt, who had died in Germany shortly after the London premiere.What we do find surprising is that, for quite a few modern American audiences, this great and noble symphonic work calls to mind a clever little sheep-herding piglet named Babe, since one of the uplifting themes from the Organ Symphony was used, to great effect, in a popular 1995 film about talking barnyard animals.Music Played in Today's ProgramCamille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Symphony No. 3 (Organ); Peter Hurford, organ; Montreal Symphony Orchestra; Charles Dutoit, conductor; London/Decca 410201

SynopsisMarcel Proust, James Joyce and Pablo Picasso walk into a bar. No, it’s not the start of some high-brow joke; that really happened in Paris on today’s date in 1922.Well, not exactly: it was a hotel, not a bar, but certainly drinks were served when Sydney and Violet Schiff, two wealthy British patrons of the arts staying at the Hotel Majestic arranged what was called “soirée of the century.” The premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s opera-ballet Renard had just taken place across town, and the Schiffs decided to throw a late-night party in Stravinsky’s honor, and, to make things more interesting, invited Picasso, Joyce and Proust.While other guests were in full evening dress, Picasso arrived with a traditional Catalan sash wrapped around his forehead. Joyce arrived late, underdressed, and already tipsy. Proust arrived even later — at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., wearing a big fur coat and with a face “pale as the afternoon moon,” as Stravinsky later recalled.So what did they all have to say to each other? Not much, according to all accounts. After all, it was a party, not a university seminar — or a bar joke, so there was punch, but no punch line.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Renard; Orchestre Du Domaine Musical; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Decca 481151

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1969, Leonard Bernstein conducted his last concert as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein had assumed that post in November 1957, becoming the first American-born and trained conductor to do so.For sports fans, these were Bernstein’s stats as of May 17, 1969:He had conducted 939 concerts, more than anyone else in Philharmonic history. He had given 36 world premieres, 14 U.S. premieres, 15 New York City premieres and led more than 40 works never before performed by the orchestra.At Philharmonic concerts, Bernstein conducted Vivaldi, Bach and Handel, but also Babbitt, Cage and Ligeti. He led the world premiere performance of the Symphony No. 2 by Charles Ives and included other elder American composers like Carl Ruggles and Wallingford Riegger on Philharmonic programs. He conducted works by his contemporaries, Ned Rorem and Lukas Foss, as well as his own compositions.Bernstein would continue to appear with the New York Philharmonic as its Laureate Conductor, and as a popular guest conductor with major orchestras around the world. His final concerts were with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood in the summer of 1990. He died in October of that year.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety); Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano; Ulster Orchestra; Dmitry Sitkovetsky, condcutor; Hyperion 67170

SynopsisToday’s date in 1879 marks the birthdate of composer and pianist Régine Wieniawski, born in Brussels, the daughter of the Polish violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski. Although a Franco-Belgian composer in style, she published her music under the Slavic-sounding pen name Poldowski. She was admired by many of the most famous musicians of her day. Henry Wood programmed her works on Proms concerts, and in 1912, she gave a concert at London’s Aeolian Hall, that, quite unusual for the time, consisted solely of her own works with the her at the piano. That concert introduced 24 of her songs, many to texts of French poet Paul Verlaine. The review in the Daily Telegraph noted, “nearly every song was a distinguished example of the art of word setting; and the sense of harmonic color is decidedly strong.” The performance of her Violin Sonata, also on the program, was not as well received; the London Times sniffed, “the method which was successful in the songs was less effective in the Violin Sonata.”Oh well, Poldowski’s Verlaine settings are still very much admired and performed, and her instrumental music, neglected for decades, is also getting renewed attention.Music Played in Today's ProgramRégine Wieniawski (aka Poldowski) (1879-1932): Scherzo from Violin Sonata; Clare Howick, violin; Miroslaw Feldgebel, piano; Dux 1840

SynopsisCrossword puzzle solvers know the three-letter answer to the clue “Composer Brian” is: E-N-O. But even fans of this British composer, performer and producer might not know his full name, which is Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.Brian Eno was born in Suffolk, England on today’s date in 1948. He studied painting and music, and in his early 20s played synthesizer with the glam rock band Roxy Music before embarking on a solo career. In 1978, he released the album Music for Airports, which was, quite literally, meant as calming music that could be played in airports, since Eno was so annoyed by the inane, perky muzak he usually heard there.Eno coined the term “ambient music” to describe his album, whose release coincided with the early days of minimalist movement, itself a reaction to music deemed too complex and complicated.“I was quite sick of music that was overstuffed,” Eno said, commenting, “In the late 60s and early 70s, recording went from two-track to four-track to eight-track to 16-track to 32-track, and music got more and more grandiose, sometimes with good effect, but quite often not.”Music Played in Today's ProgramBrian Eno (b. 1948): Music for Airports; Brian Eno, synthesizers; Polydor 2310 647

SynopsisIn the 1980s, the Finnish Broadcasting Company had come up with the idea of commissioning a whole evening’s worth of orchestral pieces by native composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara, which, when taken together, would form a conventional concert program of overture, concerto and symphony. These three works have come to be called the Angel Trilogy, since each of them has a title with the word “angel” in it.Rautavaara’s Fifth Symphony, with the working title Monologue with Angels, premiered on today’s date in 1986, was originally to be the symphonic conclusion of this triple commission. But Rautavaara dropped the title, and his Symphony No. 7, (Angel of Light), ended up being the third part of the Angel Trilogy, alongside the overture Angels and Visitations and the double-bass concerto Angel of Dusk.If you asked the mystical Rautavaara why he changed his mind, he would probably have said it really wasn’t his idea at all. Rautavaara believed his compositions already existed in “another reality,” as he said, and his job was just to bring it into our world in one piece. “I firmly believe that compositions have a will of their own,” he said, “even though some people smile at the concept.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEinojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016): Symphony No. 5; Leipzig Radio Symphony; Max Pommer, conductor; BMG 62671

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1995, an opera by American composer Amy Beach received its first professional production at Lincoln Center in New York City — 63 years after Beach completed it in the summer of 1932.Beach was 65 years old in 1932 and for years had wanted to write an opera on an American theme. She settled on a play by Nan Bagby Stephens, a writer from Atlanta. Their operatic collaboration was entitled Cabildo, after the famous prison in New Orleans where the pirate Pierre Lafitte was imprisoned during the War of 1812. Stephens even supplied Beach with authentic Creole songs and dances to incorporate in her score.Beach had a concise one-act opera finished by August of 1932, but it was never staged during her lifetime. Both the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II postponed various attempts at a staging. Sadly, when an opera workshop at the University of Georgia finally got around to an amateur production in 1945, Beach had already died.The manuscript of the opera remained unpublished for decades, but with the passage of time, interest in Amy Beach led to the Lincoln Center performance in 1995, conducted by Ransom Wilson.Music Played in Today's ProgramAmy Beach (1867-1944): Cabildo; ensemble; Ransom Wilson, conductor; Delos 3170

SynopsisIn the 1960s, American composer Steve Reich prepared some electronic pieces consisting of gradually shifting tape loops of the same prerecorded — and enigmatic — spoken phrases excerpted from someone telling a story. Reich quickly realized he could produce the same effect with conventional instruments and live musicians. These repetitive patterns and the gradual shifts came to be labeled “minimalist.”Three decades later, in May of 1993, Reich and his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, created a large-scale piece they dubbed a “documentary video opera.” Titled The Cave, it investigated the roots of Christianity, Judaism and Islam through prerecorded interviews, images projected on multi-channel video screens, and live musical accompaniment utilizing the speech patterns of the interviewees as the starting point for much of the score.On today’s date in 2002, at the Vienna Festival, Reich and Korot premiered another music theatre piece, Three Tales, intended as symbolic parables of technology in the 20th century, the three topics being the crash of the Hindenburg, the early atomic bomb tests in the Pacific Islands and the cloning of a sheep named Dolly.Music Played in Today's ProgramSteve Reich (b. 1936): Music for Large Ensemble; Alarm Will Sound and Ossia; Alan Pierson, conductor; Nonesuch 79546

SynopsisPrimitive man probably imitated animal sounds for both practical and religious reasons. More recently, the Baroque-era composer Heinrich Franz von Biber imitated one particular animal for comic effect in his Sonata Representing Animals, and, in early 20th century slang, it’s simply “the cat’s meow.”Now speaking of cats, they’re supposed to have nine lives — but would you believe 8,949?On today’s date in 1981, Cats, a musical by British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber opened at the New London Theatre in the city’s fashionable West End. Despite a bomb threat and brief evacuation of the theatre, the premiere of Cats was a great success. 8,949 performances later, on the same date in 2002, when the show finally closed, it had long since entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running musical to date.In London, it took in 136 million British pounds in ticket sales. Worldwide, Cats has taken in billions of dollars, has been seen by millions, and has been performed in 11 different languages in over 26 countries.And if you asked your cat to comment on all this, they would probably say, “Why are you surprised?” and saunter away.Music Played in Today's ProgramHeinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704): Sonata Violino Solo Representativa; Il Giardino Armonico; Giovanni Antonini, conductor; Teldec 21464Andrew Lloyd Webber (b. 1948): Cats Overture; Original Broadway Cast orchestra; Geffen 22031

SynopsisIs the customer always right? Apparently Giuseppe Verdi thought so — to a degree, at least.On today’s date in 1872, Verdi sent a note to his publisher with an attached letter he had received from a disgruntled customer, a certain Prospero Bertani, who had attended not one, but two performances of Verdi’s new opera, Aida.Bertani said, “I admired the scenery … I listened with pleasure to the excellent singers, and took pains to let nothing escape me. After it was over, I asked myself whether I was satisfied. The answer was ‘no’.”Since everyone else seemed to think Aida was terrific, Bertani attended a second performance to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, and concluded, “The opera contains absolutely nothing thrilling or electrifying. If it were not for the magnificent scenery, the audience would not sit through it.”Bertini itemized his expenses for tickets, train fare, and meals, and asked Verdi for reimbursement. Verdi was so amused that he instructed Ricordi to pay Bertani — but not the full amount, since, as Verdi put it: “… to pay for his dinner too? No! He could very well have eaten at home!”Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): ‘Aida’ excerpts

SynopsisSome classical music snobs look down their nose at film scores, considering them less “serious” than “art” music written for the concert hall.Aaron Copland, for one, deplored this attitude. He admired the work of composers like Bernard Herrmann, Alex North, David Raksin and Elmer Bernstein, whose successful Hollywood careers earned them financial rewards on the West Coast, if not the respect of the snootier East Coast music critics. Copland had spent some time in Hollywood, and knew what was involved in completing a film score on time and on budget.On today’s date in 1940, at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, the press was invited to a special preview showing of a new film version of Our Town. To match Thornton Wilder’s nostalgic stage play about American life in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, Copland’s score employed harmonies suggestive of old New England church hymns.For once, audiences and critics were impressed, and Copland quickly arranged an Our Town concert suite, which premiered on a CBS Radio broadcast in June 1940. He reworked this suite for its first public performance by the Boston Pops and Leonard Bernstein in May 1944.Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Our Town Suite; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; BMG 61699

SynopsisStephen Sondheim was 32 years old when his musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opened on Broadway on today’s date in 1962. The best seats would have cost you $8.60, but decent tickets were available for three bucks in those days — and, much to Sondheim’s relief, New Yorkers snapped them up in short order.The trial run of Forum in Washington, D.C. had been a near disaster, and, as this was the first major musical for which Sondheim wrote both the lyrics and the music, he had a lot riding on the show’s success.Audiences and critics alike loved the over-the-top fusion of an ancient Roman comedy by Plautus with the kick-in-the-pants conventions of American Vaudeville, spiced up with a liberal dash of Burlesque dancers in Roman costumes. As the New York Times review put it, the cast included six courtesans who “are not obliged to do much, but have a great deal to show.”Forum won several Tony Awards in 1962, including Best Musical. Even so, while Sondheim’s lyrics were praised, his music was barely mentioned; his skill as a composer were not yet fully appreciated. That would occur several years — and several shows — later.Music Played in Today's ProgramStephen Sondheim (1930-2021): A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; 1996 Broadway Cast; Angel 52223

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1825, Italian composer Antonio Salieri breathed his last in Vienna.Gossip circulated that in his final dementia, Salieri blabbed something about poisoning Mozart. Whether he meant it figuratively or literally, or even said anything of the sort, didn’t seem to matter and the gossip became a Romantic legend.Modern food detectives suggested that if Mozart was poisoned, an undercooked pork chop might be to blame. In one of his last letters to his wife, Mozart mentions his anticipation of feasting on a fat chop his cook had secured for his dinner!Twenty-five years after Salieri’s death, on today’s date in 1850, Austro-Hungarian conductor Anton Seidl was born in Budapest. Seidl became a famous conductor of both the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic. It was Seidl who conducted the premiere of Dvořák’s New World Symphony.In 1898, at 47, Seidl died suddenly, apparently from ptomaine poisoning. Perhaps it was the shad roe he ate at home, or that sausage from Fleischmann’s restaurant? An autopsy revealed serious gallstone and liver ailments, so maybe Seidl’s last meal, whatever it might have been, was as innocent of blame as poor old Salieri.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 25; St. Martin’s Academy; Neville Marriner, conductor; Fantasy 104/105Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904): Symphony No. 9 (From the New World); Vienna Philharmonic; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; Decca 466 994Antonio Salieri (1750-1825): La Folia Variations; London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, conductor; Chandos 9877

SynopsisToday’s date in 1913 marks the birthday of the American composer and musicologist George Perle, who won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1986.In a 1985 interview, Perle vividly recalled his first musical experience, an encounter with Chopin’s etude in F minor, played by an aunt. “It literally paralyzed me,” said Perle. “I was extraordinarily moved and acutely embarrassed at the same time, because there were other people in the room, and I could tell that nobody else was having the same sort of reaction I was.”In his own lyrical and well-crafted music, Perle employed what he called “12-tone tonality,” a middle path between rigorous atonality and traditional, tonal-based music.Whether tonal or not, for Perle, music was both a logical and an emotional language. Perle once made this telling distinction between the English language and the language of music:“Reading a novel is altogether different from reading a newspaper, but it’s all language. If you go to a concert, you have some kind of reaction to it. If the newspaper is Chinese, you can’t understand it. But if you hear something by a Chinese composer, if it’s playful, for instance, you understand.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Perle (1915-2009): Serenade No. 3; Richard Goode, piano; Music Today Ensemble; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Nonesuch 79108

Synopsis“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Well, the usual reply is, “by practicing!”But back in 1891, Peter Tchaikovsky would have probably answered, “by ship” — since he had, in fact, sailed from Europe to conduct several of his pieces at the hall’s gala opening concerts. The first concert in Carnegie Hall, or as they called it back then, “The Music Hall,” occurred on today’s date in 1891, and included a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Coronation March, conducted by the composer.The review in the New York Herald offered these comments: “Tchaikovsky’s march … is simple, strong and sober, but not surprisingly original. The leading theme recalls the ‘Hallelujah chorus,’ and the treatment of the first part is Handelian … of the deep passion, the complexity and poetry which mark other works of Tchaikovsky, there is no sign in this march.”Oh well, in the days that followed, Tchaikovsky would conduct other works of “complexity and poetry,” including his Piano Concerto No. 1.Tchaikovsky kept a travel diary and recorded these impressions of New York: “It is a huge city, not beautiful, but very original. In Chicago, I’m told, they have gone even further — one of the houses there has 21 floors!”Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Coronation March; Boston Pops; John Williams, conductor; Philips 420 804Orchestral Suite No. 3; New Philharmonia; Antal Dorati, conductor; Philips 464 747

SynopsisAt Queen’s Hall in London, on today’s date in 1920, conductor Albert Coates led the premiere of the revised version of A London Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams.A longer version of this symphony had premiered six years earlier, and Vaughan Williams would continue to tinker with this work, on and off, for decades.“The London Symphony is past mending,” wrote Vaughan Williams in 1951, “though with all its faults I love it still; indeed, it is my favorite.”For most music lovers, Vaughan Williams means English folk tunes or hymns woven into lush works for strings, or musical pictures of English countryside. But it was a city view that inspired his London Symphony, described by Vaughan Williams himself as “a good view of the river and a bridge and three great electric-light chimneys and a sunset.”In fact, you could call Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 2 a “sunset” symphony. Its final pages were inspired by an H.G. Wells novel describing a night passage on the Thames to the open sea: “To run down the Thames so is to run one’s hand over the pages in the book of England from end to end ... The river passes ... London passes … England passes …“Music Played in Today's ProgramRalph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): Symphony No. 2 (A London Symphony); London Symphony Orchestra; Richard Hickox, conductor; Chanos 9902

SynopsisPleyel and Company was a French piano firm founded in 1807 by composer Ignace Pleyel. The firm provided pianos for Chopin, and ran an intimate Parisian 300-seat concert hall called the Salle Pleyel — the “Pleyel room” in English, where Chopin once performed.In the 20th century, a roomier Salle Pleyel comprising some 3,000 seats was built, and it was there on today’s date in 1929 that a new concerto for an old instrument had its premiere performance. This was the Concert Champêtre (Pastoral Concerto) for harpsichord and orchestra by French composer Francis Poulenc, with the Paris Symphony conducted by Pierre Monteux, and with Wanda Landowska as the soloist.“A harpsichord concerto in a hall that seats thousands?” you may ask. “How could anyone hear the harpsichord?” Well, the answer is that Madame Landowska performed on a beefier, metal-framed harpsichord built in the 20th century rather than the quieter wood-framed instruments used in the 18th. Landowska’s modern harpsichord was specially-constructed for her by — who else? — Pleyel and Company.Landowska needed those extra decibels because Poulenc’s concerto was scored for harpsichord and a large modern orchestra, with winds, percussion, and a large brass section that even included a tuba!Music Played in Today's ProgramFrancis Poulenc (1899-1963): Concert Champêtre (Pastoral Concerto); Aimée Van de Wiele, harpsichord; Paris Conservatory Orchestra; Georges Prêtre, condcutor; EMI Classics 69446 or 95584

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1692, London audiences were treated to lavish theatrical entertainment with The Fairy Queen.This show was loosely based on Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play already 100 years old in 1692. To make it more in line with contemporary taste, characters were added or cut, and scenes shifted around to such an extent that Shakespeare, were he alive to see it, would be hard put to recognize much of his original concept. Musical sequences were also expanded, and the producers hired the leading British composer of the day to write them. His name was Henry Purcell, and The Fairy Queen would turn out to be the biggest success of his career. In addition to writing the show’s songs and dances, Purcell provided music to entertain the audience as they entered and exited the theater or stretched their legs during intermission.The good news is no expense was spared in the show’s production. The bad news was the show’s producers barely recovered their expenses. Subsequent productions, they decided, would be less flashy, but, recognizing the quality of Purcell’s music, they signed him for their next extravaganza.Music Played in Today's ProgramHenry Purcell (1659-1695): The Fairy Queen; Le Concert des Nations; Jordi Savall, conductor; Auvidis 8583

SynopsisToday’s date marks two anniversaries in the life of American composer, teacher and organist Leo Sowerby, who lived from 1895 to 1968. Sowerby was born May 1 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on his 32nd birthday in 1927, was hired as the permanent organist and choirmaster at St. James’ Church in Chicago, where he remained for the next 35 years.Sowerby wrote hundreds of pieces of church music for organ and chorus, plus chamber and symphonic works, which are only recently receiving proper attention.It’s not that Sowerby was neglected during his lifetime — he won many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1946 — but many seemed put off by both his unabashedly Romantic style and his unprepossessing physical appearance. American composer Ned Rorem, who took theory lessons from Sowerby, put it this way:“Leo Sowerby was … of my parents’ generation, a bachelor, reddish-complexioned and milky skinned, chain smoker of Fatima cigarettes, unglamorous and non-mysterious, likable with a perpetual worried frown, overweight and wearing rimless glasses, earthy, practical, interested in others even when they were talentless; a stickler for basic training, Sowerby was the first composer I knew and the last thing a composer was supposed to resemble.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLeo Sowerby (1895-1968): Classic Concerto; David Mulbury, organ; Fairfield Orchestra; John Welsh, conductor; Naxos 8.559028

SynopsisToday we have a tale of jealousy to tell — the tale of Claude and Mary and Maurice and Georgette — related to the premiere, on today’s date in 1902, of Pelléas et Mélisande.This new opera by Claude Debussy was based on a play about jealousy by the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. Debussy had worked on his opera for years with no objection from Maeterlinck until late in 1901, when Debussy announced that the Scottish soprano Mary Garden would sing the role of Mélisande.Suddenly, two weeks before the premiere, Maeterlinck began saying the opera was “alien” to him, that he had lost artistic control over his own work, that he hoped the opera would flop.Well, that accounts for Claude and Mary and Maurice, but what about Georgette? Turns out she was the real reason behind Maeterlinck’s objections. Georgette was a soprano — and Maeterlinck’s mistress. When Debussy refused to even consider her for the lead role in his new opera, Maeterlinck’s smear campaign began.He was not alone — eminent French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, jealous as any character in Debussy’s opera, delayed his customary vacation abroad to stay in Paris, and, as he put it, “to speak ill of Pelléas.”Music Played in Today's ProgramClaude Debussy (1862-1918): Pelléas et Mélisande; Cleveland Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, conductor; Cleveland 9375

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C.The son of a former White House butler, Elllington was born into a comfortable middle-class African American household. After piano lessons from the aptly named Miss Klinkscales, Ellington composed his first original piece, The Soda Fountain Rag. Two important mentors were a local dance band leader, Oliver “Doc” Perry and a high school music teacher named Henry Grant, who introduced Ellington to classical composers like Debussy.“From both these men I received freely and generously,” Ellington recalled. “I repaid them as I could, by playing piano for Mr. Perry, and by learning all I could from Mr. Grant.”Always a stylish dresser, Ellington was nicknamed “The Duke” by friends, and while still in his teens, the five-piece dance band he formed was playing in New York City. That ensemble grew to 11 men by 1930 and to an orchestra of 19 by 1946.The Ellington orchestra was an ensemble of jazz virtuosos, and for them Ellington would compose some 2000 original works, a body of music extensively documented in public and private recordings, and now regarded as one of the most astonishing musical accomplishments of the 20th century.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974): The River Suite; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 9154

SynopsisFor the 1965-1966 season of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein planned a series of concerts titled “Symphonic Forms in the 20th Century,” programming works by Mahler, Sibelius and other great European masters. Bernstein also included American symphonies, including, on today’s date in 1966, the belated premiere performance of David Diamond’s Symphony No. 5.Diamond began work on his Symphony No. 5 in 1947, and its original inspiration was two-fold: Diamond wanted to compose a symphony for Bernstein to premiere and to translate into music the vivid emotions he experienced after attending a performance of Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus the King. But Diamond found recreating the Oedipus story harder than he thought. He ended up putting his Fifth aside, and finished and premiered his Sixth, Seventh, and Eight Symphonies before coming to the realization that, “Program symphonies were just not for me.”Years later, Bernstein asked, “What ever happened to that symphony you were going to write for me?” Diamond explained all this to Bernstein, who replied, “Well, it’s about time you did something about it — it’s silly to have one symphony that just isn’t there!” And so, Diamond set to work completing a non-programmatic Fifth, dedicated to Leonard Bernstein.Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Diamond (1915-2005): Symphony No. 5; Juilliard Orchestra, Christopher Keene, conductor; New World 80396

SynopsisFew of us today really know — or care — very much about the War of Austrian Succession, a conflict that troubled Europe in the 18th century. For music lovers, it’s enough to know that to celebrate the end of that war, George Frederic Handel was commissioned to compose music for a fireworks concert in London’s Green Park, an event that took place on today’s date in the year 1749.Back then there were no such things as microphones and loudspeakers, so Handel’s score called for a huge military band of 24 oboes, nine horns, nine trumpets, three sets of timpani, 12 bassoons, two contrabassoons and strings. When King George II was told about it, he balked a little at the expense. “Well, at least I hope there won’t be any fiddles,” he commented, and so Handel was informed the strings were definitely off.A public rehearsal was held at the Vauxhall Gardens and a London newspaper reported that 100 musicians performed for an audience of more than 12,000, causing a three-hour traffic jam of carriages and pedestrians on London Bridge. The official event with fireworks went off with a bang — as well as a few fires breaking out.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1759): Music for the Royal Fireworks; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; Argo 414596

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1965, the first complete performance of American composer Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 4 took place in New York.38 years earlier, in 1927, also in New York, British conductor Eugene Goossens had performed the first two movements of Ives’ Fourth Symphony, after many a sleepless night trying to figure out how to perform certain sections of Ives’ score where the bar-lines didn’t jibe — parts where more than one rhythm pattern happened simultaneously.“I remember,” Goosens said, “that I wound up beating two with my stick, three with my left hand, something else with my head, and something else again with my coat tails.”For the 1965 premiere and first recording of Ives’ complete symphony, Leopold Stokowski solved this problem by enlisting the aid of two assistant conductors, David Katz and Jose Serebrier — all three men working simultaneously at times to cue the musicians in the trickiest passages of the score.One of conductors who assisted Stokowski in 1965, José Serebrier, went on to recorded Ives’ Fourth again — this time without the aid of assistant conductors, coat tails, or the surgical addition of another set of arms.Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Ives (1874-1954): Symphony No. 4; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; DG 4839505José Serebrier (b. 1938): Symphony No. 2 (‘Partita’) London Philharmonic; José Serebrier, conductor; Reference 90

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1926, Giacomo Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, had its belated premiere at the La Scala Opera House in Milan, with Arturo Toscanini conducting. The originally scheduled 1925 premiere had to be postponed, as Puccini had died in November 1924, leaving Turandot unfinished.Another Italian composer, Franco Alfano, was brought in to complete the opera based on Puccini’s sketches. It’s said that after showing Toscanini his completion, Alfano asked, “What do you have to say, Maestro?”Toscanini replied, “I say I see Puccini’s ghost coming to punch me in the nose.”On opening night, Toscanini stopped the performance at the point that Puccini had ceased composing and left the podium in tears — a touching act of homage to Puccini, perhaps, but also a vote of “no confidence” regarding Alfano’s completion of the beloved master’s score.Although well received by critics, the Puccini Turandot with Alfano’s ending remained less popular than other Puccini operas for decades. After a run of performances in the late 1920s when the opera was still new, Turandot remained unperformed at the Metropolitan Opera until 1961, when Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli scored a huge success in a lavish Franco Zeffirelli revival production.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Nessun dorma, from Turandot; Academy of St Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; EMI 49552

SynopsisHaydn’s oratorio The Seasons had its premiere performance on this date in Vienna in 1801. Like its predecessor, The Creation, Haydn’s new oratorio was a great success, and, as before, Haydn received help with the text and a lot of advice from the versatile Gottfried Bernhard Baron van Swieten, an enthusiastic admirer of Handel oratorios and the music of J.S. Bach.Swieten’s text for The Seasons included many opportunities for baroque-style “tone painting” — musical representations of everything from croaking frogs and workers toiling in the fields, sections that raised a lot of smiles in 1801 and still do today. Haydn, famous for his sense of humor, in this case humored the old-fashioned tastes of the Baron as well.Speaking of the text, since Haydn was tremendous popular in England, Baron van Swieten prepared an English-language version of his text, trying to fit the English words to the rhythm of his original German. Alas, the good Baron’s command of English was, to put it diplomatically, perhaps not as firm he imagined. So these days, ensembles wishing to perform Haydn’s oratorio have a choice: they can opt for Swieten’s quaint-but-clunky English version, or his more graceful German original.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Ländler, from The Seasons; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; Philips 438715

SynopsisDeadlines are a fact of life for many of us — and composer are no exception.In 1875, Peter Tchaikovsky agreed to write 12 short solo pieces, one a month, for a St. Petersburg music magazine, beginning with their January 1876 issue. Tchaikovsky dashed the first piece off, but, fearing that he might forget his monthly deadline, took the wise precaution of instructing his servant to remind him. “Peter Ilytich, isn’t it about time to send something off to St. Petersburg?” Tchaikovsky’s dutiful servant would say before each month’s deadline. Tchaikovksy would drop whatever he was working on and finish the next installment.So, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine Tchaikovsky on this date back in 1876, putting the finishing touches to this little piano piece for the May issue of the St. Petersburg magazine, a sketch he titled Starlight Nights.More recently, the contemporary American composer, Judith Lang Zaimont, also composed a set of 12 short piano pieces, one for each month, a suite she titled Calendar Collection.An accomplish pianist and composer, Zaimont taught for many years at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This music — which we again offer ahead of schedule — is titled The May Fly.Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): May, from The Seasons; Lang Lang, piano; Sony 11758Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945): The May Fly, from Calendar Collection; Nanette Kaplan Solomon, piano; Leonarda 334

SynopsisOn this date in 1948, the ballet Fall River Legend was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House by the Ballet Theatre of New York. The choreography was by Agnes de Mille, and the music by Morton Gould.The previous year, de Mille and Gould had met at the Russian Tea Room to discuss their ballet, a retelling of the true story of Lizzie Borden, acquitted for the gruesome ax murders of her father and stepmother.Both de Mille and Gould thought Borden must have been guilty as charged. “Well, what shall we do about that?” asked de Mille. “Hang her!” said Gould, adding that in any case, it would be easier for him to write hanging music than acquittal music. So, with that large dollop of poetic license, de Mille and Gould came up with the scenario for a ballet that opens with Lizzie standing before the gallows.Morton Gould was known for his ability to blend folk music, jazz, gospel, blues and other elements into lively, colorful orchestral works. He was also a noted conductor, with over one hundred recordings to his credit — including a classic RCA Living Stereo recording of the Suite he arranged from his Fall River Legend ballet.Music Played in Today's ProgramMorton Gould (1913-1996): Fall River Legend; New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; James Sedares, conductor; Koch 7181

SynopsisIn the biographical film Maestro, Leonard Bernstein’s dramatic 1943 Carnegie Hall debut conducting the New York Philharmonic, filling in at the last moment for Bruno Walter, receives a masterful cinematic treatment.But the first time Bernstein wielded a baton in public took place on today’s date in 1939, when Lenny was still a student at Harvard and conducted his own incidental music for a student performance of the ancient Greek comedy, The Birds, by Aristophanes.The play was performed in the original Greek, and since almost no one in the audience would understand what was being said, the production relied on visual, slapstick comedy and Bernstein’s electric music to bring the ancient text to life. Bernstein’s score referenced everything from sitar music to the blues to get the humor across. The student production was a surprise smash hit. Aaron Copland and Walter Piston were in the audience, and photos even appeared in Life magazine.Bernstein recycled one of his bluesy songs from The Birds into his 1944 musical On the Town, but the rest of the 1939 score was never published, and only revived in 1999 for a performance by the EOS Orchestra in New York, and to date has never been recorded.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): On the Town: Three Dance Episodes; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 42263

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1862, an 18-year-old Russian named Nicolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov graduated as midshipman from the Russian Naval Academy and prepared for a two-year’s training cruise around the world. His uncle was an admiral and a close friend of the Czar, and in his autobiography Rimsky-Korsakov admits he, too, at first thought it might be a good idea — he loved reading travel books, after all.But then Rimsky-Korsakov was seduced by music. He’d made the acquaintance of eminent Russian composers of his day, lost interest in a naval career, and dreamed of composing music himself.The young midshipman’s tour of duty did enable him to hear a lot of it and to sample opera performances in London and New York. But what made the biggest impression on the budding composer was the sky below the equator. “Wonderful days and nights,” he wrote. “The marvelous dark-azure of the day would be replaced by a fantastic phosphorescent night. The tropical night sky over the ocean is the most amazing thing in the world.”It’s perhaps not too fanciful to believe that such impressions helped Rimsky-Korsakov develop into one of the most inventive and masterful painters of symphonic colors and instrumental effects.Music Played in Today's ProgramNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Prelude (A Hymn to Nature), from The Invisible City of Kitezh; Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 8327

SynopsisA concerto, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “a piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” And for most classical music fans, “concerto” means one of big romantic ones by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, works in which there is a kind of dramatic struggle between soloist and orchestra.But on today’s date in 2003, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and its concertmaster Stephen Copes premiered a Violin Concerto that didn’t quite fit that mold. For starters, it had four movements, and this Violin Concerto No. 2 by American composer George Tsontakis was more “democratic” than romantic — meaning the solo violinist seems to invite the other members of the orchestra to join in the fun, rather than hogging all the show. This concerto is more like a friendly, playful game than a life-and-death contest, and Tsontakis even titles his second movement “Gioco” or “Games.”The new concerto proved a winner, being selected for the prestigious 2005 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Even so, George Tsontakis confesses to being a little shy when sitting in the audience as his music is played, knowing full well, he says, that most people came to hear the Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, and not him.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Tsontakis (b. 1951): Violin Concerto No. 2; Stephen Copes, violin; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Douglas Boyd, conductor; Koch International 7592

SynopsisIt was on today’s date in 1944 that the ballet Fancy Free — with music Leonard Bernstein and choreography by Jerome Robbins — was first staged by the Ballet Theater at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. It was a big hit. Bernstein himself conducted, and alongside Robbins took 20 curtain calls.“The ballet is strictly wartime America, 1944,” Bernstein wrote. “The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamppost, a side-street bar, and New York skyscrapers making a dizzying backdrop. Three sailors explode onto the stage. They are on 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they meet first one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.”In a curious parallel to the stage action described by Bernstein, the ballet had been first pitched to composer Morton Gould, who said he was too busy, then to Vincent Persichetti, who in turn suggested Bernstein as a third, and perhaps better choice to produce a more hip, jazzy, and danceable score.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Fancy Free Ballet; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 63085

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1887, readers of the Wiener Salonblatt, a fashionable Viennese weekly artspaper, could enjoy the latest critical skirmish in the Brahms-Wagner wars.At the close of the 19th century, traditionalist partisans of the Symphonies, Sonatas, and String Quartets of Johannes Brahms rallied around the conservative Viennese music critic, Eduard Hanslick. In the opposing camp were equally passionate admirers of the music dramas of Richard Wagner and the symphonic tone poems of Frans Liszt, works this camp defined as “the music of the future.”The April 17, 1887 edition of the Wiener Salonblatt contained a review of a chamber music program presented by the Rosé Quartet, Vienna’s premiere chamber ensemble in those days. Here’s what the critic had to say:“What was provided on this occasion was not to our taste: Brahms — no small dose of sleeping powder for weak nerves. Such programming reeks of lethal intent and should really be forbidden by the police!”That review was penned by Hugo Wolf, these days more famous as a composer than as a music critic, and regarded one of the greatest song composers of the 19th century after Schubert, Schumann — and Brahms!Music Played in Today's ProgramHugo Wolf (1860-1903): Italian Serenade (I Solisti Italiani); Denon 9150

SynopsisA century before crowds of extras and gigantic sets first filled the silver screen of Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood extravaganzas, the Paris Opera brought similar resources to the stage for their historical operas—offering shipwrecks, explosions, massacres, and other crowd-pleasing spectacles.For example, on today’s date in 1849, the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera “The Prophet,” included a ballet sequence that made audiences gasp in surprise when the dancers—supposed skating on a frozen lake—glided across the stage on roller skates!Roller skates had been invented in Paris in 1790 but were considered a useless curiosity—after Meyerbeer’s opera, however, there was a booming demand for what was marketed as "Prophet Skates." Meyerbeer’s opera also included an on-stage sunrise, employing , for the first time at the Paris Opera, state-of-the art electric lights.And just to prove that there is nothing new under the sun—electric or otherwise–in 1984, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Starlight express,” a rock musical about roller-ball competitors, had singers racing around the stage on roller-skates. The musical proved a big hit in London, New York and Las Vegas, and, reminiscent of Meyerbeer’s frozen pond ballet, there has even been a version of “Starlight Express—On Ice.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGiacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) The Prophet: Ballet of the Skaters: Galop Barcelona Symphony Orchestra/Michal Nesterowicz Naxos 573076

SynopsisAt 2:20 a.m. on this date in 1912, the luxury liner S.S. Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Of the 2201 people of on board, only 711 reached their intended destination in New York. Eight British musicians, members of the ship’s band, stayed on board, reportedly playing a hymn tune as the ship went down.In 1969, British composer Gavin Bryars prepared a multimedia musical work, The Sinking of the Titanic, which incorporated spoken interviews by Titanic survivors with a set of variations on the hymn tune played by the ship’s band. In 1985, the sunken wreck of the Titanic was rediscovered, and renewed interest led to a 1990 revival performance and recording of Gavin Bryars’s score.A few years later, composer James Horner wrote an Oscar-winning film score for director James Cameron’s Titanic — an incredibly successful cinematic dramatization of the story. Horner wrote other famous film scores like those for Aliens and Braveheart — but none quite as successful as Titanic. That film grossed more than $600 million at the domestic box office and more than $1.8 billion worldwide. Ironically, considering this “titanic” success, the first film for which Horner composed a score was The Drought.Music Played in Today's ProgramGavin Bryars (b. 1943): The Sinking of the Titanic; Gavin Bryars and ensemble; Point Music 446 249James Horner (1953-2015): Titanic sountrack; Studio Orchestra; James Horner, conductor;Sony Classcial 63213 Links and Resources On James Horner Gavin Bryars' website

SynopsisFiddler Jay Ungar wrote a melancholy tune in 1982 and titled it Ashokan Farewell. It reflected, he wrote, the wistful sadness he felt at the conclusion of a week-long, summer-time fiddle and dance program in the Catskill Mountains at Ashokan Field Campus of the State University of New York.“I was embarrassed by the emotions that welled up whenever I played it,” Ungar recalled. It’s written in the style of a Scottish lament or Irish air, and Ungar says he sometimes introduced it as “a Scottish lament written by a Jewish guy from the Bronx.”Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns heard a recording of Ungar’s tune and asked if he could use it as the theme for his PBS documentary series, The Civil War. In that context, the sadness in Ashokan Farewell takes on a whole different meaning.The Civil War has inspired a number of other American composers, among them Roy Harris, whose Symphony No. 6 (Gettysburg) was premiered on this date in 1944 by the Boston Symphony. It was written on commission from the Blue Network, the radio predecessor of the American Broadcasting Company. Each of the symphony’s movements is prefaced by a quotation from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.Music Played in Today's ProgramJay Ungar (b. 1946): Ashokan Farewell; Jay Ungar, fiddle; Newman-Oltman Guitar Duo; MusicMasters 67145Roy Harris (1898-1979): Symphony No. 6 (Gettysburg); Pacific Symphony; Keith Clark, conductor; Varese-Sarabande 47245

SynopsisOne of the best-loved works of classical music, Handel’s oratorio Messiah, had its first performance on today’s date in Dublin, Ireland, in 1742. Handel wrote Messiah in a period of only four weeks, then put it aside until he received an invitation to present a new work in the Irish capital. Dublin gave Messiah an enthusiastic reception, but it took a few years before London recognized that Messiah was a masterpiece.Baroque composers like Handel freely borrowed materials from previous works — or even other composers — to use in new ones. Among Handel’s own instrumental works, the Concerti Due Cori, for example, contain melodies familiar from Messiah.American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich harks back to this baroque custom in her own Concerto Grosso 1985, in which she quotes directly from Handel’s Violin Sonata in D — which in turns quotes from no fewer than four of Handel’s own earlier compositions.Born in Miami in 1939, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich studied at Juilliard with two noted American composers, Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter, and in 1983 became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her Symphony No. 1.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1759): Sinfoni from Messiah; Boston Baroque Orchestra; Martin Pearlman, conductor; Telarc 80348Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Concerto Grosso 1985; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor; New World 372

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1933, the New York Philharmonic presented the premiere performance of Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Violin Concerto No. 2.He was born in Florence in 1895 and enjoyed early success in Europe, but, because he was Jewish, the increasingly harsh racial policies of Mussolini forced Castelnuovo-Tedesco and his family to immigrate to the U.S. His passage was assisted by Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini and violin virtuoso Jasha Heifetz, who were also the conductor and soloist for the Carnegie Hall premiere of his new concerto.Two weeks earlier, Toscanini and other prominent American musicians had signed a public cable to Hitler protesting the persecution of Jewish artists. For his part, Castelnuovo-Tedesco gave his new concerto a title: The Prophets. “The title,” he wrote, “does not represent a precise and detailed program, but is intended only as an indication of the ethical environment … the choice of a solo violin might suggest the flaming and fanciful eloquence of the ancient prophets.”Castelnuovo-Tedesco settled in California, where he taught and found work in Hollywood. He composed 100 film scores, became an American citizen in 1946, and died in Beverly Hills in 1968.Music Played in Today's ProgramMario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968): Violin Concerto No. 2 (The Prophets); Jascha Heifetz, violin; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Alfred Wallenstein, conductor; RCA BMG 7872

SynopsisIn 1996, American composer George T. Walker, Jr. became the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. That was for his Lilacs, a setting for solo soprano and orchestra of Walt Whitman’s poem, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed,” an elegy for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln.Walker died in the summer of 2018 at 96, leaving behind a substantial body of music ranging from solo works for piano and organ to chamber works and orchestral scores, including five works he titled Sinfonias.His fifth and last sinfonia, Visions, was inspired by the 2015 hate crime shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and exists in two versions: one version includes elusive, enigmatic spoken texts and a video that includes a photo of the port of Charleston at its conclusion; the other version is purely instrumental.Sadly, although completed in 2016, despite Walker’s stature and fame, he found no American orchestra able to schedule it during his lifetime. A studio recording of Sinfonia No. 5 was made under the composer’s supervision in 2018, but its public premiere by the Seattle Symphony occurred posthumously on today’s date in 2019.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Walker (1922-2018): Sinfonia No. 5 (Visions); Sinfonia Varsovia; Ian Hobson, conductor; Albany TROY-1707

Synopsis“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” If George Antheil were asked that question in 1927, he would have answered that it was easy. After the scandalous Paris premiere of his aggressively avant-garde Ballet Mécanique, scored for eight pianos and lots of percussion, including airplane propellers, Antheil received a cable offering financial backing for a one-night only performance of the new work at Carnegie Hall.Antheil was broke at the time, so the offer was hard to refuse. For his Carnegie Hall debut, he also programmed his new jazz sinfonietta — and hired the all-black W.C. Handy jazz band to accompany him at the piano — and remember, this was 11 years before Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall jazz concert famously presented a racially integrated ensemble on the same stage.“The public paid scant attention,” Antheil later recalled. “They had come to see and hear the Ballet Mecanique. The new Jazz Sinfonietta which I composed specially for the occasion was played by a large Negro orchestra whose personnel contained a list of names later to become tremendously important in popular music … but the critics took almost no notice except to say that my Sinfonietta was reminiscent of Negro jazz and not as good.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Antheil (1900-1959): A Jazz Symphony; Ivan Davis, piano; New Palaise Royale Ensemble; Maurice Peress, conductor; MusicMasters 67094

SynopsisWe’re cranking up the Datebook time machine today to take you back to a charity concert that took place in Hamburg on today’s date in 1786. The concert was organized and conducted by 72-year-old composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who had been producing new sacred music in Hamburg for many years.But instead of new works, for the charity concert C.P.E. Bach programmed some music that in 1786 was almost 40 years old: he opened with the Credo from his father J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor, followed by two excerpts from Handel's Messiah, namely the Hallelujah Chorus and I Know that My Redeemer Liveth, both sung in German, and then his own setting of the Latin Magnificat, a work he had composed back in 1749 when his father was still alive.C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat is not heard as often as J.S. Bach’s more famous setting, which is a shame, since, like his father’s Magnificat, C.P.E.’s is a festive, exciting piece of sacred music with trumpets and drums and tuneful vocal solos, along with great choral writing — and we suspect papa J.S. Bach would have nodded with approval that his son’s version concluded with a well-constructed choral fugue.Music Played in Today's ProgramC.P.E. Bach (1714-1788): Sicut Erat In Principio, from Magnificat; RIAS Kammerchor & Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Hans-Christoph Rademann; Harmonia Mundi 902167

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1935, the Kolisch Quartet gave the premiere performance of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 in the auditorium of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. That performance was part of a chamber music festival sponsored by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, one of the 20th century’s great musical patrons.In 1925, she created a foundation to enable the Library of Congress to present concerts and commission new works in the nation’s capital. Among the major American works commissioned by the Coolidge Foundation were Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children. Coolidge herself was an accomplished musician and amateur composer. One of her chief advisors was Dutch cellist and conductor Hans Kindler, who once contacted Sibelius with a Coolidge commission for a new cello concerto, which, sadly, never materialized. It was Kindler who suggested commissioning a string quartet from Bartók, this time with success.After its premiere, the critic for The Musical Courier wrote: “Mr. Bartók’s [new quartet] is impressionistic and well-wrought.” The critic for Musical America was less impressed: “It honestly treats folk melody with a healthy vigor … [but] there is … no subtle play of light and shade.”Music Played in Today's ProgramBéla Bartók (1881-1945): String Quartet No. 5; Emerson String Quartet; DG 423 657

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1805, Ludwig van Beethoven conducted the first public performance of his Symphony No. 3, subtitled Eroica at Theater an der Wien in Vienna. It was a symphony bolder, louder, and twice as long as any Mozart or Haydn ever wrote and must have been a real challenge for the musicians and audiences of Beethoven’s day.Prior to the first public performance, several private rehearsals and performances had taken place at the palace of Beethoven’s patron, Prince Lobkowitz. Apparently, the prince had to add 22 extra musicians to his court orchestra, including a third French horn player Beethoven requested.Speaking of French horns, at one point in the symphony’s first movement, one of them seems to come in early, intoning the main theme. It’s what Beethoven intended, but even Beethoven’s secretary, Ferdinard Ries, attending the first rehearsal of the new work, assumed it was a mistake, and said so to Beethoven — who was NOT amused — as Ries recalled in his memoir:"’That damned hornist!,’ [I said.] ‘Can't he count? It sounds frightfully wrong.’ I nearly got my ears boxed, and Beethoven did not forgive me for a long time.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1828): Symphony No. 3 (Eroica); Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 429 036

SynopsisIn 1920, a French publisher commissioned several works in memory of Claude Debussy, who had died two years earlier. Maurice Ravel’s contribution was a single-movement piece for violin and cello.Ravel then expanded this music into a four-movement sonata he titled Duo — perhaps thinking of the Duo for the same instruments by Zoltán Kodály. And if Ravel’s music at times sounds Hungarian, perhaps another reason was his meeting with Béla Bartók while working on this piece.In any case, Ravel was trying something new and different, and said so: “I believe this sonata marks a turning point in the evolution of my career. In it, thinness of texture is pushed to the extreme. Harmonic charm is renounced, coupled with an increasingly conspicuous reaction in favor of melody.”Violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange and cellist Maurice Maréchal gave the premiere performance of Ravel’s Duo at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on today’s date in 1922.“It's complicated,” Jourdan-Morhange told Ravel. “The cello has to sound like a flute and the violin like a drum. It must be fun writing such difficult stuff, but no one's going to play it except virtuosos!”“Good,” replied Ravel a smile, “then I won’t be murdered by amateurs!”Music Played in Today's ProgramMaurice Ravel (1875-1937): Sonata (Duo) for Violin and Cello; Nigel Kennedy, violin; Lynn Harrell, cello; EMI 56963

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1946, composer Lou Harrison conducted the premiere performance of an orchestral work written 45 years earlier. It was Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 3, composed between 1901 and 1904.Early in 1911, Ives had sent the score for his symphony for consideration to the major New York orchestras of his day, Walter Damrosch’s New York Symphony and Gustav Mahler’s New York Philharmonic. Damrosch never responded, but it seems Mahler took notice. In 1911, the gravely ill Mahler took Ives’ score with him when he returned to Vienna for treatment, apparently with the intention of performing it. Sadly, Mahler died before that could happen, and Ives’ Third would have to wait another 35 years for its premiere.Lou Harrison’s 1946 performance was given by the Little Symphony of New York at Carnegie Hall’s smaller chamber music room. The critic for Musical America wrote: “Ives’ Third is an American masterpiece … as unmistakably a part of our land as Huckleberry Finn or Moby Dick.”Ives’s Symphony won the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for Music. When notified of the award, the crusty Mr. Ives, then elderly, ill and living in retirement, responded: “Prizes are for boys — I’m grown up.”Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Ives (1874-1954): Symphony No. 3; Concertgebouw Orchestra; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. CBS/Sony 37823

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1977, Polish composer Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 was performed for the first time in Royan, France, by the Southwest German Radio Orchestra.Gorecki’s symphony has a subtitle — Symphony of Sorrowful Songs — and sets three texts set for solo soprano voice: a 15th century lamentation from a Polish monastery, a prayer inscribed on the wall of a WWII prison cell at the headquarters of the Polish Gestapo and a sad Polish folk song.Fifteen years after its premiere, a recording of Gorecki’s symphony featuring American soprano Dawn Upshaw and conductor David Zinman received some airplay on a British radio station and quickly soared to the top of the pop charts in the U.K. Radio stations in the U.S. started playing it as well, with the same effect.Was it a sign of an international religious revival? A delayed reaction to the collapse of Communism in Europe? Even Gorecki himself was perplexed: “Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music,” he wrote. “Somehow I hit the right note—something, somewhere that had been lost to them. I feel they instinctively knew what they needed.”Music Played in Today's ProgramHenryk Gorecki (1933-2010): Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs); Dawn Upshaw, soprano; London Sinfonietta; David Zinman, cond. Nonesuch 79282

SynopsisThe composer of “Dance of the Cuckoos” was born on this date in 1905.Thomas Marvin Hatley worked for the Hal Roach film studio that produced the famous Laurel and Hardy comedies, for which he wrote memorable music. His “Cuckoo” theme was originally used as a time cue for a radio station located on the Hal Roach studio lot, but when Stan Laurel heard it, he knew it would be perfect as the Laurel and Hardy signature theme.Between 1929 and 1940, Hatley wrote over 800 compositions for the studio. His scores for two Laurel and Hardy films were nominated for Academy Awards. But Hal Roach didn’t seem to appreciate Hatley’s music. In 1939, Hatley was fired by Roach, but at the insistence of Stan Laurel, Hatley returned to score one final Laurel and Hardy film.Hatley went on to become a Los Angeles-area cocktail lounge pianist, and quipped that he earned more in that career than he did working for Hal Roach.In his senior years, Hatley would attend meetings of Laurel and Hardy fan clubs in California, happily playing the piano to accompany old silent film era Hal Roach comedies.Music Played in Today's ProgramMarvin Hatley (1905 - 1986) — "Dance of the Cuckoos" (Van Phillips and His Orchestra) British 78-rpm recording ('Dance of the Cuckoos')

SynopsisAn invitation-only audience attended a historic Bruckner concert in Munich on today’s date in 1932. On the first half of the program, Siegmund von Hausegger conducted Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9, using the posthumous edition prepared by Bruckner’s pupil, Ferdinand Löwe, which contained many edits and alterations. For the second half, Bruckner’s Ninth was performed again — this time as the composer had written it, following the Bruckner’s unpublished manuscript score.During his lifetime and after his death, Bruckner’s most devoted pupils, Löwe and the Schalk brothers, Josef and Franz, cut and altered his scores to better match the expectations of contemporary audiences, trying to make Bruckner sound more like Wagner — flashier and more dramatic.The 1932 Munich concert began a five-year debate whether the original or altered Bruckner was preferable. Then in 1937, Germany’s Nazi government announced it would fund a new Bruckner edition based on the composer’s original manuscripts. Like everything else in Nazi Germany, symphonies were viewed through racially tinted lenses. Löwe had Jewish ancestry, and so what began as a musicological project to honor the Austrian composer’s original intentions was appropriated by the Nazis as a crusade to “liberate” Bruckner from what they called “non-Ayran” tampering.Music Played in Today's ProgramAnton Bruckner (1824-1896): Symphony No. 9; Minnesota Orchestra; Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, cond.; Reference 81

SynopsisProlific British composer Havergal Brian wrote 32 symphonies. His last was completed in 1968 when he was 92. Just before completing his Symphony No. 32, perhaps as insurance in case he died before finishing it, Brian wrote a shorter work as kind of coda or capstone to his output. He gave it a Latin title, Ave atque Vale (Hail and Farewell in English).In a letter to Robert Simpson, a fellow composer and friend, Brian said he didn’t intend this work as any kind of confession or comment on his life or music, but a purely abstract “last word” from him as a composer.Ave atque Vale received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1973, six months after Brian’s death, in a studio recording by the London Philharmonic intended for a BBC broadcast that never materialized.Brian’s music was seldom performed during his lifetime. He enjoyed some initial success in the early years of the 20th century, and a revival of interest in the 1950s and 60s, but since then his late Romantic, restless and often melancholic music — a quirky blend of Elgar and Mahler — is heard most often via recordings sponsored by the Havergal Brian Society.Music Played in Today's ProgramHavergal Brian (1876-1972): Ave atque Vale; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Garry Walker, cond.; Toccata Classics 110

SynopsisTroubled Island, an opera about Haiti by William Grant Still, was written in 1938 but had to wait 11 years for its first performance, which took place on today’s date in 1949.That production was by the New York City Opera, and the original cast included baritone Robert McFerrin Sr., whose son, Bobby McFerrin Jr., also became a famous singer. Speaking of familiar names, the libretto for Troubled Island was written by Langston Hughes, and its dance sequences were choreographed by George Balanchine.Still was born in Mississippi in 1895, studied music at Oberlin Conservatory and took private lessons from arch conservative composer George Whitefield Chadwick, as well as avant-garde firebrand Edgard Varèse. Like many composers active in the 1930s and ‘40s, he moved to Los Angeles to write for Hollywood, but also achieved fame as a preeminent African-American composer of concert works.The critical reception to Troubled Island in 1949 was negative. One review wrote, “Troubled Island sounds rather as if the libretto of Tosca had been set to the music of The Desert Song.”But with the hindsight of history, any project involving Still, Hughes and Balanchine sounds downright intriguing.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Grant Still (1895-1978): Symphony No. 1 (‘Afro-American’); Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos 9154

Synopsis“Call me Ishmael” Birge. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, then, I account it high time to get to the nearest Starbucks as soon as I can.With apologies to Hermann Melville, today marks the anniversary of the opening of the first Starbucks coffee shop in Seattle. Now, since Starbucks gets its name from the first mate of the Pequod, the whaling ship made famous in Melville’s classic American novel Moby Dick, in addition to a steaming hot cup of Starbucks coffee, we celebrate composer Jake Heggie’s ambitious Moby Dick opera, which premiered in Dallas in 2010.“When I write an opera, at a certain point the characters start singing to me,” Heggie said about wrestling with his great white whale. “But this was the first piece where I felt there was a physical cost, an exhaustion. ... Moby Dick deserved that.”And no doubt Dallas Opera stage director Leonard Foglia needed more than a few cups of Starbucks coffee to bring Melville’s epic drama to life on stage.He said, “I had to sink the ship in eight bars of music.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJake Heggie (b. 1961): ‘Moby Dick’; San Francisco Opera; Patrick Summers, cond. EuroArts DVD 2059658

SynopsisOne sunny afternoon in 1925, Czech composer Leos Janácek was sitting in a park listening to a military band concert. He was so taken with the fanfares he heard that he decided to write something along these lines himself. He was asked to write music for the Sokol gymnastic festival the next year, and soon he was enthusiastically working on what would become his Sinfonietta, which had its first performance on today’s date in 1926.Janácek dedicated the work to the Czechoslovak Armed Forces and said the music was meant to express “the contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory.”Another concert showpiece inspired by an athletic event is Javelin, commissioned from American composer Michael Torke for the 1996 Olympic Games in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.“I liked the word ‘javelin,’” Torke said. “The sweeping motion of a lot of the music is like an object thrown; a slender spear such as a javelin seemed apt, I knew the title would be appropriate.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLeos Janácek (1854-1928): ‘Sinfonietta’; Boston Symphony; Seiji Ozawa, cond. EMI 47837Michael Torke (b. 1961): ‘Javelin’; Atlanta Symphony; Yoel Levi, cond. Argo 452 101

SynopsisMost composers have to wait for years before their works get performed by a major orchestra or opera company, but not Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a child prodigy who grew up in the Vienna of Gustav Mahler. After hearing the 9-year-old play through one of his compositions, Mahler declared Korngold a genius.At 13, Korngold’s pantomime, The Snowman, was performed at the Vienna Court Opera, and on today’s date in 1916, when he was just 18, two of Korngold's one-act operas, Violanta and Polycrates’ Ring, were premiered at Munich’s National Theater.Korngold came to Hollywood in the 1930s and wrote scores for 17 classic films, including several starring Errol Flynn. Korngold, in his thick Austrian accent, called those action films “SVASH-booklers”. His contract let him retain all rights to his music, and in the 1940s he began recycling bits of film scores into concert works, like a 1945 Violin Concerto, written for Jascha Heifetz.Despite early fame in Europe and success in Hollywood, after World War II, Korngold’s music started to seem old-fashioned and fell into neglect, but two decades after his death in 1957, a major Korngold revival began, sparking new interest in — and recordings of — his well-crafted and appealing scores.Music Played in Today's ProgramErich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957): ‘The Snowman’; BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; Matthias Bamert, cond. Chandos 10434Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957): ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ film score; London Symphony; John Williams, cond. Sony 62788

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1914, the original version of A London Symphony, by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, premiered at the old Queen’s Hall in that city.It’s now called the “old Queen’s Hall,” because it was destroyed during the London Blitz of World War II. And it’s the “original version” because shortly after its premiere, Vaughan Williams sent the only copy of the full score to conductor Fritz Busch in Germany for its continental debut, but then World War I broke out, and in the ensuing chaos, the score was lost.Royal Albert Hall became the replacement venue for the bombed-out Queen’s Hall, and despite the loss of the original full score, that was reconstructed from the orchestral parts.But after its 1914 premiere, Vaughan Williams had second thoughts — and third and fourth thoughts — about his symphony’s original form. In 1936, he published a substantially revised version that he declared definitive, asking that any earlier incarnations of A London Symphony not be performed in public.It wasn’t until 2001 that the original version was heard again, with the blessing of the composer’s widow, Ursula, to satisfy those curious about Vaughan Williams’ first thoughts about the city called “The Big Smoke,” and London’s evocative sounds.Music Played in Today's ProgramRalph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): Symphony No. 2 (‘A London Symphony’); London Symphony; Andre Previn, cond. RCA/BMG 60581

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1828, Franz Schubert gave his first — and only — public concert in Vienna, which opened with the first movement of a recently composed string quartet. We don’t know for sure which one, since Schubert was writing a lot of new music then, but most likely it was from his String Quartet in G, which we know as No. 15.Schubert’s friends had tried to promote his music by holding “Schubertiades,” informal house concerts at which his music would be performed and wine and free food offered, but that didn’t help Schubert earn any money. And being a prolific composer — as Schubert certainly was — created its own problems. What publishers Schubert had couldn’t keep up with him.And then, as now, star performers — not composers — seemed to get all the money and attention. In Schubert’s day, it was Italian violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini who got all the press and big fees. Schubert’s single concert earned him 800 florins, for example, while Paganini, who arrived in Vienna the same month as Schubert’s concert, made over 6,000 florins per concert, and by the time he left Vienna later in 1828 had netted 75,000 florins.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Schubert (1795-1828): String Quartet in G; Emerson String Quartet; DG 459151

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1946, Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto was premiered at Carnegie Hall by the Woody Herman jazz band. It was Stravinsky’s most extended foray into the world of jazz — and he was a bit worried how it would turn out.A few months before the premiere, Stravinsky wrote to Nadia Boulanger in Paris that the new score would be tailor-made for Herman’s jazz band — and the two sides of a 78-rpm record. “I am composing a short concerto for the Woody Herman Band,” Stravinsky wrote.“Herman will record the music under my supervision,” he continued, “and it will be done on two sides of one record: first side, moderato (two and a half minutes) and andante (two minutes); second side: theme and variations (three minutes). The orchestra will consist of clarinet, oboe, five saxophones, five trumpets, horn, three trombones, double bass, harp, piano, guitar and percussion. I am somewhat unnerved by my lack of familiarity with this sort of thing.”He needn’t have worried. The fusion of the odd sonorities of Herman’s jazz band with Stravinsky’s neoclassical inclinations resulted in a work that sounds a little like a swing-era version of one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): ‘Ebony Concerto’; Benny Goodman, clarinet; Columbia Jazz Combo; Igor Stravinsky, cond. Sony 64136

Synopsis14th-century B.C.E. pharaoh Akhnaten is remembered for his radical abandonment of the multiple gods of Egypt in favor of just one: the sun god Aten. Akhnaten’s heresy ended with his death when traditional beliefs were quickly reestablished and Akhnaten’s name was literally chiseled out of Egyptian history.Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism opined that Moses might have been an Egyptian priest of Akhnaten, and Immanuel Velikovsky, a once-popular but fanciful historian, suggested in his book Oedipus and Akhnaton that a garbled memory of Akhnaten’s reign was the source of the Greek tragedy Oedipus the King.American composer Philip Glass credits both those authors among the inspirations for his opera Akhnaten, which premiered on today’s date in 1984 at the Staatstheaer in Stuttgart, Germany.In 1984, the Stuttgart opera was undergoing renovations, so the premiere was moved to a much smaller hall, with a much smaller orchestra pit. Rather than scrimp on other instruments, Glass simply made a virtue of necessity and omitted the entire violin section from his score. The role of Akhnaten is sung by a counter-tenor, whose high voice provides a striking contrast to the a low, dark timbre of Glass’ violin-less orchestration.Music Played in Today's ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1937): ‘Hymn to the Sun,’ from ‘Akhnaten’; Paul Esswood, ct; Stuttgart Opera Orchestra; Dennis Russel Davies, cond. CBS Masterworks/Sony 42457

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2012, the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet — an ensemble committed to commissioning original works as well as performing new arrangements for four guitars — gave the premiere performance of a suite that took them far afield: to Guangxi province in China, to be exact. The new work, Guangxi Impression, took place at Sundin Hall in St. Paul, but the sounds the four guitarists produced evoked not only a far-off Chinese landscape, but Chinese instruments, as well.  That should not have been all that surprising, since the composer of the specially commissioned piece, Gao Hong, is a virtuoso performer on one of them: the pipa, the traditional pear-shaped, plucked lute of China. Hong has made the United States her home since 1994, and her Guangxi Impressions for a quartet of traditional Western guitars is a suite in three movements, played without pause. The third and final movement is titled ‘Celebrating the Harvest.’“A bountiful harvest is cause for celebration in Guangxi,” Hong writes, “and I depict this with sounds of percussion bands and people yelling with excitement as they dance. Near the end of the movement I [ask the performers to shout Chinese] words expressing happiness.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGao Hong (b. 1964): 'Celebrating the Harvest,' from 'Guangxi Impression'; Minneapolis Guitar Quartet; innova 858

SynopsisToday’s date marks the birthday of Andrew Lloyd Webber, British composer of blockbuster musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. In addition to winning Grammy and Tony Awards in our country, he’s racked up Olivier Awards in his own. He was knighted in 1992, and in 1997 was created a life peer as Baron Lloyd-Webber, of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire.Estimates of his net worth suggest a figure well over $900 million.Despite all that, Lloyd Webber has always had detractors, including those who accuse him of plagiarizing everyone from Mendelssohn to Puccini to Pink Floyd. His musicals are criticized for their supposed glitz and superficiality, and adversely compared with those of his American contemporary, Stephen Sondheim.Sarah Crompton, writing for the Telegraph, offered a more nuanced comparison between the two, referencing the Beatles, no less. “Lloyd Webber is McCartney to Stephen Sondheim's Lennon,” she wrote. “He suffers from just the same undervaluing as an innovator because his essential impulse to go for the big, thumping number with the catchy tune will always obscure the subtlety and bravery he is capable of.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAndrew Lloyd Webber (b. 1948): ‘Memory,’ from 'Cats’; Julian Lloyd Webber, cello; Royal Philharmonic; Barry Wordsworth, cond. Philips 426 484-2

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1904, during his first visit to America, German composer Richard Strauss conducted a program of his music at Carnegie Hall in New York. Featured were Strauss’ tone poems Don Juan, Also Sprach Zarathustra and the world premiere of Sinfonia Domestica, or A Domestic Symphony.After tone poems devoted to philanderers like Don Juan and philosophers like Zarathustra, Strauss apparently decided it was time to deal with family values.He dedicated his Domestic Symphony to “my beloved wife and our young one,” and the work supposedly depicts 24 hours in the Strauss household, complete with baby’s bath, temper tantrum and connubial bliss after baby settles down for the night.It raised eyebrows then and still does today. Strauss remained unflappable. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t write about myself,” he said. “I find the subject as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander the Great.”One waggish New York music critic, no doubt after meeting the formidable Mrs. Strauss, who accompanied her husband on his American tour, wrote: “If this were a true biographical sketch, we fancy that the wife would be portrayed by trombones and tuba, while the husband would be the second fiddle.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864-1949): 'Sinfonia Domestica’; Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond. Virgin 61460

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1980, a new production of a seldom-heard work by German composer Kurt Weill was staged by the New York City Opera. Its production of Silver Lake, starring Joel Grey, opened on the eve of the 47th anniversary of Weill’s hasty departure from Nazi Germany after being tipped off that the Gestapo was hunting for him.Silver Lake, or Der Silbersee in its original German title, was Weill’s last work to premiere in Germany, shortly before the Nazis’ total ban of his music. As early as 1930, at a rally in Augsburg, Hitler had railed against anti-Nazi intellectuals and singled out by name novelist Thomas Mann, scientist Albert Einstein and Weill. Astonishingly, Weill happened to be in Augsburg observing the crowds that day.Despite violent Nazi protests at performances of his music, Weill courageously stayed in his native land until 1933. In 1935, after two unhappy years in Paris and London, Weill arrived in New York, applied for U.S. citizenship and reinvented himself as a successful Broadway composer, insisting on Anglicizing the pronunciation of his last name from “Vile” to “While” and refusing even to speak German.Music Played in Today's ProgramKurt Weill (1900-1950): Overture, 'Der Silbersee' ('The Silver Lake'); London Sinfonietta; Markus Stenz, cond. RCA 63447

SynopsisIn London on today’s date in 1896, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák conducted the first performance of his Cello Concerto.Two years earlier, while teaching at the National Conservatory in New York, Dvořák attended the Brooklyn premiere of a cello concerto by American cellist and composer Victor Herbert. Herbert had been the principal cellist for the premiere performance of Dvořák’s New World Symphony at Carnegie Hall and was a superb player and the soloist in the premiere of his own concerto.After the concert, Dvořák rushed backstage, embraced Herbert, and told him his concerto was “splendid — simply splendid.”Inspired by Herbert’s example, Dvořák began a cello concerto of his own, completing it in just three months. It was the last work he completed during his three-year stay in America, but on the final page of his manuscript score, he wrote, “I finished the concerto in New York, but when I returned to Bohemia I changed the end completely the way it stands here now.”The concerto was written for and dedicated to Dvořák’s countryman, Czech cellist Hanuš Wihan, but due to a scheduling conflict, British soloist Leo Stern played its world premiere in London.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Dvorak (1841-1904): Cello Concerto; Yo Yo Ma, cello; New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, cond.

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1827, Ludwig van Beethoven dictated and signed a letter in which he mentions “a new symphony, which lies already sketched in my desk.” This new work would have been Beethoven’s 10th Symphony.But in March 1827, Beethoven was ill and his friends feared the worst. Even so, he seemed optimistic that he could finish a new symphony as a thank you for the Philharmonic Society of London. The society had recently sent him 100 pounds in the hopes it would ease his sickbed, and Beethoven was touched by their kindness. “I will compose a grand symphony for them,” he told visitors.But eight days later Beethoven died, and for the next 150 years most people disputed that he had in fact sketched out such a new symphony. It wasn’t until the 1960s that scholars started sorting through his sketchbooks and not until the 1980s that evidence surfaced to prove it.British Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper went so far as to assemble a performing version of Beethoven’s sketches for the first movement of his 10th Symphony. Appropriately enough, as Beethoven intended his new symphony for a British premiere, the first recording of Cooper’s reconstruction was made by the London Symphony.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 10 (arr. Barry Cooper); London Symphony; Wyn Morris, cond. MCA 6269

SynopsisOne of Handel’s “greatest hits” had its premiere on today’s date in 1749 at London’s Covent Garden Theatre, as part of his new biblical oratorio, Solomon.The text of Handel’s oratorio praises the legendary Hebrew king’s piety in Part 1, his wisdom in Part 2 and the splendor of his royal court in Part 3.As the instrumental introduction to the third part of Solomon, Handel composed a jaunty sinfonia he titled “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.” In the Book of Kings, the Queen of Sheba travels from afar to visit the splendid court of King Solomon, arriving, as the Bible puts it, “with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, very much gold, and precious stones.”Handel’s music admirably captures the excitement of a lavish state visit of an exotic foreign queen, and first-night London audiences would have had no problem reading into Handel’s depiction of an elaborate compliment of their reigning monarch, King George II.Speaking of reigning monarchs, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, Handel’s Sinfonia was used to accompany a video of James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) arriving at Buckingham Palace, where 007 was received by Queen Elizabeth II.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1757): excerpt from ‘Solomon’; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond. Philips 412 612

SynopsisIn St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1897, the First Symphony of Sergei Rachmaninoff had its disastrous premiere.Now, there are bad reviews and then there are really bad reviews. When Rachmaninoff opened up a newspaper the next day he read, “If there were conservatory in hell, and if one of its students were instructed to write a symphony based on the seven plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Rachmaninoff's, he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and delighted the inmates of hell.”Ouch!What must have really hurt was that the review was written by a fellow composer, Cesare Cui, and the premiere was conducted — poorly, it seems — by another composer colleague, Alexander Glazunov.The whole affair was so painful that Rachmaninoff needed therapy before he could compose again, and when he left Russia for good in 1917, he left the symphony’s manuscript behind, and in the turmoil of the Bolshevik revolution it was lost. However, the original orchestral parts for the 1897 premiere survived. They were rediscovered in 1945, two years after Rachmaninoff’s death, and a belated — and this time successful — second performance took place that same year.Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphony No. 1; St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Mariss Jansons, cond. EMI 56754

SynopsisThe Palladium Ballroom once stood at the corner of 53rd Street and Broadway in New York City. It opened on today’s date in 1946, and in its heyday, was the mambo capital of the world, showcasing performances by Latin superstars like Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and Machito.The Palladium closed in 1966, but its dance floor and bandstand were re-created for the 1992 film The Mambo Kings, in which Puente plays himself.The spirit of the Palladium was also evoked in a more recent chamber work by Puerto Rican composer Dan Román. Fascinated by both the music of contemporary minimalist composers and the popular dance forms of Puerto Rico, he combines the two in his four-movement work Musica de Palladium for violin, viola, cello and piano.The work’s final movement, “Sensacional,” is, according to Román, “a collage of aural images taken from mambos and other dance music of Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez.”Musica de Palladium was written for the New World Trio and recorded by them, joined by violist Steve Larson.Music Played in Today's ProgramDan Román (b. 1974): ‘Musica de Palladium’; New World Trio (Annie Trepanier, vn; Carlynn Savot, vcl; Pi-Hsun Shih, p); Steve Larson, vla. innova CD 904

SynopsisJohann Strauss the Elder, patriarch of the famous waltz dynasty, was born in Vienna on this day in 1804. His music became immensely popular across Europe, and he dreamed of — but never realized — a tour of America.At the height of his fame, Strauss visited Britain, providing music for the state ball on the occasion of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. His waltz Homage to the Queen of England, quotes Rule, Britannia at its start and God Save the Queen — in waltz tempo, of course — for its finale. The Times reported that in this case, Victoria was amused, as were her subjects. In the spring and summer of 1838, the Strauss orchestra gave 79 performances in London alone.Unfortunately, back home, Strauss was something of a cad. He abandoned his wife and his three talented musical children, Josef, Eduard and Johann Jr. for a mistress with whom he started a new family. He died at 45 of scarlet fever, contracted from one of his illegitimate children.Strauss wrote about 300 works, the most famous being his Radetzky March, the obligatory clap-along selection on every Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Day Concert.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohann Strauss Jr. (1827-1870): ‘Radetzky March’; Cincinnati Pops Orchestra; Erich Kunzel, cond. Vox 5132

SynopsisToday’s date in 1962 marks the birthday in New Orleans of Terence Blanchard, American jazz trumpeter, composer and educator. “I come from a family of musicians,” Blanchard says. “My father was an opera singer, my mother played piano and taught voice, my grandfather played the guitar. What I wanted was to be a jazz musician, have a band, travel and create music.”Well, he got his wish! Blanchard started piano at 5 and trumpet at 8, playing music with childhood friends Wynton and Branford Marsalis at summer music camps and studied composition with their father, Ellis Marsalis. In 1980, while still in his teens, Blanchard began performing with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and later Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.In the 1990s, Blanchard started writing film and TV scores and has composed more than 40 of them to date. In 2019, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his music for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.He holds major teaching positions and tours with his quintet, the E-Collective. In 2021, his opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera.Music Played in Today's ProgramTerence Blanchard (b. 1962): ‘Ron’s Theme,’ from BlacKkKlansman Suite; the E-Collective, with a 96-piece orchestra Back Lot Music CD 779

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1943, at the height of World War II, Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man had its premiere performance in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Symphony’s conductor in those days, British-born Eugene Goosens, had commissioned 18 fanfares for brass and percussion. “It is my idea,” he wrote, “to make these fanfares stirring and significant contributions to the war effort.”Besides Copland, composers commissioned included Henry Cowell, Paul Creston, Morton Gould, Howard Hanson, William Grant Still and Virgil Thomson.Most of the composers dedicated their fanfares to a unit of the U.S. military or one of its wartime allies. But Copland’s fanfare stood out, both musically and by virtue of its title.Among the titles Copland considered — and rejected — were Fanfare for the Spirit of Democracy and Fanfare for Four Freedoms, the latter in reference to President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address that called for the freedom of speech and religion, and from want and fear. He settled on Fanfare for the Common Man.“It was the common man, after all, who was doing all the dirty work in the war and the army,” Copland recalled. “He deserved a fanfare.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’; San Francisco Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. RCA/BMG 63888

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1829, a 20-year-old German composer named Felix Mendelssohn conducted the first public performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in almost a hundred years. Earlier, Mendelssohn had written to a friend:“You may know from the papers that I intend to perform the Passion, by Sebastian Bach, a very beautiful and worthy piece of church music from the last century, on March 11 at the Berlin Academy of Music. I ask if it would be possible for you to grant us the pleasure of your company that evening ... to honor an old master and dignify our celebration by your presence.”Mendelssohn’s 1829 performance sparked a revival of interest in Bach’s music, generally considered too unmelodic, mathematical, dry and incomprehensible for the audiences in Mendelssohn’s day. It really took some doing for Mendelssohn to pry the score of Bach’s Passion from the Berlin musician who owned it, and who said it was a total a waste of time to perform such an outmoded, unfashionable piece of music.But, in fact, the performance was so well received that Bach’s Passion was performed again 10 days later, to even greater acclaim, on March 21, the anniversary of Bach’s birth.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): St. Matthew Passion; Netherlands Bach Society; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; Ton Koopman, cond.

SynopsisOn this date in 1785, a new Piano Concerto in C major was given its premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna, with its composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at the keyboard.Years later, this piano concerto was labeled as Mozart’s 21st, and given the number 467 in the chronological list of his works compiled by Ludwig Ritter von Koechel, an Austrian botanist, mineralogist and Mozart enthusiast.Today, this work is popularly referred to as the Elvira Madigan Concerto, for the simple reason that its romantic slow movement was used to great effect in a 1967 Swedish film of that name to underscore a passionate love story.That Swedish movie helped to bring Mozart’s concerto to the attention of a far wider audience than ever before, as did the 1984 movie Amadeus, with Mozart’s music in general.Musicologists might wince when they hear the title Amadeus. It’s a matter of historical record that Mozart signed his name “Amadeo” or “Amadé.” Others object that a Swedish film should provide a nickname for one of Mozart’s most sublime works — but, for better or worse, both Amadeus and Elvira Madigan are labels that seem to have stuck to Mozart’s name and his concerto.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 21; Alfred Brendel, piano; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Neville Marriner, cond. Philips 412 856

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1902, composer Gustav Mahler, 41, married Alma Schindler, 22. Mahler was the famous director of the Vienna Court Opera, and by 1902 had written four symphonies. Schindler was considered one of the most beautiful women in Vienna, and also independent, unpredictable and remarkably free-spirited.Perhaps that, as much as her beauty, appealed to Mahler, but many of the composer’s longtime friends did not approve and predicted disaster. One of them even suggested the composer convert to Protestantism, which would make getting a divorce easier in ultra-Catholic Vienna.On today’s date in 1902, a large crowd of curious onlookers gathered in Vienna’s majestic Baroque Karlskirche at 5:30 p.m., the time the wedding was thought to take place, only to discover the couple had been married hours earlier in the privacy of its sacristy with just the immediate family present.The next symphony that Mahler wrote, his Fifth, contains a lovely adagietto movement that Mahler’s friend Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg claims was inspired by Alma. “It was his declaration of love. Instead of a letter, he confided it in this manuscript without a word of explanation,” Mengelberg said. “She understood. He tells her everything in music.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 5; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, cond. London 458 860

SynopsisAt Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 2015, the Met Chamber Ensemble gave the posthumous premiere of a new work by American composer Elliott Carter, who died in November 2012, a month or so shy of what would have been his 104th birthday.The debut of The American Sublime marked the last world premiere performance of Carter’s 75-year-long composing career.Hearing Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at Carnegie Hall in the 1920s inspired Carter to become a composer. A high school teacher introduced him to Charles Ives, who became a mentor. By the mid-1930s, Carter was writing music in the “populist modern” style, à la Copland, but during a year spent in the Arizona desert in 1950, Carter finished his String Quartet No. 1 — 40 minutes of music uncompromising in both its technical difficulty and structural intricacy."That crazy long first quartet was played in Belgium," Carter recalled. "It was played over the radio, and I got a letter from a coal miner, in French, who said, 'I liked your piece. It's just like digging for coal.' He meant that it was hard and took effort."Music Played in Today's ProgramElliott Carter (1908-2012): Horn Concerto (2006); Martin Owen, fh; BBC Symphony; Oliver Knussen, cond. Bridge 9314

SynopsisPerhaps there is some poetic justice in the fact that maverick American composers like Charles Ives had a hard time getting performances of their music during their lifetime, only to be both lionized and frequently performed after their deaths. Conversely, many mainstream American composers who were lionized and frequently performed when they were alive seldom show up on concert programs anymore — and in some cases, that’s a darn shame.Take Walter Piston, for example, who in his day was regarded as one of America’s premier composers. On today’s date in 1957, his Viola Concerto received its premiere performance by the Boston Symphony, in a concert conducted by Charles Munch, with soloist Joseph de Pasquale, a Curtis Institute professor and first-chair violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.It’s a lovely, lyrical work and a terrific showcase for a great violist. But have you ever heard it in concert — or on the radio, for that matter? A British reviewer, writing in the UK’s Gramophone magazine, was bowled over by this music, writing, “Piston's concerto opens pensively, quickly builds to an aching climax … in the final pages, a sweeter lyricism that prepares the listener perfectly for the playful syncopations of the exuberant finale.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWalter Piston (1951-1987): Viola Concerto; Randolph Kelly, viola; Latvian National Symphony; Alexandrs Vilumanis, cond. Albany TROY-558

SynopsisHave you ever sent someone an email you regretted the second you hit send? Even in the 19th century, it was often prudent to sleep on a message before sending off words written in the heat of passion.On today’s date in 1853, Giuseppe Verdi sent a barrage of short notes to friends after what he felt was the disastrous premiere of his latest opera at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice.“I am sorry,” Verdi wrote to his publisher, “but I cannot conceal the truth from you. Let's not investigate the reason. It happened. Goodbye, goodbye.” To another colleague Verdi wrote: “It was a fiasco. My fault. Or the singers? Time alone will tell.”But, apparently after a little more thought, he wrote to another friend, “The audience laughed. Well, what of it! Either I’m wrong or they are. I personally don’t think that last night’s verdict will be the last word.”After a year waiting for just the right cast, Verdi allowed his new opera to be restaged — in Venice once again, but this time at a different theater. Much to his satisfaction, this time, his new opera La Traviata was a big hit.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): ‘La Traviata’; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Georg Solti, cond. London 448 119

SynopsisWhat’s your favorite recording of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23? It is said that Joseph Stalin’s was one with Russian pianist Maria Yudina, and that recording was spinning on his turntable when the dictator was found dead on today’s date in 1953. In 1944, Stalin had heard Yudina perform this concerto on the radio and called the Soviet broadcaster and asked for the recording. Now, no one dared say “no” to Stalin, so, even though the performance had been live and had not been recorded, the performers were hastily called back to the studio, and by morning a private recording was ready for delivery.Stalin was so pleased, that — again, according to the stories — he sent Yudina 20,000 rubles. In defiance of state-imposed Soviet atheism, the pianist was a devout Orthodox Christian who always wore a cross while performing and considered her music an expression of faith. Stalin really must have liked her playing, since he did nothing — so the story goes — when she sent him a thank-you note letting him know that she gave all the money to her church and that she would pray for him and ask God to forgive all his great sins against his own people.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): 2nd Movement from Piano Concerto No. 23Marina Yudina, piano; USSR Radio Symphony; Alexander Gauk, cond. Melodiya MELCO0377

SynopsisAntonio Lucio Vivaldi came into the world on today’s date in 1678 a few days after an earthquake shook Venice. The newborn was baptized immediately — just in case little Antonio’s first day also turned out to be his last.Vivaldi’s father was a violinist, and even though Antonio quickly became a virtuoso on that instrument himself, he became a Roman Catholic priest.Vivaldi complained of chest pains whenever he celebrated Mass — a medical excuse that allowed him to forgo his priestly duties and to concentrate on writing music, including dozens of operas and hundreds of concertos.By his mid-40s, Vivaldi was a major figure on the European musical scene, but his fortunes gradually took a turn for the worse. The church ordered him to stop composing music for the theater and, for heaven’s sake, to stop gadding around Europe in the company of female opera singers!Vivaldi went to Vienna in 1740, hoping to find a court position with Emperor Charles VI, a big fan of his music, but after eating some bad mushrooms, the emperor died. And the following year, Vivaldi died — from an internal infection, not an earthquake — at 63 and heavily in debt.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): ‘The Four Seasons’; Enrico; Onofri, violin; Il Giardino Armonico; Giovanni Antonini, cond. Teldec 97671

SynopsisToday marks the birth in 1913 of American composer Margaret Bonds. Her mother was a church musician in Chicago; her father was a physician and one of the founders of a medical association for Black physicians denied membership in the American Medical Association.One of the visitors to Bonds’ childhood home was composer Florence Price, with whom she studied composition. At 16, Bonds became one of the few Black students enrolled at Northwestern University, although she was not allowed to live on campus. At the 1933 World’s Fair, Bonds performed Price’s Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony, becoming the first African-American woman soloist to appear with a major American orchestra.After earning her master’s degree, she moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School. She met and became a close friend of poet Langston Hughes, with whom she collaborated on many projects.Bonds wrote about 200 works, but only 47 were published during her lifetime, and only about 75 of her scores are known today. The rest exist as privately held manuscripts scattered all over the country.One of her best-known works is Troubled Water, a solo piano fantasia on the spiritual “Wade in the Water.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMargaret Bonds (1913-1972): ‘Troubled Water’; Joel Fan, piano; Reference Recordings RR-119

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1965, the now-classic and mega-iconic musical film The Sound of Music officially debuted at the Rivoli Theater at Broadway and 49th Street in New York City.Since we at Composers Datebook are notorious for mentioning “little known facts,” let us state, for the record, that the first test audiences to see the film did so in flyover country — first in Minneapolis and subsequently in Tulsa, Oklahoma, about a month before the film’s New York debut.The Midwestern audiences were ecstatic, and director Robert Wise knew he'd have a hit on his hands when his film, starring Julie Andrews, opened on Broadway, not far from where the stage version, starring Mary Martin, had originally debuted back in 1959.The 1965 New York Times film review was a little snarky — well, what else is new? It began by referring to “the perceptible weakness of its quaintly old-fashioned book,” while grudgingly admiring, “the generally melodic felicity of the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein score,” and ended by opining, “Business-wise, Mr. Wise is no fool.”No fool, indeed. Wise’s film won five Oscars and displaced Gone With the Wind as the highest-grossing film of all-time.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Rodgers (1902-1979): ‘My Favorite Things,’ from ‘The Sound of Music’ (arr. Hough); Stephen Hough, p. MusicMasters 60135 and/or Virgin 59509 and 61498

SynopsisFor most of the 20th century, women’s history was almost totally ignored in American schools. To address this situation, an education task force in Sonoma County, California, initiated a women’s history celebration in March 1978. What began as an annual Women’s History Week grew over the years into a national celebration, and in 1987, Congress declared the whole of March to be Women's History Month.Appropriately enough, 1987 also saw the premiere performance of Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman — music written for the same instrumentation as Aaron Copland’s famous Fanfare for the Common Man.Originally, Tower chose to let the title of her Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman serve as a generic, built-in dedication to all the unsung heroes of women’s struggles past and present. But eventually, Tower added a specific dedication to conductor Marin Alsop, a champion of new music.“I don’t think you can play a piece of music and say whether it’s written by a man or a woman,” Tower says. “I think music is genderless.”But festivals and celebrations of women in music remain important, in Tower’s view, in helping to get the word out about their accomplishments.Music Played in Today's ProgramJoan Tower (b. 1938): ‘Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman’; Colorado Symphony; Marin Alsop, cond. Koch International 7469

SynopsisHappy Leap Year!Once every four years, we have the opportunity to wish the great Italian opera composer Giacomo Rossini a happy birthday — he was born on Feb. 29 in 1792 — and to note some other musical events that occurred on this unusual but recurring calendar date.The American Bicentennial Year 1976, for example, also was a leap year, and 12 months were cram-packed with specially commissioned works written on a grand scale to celebrate that major anniversary of our nation. But at Alice Tully Hall on Feb. 29, 1976, a more modest celebration was in progress: an afternoon of new chamber works for flute and harp, including the premiere performance of a piece by American composer Ned Rorem.This piece was titled Book of Hours, referring to the prayers that the clergy read at various times of the day. In 1976, when avant-garde composer Pierre Boulez was the music director of the New York Philharmonic and dense, complicated music was considered fashionable by the critics, and the reviewer for the New York Times was struck by Rorem’s deceptive simplicity: “Many contemporary composers flaunt their abilities to make music complex,” he wrote, “but Rorem waves an altogether different flag. His Book of Hours seemed determined to be uneventful. Its calculated simplicities and unassertive manner recalled the bare-walls asceticism of Erik Satie, though Mr. Rorem’s phrases and colors are more sensuous and do not quite evoke Satie’s mood of monastic rigor.”Music Played in Today's ProgramNed Rorem (1923-2022): Book of Hours; Fibonacci Sequence; Naxos 8.559128

SynopsisFor most music lovers, the phrase “Italian composers of the 19th and 20th centuries” means, first and foremost, opera composers.But during the 1920s and 1930s, when great Italian opera conductor Arturo Toscanini was music director of the New York Philharmonic, American audiences heard many nonoperatic, symphonic works by modern Italian composers.On today’s date in 1929, for example, Toscanini led the New York Philharmonic in the world premiere performance of Concerto dell ‘Estate (Summer Concerto), by contemporary Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti.In addition to premieres by Pizzetti, New York audiences heard recent Italian symphonic works by Respighi, Tommasini, Martucci, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Wolf-Ferrari and others.Absent from Toscanini’s New York programs were new works by the rising American composers of the day. There were no Toscanini premieres — or even performances — of works by Copland, Harris or Piston. Those composers had to look to the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky if they wanted a hearing.American composer Daniel Gregory Mason complained in 1931 that the Philharmonic was run by “fashion-enslaved, prestige-hypnotized minds ... totally devoid of any American loyalty to match the Italian loyalty” that was, as Mason admitted, “rather likeable” in the charismatic Italian maestro.Music Played in Today's ProgramIldebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968): Rondo Veneziano; BBC Scottish Symphony; Osmo Vänskä, cond. Hyperion 67084

SynopsisToday’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 6 was giving public piano performances. All 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 young harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova, who was a concentration camp survivor. Kalabis was a gentile, but in Stalinist Czechoslovakia, anti-Semitism was rampant and marrying a Jew was frowned upon. To make matters worse, they 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, he 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 ProgramViktor Kalabis (1923-2006): Piano Concerto No. 1; Zuzana Ruzickova, p; Czech Philharmonic; Karel Sejna, cond. MRS Classics MS-1350

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1832, Polish pianist and composer Frederic Chopin made his concert debut in Paris at the Salle Pleyel. Among the enthusiastic audience members was another composer-pianist by the name of Franz Liszt, who would rapidly become Chopin’s close friend and advocate.Chopin dedicated his recently completed Piano Etudes to Liszt, and Chopin once wrote to a friend, “I am writing without knowing what my pen is scribbling, because at this moment Liszt is playing my etudes and putting honest thoughts out of my head. I should like to rob him of the way he plays them!”The failure of the Polish Insurrection of 1831 had driven a large number of Polish refugees to Paris, where they joined émigré groups of Italians and Austrians who had also fled political repression at home for the more liberal, welcoming atmosphere of the French capitol.Increasing ill health and crippling stage fright made Chopin’s public concert appearances in Paris rare events. When Chopin did perform in public, he liked to share the stage with a sympathetic singer like Pauline Viardot-Garcia, or a fellow pianist like Liszt. Despite his fame, Chopin’s concert appearances in Paris numbered less than a dozen.Music Played in Today's ProgramFrederic Chopin (1810-1949): Etude No. 10; Maurizio Pollini, piano DG 413 794

Synopsis“Pssst. Hey, buddy – wanna buy a bridge? No? Well, how about a clarinet concerto, then?”As most of us know, the Brooklyn Bridge is not for sale, but this New York icon has reputedly been sold to many unsuspecting visitors. After its opening in 1883, Harper's Monthly wrote, “The wise man will not cross the bridge in five minutes, nor in 20, [but] will linger to get the good of the splendid view about him.” American composer Michael Daugherty did just that and came up with a concerto for clarinet and wind ensemble that premiered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then, on today’s date, in 2005 was performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall.“Like the four cables of webs of wire and steel that hold the Brooklyn Bridge together,” Daugherty says, “my ode to this cultural icon [in] four movements: East (Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights); South (Statue of Liberty); West (Wall Street and the lower Manhattan skyline); and North (Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center). In the final movement, I imagine Artie Shaw, the great jazz swing clarinetist of the 1940s, performing in the once glorious Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of the Rockefeller Center.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMichael Daugherty (b. 1954): Brooklyn Bridge; Maureen Hurd, clarinet; Rutgers Wind Ensemble; William Berz, cond. Naxos 8.57252999

SynopsisIt’s a play both Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein wanted to make into an opera, but the playwright always said, “No.”We’re talking about Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, a nostalgic but bittersweet look at life, love and death in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, set in the early 1900s, complete with white picket fences, boy meets girl, and a drugstore soda counter.It wasn’t until decades after Wilder’s death in 1975 that the executor of the Wilder estate, after a long search for just the right composer for an Our Town opera, settled on Ned Rorem, and a libretto crafted by poet J.D. McClatchy, who also happened to be an authority on Wilder’s works.Rorem was in his 80s when the opera premiered on today’s date in 2006 at the Opera Theater at the Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana.The New York Times thought the resulting opera was a success, writing, “Our Town opens with a hymn, and Rorem retained and refracted the familiar melody, turning pat modulations slightly bitter, as if the music were heard through a lens of nostalgia that turned it sepia. This nostalgia proved a hallmark of the score.”Music Played in Today's ProgramNed Rorem (b. 1923): Opening, from Our Town; Monadnock Music; Gil Rose, cond. New World 80790

SynopsisBach’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 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 enthusiasm resulted in his commissioning 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 ProgramHenry Martin (b. 1950): Prelude & Fugue No. 1; (Ken Cowan, organ) Pipedreams 1004

SynopsisIn recounting the life story of many composers, it’s a familiar and perhaps romantic cliché that their work will be — as a matter of course — not appreciated by their contemporaries, and that the composer in question will have to toil for years in obscurity before his or her music is appreciated by performers and audiences.In reality, we’re happy to report, that isn’t always the case.Consider, for example, American composer Lowell Liebermann, who was born in New York on today’s date in 1961. When he was 16, his Piano Sonata No. 1 premiered at Carnegie Hall, resulting in a number of prizes and awards. By his 30s, Liebermann was being commissioned and championed by some of the leading performers of our time.For James Galway, Liebermann composed a flute concerto, and Liebermann’s two-act opera The Picture of Dorian Gray was the first work the Monte Carlo Opera commissioned from an American composer. In 1998, Liebermann was appointed composer-in-residence with the Dallas Symphony, and that orchestra premiered his Symphony No. 2 in February 2000, and, in a symbolic millennium gesture, simulcast their performance on the new-fangled worldwide web.Music Played in Today's ProgramLowell Liebermann (b. 1961) Flute Concerto; James Galway, flute; London Mozart Players; Lowell Liebermann, cond. BMG 63235Symphony No. 2; Dallas Symphony and Chorus; Andrew Litton, cond. Delos 3256

SynopsisHenry Cowell was one of the most prolific of all 20th-century American composers. Some of his works are aggressively experimental in nature, while others tap into folk traditions and world music. The range and variety are quite remarkable. Cowell wrote so many works, in fact, that even the composer himself often had trouble keeping track of all he had written.Take today’s genial little Woodwind Quintet, for example. It was written in the early 1930s for the great French flute virtuoso Georges Barrère, who commissioned and premiered many new works involving his instrument. In 1934, Barrère even made a recording of the suite for New Music Quarterly, a publishing venture bankrolled by none other than the retired insurance executive and part-time composer Charles Ives.After that recording, Cowell went on producing new works, and the manuscript of his Woodwind Quintet remained with Barrère, who apparently just filed it away. The music didn’t surface again until 1947, when it was discovered among the late flutist’s collection of scores.On today’s date in 1948, Cowell’s Woodwind Suite received its first concert performance at Columbia University in New York City and quickly established itself as one of Cowell’s most popular compositions.Music Played in Today's ProgramHenry Cowell (1897-1965): Suite for Woodwind Quintet; Solaris Capstone 8677

SynopsisIn 1724, Feb. 20 fell on a Sunday, and at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, or, in English, Jesus Gathered the 12 to Himself, a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, was performed as part of the Sunday service.Meanwhile, on Feb. 20 in London that same year, audiences at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket heard the premiere of Giulio Cesare in Egitto or, Julius Caesar in Egypt, a new Italian opera by George Frideric Handel.How interesting to find Bach in church and Handel in the theater, on the same date — but not, as it turns out, on the same day.In 1724, Bach’s Germany kept track of time under the Gregorian calendar, but in Handel’s England, the older Julian calendar was still used, and so Handel’s calendar would say Feb. 20 was a Thursday, while Bach’s would say was it was a Sunday. It wasn’t until 1752 that England adopted the same calendar that Germany used — the Gregorian one we still use today.In the 18th century, apparently, you didn’t need Albert Einstein to remind you that time is a very relative concept!Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750): Excerpt fr Cantata No. 22; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; Ton Koopman, cond. Sony Classical 60680George Frederic Handel (1685-1757): Excerpt, fr Giulio Cesare; Barbara Schlick, soprano; Concerto Cologne; Rene Jacobs, cond. Harmonia Mundi 90.1458

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1923, Finnish composer Jean Sibelius conducted the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 6 in Helsinki. He had begun work on it about five years earlier and at that time described his vision for the symphony as follows:“The Sixth Symphony is wild and passionate in character. Gloomy with pastoral contrasts. Probably in four movements with a finale, which will build to a gloomy, wild romp of the orchestra in which the main theme disappears.”That might have been the original idea, but the final product turned out quite different and musicologist Michael Steinberg offered a more spot-on description: “The Sibelius Sixth is transparent, pastoral, lyrical and notably even-tempered — a sanctuary fashioned out of music.”In the pecking order of popularity, the Second and Fifth of Sibelius’ seven symphonies rank at the top, with the Sixth probably the least-often heard in concert. But the always-perceptive Steinberg wrote, “To this day, the Sixth remains the least known (or understood) of the seven symphonies, and yet for those who make its full acquaintance, the Sixth may become the most cherished of them all.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJean Sibelius: Symphony No. 6

SynopsisSome things are best left to the imagination — at least that’s what French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz came to think regarding opera. Berlioz didn’t have the best of luck getting his operas staged during his lifetime, and, on the few occasions he did, the resulting performance fell far short of his ideal. Increasingly, Berlioz turned to what might be called the “Theater of the Imagination,” composing concert works that were, for all intents and purposes, operas minus the staging and costumes.One of these, which Berlioz called “a dramatic legend” and premiered in 1846, was The Damnation of Faust. It was based on the famous Faust plays of German poet Goethe. Like many of Berlioz’s works, The Damnation of Faust proved an artistic success — but a box office failure — at its premiere as an unstaged concert piece at the Opera Comique in Paris.Some five decades later, on today’s date in 1893, The Damnation of Faust was revived as a fully staged opera at the Monte Carlo Opera. It proved such a success that in short order it was staged in Milan, Moscow and Liverpool, and even reached the shores of America, courtesy of the French Opera in New Orleans.Music Played in Today's ProgramHector Berlioz (1803-1869): Dance of the Sylphs, fr La damnation de Faust; Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, cond. Telarc 80164

SynopsisToday marks the birthday of American composer, choral conductor and educator Betty Jackson King. She was born in Chicago in 1928, where she earned her master’s degree in composition at Roosevelt University. Her master’s thesis was an opera, Saul of Tarsus, whose libretto was written by her father, the Rev. Frederick D. Jackson.King is perhaps best known for her sacred and choral works, especially her arrangements of spirituals, and, according to her family, her musical career reflected her deep religious faith. “Over my head, I hear music in the air, so there must be a God somewhere,” was her oft-stated creed.King also wrote secular works, including a ballet for children, chamber works, art songs and solo pieces for piano and organ. She was an active teacher and choral conductor in her native Chicago before moving to Wildwood, New Jersey, where she taught, conducted and composed for the rest of her life.A few years before King’s death in 1994, soprano Kathleen Battle performed and recorded "Ride-Up in the Chariot,” one of Jackson’s spiritual arrangements, at a televised Carnegie Hall concert of spirituals conducted by James Levine.Music Played in Today's ProgramBetty Jackson King (1928-1994): Spring Intermezzo, fr Four Seasonal Sketches; Helen Walker-King, vn; Gregory Walker, p. Leonard 339

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1929, a chamber trio by Aaron Copland, Vitebsk, premiered at Town Hall in New York City. Copland said it was based on a Jewish folk tune from a Russian village called Vitebsk that he had once heard used in a play.Two string players from the famous Belgian Pro Arte Quartet and the great German pianist Walter Gieseking were booked for the premiere. Despite the distinguished performers, the performance came off as something of a slapstick comedy.According to one of Copland’s friends present that night, the heavy-set cellist accidentally knocked over the violinist’s music stand when he came on stage, and while bending over to retrieve his music knocked over his own stand, strewing music all over the stage. Then, just as he began Copland’s piece, his cello string snapped with a loud, comically timed twang.Years after the premiere, when Copland visited the Soviet Union, Russian audiences expressed amazement that any American composer would choose to name a piece after Vitebsk, which, rather than a quaint Russian village like the one evoked in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, was in fact a large industrial complex resembling Pittsburgh or Cleveland.Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Vitebsk; Gregory Ellis, violin; Christopher Marwood, cello; Michael Collins, piano ASV 1081

SynopsisToday’s date in 1621 marks the passing of a famous German composer of the Renaissance period, born Michael Schultze, or Schultheiss, but who Latinized his name to Praetorius, and under that name became one of the most popular composers of his time.Praetorius died 64 years before the birth of J. S. Bach, the great German composer of the Baroque age. Praetorius was the son of a Lutheran minister, and like Bach, wrote a good deal of Lutheran church music, and his 1609 setting of the German hymn tune “Es Ist ein Ros Entsprungen” (“Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming”) is still sung by choirs today.But Praetorius’ most enduring contribution to music was secular, not sacred. In 1612, he collected and harmonized more than 300 instrumental Renaissance dance tunes and published them in a compendium he titled Terpsichore, after the name of the Greek muse of the dance. Praetorius included a list of instruments that could be used in performing these dances but does not specify which ones should play each dance. Not to worry, since Praetorius also published a work titled Syntagma Musicum, or The Syntax of Music, a detailed history and description of all known musical instruments from biblical times to the present — so take your pick!Music Played in Today's ProgramMichael Praetorius (1571-1621): Dances from Terpsichore (New London Consort; Philip Picket, cond.) Decca/L’oiseau-lyre 4759101

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1880, a quartet for piano and strings was premiered in Paris, with its composer, 24-year-old Gabriel Fauré, at the keyboard. Now in 1880, many Parisians knew two things about Fauré: first, that he was a talented pupil of Camille Saint-Saens; and second, that he had been engaged for years to Marianne Viardot, the daughter of legendary French singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and that Marianne had suddenly broken off the engagement, leaving the young man heartbroken.French pianist Marguerite Long described the quartet’s slow movement as “the sorrowful echo of the breakup of Fauré’s engagement with Marianne Viardot,” reporting she could not hold back her tears when she once performed the work with Fauré turning pages for her.But Faure’s friend and biographer Émile Vuillermoz would dismiss the suggestion with a loud French snort, protesting that “Fauré’s reserve always prevented him from following the example of Romantic artists who allowed the whole world to witness their personal frustrations. … He would never have allowed his private feelings to become a public spectacle!”In any case, Fauré’s first Piano Quartet is now regarded as one of his early masterpieces, so perhaps it’s both: a breakup and break-away work.Music Played in Today's ProgramGabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Piano Quartet No. 1 (Domus Ensemble) Hyperion 66166

SynopsisT.J. Anderson was the first Black composer to hold the title of composer-in-residence with an American symphony orchestra. That was in Atlanta, when Robert Shaw was the music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. For Atlanta, Anderson orchestrated Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, resulting in the first full staging of that 1911 work, about 60 years after it was written, a performance that was broadcast on NPR in 1972. In addition to orchestrating Joplin’s opera, Anderson wrote a few of his own, including Soldier Boy and Walker, which was based on the life of David Walker, an anti-slavery activist.One of Anderson’s concert works, Squares, was premiered on today’s date in 1966 by the Oklahoma Symphony and later recorded by the Baltimore Symphony for inclusion in a now-classic set of recordings issued by Columbia Records in 1970, The Black Composer Series.Squares is abstract and modernist, perhaps reflecting Anderson’s academic background of composition studies at the esteemed Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and with French composer Darius Milhaud at the Aspen School of Music. Before his retirement in 1990, Anderson also taught composition at several universities from Massachusetts to California.Music Played in Today's ProgramT.J. Anderson (b. 1928): Squares (Baltimore Symphony, Paul Freeman, cond.) Sony 86215

SynopsisJust to show that political spin and manipulation are nothing new, consider this tune by Franz Joseph Haydn, first heard on today’s date in 1797, which happened to be the birthday of Franz II, the Hapsburg Emperor.And so an Austrian poet was commissioned to write some verses that would inspire patriotic support for the emperor, since Austria was at war with Napoleon Bonaparte at the time. Haydn was asked to set the verses into music.The new song premiered in the emperor’s presence at Vienna’s Burgtheater, between a comic opera and a tragic ballet. But contemporary spinmeisters saw to it that copies had been sent to all playhouses, opera houses and concerts halls in the Hapsburg Monarchy, so that it could be heard during any performances occurring on Feb. 12. After the defeat of Napoleon, Haydn’s little tune became the Austrian national anthem.Long before that happened, Haydn recycled his hit tune into one of his string quartets — a work now called the Emperor Quartet. And long after that happened — 40 years after Haydn's death, in fact — a German nationalist poet wrote new verses for the tune, which began “Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber alles.”But that’s another story entirely.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Emperor Quartet; Emerson Quartet DG 427 657

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1840, a new opera by Gaetano Donizetti debuted at the Opéra Comique in Paris. This was La Fille du Régiment, or The Daughter of the Regiment. Other operas by the popular Italian composer were already playing in Paris, and others were scheduled. Despite being tailor-made to Parisian tastes, The Daughter of the Regiment was not well received.Apparently, French composers, Berlioz among them, felt threatened by the Donizetti blitz. “Monsieur Donizetti seems to treat us like a conquered country,” Berlioz wrote. “It is a veritable invasion. One can no longer speak of the opera houses of Paris, but only of the opera houses of Donizetti!”Well, eventually, Donizetti did win over French hearts and minds. And it’s ironic to note that 100 years after its 1840 premiere, Paris was indeed an occupied country. In 1940, German tanks rolled into Paris, and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, patriotic French soprano Lily Pons used her starring role in a revival of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment to express her solidarity with the French Resistance. She added a rousing version of La Marseillaise to the finale of Donizetti’s score, which brought sympathetic American audiences to their feet.Music Played in Today's ProgramGaetano Donizetti (1797-1848): La Fille du Regiment, excerpt; Joan Sutherland, soprano; Covent Garden Orchestra; Richard Bonynge, cond. London 414 520Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836) (arr. Berlioz): La Marseillaise; Jessye Norman, soprano; Paris Orchestra; Semyon Bychkov, cond. Philips 422 922

SynopsisWhat do you see when you hear music? That’s an odd question, perhaps, but sometimes composers confess that particular places, persons and scenes play a role in how music is created.On today’s date in 1994, in San Antonio, Texas, for example, a new symphony for wind ensemble by the American composer David Maslanka received its premiere performance during a convention of the Texas Music Educators Association.In program notes, Maslanka confessed two major inspirations: The first was “the powerful voice of the Earth that comes to me from my adopted western Montana, and the high plains and mountains of central Idaho.” The second, he said, was his fascination with President Abraham Lincoln. Maslanka explained that reading about a Civil War brass band playing the “Old Hundreth” hymn tune at sunset as Lincoln’s coffin was transferred to a waiting funeral train was an image that haunted him.“For me,” Maslanka wrote, “Lincoln’s life and death are as critical today as they were more than a century ago. … My impulse through this music is to speak to the fundamental human issues of transformation and rebirth in this chaotic time.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Maslanka (1943-2017): Symphony No. 4; Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, cond. Reference Recordings RR-108

SynopsisComposers have always been fascinated by the sea. If you’re curious, Spotify offers a playlist of 50 sea-inspired classical works from composers ranging from Mendelssohn to Debussy to Takemitsu.On today’s date in 2012, conductor Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony premiered a new sea-inspired work by London-born composer Anna Clyne, who was then the orchestra’s composer-in-residence. Clyne’s piece, Night Ferry, was "music of voyages, from stormy darkness to enchanted worlds,” as she described. “It is music of the conjurer and setter of tides, the guide through the ungovernable and dangerous.”The Chicago Symphony took Night Ferry on tour that year, with Pacific Coast stops in San Francisco and San Diego, and also, perhaps for thematic contrast, to Palm Desert, California, for good measure.Clyne is bit of a traveler herself. She studied music formally at the University of Edinburgh, then at the Manhattan School of Music. In addition to being the composer-in-residence in Chicago, she has held similar positions with Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, the Baltimore Symphony, the Berkeley Symphony and, coming full circle, the Edinburgh-based Scottish Chamber Orchestra.Music Played in Today's ProgramAnna Clyne (b. 1980): Night Ferry; Chicago Symphony; Richardo Muti, cond. CSO Re-Sound 9011401 (live recording, February 2012)

SynopsisFor a magic golden ring, the dwarf Alberich was willing to renounce love to become master of the world. At least, that’s the story in Richard Wagner’s four operas The Ring of the Nibelungen, which premiered in 1876 at Wagner’s specially constructed theater in Bayreuth, Germany.And for $1 million, Wagner was prepared to renounce not only Bayreuth, but Germany, and settle in America, offering in exchange the premiere and exclusive performance rights to his latest opera, Parsifal.That was the offer Wagner outlined in a letter to his American dentist on today’s date in 1880. Wagner’s wife, Cosima, recorded in her diary that Wagner seemed obsessed with idea of settling in Minnesota, of all places.Dr. Newell Jenkins dutifully passed the proposal on to wealthy music patrons in the states. But even the most ardent Wagnerians among them said that if his operas couldn’t sell in Germany, they wouldn’t fare any better on the banks of the Mississippi.Well, Jenkins broke the news that a) the million dollars was not going to materialize, and b) there were such things as mosquitoes and blizzards in Minnesota. Wagner prudently decided to give Germany one more chance.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813-1883) Das Rheingold, excerpt; soloists and Bavarian Radio Symphony; Bernard Haitink, cond. EMI 54633Parsifal, excerpt; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic; Edo de Waart, cond. BMG 44786

SynopsisYou might say that Eubie Blake flunked retirement.In 1946, with a five-decade career as a successful performer and composer behind him, Blake retired at 63. He was the son of former slaves, and his religious mother objected to ragtime music on principle. But in 1899, while still a teenager, Blake penned a classic: The Charleston Rag. In 1915, he formed a songwriting partnership with a talented young singer named Noble Sissle, and, in the 1920s, the two men fused ragtime and operetta into a series of smash Broadway shows.During World War II, Blake toured with USO shows, and, after retiring in 1946, studied composition formally at New York University, collecting and editing his works for posterity.In the 1950s, a revival of interest in early jazz coaxed Blake out of retirement, and the use of ragtime music in the film The Sting transformed that interest into a pop culture sensation.On today’s date in 1973, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Blake was honored by ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), and in 1981, at 98, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Music Played in Today's ProgramSousa, arr. Eubie Blake (1887-1983) Semper Fidelis; Eubie Blake, piano Columbia (LP) C2S-847

SynopsisIn St. Petersburg, Russia, on today’s date in 1909, Alexandre Siloti conducted the first performance of a new orchestral work by a 26-year-old composer named Igor Stravinsky. The work was billed as Scherzo Fantastique, but Stravinsky’s original title was Bees.Stravinsky had just completed his studies with the great Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose Flight of the Bumblebee was already a famous musical depiction, so perhaps he wanted to impress his teacher — or try to outdo him.In 1907, Stravinsky wrote to Rimsky-Korsakov, “Just now [my wife] Katya and I have read Maeterlinck’s Life of the Bees, a partly artistic, partly philosophical book that pleased me, as they say, down to my toes.”Maeterlinck’s book offered an anthropomorphized description of the life cycle of bees describing “the innumerable agitations of the honeycomb, the perpetual, enigmatic and crazy jiggling of the nurses on the brood chamber … the invading spirals of the queen, the various and incessant activities of the crowd … the comings and goings overwhelmed with ardor.”Stravinsky’s scoring includes three harps and multiple woodwinds, but omits timpani, trombones and tuba, resulting in a light, nimble and air-born orchestral sound for his busy bees.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Scherzo Fantastique; Montreal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca 414 409

SynopsisIn Berlin on today’s date in 1915, prolific German composer Max Reger conducted the premiere performance of what would become his most popular orchestral work.Like Bach, Reger was a master of counterpoint and the fugue, and, like Beethoven, loved writing variations. Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart starts off simple enough, quoting a familiar theme from one of Mozart’s piano sonatas. About 30 minutes later, the simple theme develops into a massive fugue. It’s all grand and clever if you like it, or bombastic and tiresome if you don’t.The witty Nicolas Slonimsky, in his book Music Since 1900, described it as follows: “Mozart’s ingenuous theme … is subjected to torturous melodic anamorphoses, contrapuntal contortion, canonic dislocation, rhythmic incrustation and harmonic inspissation.”To save you the trouble of Googling the definition of “inspissation,” let’s just say it’s not a condition you would wish on anybody!Whether you’re a fan or not, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart is quintessential Reger, and one is tempted to say, “What did you expect? It’s Reger to the Max!”Music Played in Today's ProgramMax Reger (1873-1916): Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart; New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, cond. Teldec 74007

SynopsisBy 1837, the symphonies of Beethoven had become quite popular in Paris. Beethoven had been dead for 10 years, but surprisingly, much of his chamber music had yet to be performed publicly in Paris.So Franz Liszt organized a series of chamber concerts at the Salle Erard to introduce Beethoven’s piano trios. Liszt would play the piano part, of course, joined by the finest Parisian violinist and cellist available.One of the programs fell on today’s date in 1837 and was to feature, on the first half, one of Beethoven’s Trios, then, on the second half, a new trio by contemporary German composer Johann Peter Pixis, whose works Liszt admired.At the last minute, the performers decided to reverse the printed order of the program, performing the new Pixis trio first. The audience (and critics), following the printed program, warmly applauded the Pixis, mistakenly thinking it was the Beethoven, and reacted coolly to the Beethoven, assuming it was by Pixis.Among the many newspaper critics who attended the concert, only one noticed the switch and wrote his review accordingly — and that music critic’s name happened to be a famous composer, Hector Berlioz.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 2; Kempff-Szeryng-Fournier Trio DG 453 751

SynopsisIf he hadn’t turned composer, Johannes Brahms might have made an excellent travel agent. He was in the habit of spending his summer vacations working on his music and consequently was always on the lookout for scenic spots and comfortable rooms at a decent price. In the summer of 1865, Brahms rented rooms from a certain widow Becker in Lichtental near Baden-Baden. The rooms offered a wonderful view of a mountain hillside covered with fir trees — and the rent was irresistibly low. “I came. I saw. I rented,” Brahms wrote to a friend.Brahms composed his String Sextet No. 2 there, between jolts of bracing coffee in the morning and afternoon hikes up the aforementioned hillside. Not surprisingly, this sextet turned out to be one of his happiest and most genial chamber works.But on today’s date in 1867 at the sextet’s first performance in Vienna, the critic of the Wiener Zeitung heard desert sands rather than shady forests, and wrote: “We are seized with a kind of foreboding whenever Herr Johannes Brahms, this new John the Baptist, emerges from the wilderness. This prophet makes us quite disconsolate with his impalpable, vertiginous tone-vexations, pleasing to neither body nor soul.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): String Sextet No. 2; L'Archibudelli Sony Classical 68252

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1890, Czech composer Antonin Dvorak conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 8 in Prague, on the occasion of his election to the Bohemian Academy of Science, Literature and Arts.By 1890, Dvorak was a world-famous composer, honored in his own country and abroad. Within a year of its premiere, Dvorak conduced his Symphony No. 8 again in London, Frankfurt and at Cambridge University, where he received an honorary doctorate in music in 1891.Despite some mysterious and melancholy passages, Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony is usually described as “sunny,” “idyllic” and “pastoral.” Its final movement opens with a brass fanfare, perhaps a reference to a century-old tradition of signal trumpeters playing from the towers and parapets in Prague, a sight and sound that visitors to the famous Astronomical Clock tower in that city’s Old Town Square can still experience today.It’s amusing — and perhaps revealing of something deep in the national spirit — that at a rehearsal of this finale, legendary Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik quipped to his players, "Gentlemen, in Bohemia the trumpets never call to battle — they always call to the dance!"Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Dvorak (1841-1904): Symphony No. 8; Berlin Philharmonic; Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG 447 412

SynopsisIn 1881, the posthumous premiere of Jacques Offenbach’s final work, The Tales of Hoffmann, had been announced for Feb. 1 at the Opera Comique in Paris — and in fact was performed on that date, but as a closed dress rehearsal attended only by theater staff and Offenbach’s family.Offenbach knew he was dying as he wrote this opera and had completed a full piano score and extensive sketches for its orchestration. For its premiere, Ernest Guiraud faithfully orchestrated Hoffmann, but, at the request of the Opera Comique’s director, he replaced the original, quick-paced spoken dialogue between its musical numbers with slower, sung recitatives in the style of a grand opera.At a private premiere, the opera ran much too long. In something of a panic, drastic cuts and a wholesale rearrangement of Offenbach’s score were made before the public premiere nine days later. In its drastically altered form, Hoffmann proved to be a great success and remained so for decades. For the opera’s centenary in 1981, however, musicologists painstakingly prepared new performing versions of Hoffmann, restoring Offenbach’s original plan for the work.Consequently, opera companies today are faced with a dilemma: Do they stage the familiar or the faithful version of Offenbach’s masterpiece?Music Played in Today's ProgramJacques Offenbach (1819-1880): Tales of Hoffmann Suite; Detroit Symphony; Paul Paray, cond. Mercury 434 332

SynopsisSince the 18th century, Paris and Prague have been famous for producing some of the greatest wind players of Europe. And in the 19th century, Anton Reicha, who was born in Prague but died in Paris, wrote for those wind players a sizable body of quintets to showcase the agreeable blend of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn.In our own time, the number of professional wind quintets has increased dramatically, and, not surprisingly, contemporary composers are eager to create new works for them.On today’s date in 1987, at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, the Manhattan Wind Quintet premiered a piece by American composer David Maslanka — his Wind Quintet No. 2.A clarinetist, Maslanka is particularly known for his works for wind ensembles, large and small. He describes his three-movement Wind Quintet No. 2 as follows:“The first movement is fierce and somewhat daunting in its technical demands; the second is moody and elusive; the third is sweet and resigned.”This recording features the Bergen Woodwind Quintet of Norway, an ensemble that has taken Maslanka’s music to heart, recording three of his Wind Quintets for the BIS label from Sweden.Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Maslanka (1943-2017) Wind Quintet No. 2; Manhattan Wind Quintet Albany 246

SynopsisIn 1985, the musical world was celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Georg Frideric Handel. On today’s date that year, Minnesota-based composer Libby Larsen, then in her mid-30s, was celebrating the premiere performance of her Symphony No. 1.Larsen titled her symphony Water Music and says its first movement was a deliberate homage to Handel’s famous Water Music. As a resident composer of a state with over 10,000 lakes, Larsen admits her love of sailing also had something to do with the symphony’s descriptive title.Since 1985, Larsen has gone on to write a few more symphonies, each with its own particular title. And she frequently gives individual movements of each symphony a descriptive tag. For example, one movement from her Solo Symphony (No. 5), from 1999, is titled “The Cocktail Party Effect.”Rather than the wallop of a stiff drink, Larsen says she means the ability of human hearing to pick out a single voice among the extraneous noise one encounters at a crowded cocktail party. “It’s a kind of musical ‘Where’s Waldo?’” she says. “In this case, Waldo is a melody, introduced at the beginning … then hidden amid the other music.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLibby Larsen (b. 1950) Symphony: Water Music; Minnesota Orchestra; Neville Marriner, cond. Nonesuch 79147; and Solo Symphony; Colorado Symphony; Marin Alsop, cond. Koch 7520

SynopsisIn the early 1990s, flutist Susan Morris de Jong and guitarist Jeffrey Van commissioned Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra to write three sets of chamber works that have become classics for their combination of instruments. Sierra titled these Crónicas del Descubrimiento, or Chronicles of Discovery, and said they were his vision of the bewilderment the native Indians of Puerto Rico must have felt during first interactions with the Spanish conquistadores, and vice-versa.Each of the three sets contains two contrasting pieces in which flute and guitar seem to observe, excite and provoke each other, with the first slow atmospheric piece followed by a more rhythmic second one. On today’s date in 1994 in Minneapolis, De Jong and Van presented the third and final set of Sierra’s Chronicles of Discovery, containing two pieces: the first titled Song, and the second, more ominously, Battle.Sierra left his native Puerto Rico to study composition with György Ligeti in Hamburg in the late 1970s, served as the composer-in-residence of the Milwaukee Symphony in the 1980s and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2021.Music Played in Today's ProgramRoberto Sierra (b. 1953) – Battalia, from Tercera Crónica del Descubrimiento (Marcelo Barbozab, flute; Fabio Zanona, guitar) Somm CD-0669

SynopsisIt’s nice when talent in one field recognizes and appreciates it in another. But this is not always the case. Take, for example, Jonathan Swift, one of the greatest English writers of the 18th century, and Georg Frideric Handel, one of that century’s greatest composers.In 1742, Handel was in Ireland, preparing for the premiere of his sacred oratorio Messiah at the Music Hall on Dublin’s Fishamble Street, and wanted to use the choirboys from Dublin’s two cathedrals, Christ Church and St. Patrick’s. Swift was the Dean of Patrick’s, and, on today’s date, the author of “Gulliver’s Travels penned a flaming reply to his sub dean:“I do hereby require and request not to permit any of the choristers to attend or assist at any public musical performances ... and whereas it hath been reported that I gave a license to assist a club of fiddlers in Fishamble Street, I do annul said license, entreating my said Sub-Dean to [refuse] such songsters, fiddlers, pipers, trumpeters, drummers, drum-majors or any [such] sonic quality.”History does not record Handel’s response, but he did, in point of fact, eventually get to use the St. Patrick’s choir boys and other “songsters” he requested.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1757) Messiah; Oregon Bach Festival; Helmuth Rilling, cond. Hännsler 98.198

SynopsisTo say that American composer and jazz pianist Vijay Iyer is a multifaceted artist would be quite the understatement. The son of Tamil immigrants, he was born and raised in New York and began classical music training at 3. His undergraduate degree at Yale was in mathematics and physics, but music retained its strong pull. At the University of California, Berkeley, his 1998 Ph.D. dissertation was titled, “Microstructures of Feel, Macrostructures of Sound: Embodied Cognition in West African and African-American Musics.”As a pianist, Iyer started attracting a lot of attention. Reviewing Break Stuff, his 20th CD release, critic Steve Greenlee wrote, “He may be the most celebrated musician in jazz.”On today’s date in 2005, Iyer and the Ethel String Quartet gave the premiere performance of his chamber work Mutations, a suite that combines improvisatory elements of jazz with the meticulously organized scoring of contemporary classical music. The work was recorded for the ECM label, a home for many cross-discipline composers and performers.“The world likes to put us in boxes,” Iyer says. “But when you’re an artist, a composer, a creative person … you find a lot of different sides of yourself opening up.”Music Played in Today's ProgramVijay Iyer (b. 1971) Mutations; Vijay Iyer, p; Ethel String Quartet ECM 2372

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1966, a symphonic work by American composer Dominick Argento received its premiere performance by the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra at the St. Paul Campus Student Center of the University of Minnesota. The work was titled Variations for Orchestra (The Mask of Night) for orchestra and soprano soloist. For the premiere performances, the vocal soloist was Argento’s wife, soprano Carolyn Bailey.The music was composed in Florence, Italy.“I vividly remember the circumstances that inspired it,” Argento wrote. “Our seventh-floor apartment in the Piazza Pitti overlooked the Boboli Gardens and behind it, out of sight, was a military barracks. Every night at 10 o’clock, a bugle solemnly intoned the Italian equivalent of taps. The sound seemed to be the voice of the garden itself — moonlit, deserted, cypress-scented and mysterious. ... The trumpet theme is a 12-tone row whose first six notes, I later realized, form the opening phrase sung by the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a role my wife had often performed.”“Consequently,” Argento concluded, “these variations are much indebted to my favorite city, my favorite writer, my favorite composer and my favorite soprano.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDominick Argento (1927-2019) Variations for Orchestra (The Mask of Night); Plymouth Music Series Orchestra; Philip Brunelle, cond. Virgin 91184

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1946, the octogenarian German composer Richard Strauss conducted the final rehearsal of his latest work, Metamorphosen, a study for 23 strings. Paul Sacher, the Swiss conductor and music patron, had commissioned the work and conducted the public premiere later that day in Zurich.Strauss had begun work on the piece on March 13, 1945, one day after the Vienna State Opera house had been bombed by the Allies. When the Nazis had come to power in 1933, Strauss was at first fêted as the greatest living German composer, but he soon fell out of favor. While his music was not banned, official Nazi support for Strauss eventually fell away, and the fact that Strauss’ beloved daughter-in-law was Jewish meant increasing anxiety about her fate and that of his grandchildren as the Nazi’s race laws tightened their noose.In a postwar memorandum, Strauss wrote, “The most terrible period of human history has come to an end, the 12-year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany’s 2,000 years of cultural evolution met its doom and irreplaceable monuments of architecture and works of art were destroyed.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864-1949) Metamorphosen; Vienna Philharmonic; Simon Rattle, cond. EMI 56580

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1968, London witnessed a double debut: the first concert of the London Sinfonietta, a chamber group that would go on to become one of Britain’s most famous new music ensembles, and, on its debut program, the premiere performance of The Whale, a dramatic cantata by John Tavener, who would go on to become one of Britain’s most famous contemporary composers.The London Sinfonietta’s premiere attracted the attention of both the BBC, which broadcast the work that same year, and the Beatles, who released a recording of the work on their newly formed Apple label.After Tavener’s religious conversion to the Greek Orthodox faith in 1977 and a near-death experience during surgery in 1990 to remove a tumor from his jaw, his music became ever more liturgical, even other-worldly, and was described as “mystic minimalism.”In 1997, when the funeral service for Princess Diana was broadcast worldwide, it was Tavener’s serenely lyrical anthem Song for Athene that was chosen to accompany the princess’ coffin as it left Westminster Abbey.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Tavener (1944-2013) The Whale; London Sinfonietta and Chorus; David Atherton, cond. Capitol 98497

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1935, at the Church of St. François-Xavier in Paris, organist Geneviève de la Salle gave the first complete performance of the three-movement Organ Suite, by French composer and virtuoso organist Maurice Duruflé.If you sing in a choir or are a fan of choral classics, you probably know Duruflé’s serene and tranquil Requiem, which premiered about 12 years later.Now, if Duruflé’s Organ Suite, Op. 5, premiered in 1935 and his Requiem, Op. 9, in 1947, you might reasonably conclude the composer was a slow, meticulous worker, which he was. In all, Duruflé’s output comprises less than 15 published works, of which seven are for organ. His Organ Suite consists of a brooding “Prélude,” a “Sicilienne” — which evokes the harmonies and inflections of Ravel — and a brilliant, concluding “Toccata.”Duruflé’s music is firmly embedded in the French tradition of organ composers such as César Franck and Louis Vierne, and Duruflé’s composition teacher, Paul Dukas. The great French organist Marie-Claire Alain described Duruflé’s music as “perfectly honest art.”“He was not an innovator but a traditionalist,” she said “… Duruflé evolved and amplified the old traditions, making them his own."Music Played in Today's ProgramMaurice Durufle (1902-1986) Organ Suite; Todd Wilson (Schudi organ at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Dallas, Texas) Delos 3047

SynopsisIn January 1980, famous American film music composer John Williams was named conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. On today’s date that year, he led the Pops in the premiere performance of a concert overture based on his score for the John Wayne film The Cowboys.Now, by 1980, Williams had scored dozens of classic American films but not all that many westerns — The Cowboys, from 1971, for one, and Missouri Breaks, a quirky 1976 western starring Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando, for another.If both The Cowboys and Missouri Breaks are somewhat unconventional samples of the western genre, Williams’ music is in the grand tradition of the classic film scores by Jerome Moross, who composed the music for The Big Country; Elmer Bernstein, who wrote the score for The Magnificent Seven; and Jerry Goldsmith, who has done that service for a number of other classic westerns.All these composers, however, owed a collective debt to an unlikely cowboy music composer: Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland, whose Billy the Kid and Rodeo ballet scores from the 1930s and '40s helped define the symphonic equivalent of the wide-open American landscape.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Williams (b. 1932) The Cowboys Overture; Boston Pops; John Williams, cond. Philips 420 178

SynopsisIn 1968, Sen. Eugene McCarthy was running for president on an antiwar platform. The war in question was in Southeast Asia, and many American artists were, like Senator McCarthy, openly calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.On today’s date at a New York fundraising event for the anti-war movement Broadway for Peace, a song by Leonard Bernstein received its premiere performance, with the composer at the piano accompanying Barbra Streisand.The song was titled “So Pretty,” with lyrics describing the tragedy of the Vietnam War from a child’s point of view.Richard Nixon, not McCarthy, became president in 1968 and was re-elected in 1972. At his special request, the final piece on his January 1973 inaugural concert was Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, which struck many as a deliberately bellicose selection, considering that the Vietnam War was still raging.Bernstein, McCarthy and others arranged a counter-concert at Washington’s National Cathedral, scheduled at precisely the same time as Nixon’s, but presenting Haydn’s Mass in Time of War instead of Tchaikovsky.Whether Tchaikovsky or Haydn ultimately made any difference in resolving the conflict, history does note that a Southeastern Asian armistice was signed in Paris a few days later.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990) So Pretty; Roberta Alexander, soprano; Tan Crone, piano Etcetera 1007

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1939, pianist John Kirkpatrick gave a recital at Town Hall in New York City that included the New York premiere of the Concord Sonata, by American composer Charles Ives.Ives had self-published his Concord Sonata some 20 years earlier and sent copies of it free to anyone he thought might be interested, including then-prominent composer and teacher Rubin Goldmark, who, in 1921, was giving composition lessons to young Aaron Copland. Copland recalled seeing the Concord Sonata on Goldmark’s piano but was not allowed to borrow it. “You stay away from it,” Goldmark warned him. “I don’t want you to be contaminated by stuff like that.”In 1934, Kirkpatrick saw a copy of the Concord Sonata in Paris and wrote Ives: “I have decided quite resolutely to learn the whole sonata.” It would take him five years, but Kirkpatrick’s Town Hall recital would put both him and Ives on the map.A New York Times critic wrote, “This sonata is exceptionally great music — it is, indeed, the greatest music composed by an American, and the most deeply felt and essential. ... Kirkpatrick’s performance was that of a poet and a master, an unobtrusive minister of genius.”Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Ives (1874-1954) Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord, Mass., 1840-1860) Marc-André Hamelin, piano New World 378

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1853, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore (or The Troubador) had its premiere performance at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.It proved an immediate hit. True, some did complain at the time about its gloomy, complicated and downright confusing plot. But Verdi’s music setting had such great tunes and such energetic verve that Il Trovatore quickly became the most popular of all his operas in the 19th century.Its tunes were soon heard emanating from street corner barrel-organs, and, as a true sign of popularity, there were even comic parodies of its melodramatic blood and thunder storyline.Reviewing a New York production in 1862, American composer and music critic William Fry had these observations: “Il Trovatore has a wonderful plot, beyond human comprehension. ... As to the music, there are some charming, popular, ingenious, artistic, great points; then, there are some others egregiously vulgar and rowdy. The ‘Anvil Chorus,’ for example, is about equal to a scene of mending a sewer set to music.”And as for parodies, in the 1935 film A Night at the Opera, Il Trovatore — and opera, in general — receives a devastating sendup at the hands of the Marx Brothers.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1902) [arr. Franz Liszt] Miserere, fr Il Trovatore; Daniel Barenboim, piano Erato 75457; and Anvil Chorus, fr Il Trovatore; Chicago Symphony and Chorus; Georg Solti, cond. London 466 075

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1962, President John F. Kennedy received two memos regarding a dinner party at the White House scheduled the following evening honoring composer Igor Stravinsky and his wife, Vera. The Kennedys were famous for inviting the finest artists and performers to the White House for special presentations. Mrs. Kennedy was a true arts maven, but JFK was not, and needed background information on figures like Stravinsky, which the first memo provided. The Kennedy’s social secretary even worked out secret signals and cues for the president when he attended White House recitals so he wouldn’t applaud at the wrong time.The second memo informed JFK that after a photo shoot with the Stravinskys, they would join the others invited that evening for cocktails in the Blue Room. After dinner, the 80-year-old Stravinsky expressed his gratitude and told the press that the Kennedys were “nice kids.”Four months after Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Stravinsky asked poet W.H. Auden for “a very quiet little lyric” that he might set to music in tribute to Kennedy’s memory. The resulting work, Elegy for JFK for medium voice and three clarinets, premiered in 1964.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Three Movements, fr Petrouchka; Louis Lortie, piano Chandos 8733

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1967, British orchestral trumpeter David Mason went to the famous Abbey Road Studios in London to record a high-flying solo for a pop recording.A few days earlier, Paul McCartney had seen Mason on TV performing the Baroque piccolo trumpet part in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and decided on the spot that sound was exactly what he needed for a new Beatles tune he was working on called “Penny Lane.”And so, George Martin, the Beatles’ producer, gave Mason a call. “I took nine trumpets along and we tried various things, by a process of elimination settling on the B-flat piccolo trumpet,” Mason said. “We spent three hours working it out: Paul sang the parts he wanted; George Martin wrote them out; I tried them. But the actual recording was done quite quickly. They were jolly high notes, quite taxing, but with the tapes rolling we did two takes as overdubs on top of the existing song.”Some Beatles fans not familiar with the sound of the Baroque trumpet assumed the tape was speeded up to make the trumpet sound so high, but Bach fans knew otherwise.Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750): Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (David Moore, tpt; New Philharmonia; Raymond Leppard, cond). HMV SXLP-20110 (LP); the Beatles: "Penny Lane" Capitol Records SMAL-2835

SynopsisComing of age in the first half of the 20th century were two exceptionally talented children of the wealthy Austrian steel magnate Karl Wittgenstein: Ludwig Wittgenstein became a famous philosopher and Paul Wittgenstein a concert pianist.Paul served in the Austrian army in World War I, and, for a concert pianist, suffered a horrific injury: the loss of his right arm. Undaunted, he rebuilt his career by commissioning and performing works for piano left-hand. The family fortune enabled him to commission the leading composers of his day, including Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel and Sergei Prokofiev.Unfortunately, even the Wittgenstein fortune couldn’t protect the family from the racial laws of Nazi Germany, given the family’s Jewish heritage. In 1938, he left for the United States after Austria’s Anschluss with the German Reich.In America, he commissioned a concert work from young British expatriate Benjamin Britten, also living in America at the time, and gave the premiere performance of Britten’s Diversions for piano left-hand and orchestra on today’s date in 1942, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. Wittgenstein later confessed that of all his commissions, Britten’s work came the closest to fulfilling his needs and wishes.Music Played in Today's ProgramBenjamin Britten (1913-1976) Diversions; Peter Donohoe, piano; City of Birmingham Symphony; Simon Rattle, cond. EMI 54270

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1923, the belated premiere of a new ballet score by French composer Gabriel Pierné took place at the Palais Garnier, the home of the Paris Opera Ballet.The ballet was finished in 1915, but due to the turmoil of World War I had to wait seven years to be staged.  Also, its lighthearted, even frivolous subject matter would hardly have seemed appropriate during the trauma of wartime, but it perfectly suited the giddy post-war Paris of the 1920s. The ballet was titled Cydalise et le Chèvre-Pied (literally "Cydalise and the Goat-Foot" or "Cydalise and the Satyr") and, like Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloe, featured a cast of nymphs, satyrs and the god Pan. One excerpt of the ballet, known as "The Entry of the Little Fauns," became a popular concert selection on its own, although the complete score, like most of the other music by Pierné, is rarely performed in concert these days. Of late, however, more of Pierné’s melodious, well-crafted and oh-so-French scores have found their way to recordings. So anyone curious can sample more of his operas, his choral and symphonic works, and his solo piano and chamber music.Music Played in Today's ProgramGabriel Pierné (1863-1937) – The Entry of the Little Fauns, from Cydalise et le Chèvre-Pied (Orchestre National de Lille; Darrell Ang, cond.) Naxos 8.5736090 

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1932, an all-Maurice Ravel concert was given in Paris by the Lamoureux Orchestra at the Salle Erard. Ravel was on hand, conducting some of his works, including the premiere of his new Piano Concerto in G with pianist Marguerite Long the soloist.The critics were enthusiastic about the music, but less so about Ravel’s conducting skills.“Once again,” one wrote, “I wish to protest against the habit, more and more frequently indulged in, of attempting at all costs to bring a composer before the public in a part which he is incapable of filling. Monsieur Ravel is continually brought out as a pianist or as a conductor, whilst he cannot shine in either of these two specialties. ... His Pavane was unutterably slow, his Bolero dry and badly timed, and the accompaniment of the concerto lacked clarity and elasticity. ... But there can only be praise for the composer of all these delicate, subtle works, the orchestration of which abounds in amusing and profound inventions. ... The new concerto,” the review concludes, “is worthy of the other masterpieces we owe to Ravel.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMaurice Ravel (1875-1937) Piano Concerto in G; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. London 452 448

SynopsisLate in 1941, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky was living in Hollywood — at 1260 N. Wetherly Drive, to be precise.Notoriously unflappable, and eminently practical when it came to commissions, Stravinsky apparently did not even bat an eye when he received a phone call from choreographer Georges Balanchine with an offer from Barnum’s Circus to write a short musical work for a ballet involving elephants. Again, to be precise, for Barnum’s star elephant ballerina, Modoc, who would be accompanied by 50 other elephants and dancers, all in tutus.“For what?” Stravinsky said.“For elephants,” Balanchine said.“How many?” Stravinsky countered.“A lot,” Balanchine replied.“How old?” Stravinsky asked.“Young,” Balanchine assured.”Well, if they’re young, I accept,” Stravinsky concluded.Stravinsky’s work, Circus Polka, had its debut at Madison Square Garden in New York by the Barnum Circus and was performed by what Stravinsky once called Barnum’s “respectable quadrupeds” some 400 times. Stravinsky then arranged his Circus Polka for symphony orchestra and conducted the premiere of that version (minus the elephants) with the Boston Symphony in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on today’s date in 1944.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Circus Polka; London Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. RCA 68865

SynopsisLike everyone else, young composers indulge in daydreams from time to time. One can easily imagine a 15-year-old composer wanna-be staring out the window and fantasizing that one day her music will be performed by big-name virtuosos and heard coast-to-coast on a national broadcast.That is exactly what did happen on today’s date in 2002, when 15-year-old composer Athena Adamopoulos heard Yo-Yo Ma and Christopher O’Riley perform her Soliloquy for cello and piano at a taping of From the Top — a nationally broadcast public radio program that showcases young classical musicians from around the country. Occasionally, the show also spotlights young composers, too, as it did the day Ma stopped by as a special guest.Adamopoulos said, “When I heard the piece in my head originally, I heard it something like this, but this is about 10 times better! It’s the most touching feeling in the world.”Even at 15, Adamopoulos was already a somewhat “experienced” composer. She had written several other chamber works by that date and had actually performed one of her first pieces on The Sally Jesse Raphael Show on TV when she was just 8.Music Played in Today's ProgramAthena Adamopoulos (b. 1987) Soliloquy; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Christopher O'Riley, piano; live recording courtesy of ‘From The Top’ (PRI)

SynopsisIn 1953, the Louisville Orchestra was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant of $500,000 to commission, premiere and record 20th-century music to be issued on its own label, Louisville First Edition Records. By 1997, it had released nearly 150 discs, containing more than 450 compositions by living composers.On today’s date in 1980, one of the Louisville commissions premiered and recorded by the orchestra was Tournaments by the then-41-year-old American composer John Corigliano.“As the title implies,” Corigliano writes, “Tournaments is a ‘contest piece,’ a sort of mini-Concerto for Orchestra in which first-desk players and entire sections vie with each other in displaying their virtuosity.”The Louisville Orchestra received many awards for its ambitious commissioning project, while Corigliano went on to win Grammys and an Oscar, not to mention the Grawemeyer and Pulitzer prizes.Corigliano also is proud of his teaching positions at the Juilliard School and Lehman College in New York. “I think it’s good for a composer to teach,” he says, “because you always have new students, and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938) Tournaments Overture; Louisville Orchestra; Sidney Harth, cond. Louisville First Edition LOU-771

SynopsisToday, we note two anniversaries concerning Handel and his music in London.On today’s date in 1710, the German-born composer’s music was performed in London for the first time when excerpts from his opera Rodrigo were used as incidental music during a revival of Ben Jonson’s comic play The Alchemist, written 100 years earlier.It’s a nice historical touch that in addition to writing satirical comedies such as The Alchemist, Jonson had supplied the poetic texts for elaborate masques staged at the court of King James I. Masques were a kind of precursor of the lavish Baroque operas such as Handel’s Rodrigo, which debuted in Italy just three years before its tunes were recycled for use on the British stage.By 1713, the vogue for Italian operas had reached London, and Handel was on hand to write and stage them. On today’s date in 1713, his opera Teseo had its premiere at the Queen’s Theatre in London. And, just to show that off-stage events could prove every bit as dramatic as those on-stage, the theater manager, a certain Owen Swiney, ran off to Italy with the box office receipts after the second night’s performance!Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1757) Bourrée, from Rodrigo; Hallé Orchestra; John Barbirolli, cond. EMI 63956George Frederic Handel (1685-1757) Overture to Teseo; English Concert; Trevor Pinnock, cond. Archiv 419 219

SynopsisIn the musical world, there are many creative people with innovative ideas, but far fewer with the ability and persistence to raise the funds necessary to realize their visions.Today, a tip of the hat to American composer John Duffy, who, in 1982, was president of Meet the Composer, an organization that secured funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and other foundations for a large-scale residency program that paired rising American composers with major American orchestras. The composers included John Corigliano, Joan Tower, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Rouse, Libby Larsen and Alvin Singleton. Each wrote special works for their orchestras, works that were premiered and recorded as part of the program — a major career boost for any young composer.For example, Singleton was the composer chosen for the Atlanta residency, and on today’s date in 1988, that orchestra premiered his work After Fallen Crumbs.The unusual title doesn’t refer to arts funding, however apt that might seem, but derives from an earlier choral piece by Singleton whose text dealt with world hunger and closed with the lines, “An ant can feed a family with the fallen crumbs of an elephant.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAlvin Singleton (b. 1940) After Fallen Crumbs; Atlanta Symphony; Louis Lane, cond. Nonesuch 79231

SynopsisToday’s date marks the birthday in 1937 of American composer Robert Moran. A native of Denver, he studied in Berkley with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio and in Vienna with Hans Apostel, a pupil of Schoenberg and Berg.It was in Vienna that Moran overheard an unfamiliar waltz and was surprised to learn that Austrian composers were still writing them. Intrigued, he wrote one himself and asked 24 other contemporary composers to write more for The Waltz Project, a collection recorded as a Nonesuch LP in 1980 and later choreographed by the New York City Ballet.Moran’s catalog of works includes the choral setting Winni Ille Pu (a classical Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh) and Lunchbag Opera, scored for performers hidden in adult-size brown lunch bags, each armed with toy noise-makers to be played while strolling through — according to Moran’s instructions — “any important financial district or banking center at lunch time.”One of Moran’s large-scale works, The Game of the Antichrist from 2012, is based on a medieval mystery play from Bavaria. It’s scored for children’s chorus, adult vocalists, organ and a small ensemble that includes an alpine horn and cocktail bar piano.Music Played in Today's ProgramRobert Moran (b. 1937) Waltz in Memoriam Maurice Ravel; Yvar Mikhashoff, p. Nonesuch LP D-79011 (out of print)Robert Moran (b. 1937) Finale: Banishment of the Antichrist, from Game of the Antichrist Children’s Chorus of Gemeinde Vaterstetten; Vocal Ensemble Chrismos; Alexander Hermann, cond. Innova CD 251

SynopsisA remarkable shift of focus in music history occurred in the latter part of the 20th century when performers and musicologists began turning their attention to neglected works by women composers of the past and present. Composers such as Hildegard von Bingen, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke and Florence Price began to receive the attention they deserved.Much work remains to be done on this front, however.Take the case of Monserrate Ferrer Otero, also known as Monsita Ferrer, born in San Juan on this date in 1885. She began playing the piano at an early age and later pursued composition studies in New York. She was one of Puerto Rico’s first professional woman composers and in 1956 served as an adviser in the planning of its Conservatory of Music. Although enjoying success during her lifetime, only a few of her works are still performed today. This slow waltz, Bajo el Oro del Crepúsculo (or Under the Gold of Twilight) was dedicated to fellow travelers aboard the luxury liner Victoria Luisa.A string quartet and most of her other vocal and piano works remain unpublished long after Ferrer‘s death in 1966.Music Played in Today's ProgramMonserrate Ferrer Otero (1885-1966) Bajo el Oro del Crepúsculo (Vals lento); Kimberly Davis, p. from album ‘La Ondina: Una Colección de Música Puertorriqueña para Piano’

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1755, Montezuma, an opera by German Baroque composer Carl Heinrich Graun, had its premiere performance at the Berlin Court Opera of Frederick II, King of Prussia. Frederick supervised the rehearsals, which isn’t all that surprising, since he had drafted the opera’s libretto.Despite his well-deserved reputation as a military leader, Frederick the Great also was a talented musician and composer. As a young prince, he had tried to run away from home to pursue a musical career. His royal father was not amused. Heads rolled — one of them belonging to Frederick’s favorite music teacher — and thereafter Frederick focused on his military studies until he could ascend the throne. As king, Frederick built an opera house in Berlin and called some of Europe’s finest composers to his court — but also transformed Prussia into the military superpower of Europe.Some speculate that Frederick’s choice of Montezuma as an opera subject might be psychologically revealing. Perhaps Frederick saw the artistic, peace-loving, passive side of his nature in the tragic Mexican king and his aggressive, military side in Spanish invader Cortez.As Freud might have said a century or so later: “Very interesting.”Music Played in Today's ProgramCarl Heinrich Graun (1703-1759) Montezuma Overture; German Chamber Academy; Johannes Gortizki, cond. Capriccio 60032

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1973, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center premiered a new work by Pierre Boulez for solo flute and seven instruments, plus interaction with an electronic computer program, which generated sounds that reacted to (and interacted with) the solo flute. The piece was titled explosante-fixe, which translates as “exploding-fixed.”At the time, however, Boulez was frustrated by the still primitive computer technology. “You still had connections with wires and so on,” he recalled. “It was clumsy and unreliable.”Twenty years later, Boulez presented a new version of explosante-fixe, employing updated computer technology and midi-flute, controlled by a computer. This version was recorded, in effect “fixing the explosion.”Boulez once quoted with approval French dramatist Antonin Artaud, who described music as “collective hysteria and spells.” Yet Boulez carefully plotted out his compositions in obsessively meticulous detail.And, speaking of explosions, Boulez once suggested that as a radical break with the past, all opera houses should be blown up. Yet, as a conductor, Boulez was a devoted interpreter of some past composers, such as Debussy and Stravinsky — and, if you listen closely, echoes of their music can be heard in his own.Music Played in Today's ProgramPierre Boulez (1925-2016) explosante-fixe; Sophie Cherrier, solo midi flute; Ensemble Intercontemporain; Pierre Boulez, cond. DG 445 833

SynopsisIn essence, the music of the 18th century was an international, cosmopolitan language. But just as “nationalism” in language, culture and politics came to the fore in the 19th century, so did the radical new idea that each nation should develop its own, distinct, “national” style of music.On today’s date in 1840, a dramatic manifestation of this new trend occurred in the city of Pest. Hungarian-born piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt returned in triumph to his native land for a gala concert at the Hungarian National Theatre. After the performance, several Hungarian aristocrats, decked out in lavish native costumes, presented Liszt with a bejeweled Sword of Honor and delivered speeches in Hungarian praising him as an artist and patriot. For his part, Liszt delivered an equally impassioned speech calling for Hungarian cultural and political independence. The patriotic audience went berserk with joy and began a torchlight procession of about 5,000 people through the city, with Liszt at the front.It’s one of those nice, ironic touches of history, however, that Liszt, the standard bearer for Hungarian national music, didn’t really speak Hungarian well — and, for the record, delivered his patriotic address in French.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Liszt (1811-1886) Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2; Valentina Lisitsa, piano Audiofon 72055

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1941, the final orchestral work of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff received its premiere performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Eugene Ormandy.It was an orchestral suite, Symphonic Dances, and was originally planned as a triptych depicting the passage of time, with its three sections to be titled “Midday,” “Twilight” and “Midnight.” For this new work, Rachmaninoff recycled music from an older one: an unfinished ballet from 1915.Rachmaninoff was an unabashed and unrepentant Romantic at heart, with his musical style grounded in the late 19th-century tradition. Oddly enough, in all other matters Rachmaninoff was modern — even trendy. When living in Russia, he owned the first automobile in his rural part of the country. After settling in Switzerland, the home he built on Lake Lucerne was designed in the ultra-modern Bauhaus style, and Rachmaninoff liked to zoom around the lake in a snappy little speedboat.And, when in New York City, rather than sipping borscht at the Russian Tea Room, he would more likely be seen at a corner drug store, indulging in a quintessential American treat: ice-cream sodas.Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Symphonic Dances; Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, cond. Reference 96

SynopsisToday’s date marks the birthday of American composer and educator Gardner Read, who was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1913.Read studied music at Northwestern University, then at the Eastman School, where his teachers included Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. He also studied with Aaron Copland and Italian modernist composer Ildebrando Pizzetti. Read became a noted teacher himself and held posts in St. Louis, Kansas City, Cleveland and Boston. His Symphony No. 1 was premiered by John Barbirolli and won first prize at the New York Philharmonic Society's American Composers' Contest. He wrote four symphonies in all, as well as other orchestral, choral and chamber works and a significant body of works for or with pipe organ.In 1978, musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky wrote: “In American music, the name of Gardner Read is synonymous with the best traditions of modern classicism and inspired romanticism. ... To the musical analyst, it presents a technical interest as well, for in his use of the multicolored palette of modern instrumentation, Gardner Read offers fascinating examples of organized sonorities. The substance of his compositions is infinitely varied; he is a true Renaissance man, working in many different genres without prejudice and achieving his objectives with impeccable taste.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGardner Read (1913-2005): Allegro scherzando, from Symphony No. 4 (Cleveland Orchestra; Lorin Maazel, cond.) New World 742

SynopsisToday we celebrate hopeful beginnings — and happy endings.In Leipzig, on New Year’s Day 1724, Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of “Singet dem Herrn ein Neues Lied“ (or “Sing to the Lord a New Song,” in English) — a work we now know as his Cantata 190.About 200 of Bach’s church cantatas have survived. In 2000, British conductor John Eliot Gardiner decided to perform and record of all of them in the space of one liturgical year in historical churches in Europe and America. Starting on Christmas Day 1999, in Weimar, Germany, Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists set out to do just that.It was an ambitious undertaking, and Gardiner said, “Just as in planning to scale a mountain or cross an ocean, you can make meticulous provision, calculate your route and get all the equipment in order, in the end you have to deal with whatever the elements — both human and physical – throw at you at any given moment.”Gardiner’s Bach Cantata pilgrimage came to its triumphant conclusion on New Year’s Eve in 2000 at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, with a performance of Cantata 190.Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 190; Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond. SDG 137

SynopsisThese days, “musical piracy” can mean anything from illegal downloads to bootleg compact discs pressed in China.But back in 1878, the smash success of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta HMS Pinafore resulted in a flurry of unauthorized “pirate” productions in the United States. The two resourceful Englishmen decided the best way to put a stop to it was to premiere their next collaboration in New York, thereby establishing its copyright under American law.And so, on today’s date in 1879, it was Arthur Sullivan who conducted the pit orchestra of the Fifth Avenue Theater in Manhattan for the first full performance of their latest creation, titled, perhaps not coincidentally, The Pirates of Penzance.The New York Times review was glowing in its praise but did point out that the new work was strikingly similar to Pinafore.“There is genuine musical merit in several of the numbers,” it said. “… A chorus of policemen was the most musically humorous number of the evening and provoked more amusement than anything else. ... In response to repeated calls, the author and composer appeared before the curtain and bowed their acknowledgments.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGilbert and Sullivan - The Pirates of Penzance; D'Oyly Carte Opera; Royal Philharmonic; Isidore Godfrey, cond. London 425 196

SynopsisNow 18th-century opera is supposed to be a rather staid and stuffy affair. These operas invariably had happy endings, with all the messy human passion and conflicts amicably resolved by the opera’s finale.But 18th-century opera could arouse some serious emotion offstage. In 1704, an 18-year-old composer named George Frideric Handel was employed as a violinist and harpsichordist in the orchestra of the Hamburg opera house. He made the acquaintance of another young composer, 23-year-old Johann Mattheson. The two became fast friends until, that is, a December performance of Mattheson’s opera Cleopatra, during which Handel refused to turn over the harpsichord to Mattheson.“Hey, it’s my opera, after all — move over!” Mattheson must have said, but to no avail. One thing led to another, and the result was a duel. It is said that Handel’s life was saved by a button on his coat that deflected one of Mattheson’s more lethal sword-thrusts.Thankfully, in the best tradition of 18th-century opera, the two reconciled on today’s date in 1704, dining together and attending a Hamburg rehearsal of Handel’s first opera, Almira, becoming, as Mattheson put it, “better friends than ever.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1757) Oboe Concerto No. 3; Heinz Holliger, oboe; English Chamber Orchestra; Raymond Leppard, cond. Philips 454 363

SynopsisIt might seem odd to think of Max Bruch as a 20th-century composer. After all, his three greatest hits — his Violin Concerto No. 1, his Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and his setting of the Hebraic liturgical chant Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra — were all written in the 19th century.But this archetypal German Romantic composer, who was born in 1838, lived to the ripe old age of 82, and kept producing new works up to the time of his death in 1920.One of these, a Concerto for Two Pianos, was commissioned by an American duo piano team, Ottilie and Rose Suttro, who premiered it with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra on today’s date in 1916. The new work was well-received and its composer praised.But there is a somewhat ironic historical footnote to this successful premiere: It appears the Suttro Duo drastically revised and even rewrote parts of Bruch’s score for their 1916 performance, unbeknown to the composer. It wouldn’t be until 1971 that the concerto was performed as he had actually written it.Music Played in Today's ProgramMax Bruch (1838-1920) Concerto for Two Pianos; Güher and Süher Pekinel, pianos; Philharmonia Orchestra; Neville Marriner, cond. Chandos 9711

SynopsisDecades before the Cuban revolution, some decidedly revolutionary sounds had their birth in that country’s capital city on today’s date in 1930 during a concert of ultramodern music presented by the Havana Philharmonic.The concert offered the premiere performance of a new Piano Concerto by American composer Henry Cowell, who also was the soloist. Cowell’s concerto broke new ground — and perhaps a few piano strings — by employing what Cowell dubbed “tone clusters.” These dense, dissonant chords were produced by pounding the keys of the piano with the fist, palms or extended forearms.Cowell also took his new techniques to the Old World in the 1920s and ‘30s, performing concerts of his works in Europe. These attracted the attention of Bela Bartok, who asked Cowell’s permission to employ tone clusters in his works, and Arnold Schoenberg, who invited Cowell to perform for his Berlin composition classes.Cowell’s oft-stated goal was to embrace what he described as “the whole world of music,” whether dissonant or consonant, radical or traditional, Western or non-Western. Perhaps that ideal was even more revolutionary than his Piano Concerto must have seemed back in 1930.Music Played in Today's ProgramHenry Cowell (1897-1965) Piano Concerto; Stefan Litwin, piano; Saarbrucken Radio Symphony; Michael Stern, cond. Col Legno 20064

SynopsisBack in the 18th century, Frederick the Great of Prussia was a prolific composer of sonatas, concertos and even a few symphonies. In the 19th century, Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, composed songs and choral pieces. There have been other composers who were members of the European nobility, but more often they crop up as patrons of music rather than creators of it.But in our time, Belgian composer Jacqueline Fontyn, who was born in Antwerp on today’s date in 1930, was made an honorary baroness by the King of Belgium in 1993 in recognition of her contributions to music in her native country and around the world.Now, Fontyn is probably a composer you never heard of until today, but she has a sizable body of orchestral and chamber works and enjoyed an international career as a composition teacher, holding positions at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland, as well as in Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Seoul and her native Belgium.Her music might be described as “European modern.” Today, you can find all the manuscript scores of Fontyn in the Library of Congress.Music Played in Today's ProgramJacqueline Fontyn (b. 1930) Piano Trio (1956); Morgenstern Trio AVI Music CD 8553315

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1734, the second cantata from the Christmas Oratorio of Johann Sebastian Bach had its first performance in Leipzig, Germany. This cantata takes its inspiration from Luke’s Gospel describing shepherd keeping watch over their flocks and opens with a purely instrumental Sinfonia that sets the scene, evoking the sound of the shepherds’ rustic pipes.In Bach’s day, a famous builder of wind instruments lived in Leipzig. His name was J. H. Eichentopf, and he is credited with inventing an oboe da caccia — that’s Italian for "hunting oboe." The instrument was curved with a big brass horn bell at its end. Bach calls for this instrument in his Christmas Oratorio, but after Bach’s time, it fell out of use, and knowledge of its exact sound and construction was lost.In the 20th century, two well-preserved (but unplayable) hunting oboes built by Eichentopf survived in museums in Denmark and Sweden, and from their measurements, modern-day copies were made. These were used for the first time in over 200 years for the period-instrument recording of the Christmas Oratorio conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt that appeared in 1973.Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750) Cantata No. 2 Sinfonia, from The Christmas Oratorio; Vienna Concentus Musicus; Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond.

SynopsisIn the 1930s, many Americans had a hard time making ends meet. During the Great Depression, opera and concert tickets didn’t always figure into most family’s budgets, but thanks to live radio broadcasts, American families enjoyed a veritable Golden Age of operatic and symphonic music in the comfort of their homes.On Christmas Day in 1931, NBC made radio history when it broadcast a matinee performance of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel und Gretel live from the stage of the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City to radio listeners coast to coast. The on-air host was American composer Deems Taylor, whose opera Peter Ibbetson would be included in a live Met broadcast the following spring.And on Christmas Day in 1937, music of Antonio Vivaldi opened the first live NBC Symphony broadcast conducted by legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. Live NBC Symphony broadcasts under Toscanini would continue until the conductor’s retirement in 1954. Along with Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, Toscanini included a handful of American works in his programs and, in 1938, conducted the broadcast premiere of Samuel Barber’s well-known Adagio for Strings.Music Played in Today's ProgramEnglebert Humperdinck (1854-1921) Hansel and Gretel Overture; Bamberg Symphony; Karl Anton Rickenbacher, cond. Virgin 61128Antonio Vivaldi (1674-1741) Concerto Grosso in D; Moscow Virtuosi; Vladimir Spivakov, cond. BMG 60240

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1871, the Opera House of Cairo, Egypt, presented the world premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida. The khedive of Egypt commissioned the opera for his new theater, which had opened in 1869 with a production of Verdi’s Rigoletto.Here’s how Verdi described it to his publisher, in Verdi's customary laconic fashion: “I was invited to write an opera for a very distant country. I replied, ‘No’. I was approached again and offered a very large sum. I still said, ‘No’. A month later, I was sent a printed synopsis and told it was the work of a person in high authority (which I don’t believe). Even so, I found it excellent and replied that I would set it to music on such and such terms. Three days later, I received a telegram that read: Accepted.”For his efforts, the 58-year-old Verdi received four times his usual fee — and the honorary title of Commendatore of the Ottoman Order. The Cairo premiere was a great success, even though Verdi chose to spend his Christmas Eve at home, arranging for the Italian premiere of his Egyptian opera at Milan’s La Scala opera house early the following year.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Grand March, from Aida; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond. Sony 48226

SynopsisOh, to have been in Vienna on today’s date in 1785! Wolfgang Mozart had just finished a new piano concerto a week earlier and quite likely performed it himself for the first time as an intermission feature at a performance of the oratorio Ester, by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, conducted by Antonio Salieri.Now wouldn’t that have made for a good scene in the movie Amadeus?Fast forward 11 years for another memorable concert at the Theater an der Wien, when on today’s date in 1806, it was Beethoven’s turn to premiere one of his new concertos in Emanuel Schikaneder’s Viennese theater. Alongside works of Mozart, Méhul, Cherubini and Handel, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was introduced to the world, with Franz Clement as the soloist.Beethoven’s friend Czerny recalled that Clement’s performance was greeted with “noisy bravos.”But a contemporary Viennese music critic wrote: “While there are beautiful things in the concerto … the endless repetition of some commonplace passages could prove fatiguing.” The reviewer’s final assessment? “If Beethoven pursues his present path, it will go ill with him and the public alike.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Piano Concerto No. 22; Mitsuko Uchida, piano; English Chamber Orchestra; Jeffrey Tate, cond. Philips 420 187Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Magic Flute Overture; Zurich Opera House Orchestra; Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond. Teldec 95523Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Violin Concerto; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, cond. DG 471 349

SynopsisWhether you live in sunny California or snowy Minnesota, the arrival of the solstice means, “It’s official: Winter is here!” And if you were born someplace sunny, but moved to someplace snowy, the arrival of winter is pretty hard to ignore.Winter must have made an impression on the transplanted Italian composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was born in Florence but settled in Paris and ended up as the court composer for King Louis XIV.One of Lully’s operas, Isis, had its premiere in the winter of 1676 and contains a chorus of “Trembleurs,” or “Trembling People from the Frozen Climes,” whose teeth chatter in slurred tremolos. This chorus became particular famous for the wintry pantomime ballet that accompanied it, as well as for its evocative music.Of course, the most famous of all Baroque winter music was served up by another Italian, Antonio Vivaldi, who was born in Venice but traveled widely in Northern Europe as well and died in Vienna.Vivaldi’s “Winter” from The Four Seasons includes its own musical shivers, not to mention a musical depiction of slipping and sliding on icy streets.Music Played in Today's ProgramJean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) Isis; Philippe Caillard Chorale and Orchestra Erato 20983Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) Winter, from The Four Seasons; Enrico Onofrio, violin; Il Giardino Armonico Teldec 97671

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1934, on a radio broadcast from Moscow, the orchestral suite Prokofiev culled from his film score to Lt. Kije received its first performance. The original film recounted the efforts of 18th-century Russian bureaucrats to invent a suitably impressive life and death for a nonexistent Russian solider, whose unusual name, actually a typographical error on a list of real soldiers’ names, caught the attention of the czar.If the fictional Russian bureaucrats in Lt. Kije were terrified lest they displease the czar, real-life composers living in the Soviet Union of the 1930s were desperately anxious to keep on the good side of their ruler, dictator Joseph Stalin. It was, to put it mildly, a matter of life and death.For Stalin’s 60th birthday, which fell on Dec. 21, 1939, Prokofiev composed a choral tribute, “Zdravitza,” which translates as “A Congratulatory Toast.” It, too, was broadcast on today’s date, this time booming over loudspeakers throughout Moscow’s squares and side streets.Prokofiev’s son Oleg recalls running home through the swirling snow eager to tell the big news: “Daddy! They’re playing you outside!”Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Lieutenant Kije Suite; Chicago Symphony; Claudio Abbado, cond. DG 447 419Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) A Toast!; St. Petersburg Philharmonic Choir; New Philharmonia Orchestra; Alexander Titov, cond. Beaux 38

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1738, a once-successful French composer died destitute in an asylum of Charenton. It was a lamentable end for the 56-year-old Jean-Joseph Mouret, who had once served the French king at the Palais Royal and whose operas had once graced the stage of the Paris Opéra.How ironic, then, that Mouret would achieve belated fame in 20th-century America when the “Rondeau” from his Symphonies and Fanfares for the King's Supper was chosen as the theme for the Masterpiece Theatre TV series on PBS. Christopher Sarson, the original executive producer of Masterpiece Theatre, recalls how this came about.“In 1962, my future wife and I went to one of the Club Med villages in Italy. We were in these little straw huts and every morning we were summoned to breakfast by that theme. It was just magic. ... I wanted to use it for Masterpiece Theatre but there was no way I could bear to put a French piece of music on something that was supposed to be English. I went through all kinds of English composers and nothing worked. So, Mouret became the theme.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJean-Joseph Mouret (1682-1738) Rondeau; Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; English Chamber Orchestra; Anthony Newman, cond. Sony 66244

SynopsisThe short career of Charles Tomlinson Griffes is one of the more tragic “might-have-beens” of American music history. Griffes died at 35 in 1920 just as his music was being taken up by the major American orchestras of his day.As most American composers of his time, Griffes studied in Germany, and his early works were, not surprisingly, rather Germanic in tone. But beginning around 1911, he began composing works inspired by French impressionism and the art of Asia.The Boston Symphony, under Pierre Monteux, premiered his tone poem The Pleasure Dome of Kubla-Khan and the New York Symphony, under Walter Damrosch, his Poeme for flute and orchestra. On today’s date in 1919, the Philadelphia Orchestra, under Leopold Stokowski, premiered four orchestral pieces: Nocturne, Bacchanale, Clouds and one of his best works, The White Peacock. The Philadelphia newspaper reviews of the premieres called Griffes’ work “one of the hopeful intimations for the future of American music.”A severe bout of influenza left Griffes too weak to attend these Philadelphia premieres under Stokowski, and he died of a lung infection the following spring.Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) The White Peacock; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, cond. Dorian 90224

SynopsisIn the section of his autobiography on the 1960s, Aaron Copland wrote: “I have often called myself a ‘work-a-year’ man … and 1964 belonged to the band piece ‘Emblems.’ Among the invitations I received to compose new pieces was one from clarinetist Keith Wilson, who was president of the College Band Directors National Association, for a work to be played at the organization’s national convention.“I hesitated for a moment,” Copland continued, “but accepted when I was told that the piece would be bought sight unseen by at least two hundred bands!”Emblems premiered in Tempe, Arizona, on today’s date in 1964, performed by the USC Band, conducted by William Schaefer. Here’s how Copland explained the work’s title: “An emblem stands for something. … I called this work ‘Emblems’ because it seemed to me to suggest musical states of being: noble or aspirational feelings, playful or spirited feelings.”Close listeners might hear harmonic echoes of the spiritual “Amazing Grace” in the slow opening and close of Emblems. Copland said, "Curiously, the harmonies had been conceived without reference to that tune. It was only by chance that I realized a connection between my harmonies and ‘Amazing Grace’!"Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990) Emblems; U.S. Marine Band; Lt. Col. Michael J. Colburn, cond. Naxos 8. 570243

SynopsisWhen Franz Schubert died in Vienna in 1828, he left behind several manuscripts of symphonies unpublished and, in some cases, unperformed during his short lifetime. It wasn’t until today’s date in 1865 — 37 years after Schubert’s death — that his most famous symphony received its premiere performance in his hometown of Vienna.This Symphony in B-minor came to be called the Unfinished, since its manuscript score contained only two completely finished movements. A normal Viennese symphony of Schubert’s time should contain four movements, and, in fact, a fairly complete piano sketch of the third movement exists, as does a full score of just the first nine measures of that same movement.When Johann van Herbeck conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance in 1865, he tacked on the last movement of Schubert’s Third Symphony as a finale. More recently, some scholars have argued that a portion of Schubert’s Rosamunde incidental music was in fact the missing final movement of his symphony.Despite these attempts to finish the Unfinished, most performers and audiences seem content to hear the score as Schubert left it — romantically cut short, just like the composer’s tragically short life.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Schubert (1795-1828) Symphony No. 8 (arr. Brian Newbould); Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Neville Marriner, cond. Philips 412 176

SynopsisNostalgic fans of old-time radio and TV shows will have no trouble recognizing the overture to Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek’s comic opera Donna Diana as the signature theme for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, an adventure series set in the far North that chronicled the exploits of a Royal Canadian Mountie and his loyal husky, Yukon King.This music, however, had its real birth on today’s date in 1894 at the New German Theater of Prague, where Reznicek’s opera had its first performance. Reznicek wrote other operas, but Donna Diana was his one international hit. Gustav Mahler thought highly of it and conducted its premiere in Vienna in 1904.In 1932, Reznicek and another famous composer, Richard Strauss, formed an international society for composers. When Reznicek resisted a Nazi takeover of that organization in 1942, the 82-year-old was punished by having his music confiscated by the Propaganda Ministry. His death three years later amid the bombed-out rubble of Berlin was a sad one. Reznicek died in 1945 of typhoid fever aggravated by starvation.It was a tragic end for a composer best known for such lighthearted music!Music Played in Today's ProgramEmil von Reznicek (1860-1945) Donna Diana Overture; Symphony Nova Scotia; Georg Tintner, cond. CBC 5167

SynopsisA color wheel is a circular chart showing the relationship of the colors of the spectrum. It was originally fashioned by Isaac Newton in 1666 and still serves as a useful tool for painters and graphic designers today.Color Wheel also is the title of an orchestral showpiece by American composer Aaron Jay Kernis — a work that was premiered on today’s date in 2001 by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the opening concerts of the then-new Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.“The honor of being asked to compose the first music played in this new hall led me to conceive of a ‘miniature’ concerto for orchestra which treats it as a large and dynamic body of sound and color,” Kernis said.“I sometimes see colors when I compose,” he confessed, “and the qualities of certain chords do elicit specific sensation in me — for example, I see A-major as bright yellow. I’ve also been fascinated with Sufi whirling dervishes and their ecstatic spinning. This work may have some ecstatic moments but it is full of tension, continuous energy and drive.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960) Color Wheel; Nashville Symphony; Giancarlo Guerrero, cond. Naxos 8.559838

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1918, the Metropolitan Opera in New York offered the world premiere performance of not one, not two, but three new operas by Giacomo Puccini.The three one-act operas are collectively billed as Il Trittico, or The Triptych. In order of their presentation at the Met, the triptych consisted of Il Tabarro (The Cloak), a rather sordid tale of passion and murder, followed by a sentimental tear-jerker titled Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica, after its Romantic heroine), and, for a comic finale, Gianni Schicchi, titled after the resourceful hero of its comic plot.Musical America reported a warm welcome for the three new Puccini operas, but did find Il Tabarro “in the main, black and brutal.” In that journal’s opinion, the hit of the evening was the comic opera, Gianni Schicci. In particular, one brief soprano aria from that opera so pleased the first-night audience that it had to be encored.Over time, this little aria, “O Mio Babbino Caro,” has become one of Puccini’s greatest hits and has even cropped up in the soundtracks of movies such as A Room With a View and G.I. Jane.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiacomo Puccini (1858-1924) Gianni Schicchi; Angela Gheorghiu, soprano; London Symphony; Antonio Pappano, cond. EMI 56587

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1836, Chopin held a soiree in his apartment in Paris. The famous tenor Adolphe Nourit sang some Schubert songs, accompanied by Chopin’s friend, Franz Liszt. Liszt and Chopin then played a new sonata for piano four-hands by Ignaz Moscheles.In attendance was a petite, olive-skinned baroness turned writer known by her pen name, George Sand. Sand was notorious for her racy novels and for her highly unorthodox lifestyle. She liked cigars, for example, and often showed up at parties wearing men's clothing without the required permit.Chopin had met her earlier and was not at first impressed. The 26-year-old composer was engaged to a much younger woman back home in Poland, a pale beauty who couldn’t be more unlike the 32-year-old Sand. But, anxious to make a good impression, Sand showed up for Chopin’s soiree wearing white pantaloons and a scarlet sash (the colors of the Polish flag) — and left her stogies at home!All it took was a “Dear Frederic” letter from the girl back home, and before long the Chopin-Sand romance was the talk of Paris. “My heart was conquered,” Chopin wrote in his journal. “She understood me.”Music Played in Today's ProgramFrederic Chopin (1810-1849) Polonaise in C-sharp; Garrick Ohlsson, piano; Arabesque 6642

Synopsis1685 was a good year for composers: Bach, Scarlatti and Handel were all born in 1685, as was, on today’s date, Italian composer Lodovico Giustini.Like Bach, Giustini came from a family of musicians, and he began his career by succeeding his father as church organist, eventually landing the prize organ post at his hometown cathedral, a position he retained for the rest of his life. Giustini also took up a new-fangled keyboard instrument known as the forte-piano, which, unlike the harpsichord, struck the instrument’s strings with small hammers rather than plucking them like a harp. This new technology allowed music to be played loud and soft (piano and forte), with a more nuanced range of dynamics and phrasing.Giustini’s claim to fame is that in 1732 he published the first collection of sonatas written specifically for the instrument we now call the piano. Although Giustini’s sonatas attracted little attention when they were first published, since only a few wealthy royals could afford to own these new and expensive instruments, over the next two centuries thousands of pianos — and piano sonatas — began appearing in even the most modest of musical households.Music Played in Today's ProgramLodovico Giustini (1685-1743) Canzona, from Sonata No. 12; Andrea Coen, fortepiano Brilliant Classics 94021

SynopsisThe adjective most commentators turn to when describing the six symphonies of Carl Nielsen is “quirky.” Certainly, the great Danish composer had a wicked sense of humor and loved poking fun at anything pompous and pretentious — including the conventions of writing a symphony. Just when the audience members think they know what is going to happen next — or should, in a conventional symphony — Nielsen delighted in throwing them a curveball. For example, as any seasoned concertgoer knows, in most cases when the strings start playing what sounds like a fugue theme, you have a reasonable expectation that the end must be near. But in Nielsen’s last symphony, his Sixth, titled Sinfonia semplice or A Simple Symphony, which premiered in Copenhagen on today’s date in 1925, all sorts of crazy things happen in the last movement. And, since everyone knows the bassoon is supposed to be “the clown of the orchestra,” Nielsen’s parting shot is to give that instrument the last word — deflating any lofty expectations of a grand Romantic symphonic finale with what most politely could be described as giving that idea the raspberries.Music Played in Today's ProgramCarl Nielsen (1865-1931) – Symphony No. 6 (Sinfonia Semplice); San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, cond. Decca  425 607

SynopsisWolfgang Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791, leaving behind an unfinished Requiem Mass, commissioned anonymously by Count Franz von Walsegg, a 28-year-old Austrian nobleman who had the ignoble habit of passing off works he commissioned as his own. The Requiem was intended to be a memorial to the count’s 20-year-old wife, Anna, who had died earlier that year.Mozart’s wife, Constanza, arranged for some of Mozart’s pupils to complete the unfinished Requiem and eventually delivered it to Count Walsegg in order to receive the full commission fee promised her husband.But just five days after Mozart’s death in 1791, the portions of the Requiem that Mozart had completed were sung at a memorial service organized by his friend and collaborator Emanuel Schikaneder.Schikaneder was the librettist for Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute and ran his own opera house at the Theater auf der Wieden in a Viennese suburb. It was there that Mozart’s Magic Flute had premiered, and it was Schikaneder’s musicians who performed parts of Mozart’s Requiem for the first time on today’s date in 1791, at St. Michael’s Church in the center of Vienna.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Requiem

SynopsisWhat’s your favorite season? And how would you describe it in words? And if you’re a composer, how would you describe it in music?The most famous musical depiction is The Four Seasons, a set four violin concertos by Italian Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi, but other composers have evoked the mood and sounds of the seasons. On today’s date in 2009, American composer Philip Glass tossed his hat into the ring with the Toronto Symphony premiere of a new work, The American Four Seasons.Glass’ seasonal tone painting, like Vivaldi, is a set of four concertos, written for violinist Robert McDuffie, who also performed the premiere. But when McDuffie finally saw the finished score, he felt Glass’s view of some of the seasons did not quite match his own, so they came up with an unusual solution: In the published score, Glass did not provide titles for any of the four concertos, letting each listener (or performer) decide for him- or herself which concerto matched which season.So, in this case of this Four Seasons, it’s all up to you.Music Played in Today's ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1938) The American Four Seasons (Violin Concerto No. 2); Robert McDuffie, vn; London Philharmonic; Marin Alsop, cond. Orange Mountain CD 0072

SynopsisAt Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1908, Gustav Mahler conducted the New York Symphony, the 200-voice Oratorio Society chorus and two vocal soloists in the American premiere of his Symphony No. 2, his Resurrection Symphony.These days, Mahler’s Second ranks among his most popular works. But how was this new music received by New Yorkers back in 1908? An unsigned review in the New York Daily Tribune noted:“It was by demonstrations of far more than mere politeness that the large audience found vent for its feelings of interest and pleasure in this new music. ... After the Schubertian second movement, there was long continued applause, and at the close of the composition … there was cheering and waving of handkerchiefs until Mr. Mahler was compelled to appear several times to bow his thanks and appreciation.”As for the music itself, the review opined: “Of the beauty and insight of certain episodes, there can be no doubt. … There seems, however, a lack of significant and commanding originality. It is more cerebral than passionate, more intellectual than compellingly emotional.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection"); New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1975, the Oakland, California, Youth Orchestra gave the first performance of a symphony by a Bay area resident, American composer Lou Harrison. He began sketches for this symphonic score back in 1942 and tinkered with it off and off until the day of its premiere performance, even stapling in 15 additional measures to the young players’ parts at their final dress rehearsal.The commission for Harrison’s Fourth Symphony, subtitled The Elegiac, came from the Koussevitzky Foundation, and in part was written as a tribute to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky, two of the 20th century’s greatest new music patrons. But the intensely personal tone of this elegiac symphony was prompted by the death of Harrison’s mother, which was followed by the death of his close friend, iconoclastic American composer and instrument inventor Harry Partch.The symphony’s first movement is titled “Tears of the Angel Israfel” — the angel of music in Islamic lore — and the score also bears two inscriptions. The first reads “Epicurus said of death: where death is, we are not; where we are, death is not; therefore, death is nothing to us.” The second inscription is a quote from Horace: “Bitter sorrows will grow milder with music.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLou Harrison (1917-2003) Symphony No. 2 (Elegiac); American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, cond. MusicMasters 60204

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1998, two new Christmas carols debuted in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the “Welcome Christmas” choral concert of VocalEssence conducted by Philip Brunelle.The two carols, “Sweet Noel,” by Joan Griffith, and “The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn,” by Richard Voorhaar, were the prize-winning submissions entered in a contest arranged by the Plymouth Music Series and the American Composers Forum. The idea was to inspire contemporary composers to create new carols that — who knows? — might turn out to be classics over time.As Brunelle put it, “The Christmas carols that we love to sing and hear have a timelessness about them wrapped in their music and words. Out of submissions from all across the USA, [we] selected two that we felt captured this feeling.”Since 1998, the “Welcome Christmas” Carol Contest has continued as an annual tradition, and hundreds of worthy carols have been submitted. Each year, two are selected and premiered in December by Brunelle’s choral ensemble. These “Welcome Christmas” concerts are recorded by American Public Media for both regional broadcast and national distribution.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Voorhaar - The Virgin's Cradle Hymn; Vocalessence; Philip Brunelle, cond. Clarion 939

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1998, at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Orchestra, led by Eiji Oue, premiered a new symphony by American composer Libby Larsen. This was her Symphony No. 4, a work scored for strings alone.Larsen explained her decision to do without winds, brass and percussion as follows: “This symphony is both homage to strings and an essay about them. Strings, the core of the symphony orchestra, are supremely lyrical and supremely emotional. Yet, throughout the 20th century, perhaps marked by the performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, orchestral compositions have tended to become more and more rhythmic and percussive and less lyrical.”Larsen goes on to make this interesting observation: “In each century since the 1600s, the orchestra has added a new choir of sound to its ensemble: the Baroque orchestra consisted chiefly of strings; woodwinds were added during the 1700s; brass during the 1800s. The 20th century has added the percussion section.”Larsen said her new symphony was an attempt to capture something of the melody and inflections of 20th-century American English, as it is spoken and sung, through orchestral strings alone.Music Played in Today's ProgramLibby Larsen (b. 1950) Symphony No. 4 (String Symphony); Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Joel Revzen, cond. Koch International 7481

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1693, a new opera based on an old legend had its premiere performance at the Académie de la Musique in Paris. The new opera was by French Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The old legend was that of Medea, the sorceress who murdered her children to avenge her abandonment by their father, the Greek hero Jason.Charpentier’s Médée (to give his opera its French title) was well received by its first audiences. The most celebrated French soprano of her day sang the title role, but one contemporary critic, impressed by Charpentier’s achievement, wrote, “The emotions are so vivid, that even if the role were only spoken, the opera would not fail to make a great impression.”In the three centuries following Charpentier’s opera, many other musicians have taken up the Medea legend as well. In 1980, American composer Jacob Druckman took themes from three famous Medea operas and worked these into a three-movement orchestral suite, Prisms, with Charpentier’s version of Medea having pride of place and quoted in the first movement of Druckman’s score.Music Played in Today's ProgramMarc-Antoine Charpentier (1635 – 1704) Médée; Les Arts Florissants; William Christie, cond. Harmonia Mundi 90.1139/41Jacob Druckman (1928 – 1996) Prism; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, cond. New World 335

SynopsisParents are not supposed to have favorite children. By analogy, maybe composers aren’t supposed to love some of their pieces more than others — but they often do.In the case of Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, his little Sonatina for violin and piano was one of his proudest creations. He wrote it for two of his older children, 15-year-old Otilie and 10-year-old Antonin Junior.The Sonatina was composed in 1893 while Dvořák and his family were living in America. In the fall of that year, Dvořák had paid a visit to the Czech community in St. Paul, Minnesota, and while there had visited Minnehaha Falls, a local tourist attraction. After viewing the picturesque little waterfall, Dvořák jotted down a musical idea, a bit of rippling water music that found its way into the Sonatina’s slow movement.The Sonatina was finished in New York City on today’s date in 1893 — less than two weeks before the premiere of Dvořák’s New World Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Despite the tremendous success of that symphony, Dvořák liked to say his proudest premiere was when his children played the Sonatina for him in the family parlor.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Dvořák (1841 – 1904) Sonatina in G; Ivan Zenaty, violin; Antonin Kubalek, piano; Dorian 90171

SynopsisFor the last 30 years of his life, Aaron Copland lived in a ranch-style house built in the 1940s on Washington Street in Cortlandt Manor, New York. After his death in 1990, the house became a National Historical Landmark and also the site of a residency program for composers. In 2017, one of them was Juri Seo, a composer and pianist based in New Jersey.Now, there was a lot of snow in Cortlandt Manor that year, and maybe that had something to do with it, but the chamber work Juri Seo worked on there was titled String Quartet - Infinite Season. As she explains:“After each snow, golden sunlight hinted at the spring’s coming warmth. The turbulent fluctuation of the weather made me acutely aware of the passage of time. The seasons seemed to alternate by the day, yet the certainty of spring never faltered. … This was my solace: The seasons, with their infinite gradations of difference, will return again, and the birds and insects will carry on, cycle after cycle, an infinite rebirth.”This new work was written for the Argus Quartet, which gave its premiere performance on today’s date in 2017 at Princeton University.Music Played in Today's ProgramJuri Seo (b. 1981) String Quartet - Infinite Season; Argus Quartet Innova 1-022

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2006, the Minnesota Orchestra did something quite unusual: it gave a public concert consisting of nine works that had never been performed by a major orchestra, all written by young composers at the start of their careers. The new pieces had been workshopped and rehearsed the previous week as part of the Orchestra’s annual Composers Institute for promising new works by promising new composers. The public concert was billed as “Future Classics,” suggesting that though the pieces were new, they would have staying power.One of the works on the program that chilly December night in Minneapolis was selected as the audience’s favorite, and has also gone on to be programmed again by not only the Minnesota Orchestra, but others around the world.  The work was by a Pennsylvania-born composer named Missy Mazzoli titled These Worlds In Us. Dedicated to her father, it ruminates on his service in the Vietnam War. Blogging after its 2006 performance in Minneapolis, Mazzoli wrote: “Participating in the [Composer] Institute was the single most important thing I have ever done as a composer, not only for the performance but also for the long love affair with the orchestra this week has inspired.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMissy Mizzoli (b. 1980) – These Worlds in Us (Arctic Philharmonic; Tim Weiss, cond.) Bis 2572

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2000, the Boston Symphony gave the premiere performance of the Second Symphony of American composer John Corigliano. For strings alone, the symphony was a reworking of a string quartet that Corigliano had composed for the farewell tour of the Cleveland Quartet in 1996.The symphony was well received, and the following year was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music. “I am more than shocked. ... I don't know what to say,” Corigliano said upon receiving the news. “It's one of the great surprises of my life.”Perhaps doubly surprising, since, as a young man, Corigliano pretty much ruled out writing even one symphony, let alone two. “My thought then,” he said, “was that there were so many great symphonies [already]. I could satisfy only my ego by writing yet another. Only the death of countless friends from AIDS prompted me to write my Symphony No. 1. ... A world-scale tragedy, I felt, needed a comparably epic form.“Then the Boston [asked] that I write a second symphony to honor the l00th anniversary of their justly famous Symphony Hall. At first I declined, stating my earlier reservations, but they were quite insistent.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938) String Quartet; Cleveland Quartet Telarc 80415

SynopsisUtah came to the stage of Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, musically speaking, on this date in 1989, when the Orchestra of St. Luke’s premiered Utah Symphony, by American composer John Duffy. His Symphony No. 1 was commissioned by Gibbs Smith, the president of the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club to draw attention to the endangered and pristine wilderness lands of that state.Duffy knew this region firsthand. “I began sketching the symphony while hiking through southeastern Utah in the spring of 1988,” he said. “The landscape astounded me: Dramatic contrasts of light and shadow ... violent changes in weather ... expansive vistas. Here in the ancient Indian ruins, canyons, cathedral-like Mesas and fantastical slabs of rock is a spiritual presence and aesthetic wonder of pure, majestic, humbling wilderness.”Duffy is perhaps best known for writing the score to the 9-hour PBS documentary series Heritage: Civilization and the Jews. He was born in the Bronx and studied with Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell.In addition to composing over 300 works, in 1974, Duffy founded Meet the Composer, an organization dedicated to the creation, performance and recording of music by American composers.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Duffy (1926-2015) Symphony No. 1 (Utah); Milwaukee Symphony; Zdenek Macal, cond. Koss 1022

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1843, a composer dubbed “The Chopin of America” was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His name was Manuel Gregorio Tavárez, born to a French father and Puerto Rican mother. He began his musical studies in San Juan but at 15 moved to France to study at the Paris Conservatory with two leading French composers of the day, Daniel Auber and Eugen D'Albert.While in Paris, Tavárez suffered a stroke that paralyzed his left hand and affected his hearing. He returned to Puerto Rico, overcame those problems and after giving several recitals in San Juan, became a piano teacher.As a composer, Tavárez developed an original dance form called danza — similar to the waltz but tinged with Afro-Cuban rhythms from the Caribbean and the wistful melancholy of European Romantic composers.Tavárez gave his works evocative titles such as La Sensitiva (The Sensitive One), La Ausencia (Absense), Un Recuerdito (A Little Remembrance) and Pobre Corazón (Poor Heart), but the title of his most famous danza, written in 1870, was simply a woman’s name: Margarita.Like Chopin, Tavárez lived only 39 years. He died in 1883.Music Played in Today's ProgramManuel Gregorio Tavárez (1843-1883) Margarita; Kimberley Davis, p. from “La Ondina: Una Colección de Música Puertorriqueña para Piano” (digital album)

SynopsisAt 2 p.m. on today’s date in 1855, the first in a series of afternoon chamber music concerts was given at Dodworth’s Hall in New York City. As a contemporary newspaper put it, “In consequence of the numerous evening engagements of the city, and to enable ladies to be present without escort, it is proposed to give matinees in preference to soirees.”The concert was a great success, and many of the fashionably dressed ladies who attended were forced to stand, as all available seats were already occupied.In addition to classics by Schubert and Mendelssohn, the audience heard new music, the American premiere of a recently published piano trio by 21-year old German composer Johannes Brahms. The New York Times opined that the Brahms contained “many good points and much sound musicianship” but possessed also “the defects of a young writer; ... the motives seldom fall on the ear freshly.”It's doubtful that Brahms ever saw that review or even knew that his new trio had been played in America. But in 1889, 35 years later, Brahms extensively revised his youthful work, transforming his first major chamber work into his last.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897) Piano Trio No. 1 (1854 version); Odeon Trio Capriccio 10 633

SynopsisMusic — Beethoven’s music, in particular — played an important role in the life of Schroeder, a piano-playing character in Peanuts, the comic strip created by Charles Schulz, who was born in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1922.But new music snuck in the strip on occasion, too. In a 1990 installment, Peppermint Patty is at a young person’s concert and when informed that American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich had won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, stands up and yells, ''Way to go, Ellen!''Turns out Schulz had been impressed by a piece by Zwilich that he heard at a concert, and the cartoonist and composer struck up a friendship. So when Zwilich was asked to write a new work for a young people’s concert at Carnegie Hall, the result was a suite titled Peanuts Gallery.Its 1997 premiere was acknowledged in a Sunday Peanuts strip that had Schroeder telling Lucy about the new work. “We're all in it,” he says, and goes on to list the movements, including “Schroeder's Beethoven Fantasy,” “Lullaby for Linus” and “Lucy Freaks Out.”Of course, Lucy's only comment is: “My part should be longer.''Music Played in Today's ProgramEllen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) Peanuts Gallery; Jeffrey Biegel, p; Florida State University Symphony; Alexander Jiménez, cond. Naxos 8.559656

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2005, the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the premiere performance of a new Percussion Concerto by American composer Jenifer Higdon. The soloist was Colin Currie, a Scottish virtuoso for whom the work was tailor made.In program notes for her work, Higdon wrote, “When writing a concerto, I think of two things: the particular soloist for whom I am writing and the nature of the solo instrument. In the case of percussion, this means a large battery of instruments, from vibraphone and marimba (the favorite instrument of soloist Colin Currie), to nonpitched smaller instruments like brake drums, wood blocks or Peking Opera gongs.“Not only does a percussionist have to perfect playing all these instruments, he must make decisions regarding the use of sticks and mallets ... not to mention the choreography. ... Where most performers do not have to concern themselves with movement across the stage during a performance, a percussion soloist must have every move memorized.”Higdon’s new concerto proved popular with both audiences and the critics, and in 2010 the work won that year’s Grammy for best classical contemporary composition.Music Played in Today's ProgramJennifer Higdon (b. 1962) Percussion Concerto; Colin Currie, percussion; London Philharmonic; Marin Alsop, cond. LPO CD 0035

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1949, at Carnegie Hall, Leopold Stokowski conducted the New York Philharmonic in the first performance of the last major work of American composer Carl Ruggles.In a letter to his friend Charles Ives, or “Charlie” as he called him, Ruggles hinted that in this piece, he was perhaps, "stumbling on something new.” Another composer-friend, Edgard Varèse, agreed, but wrote: “The use [of intervals of] 5ths and 4ths is very remarkable, because that was done hundreds of years ago — let’s call it Organum.” And so Organum, a word referring to an early medieval polyphony, became the title of Ruggles’ final orchestral piece.After that, Ruggles, then already 73, pretty much gave up on the musical establishment and devoted himself to painting. In 1966, he moved to a nursing home, where he died in 1971 at 95.Shortly before his death, Ruggles was visited by Michael Tilson Thomas, who recalls the feisty old man saying, “Now don’t go feeling sorry [for me]. I don’t hang around this place, you know. Hell, each day I go out and make the universe anew — all over!”Music Played in Today's ProgramCarl Ruggles (1876-1971) Organum; Japan Philharmonic; Akeo Watanabe, cond. CRI 715

SynopsisIn 1834, the great violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini acquired a new Stradivarius viola. He approached 30-year-old French composer Hector Berlioz and commissioned him to write a viola concerto.What Berlioz came up with, however, was a Romantic program symphony with a prominent part for solo viola, Harold in Italy, inspired by Byron’s narrative poem “Childe Harold.” Paganini was disappointed. “That is not what I want,” he said. “I am silent a great deal too long. I must be playing the whole time.”And so, when Harold in Italy was first performed, at the Paris Conservatory on today’s date in 1834, it was an old classmate of Berlioz’s, Chrétien Urhan, who was the soloist, not the superstar Paganini. The audience seemed to like the “Pilgrims’ March” movement of the symphony, which was encored, but otherwise the performance was one train wreck after another.Four years later, however, Berlioz had the last laugh when Paganini, hearing the music he commissioned at a better performed concert, rose from the audience, mounted the stage and publicly declared Berlioz a genius, and, two days later, presented the stunned Berlioz with a check for 20,000 francs.Music Played in Today's ProgramHector Berlioz (1803-1869) Harold in Italy; Nobuko Imai, viola; London Symphony; Colin Davis, cond. Philips 416 431

SynopsisIf you’re a baby boomer, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.On that day, American composer Warren Benson was just beginning to work on a commission he had received for a new work for wind band. Maybe the trauma of that day unleashed some creative power in Benson, but whatever the reason, the resulting music is both intense and moving. He titled his piece The Leaves Are Falling, a line from Rainer Maria Rilke's “Autumn,” a poem that evokes a sense of a passing season and a passing life. The Leaves Are Falling became Benson’s best-known work and a landmark score in the wind band repertory.Born in 1924, Benson grew up in Detroit, studied at the University of Michigan and landed a job playing timpani in the Detroit Symphony. He served as a professor of percussion and composition at Ithaca College, and from 1967 until 1993, he taught composition at the Eastman School in Rochester, New York. He died in 2005.Music Played in Today's ProgramWarren Benson (1924-2005): The Leaves Are Falling; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, cond. Centaur 2014

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1941, Greek-born conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos led the Minneapolis Symphony in the premiere performance of a new symphony by German composer Paul Hindemith, who came to Minnesota for the performance.Mitropoulos was an ardent promoter of new music, but few of the contemporary works he programmed were welcomed by audiences or the critics with much enthusiasm. Hindemith’s reputation as an atonal composer had preceded him, but, surprisingly, his new piece for Minneapolis was billed as a “Symphony in E-flat Major” and, much to the delight of all concerned, featured recognizable tunes.By chance, another famous composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, was in Minneapolis that day, and was invited by Mitropoulos to attend the Hindemith premiere backstage, where he wouldn’t be annoyed by autograph seekers. Rachmaninoff had a pessimistic view of modern music, but Mitropoulos was sure the famously dour Russian would like Hindemith’s resolutely tonal new symphony. Rachmaninoff was positioned just off stage, and after the end of the symphony, which was received with great applause, Mitropoulos passed him as he left the stage. “Well?” Mitropoulos asked. “No goooood,” was Rachmaninoff’s lugubrious response.Music Played in Today's ProgramPaul Hindemith (1895-1963) Symphony in E-flat; BBC Philharmonic; Yan Pascal Tortelier, cond. Chandos 9060

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1805, Beethoven’s opera, Leonore, had its premiere at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, after many postponements due to getting the opera’s libretto approved by government censors and the orchestral parts copied in time. There was also the little matter of the Austrian capital being occupied by French troops as Napoleon was sweeping across Europe.The cream of Viennese society had fled by the time Napoleon arrived, so the skimpy audience for the premiere performance of Beethoven’s opera included a good number of French soldiers. What they made of Beethoven’s opera, which tells the story of a woman rescuing her husband from a political prison, is anybody’s guess.As usual, the Viennese critics were not impressed. One wrote, “There are no new ideas in the solos, and they are mostly too long. The choruses are ineffectual and one, which indicates the joy of prisoners over the sensation of fresh air, miscarries completely!”After several revisions and the eventual departure of the French, even the critics came to accept Beethoven’s opera — retitled Fidelio — and in particular the “Prisoners’ Chorus,” as one of Beethoven’s most moving creations.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Overture and Prisoner's Chorus, from Fidelio; Dresden Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips 438 496

SynopsisThe publisher of Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin and Percussion, which received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1961 at New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall, states with refreshing honesty that it is “not one of Harrison's most frequently performed works” and that “the highly rhythmic violin line is pleasantly contrasted by the exceptionally varied percussion ensemble.”Now, by an “exceptionally varied” percussion ensemble, it means in addition to conventional instruments, Harrison asks for tin cans, suspended brake drums, flowerpots, plumber’s pipes, wind chimes and spring coils.Not surprisingly, it can be difficult to assemble the “heavy metal” called for in the score. For a 1965 performance, Harrison was forced to spend hours, as he put it, "chasing down pipe lengths and flower pots in hardware stores."But there was a method to his madness. Harrison was trying to imitate the sounds of the tuned bronze gongs of the traditional Indonesian gamelan orchestra by using distinctly American “found” materials. In performance, the setup seems downright humorous at first sight, but at first sound, it works. In fact, one suspects Harrison wants the audience to chuckle at first, but then be charmed.Music Played in Today's ProgramLou Harrison (1917-2003) Concerto for Violin and Percussion; Antonio Nunez, vn; Basel Percussion Ensemble; Paul Sacher, cond. Pan Classics 510 103

SynopsisWe all have our heroes and role models — people we admire and hope to emulate if we can. Composers, of course, are no different.On today’s date in 1995, American composer William C. Banfield’s Symphony No. 6 received its first public performance by the Akron Symphony, the same ensemble that recorded the new work for a Telarc compact disc release that same year. Banfield titled the work Four Songs for Five American Voices and explained it as follows:“As creators, innovators, performers and composers, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan have made an incredible impact on my life and art. Their presence in American music and culture will never be forgotten, and the memory of them will always bring to [one's] mind a memorable melody, and to [one's] face, a smile."The symphony is made up of four instrumental movements: “If Bernstein Wrote It...,” “In an Ellington Mood,” “I’m Dizzy Over Miles” and “Someone Said Her Name Was Sarah.”That last movement, Banfield says, “was simply written to pay homage to the sweet and lyrical facility of singer Sarah Vaughan, who was ingenious in her vocal execution and style.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam C. Banfield (b. 1961) Someone Said Her Name Was Sarah, from Symphony No. 6; Akron Symphony; Alan Balter, cond. Telarc 80409

SynopsisNov. 17, 1878, marked a milestone in the career of 37-year old Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. For the first time, he engaged and conducted the orchestra of the Provisional Theater in Prague in a concert entirely of his own works, including the premiere performance of a new Serenade for Winds.Earlier that year, Dvorak heard a performance of a Mozart wind serenade in Vienna and was so taken by the sound of Mozart’s double-reeds and horns that he wrote a similar work in just two weeks.Dvorak added to the open-air feel of Mozart’s 18th-century wind serenade some lively 19th-century Czech dance rhythms. But he also chose the key of D minor, reserved by Mozart for some of his most serious works. That enables Dvorak’s Serenade to seem both somber and upbeat, infused with musical shadows and sunlight.The new work was well received in Prague and also in Vienna, where one its biggest fans was Johannes Brahms, who wrote: ``A more lovely, refreshing impression of real, rich and charming creative talent you can't imagine. I think it must be a pleasure for the wind players!''Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Dvorak Serenade for Winds; St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff, cond. Teldec

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1904, the Washington Post’s headline read, “Hiawatha Tonight: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s masterpiece to be sung at Convention Center.”The 29-year-old British composer, on his first visit to America, was to conduct the 200 members of the Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society of Washington D.C., accompanied by the Marine Band orchestra.So who was this British composer and what had he done to inspire an American chorus to name itself after him?Coleridge-Taylor was born in 1875 to an African father from Sierra Leone and an English mother. Showing remarkable musical talent, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and rapidly established himself as a major choral composer with a trilogy of oratorios, all based on Longfellow’s epic poem Hiawatha, that became wildly popular in England, but the 1904 concert in Washington was the first time all three had been performed on the same concert.The Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society was America’s first African-American concert choir. Attending the Washington performance were many members of the federal government and distinguished members of both Black and white society.Music Played in Today's ProgramSamuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) Hiawatha's Departure; Welsh National Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Kenneth Alwyn, cond. Argo 430 956

SynopsisIn 1974, St. Petersburg was still called “Leningrad” and still part of what we now call the “former Soviet Union.” Back then, the most famous living Soviet composer was Dmitri Shostakovich, whose health was rapidly failing from the cancer that would claim his life the following year.On today’s date in 1974, Shostakovich’s final string quartet, his Fifteenth, was given its premiere performance by the Taneyev Quartet. The work was supposed to have been premiered by the Beethoven Quartet, but its cellist died unexpectedly, and, mindful of his own mortality, Shostakovich was reluctant to postpone the scheduled premiere. After all, he might not be around by the time the Beethoven Quartet found a replacement cellist.When his String Quartet No. 1 had premiered in 1938, Shostakovich had described that work as “joyful, merry, lyrical” and “springlike.” His Fifteenth Quartet, on the other hand, is obviously a “winter work,” written by someone who knows he might never see another spring.If Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies represent the “public” side of a Soviet composer, his fifteen string quartets might be described as chronicling his “private” inner world of hopes, fears and dreams.Music Played in Today's ProgramDmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) String Quartet No. 15; Emerson String Quartet DG 463 284

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1922, the British Broadcasting Corporation began daily radio transmissions from London, at first offering just news and weather — the latter read twice, in case anyone wanted to take notes. The following month, on Dec. 23, 1922, the BBC broadcast its first orchestral concert.Over time, the BBC became affectionately nicknamed “the Beeb,” or, less affectionately “Auntie,” due to the upper-middle class, slightly patronizing tone of its music announcers in the 1940s and ‘50s.That said, Auntie has proven to be hip in one aspect: The BBC has been a major commissioner of and advocate for new music by a wide range of composers — and not just British ones. In 2007, for example, the BBC Symphony premiered the Doctor Atomic Symphony, by American composer John Adams, live on-air at a BBC Proms Concert at the Royal Albert Hall.And it’s not just famous, big-name composers who get an airing on the Beeb either. Each year, BBC Radio 3 hosts a competition for teenage composers. Winners participate in a mentored program and have one of their orchestral works developed, rehearsed and performed at the BBC Proms.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Adams (b. 1947) Violin Concerto; Tamsin Waley-Cohen, violin; BBC Symphony; Andrew Litton, cond. Signum 468

SynopsisWhile for Puerto Ricans, the bomba and the plena are more familiar representatives of their proud dance tradition, the musical form known as danza holds a special place in their hearts.Danza originated in southern Puerto Rico in the early 19th century, originally similar to the waltz, but over time it absorbed Afro-Cuban influences. Manuel Gregorio Tavárez, a 19th-century Puerto Rican composer raised the danza to a cultivated artform, and accordingly he was dubbed “the Chopin of America.”A 21st-century Puerto Rican composer, Dan Román, paid tribute to Tavárez and other earlier danza masters in a piece for cello and piano called Retrospectos, or Retrospectives. This new work premiered on today’s date in 2007 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, played by the Montserrat Duo, which had commissioned the piece.“Each movement of my piece uses a different aspect of the Danza,” Román says. “Each movement also explores a particular composer from among the most significant authors of the genre. However, the source material is always treated as series of analytical objects that become manipulated to nearly the point of abstraction.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDan Román (b. 1974) Retrospectos; Beth Ringel, vcl; Alex Maynegre, p. Innova 904

SynopsisThese days at symphony concerts, when a new piece of music is about to be played, it’s not uncommon to overhear someone mutter, “Why do they have to program this new stuff, when there’s so much Brahms and Tchaikovsky we’d rather hear?”Well, on today’s date in 1881, the 40th season of the New York Philharmonic Society’s concerts opened with a pair of new works: first the New York premiere of the Tragic Overture, by Johannes Brahms, and after that, the world premiere of the Second Piano Concerto, by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The soloist in the Tchaikovsky was Madeleine Schiller.Here’s what the New York Times had to say the following morning: “The return of Madame Schiller to the stage is a welcome event, ... the only regret being that her efforts had not been devoted to a more interesting work, for, apart from the novelty, it cannot be said that the Tchaikovsky concerto possessed any great merit. There are older works, of which one never tires and which, interpreted by Madame Schiller ... would always be welcomed.”Ah, some things never change!Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) Tragic Overture; Chicago Symphony; Daniel Barenboim, cond. Erato 95192Peter Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893) Piano Concerto No. 2; Barry Douglas, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra; Leonard Slatkin, cond. RCA/BMG 61633

SynopsisIn his autobiographical sketch, A Mingled Chime, British conductor Thomas Beecham offered this assessment of British composer Ethel Smyth: “Ethel Smyth is without question the most remarkable of her sex that I have been privileged to know,” and added that he admired her “fiery energy and unrelenting fixity of purpose.”Born in 1858, Smyth became a composer against her family’s wishes, and it took dogged determination to get her large-scale choral and operatic works performed in an era when most in the music business did not take female composers seriously. That was before they met Smyth, who convinced legendary conductors like Arthur Nikisch, Bruno Walter and Beecham, who realized her music had merit.Smyth’s opera The Wreckers had its premiere performance in Leipzig on today’s date in 1906 and was championed in England by Beecham, who thought it her masterpiece. It remains, wrote Beecham in 1944, the year of Smyth’s death, “one of the three or four English operas of real musical merit and vitality written in the past 40 years.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEthyl Smyth (1858 - 1944) The Wreckers; Soloists and BBC Philharmonic; Odaline de la Martinez, cond. Conifer 51250

SynopsisToday’s date marks the birthdate in 1928 of Italian composer Ennio Morricone, famous for more than 400 scores he wrote for films and TV.If you’re a fan, you already know that he wrote the music for a series of spaghetti western movies like the 1964 classic A Fistful of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood as a taciturn, sun-burnt, cigar-chomping gunman.If you’re an oboist, you’ve probably played Morricone’s haunting Gabriel’s Oboe at weddings or funerals. It's a melody originally heard in his soundtrack to the1986 film The Mission.But in a 2006 interview for Dazed magazine, Morricone revealed some things even his fans might not have known: He collected bars of hotel soap as a hobby. And if he hadn’t become a composer, he would have liked to have been a professional chess player.He also offered a bit of wise advice when asked about scores that were not successes: “A long time ago, I really loved a film that I was working on and I became too involved. That was kind of unbalanced. It made me realize that you can’t love things too much if you want them to work.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEnnio Morricone (1928 - 2020) Gabriel’s Oboe, fr “The Mission”; Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; Ennio Morricone, cond. Sony 57872

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1967, the New York Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new piece, November Steps, by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, a work commissioned by the orchestra as part of its 125th-anniversary celebrations. In addition to the usual instruments of the Western symphony orchestra, Takemitsu included in his score two traditional Japanese instruments: the shakuhachi flute and the biwa, a kind of Japanese lute.Eight years after the Takemitsu premiere, an organization called Music from Japan was founded to help make other Japanese contemporary music feel “at home” in America. Music from Japan has presented about 400 works across the U.S. and premiered over 40 new works, many of them specially commissioned.On today’s date in 2000, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Music from Japan presented a gala concert at Carnegie Hall, which included the premiere of a new orchestral work by talented young Japanese composer Karen Tanaka, one of the rising stars of her generation. Among Tanaka’s recorded works is Night Bird, a piece for two decidedly Western instruments: saxophone and piano.Music Played in Today's ProgramToru Takemitsu (1930 - 1996) November Steps; Katsuya Yokoyama, shakuhachi; Kunshi Isuruta, biwa; Concertgebouw Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips 426 667Karen Tanaka (b. 1961) Night Bird; Claude Delangle, saxophone BIS 890

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1830, 11-year-old piano virtuoso Clara Wieck took the stage of the Leipzig Gewandhaus for her first solo recital. Her father was a piano teacher, who had groomed Clara for a solo career since infancy.This was the age of the great composer-pianists Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin, and little Clara also wrote original works for her performances. Her set of four Polonaises was published the following year. Her career as a composer and performer would eventually span five decades, and, like her father, she became one of the most famous piano teachers of her time.Nowadays, composer-performers are more common in the world of jazz than classical music, although there are exceptions. One of them is Judith Lang Zaimont, who, like Clara Schumann, developed a triple career as composer, performer and teacher. “Composing is the central fact of my life,” Zaimont says. “My music seeks to appeal both to the heart (the ‘Ahh!’ response) and to the head (the ‘Aha!’ response). When this mix is just right, I can sense it — and reactions from audiences can be positive, too.”Music Played in Today's ProgramClara Schumman (1819 – 1896) Four Polonaises; Josef de Beenhouwer, piano CPO 999 758Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945) September, fr Calendar Collection; Judith Lang Zaimont, piano Four Tay 4001

SynopsisThe Nov. 7, 1950, issue of Look magazine included a record review of a new LP of music by avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse. “Varèse is unlike anything else in music,” the review suggested, “and well worth knowing.”A young Californian named Frank Zappa, just short of his 10th birthday, was fascinated by the Look magazine photo of Varèse accompanying the review, which made the composer look a little like a mad scientist in vintage horror films. The young Zappa felt compelled to hunt down the record and begin composing music himself. For his 15th birthday, Zappa chose to spend a $5 gift from his parents on a long-distance phone call to Varèse, who Zappa correctly guessed must live in New York’s Greenwich Village.Today, Frank Zappa is best remembered as the head of the iconoclastic rock band of the ‘60s and ‘70s the Mothers of Invention, but in 1983, Zappa also conducted works of Varèse at a San Francisco concert honoring the composer’s centenary, and always acknowledged Varèse as a major influence. One of Zappa’s final projects, recorded in 1993, the last year of his life, was an orchestral tribute to Varèse.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdgar Varèse (1883 - 1965) Ionisation; New York Philharmonic; Pierre Boulez, cond. Sony 45844Frank Zappa (1940 – 1993) Dog Breath Variations; Cincinnati Conservatory Wind Symphony; Eugene Corporon, cond. Mark 1116

SynopsisThe American composer Florence Price wrote three symphonies in all. Her Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the Chicago Symphony in 1933 and marked the first time a composition by an African-American woman was played by a major American orchestra. The score for her second symphony is lost. Her third symphony, commissioned by the WPA Federal Music Project, was premiered on today’s date in 1940 by the Detroit Civic Orchestra.Price was born in 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training. At age 14, she enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music, where she pretended to be Mexican to avoid the Ivy League racial prejudice of that time.After teaching in the South, Price moved to Chicago in 1927, where she became acquainted with the writer Langston Hughes and contralto Marian Anderson, both prominent figures in the African-American arts scene, who both helped promote Price's music.Price died in 1953. After decades of neglect, early 21st century performances and recordings of her works have helped revive interest in her life and career.Music Played in Today's ProgramFlorence Price (1887 – 1953) Symphony No. 3; Women’s Philharmonic; Apo Hsu, cond. Koch 7518-2

SynopsisInto the Woods, a new musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, opened on Broadway on today’s date in 1987, and brought to the stage characters from the world of fairy-tales: Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and not one, but TWO Prince Charmings.But in Lapine and Sondheim’s fairy tale, bad things happen to good people who make morally questionable decisions in their quest to “live happily ever after.”At the time, Sondheim said, “All fairy tales are parables about steps to maturity. The final step is when you become responsible for the people around you, when you feel connected to the rest of the world.”The New York Times review noted that this fairy tale’s quest was “the same painful, existential one taken by so many adults in Sondheim musicals past.” Granting the musical was “potent stuff,” some complained there was simply too much of it, with multiple plot lines resulting in a complicated story hampering Sondheim’s lyrical gifts from really taking off on their own.Even so, since its 1987 premiere, Into the Woods has gone on to become one of the most performed and popular of all Sondheim’s musicals.Music Played in Today's ProgramStephen Sondheim (b. 1930) Into the Woods; original Broadway cast members RCA 60752

SynopsisToday we honor one of America’s greatest patrons of chamber music, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who died on this date in 1953.Born in 1864, Elizabeth was the daughter of a wealthy wholesale grocer. She put her inheritance to good use. In 1924, she proposed to the Library of Congress that an auditorium be constructed in Washington, D.C., that would be dedicated to the performance of chamber music. A year later it was built, and Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress still stands today.Not content with just a superb venue for chamber music, Coolidge diligently commissioned new works to be played there. The list of important chamber pieces her foundation commissioned is impressive, and includes Bartok and Schoenberg string quartets, the original chamber versions of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Stravinsky’s Apollo ballets, and modern works by American composers as diverse as Samuel Barber, Milton Babbitt, George Crumb and John Corigliano.Coolidge was an amateur composer and accomplished pianist. Her passion for music and enthusiasm for the creation of new works was all the more remarkable considering that tragically she battled deafness from her mid-30s.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971) Apollo ballet; Stockholm Chamber Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, cond. Sony Classical 46667

SynopsisAt Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 2002, the American Composers Orchestra presented new works inspired by the Hebrew Psalms. The program included the premiere of a new work by the American composer David Lang entitled How to Pray.In his program note, Lang wrote: “[The] Psalms are so central to religious experience [because] they are a comprehensive catalogue of how to talk to the Almighty... Of course, it's like reading one side of a correspondence... I am not a religious person. I don't know how to pray. I do, however, know some of the times and places and formulas that are supposed to help make prayer possible. Sometimes I find myself sending those messages out. And then I wait, secretly hoping that I will recognize the response.”The minimalist-style, patterned repetition in Lang’s How to Pray, reminded some listeners of a “mandala”—those intricate graphic patterns intended to be an aid to meditation for Hindu or Buddhist believers.Stravinsky fans with sharp ears might also recognize the running piano line from the beginning of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, which Lang borrows and weaves into the pattern of How to Pray as both a tribute and inspiration.Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Lang (b. 1957) How to Pray; Real Quiet ensemble; Gil Rose, cond. Naxos 8.559615

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1979, a new play by Peter Schaffer titled Amadeus opened at the National Theatre in London.Schaffer’s play tells the story of Mozart’s final years in Vienna, including some posthumous gossip that it was the petty jealousy and back-stabbing intrigue of Mozart’s Italian contemporary Antonio Salieri that hastened Wolfgang’s untimely demise. There was even a Romantic legend that Salieri had actually poisoned Mozart, a legend Shaffer gave a psychological spin.Music historians were quick to attack Shaffer’s play as wildly inaccurate and downright unfair to poor old Salieri, who, they said, was not all that bad a fellow. Accurate or not, Schaffer’s play was a big hit, and five years later was made into a wildly successful film. That movie version of Amadeus prompted millions of new classical music fans to snap up any recordings of Mozart’s Requiem they could find.And what about the music historians? They couldn’t even find comfort in the old public relations adage, “There’s no such thing as bad press as long as they spell your name right!” They felt even the movie’s title was bogus. Mozart never signed his middle name “Amadeus,” preferring the French version, “Amadé.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756 – 1791) Requiem; La Chapelle Royale and Orchestre des Champs Elysees; Philippe Herreweghe, cond. Harmonia Mundi 901620

SynopsisIn France, today is “la Fete de la Toussaint” – All Saints’ Day – observed as both a sacred and secular national holiday, a time to visit cemeteries and put flowers on the graves of relatives. In 1947, when memories of the dead of World War II were still fresh, French Radio broadcast three premieres at a special concert from the Salle Gaveau in Paris.First on the program was the French premiere of Hungarian composer Lazlo Lajhta’s somber In Memoriam. This had been the first new orchestral work to be performed in Budapest when concert life had resumed after the war.Second was the world premiere of the Sixth Symphony by Polish composer Alexandre Tansman, who, being Jewish, found refuge in France in 1938, then, during the German occupation, had fled to the United States. In 1946, Tansman returned to Europe in time for the premiere of his symphony, also titled In Memoriam, at this concert.The third work on the program was another world premiere: a newly completed Requiem Mass by French composer Maurice Duruflé, originally commissioned as an orchestral work in 1941 during the German occupation of France, which morphed into a choral Requiem Mass by the time of the liberation.Music Played in Today's ProgramMaurice Duruflé (1902 - 1986) – Requiem (Westminster Choir; Joseph Flummerfelt, cond.) Avie 46

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1955, Leopold Stokowski gave his first concert as the new music director of the Houston Symphony — or, as Stoki pronounced it, the “Hooston Symphony.” It was a major cultural event in those days. NBC even televised a bit of the famously white-maned conductor rehearsing the Texans in a brand-new work that Stokowski had commissioned for the occasion: the second symphony of Alan Hovhaness, subtitled Mysterious Mountain.At the time, Hovhaness explained his subtitle as follows: “Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man’s attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual worlds.” The new piece proved to be a terrific success for all concerned. The next day, the Houston Post’s music critic wrote, “The real mystery of Mysterious Mountain is that it should be so simple, sweetly, innocently lovely in an age that has tried so terribly hard to avoid those impressions in music.” For his part, Hovhaness once said, “Things that are complicated tend to disappear and get lost. Simplicity is difficult, not easy.”Before his death in 2000, Hovhaness would complete 67 symphonies.Music Played in Today's ProgramAlan Hovhaness (1911 – 2000) Symphony No. 2 (Mysterious Mountain) - London Symphony; John Williams, cond. Sony Classical 62729

SynopsisAmerican opera composer Jake Heggie and his librettist Terrence McNally decided to follow their Dead Man Walking – a successful but harrowing opera about capital punishment – with a lighter, more comic work, Great Scott.Now, McNally winced when people called Great Scott a “comic” opera, since it deals with a serious topic – for opera lovers, at least, namely, “Does opera still matter?”Great Scott is set in a large U.S. city with a respected – but struggling – opera company. The city also has a powerhouse professional football team. In Great Scott, international opera star Arden Scott returns to her hometown to save the opera company by staging the world premiere of a long-lost Italian bel canto work, Rosa Dolorosa, Figlia di Pompei. Unfortunately, the scheduled premiere falls on the same day as the home team’s first Super Bowl.Does the diva save the opera company? And who wins the Super Bowl?Well, you’ll just have to listen to the opera to find out!Fortunately, a Dallas Opera recording of Great Scott was made at its premiere on today’s date in 2015 – featuring the powerhouse American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in the title role.Music Played in Today's ProgramJake Heggie (b. 1961) “Rosa Dolorosa” Overture, fr Great Scott - Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano; Dallas Opera; Patrick Summers, conductor Erato 9029594078

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1739, George Frideric Handel took out an advertisement, announcing that he was now accepting subscriptions for his new set of 12 Grand Concertos for strings. He had, in fact, finished the first concerto one month before, on Sept. 29, and spent the next five weeks polishing off the other 11 at the rate of one every two or three days.Handel’s publisher was John Walsh Jr., who had a shop in London at the sign of the harp and oboe in Catherine Street on the Strand. One hundred twenty-two copies of the music were to be printed and sold at a prepublication price of two guineas each. Among the initial 100 subscribers were three royal princesses and the duke of Cumberland, and two copies each were sold to the Academy of Music in Dublin and a certain Charles Jennens.It was Jennens who was to provide the text for Handel’s next major oratorio, Messiah, and the city of Dublin the venue for its famous premiere.So, in 1739, just as today, it pays to advertise!Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685 – 1757) Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, no. 5 - I Solisti Italiani Denon 6305

SynopsisIn St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1893, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted the first performance of his latest symphony, his Sixth. From the beginning, this symphony has been commonly known by its French subtitle, the Pathétique, a designation suggested by the composer’s brother, Modest.Now, by Pathetique, Modest meant something like “passionate” or “emotional,” with overtones of “pathos” and “suffering,” but in plain old English, “pathétique” translates as “pathetic,” a word with a slew of negative connotations. The French sounds much better, thank you. Tchaikovsky had originally wanted to call it A Program Symphony with, apparently, no intention of cluing anyone in on what that program might be.In any case, nine days after he conducted the premiere, Tchaikovsky was dead. Was his death the result of a fatal glass of unboiled water recklessly drunk during the height of a cholera epidemic? Or was it a deliberate suicide to avoid the scandal of a homosexual affair becoming public? Did his Pathétique Symphony encode the answer?Speculation has raged around Tchaikovsky’s last symphony ever since, surrounding this last work with what one critic has called “voluptuous gloom.”Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893) Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique) - Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, cond. DG 449 967

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1994, Dennis Russell Davies conducted the Chicago Symphony in the premiere performance of a 23-minute orchestral work by American composer Steven Mackey. The new piece was titled Eating Greens, after a painting of the same name that the composer purchased at an African art store in the French Quarter of New Orleans.Mackey’s Eating Greens is a colorful orchestral suite of seven movements. The fourth movement is only 46 seconds long and is playfully labeled “The Title Is Almost as Long as the Piece Itself.” Other movements’ titles acknowledge the influence of the colorful and playful visual artist Henri Matisse and the quirky but brilliant jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk.In the liner notes for the recording of Eating Greens, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, Mackey writes, “On more than one occasion, Michael has used the word ‘wacky’ to describe my music. Composers usually blanch at such attributions — nobody wants to be captured in a single word — but I can live with ‘wacky.’ It is not a common adjective, does not end with ‘ism’ and clearly the rhyme with my last name personalizes it.”Music Played in Today's ProgramSteven Mackey (b. 1956) Eating Greens - New World Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. RCA/BMG 63826

SynopsisFor composers of new operas, all too often, after the heady champagne of opening night comes the strong black coffee of “the morning after” — sipped anxiously while reading the first reviews.Imagine yourself as American composer Robert Ward, whose opera The Crucible was premiered by the New York City Opera on today’s date in 1961. Here’s what he would have read in the New York Times the following morning:“Last night, the audience heard an opera that, in philosophy and workmanship, could have been composed at the turn of the century, or before. And, judging from the response at the end of the work, the audience loved it.” Hmm. Not all that bad, so far. But down a few more lines comes this zinger: “Mr. Ward is an experienced composer whose music fails to bear the impress of a really inventive mind. Melodically, his ideas had little distinction. ... [The opera’s] powerful subject cried out for intensity, for brutality and shock. ... Instead, we had musical platitudes.”Ouch!Oh, well, despite the nasty review, Ward’s opera did well at the box office, and, for the record, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music the following year.Music Played in Today's ProgramRobert Ward (b. 1917) The Crucible - New York City Opera; Emerson Buckley, cond. Albany 25/26

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1970, a new chamber work by American composer John Corigliano received its premiere performance at a concert given by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the group that had commissioned it.The new piece, Poem in October, was scored for tenor voice and eight instruments and was a setting of poetry by Dylan Thomas, the great Welsh poet who died in 1953.“The thing that most appeals to me is the sound of his words,” Corigliano explained. “Phrases from Poem in October like ‘a springful of larks in a rolling cloud’ and ‘the blue altered sky streamed again a wonder of summer’ are in themselves musical.”“The music itself,” Corigliano says, “is unabashedly lyrical. I sought to convey a pastoral feeling that would match the directness and simplicity of the text, to deal in understatement and succinctness rather than in complexity and theatrical effect.”Corigliano’s chamber scoring includes three “pastoral” wind instruments — flute, oboe and clarinet — plus strings, and, perhaps to give the work a slightly archaic feel, a harpsichord.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938) Poem in October - Robert White, tenor; Thomas Nyfenger, f.; Humbert Lucarelli, ob.; Joseph Rabbai, cl.; American String Quartet; Maurice Peress, cond. and hc. RCA 60395

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2002, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Leonard Slatkin conducted the National Symphony in the premiere of a new symphony by American composer Cindy McTee.McTee subtitled her Symphony No. 1, Ballet for Orchestra, saying: “Music is said to have come from dance — [and] the impulse to compose often begins as a rhythmical stirring and leads to a physical response — tensing muscles, gesturing with hands and arms, or quite literally, dancing. … There is also much pleasure to be gained from observing the gestures of a conductor, or from seeing the coordinated bowing of the string sections within an orchestra. My Ballet for Orchestra emerged out of a similar kinesthetic/emotional awareness and a renewed interest in dance music.”McTee’s symphony makes passing allusions to earlier works by Stravinsky, Ravel, Barber and even Penderecki, tossing in some jazz and folk fiddling allusions for good measure. But Allan Kozinn, reviewing the new symphony for the New York Times, wrote: “Ms. McTee's sense of organization kept the work from becoming a pastiche: As diverse as its ideas were, they seemed to unfold naturally within an orchestral fabric that used the ensemble's full coloristic range.”Music Played in Today's ProgramCindy McTee (b. 1953) Symphony No. 1 (Ballet for Orchestra) - Detroit Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, cond. Naxos 8.559765

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2008, at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, soprano Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra gave the first performance of a new song cycle, Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories. Its composer, Maria Schneider, conducted the premiere.Drummond was one of Brazil’s greatest poets, and Schneider came to know his work through English translations by Mark Strand. “Drummond’s poetry struck me as deeply Brazilian, and Brazil is a country for which I’ve long felt an affinity,” she said.The Minneapolis premiere was something of a homecoming for Schneider, who was born in Minnesota and studied composition at its university before heading off to the Eastman School and after graduation being hired by the great jazz orchestrator Gil Evans as his assistant. In 1992, she formed her own jazz orchestra and won a Grammy with it in 2004.Upshaw is a big fan of Schneider’s work, and in 2011 they collaborated on the premiere of a second song cycle, Winter Morning Walks, based on poems of Ted Kooser."I knew that no matter what she was going to write,” Upshaw said, “it was going to be a joyful experience."Music Played in Today's ProgramMaria Schneider (b. 1960) Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories - Dawn Upshaw, soprano; St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Maria Schneider, conductor ArtistShare AS-0121

SynopsisRoyalty was often flattered by the composers of the Baroque age. Handel wrote glorious ceremonial music for British monarchs, and Bach was not above working up an obsequiously complimentary cantata or two for some German prince. At the French Court of Versailles, King Louis XIV appeared on stage for cameo appearances during operas and ballets whose stories complemented Louis’ wisdom, talent and impeccable good taste.On today’s date in 1987, at the Houston Grand Opera in Texas, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Chairman Mao didn’t come on stage in their own personas, but did appear as characters in the premiere of a new opera by American composer John Adams. Nixon in China was a somewhat surreal and not necessarily flattering dramatization of a real event: President Nixon’s ground-breaking trip to communist China in 1972.One can only guess at the former president’s reaction to being portrayed on stage. Adams did report that Nixon’s lawyer, Leonard Garment, attended a performance of Nixon in China, most likely on the former president’s behalf. No lawsuit followed, and, Adams notes with some amusement, Garment even became something of a fan of his music!Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Adams (b. 1947) Nixon in China - Orchestra of St. Luke's; Edo de Waart, cond. Nonesuch 794543

SynopsisAmerican composer Marga Richter was born on today’s date in 1926, in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. She began piano lessons by 4, started composing at 12 and had her first work performed when she was in high school in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, where her family had moved so she could study at the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis. The family moved again in 1943, this time to New York, so Richter could attend the Juilliard School.She would recall, “I really didn’t notice that there weren’t any women composers to model myself after until I got to Juilliard, and then I found I was the only one there."She persisted as a composer, and a New York Times reviewer of a concert of her music in 1951 found it “restless, inventive, dissonant, clean; … her intentions seemed … well realized.” They added, “We will hear more from Miss Richter.”That said, it took decades for her nearly 200 works, which range from operas and orchestra scores to chamber works for solo instrument, to earn increasing respect and performances here and abroad.Richter died in 2020, at 93, in New Jersey.Music Played in Today's ProgramMarga Richter (1926 – 2020): Fragments - Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra; Petr Vronský, conductor Navona 6050

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1950, Karel Ančerl was named the artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic, a position he would hold for the next 18 years.Ančerl had first conducted the orchestra in 1930, when, upon graduation from the Prague Conservatory, he led that ensemble in one of his compositions. For a time, Ančerl debated whether to be a composer or a conductor. He opted for the latter, demonstrating a mastery of classical and contemporary scores with other orchestras in Czechoslovakia.With all that in mind, it might not seem all that surprising that in 1950, he was eventually tapped to lead the Czech Philharmonic — but that would be ignoring the miracle that Ančerl was even alive in 1950.In 1942, Ančerl and his family were imprisoned in the Nazis’ notorious Theresienstadt concentration camp, and, in 1944, they were transported to Auschwitz, where his wife and young son were killed. He alone survived.In 1968, when Czechoslovakia was invaded by Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops, Ančerl emigrated to Canada in protest and served as music director of the Toronto Symphony until his death in 1973.Music Played in Today's ProgramBohuslav Martinu (1890 - 1959) Symphony No. 5 - Czech Philharmonic; Karel Ancerl, cond. Supraphon SU-3694-2

SynopsisRugby is a style of football that originated in England at Rugby School and was played at British public boy’s schools during the 19th century.It’s also the name of a tone poem written by Swiss composer Arthur Honegger that premiered in Paris at the Théâtre des Champes-Elysées on today’s date in 1928 at the first concert of the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris.In describing his tone poem, Honegger wrote: “I’m very fond of soccer, but rugby is closer to my heart. … I’m more keenly attracted by rugby’s rhythm, which is savage, abrupt, chaotic and desperate. It would be wrong to consider my piece as program music. It simply tries to describe in musical language the game’s attacks and counterattacks, and the rhythm and color of a match.”Now, you would think in such a slam-bang contact sport as rugby that Honegger would employ a big battery of percussion instruments, but — surprise — they are totally absent in his score. Not to worry. There is plenty of rough ‘n’ tumble action between the strings, woodwinds and brass, but fortunately no protective headgear is required by either the performers or the listeners.Music Played in Today's ProgramArthur Honegger: Rugby

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1871, Hermann Levi conducted the premiere of a new choral work by Johannes Brahms titled Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny. It’s a setting of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, contrasting in its first part the blissful Greek gods on Mount Olympus and in its second the miserable suffering of we mortals below.Brahms discovered the poem in summer 1868 while visiting his friend Albert Dietrich on the shores of the North Sea. As Dietrich recalled, during one seaside stroll: “Brahms, usually so lively, was quiet and grave. Earlier that morning (he was always an early riser), he had found Hölderlin’s poems in my bookcase and was deeply impressed. Later on, some of us were lounging by the sea, when we saw Brahms a long way off sitting by himself on the shore writing.”Brahms originally planned to repeat the blissful opening words of the poem as the ending of his setting, but that didn’t ring true to the poem. He was stuck. Conductor Hermann Levi suggested a solution: Repeat the serene opening music, yes, but as a wordless, instrumental-only close.Brahms had his solution, and, as a reward, Levi his premiere.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Robert Shaw, conductor Telarc CD 80176

SynopsisToday’s date in 1946 marks an important moment in Parisian theatrical history with the debut performance of a legendary acting company created by husband-and-wife actors Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud. Their opening production was Shakespeare’s Hamlet in a French translation by André Gide, with incidental music by Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. To play Honegger’s score, Barrault hired two young musicians at the start of their careers. The first, 21, was to play the eerie electronic sounds Honegger scored for the Ondes Martinon, evoking the elder Hamlet’s ghost. That young musician was a composition student named Pierre Boulez, who would remain associated with Barrault’s company for a decade before becoming a famous conductor and composer of avant-garde scores of his own like Le Marteau Sans Maître.The second musician Barrault hired was a 22-year old percussionist, who brought Hamlet to a dramatic close with timpani crescendos evoking Fortinbras’ final line in the play, “Go, bid the soldiers shoot.” That young musician, Maurice Jarre, would also become a famous composer, taking quite a different career path than Boulez. Jarre devoted himself to film scoring, composing several famous ones, such as Dr. Zhivago for British film director David Lean.Music Played in Today's ProgramPierre Boulez (1925 - 2016) – Le Marteau Sans Maître (Orchestre Du Domaine Musical; Pierre Boulez, cond.) PCA 101 Maurice Jarre (1924 - 2009) – Lara’s Theme, from Dr. Zhivago (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Maurice Jarre, cond.) Sony 42307

SynopsisOf all the works of Richard Strauss, the one that premiered in Dresden on today’s date in 1925 ranks amount the least-known.For starters, it has an odd title, Parergon to the Symphonia Domestica. “Parergon” means “an ornamental accessory or embellishment,” and Strauss meant his new work, written for piano left-hand and orchestra, as a follow-up to his Symphonia Domestica tone-poem of 1903, which depicted one day in the Strauss family household, complete with baby’s bath.The baby in question was Strauss’ son Franz, who by 1925 was a young man setting up his own household, and recently recovered from a near-fatal case of typhus contracted while on his honeymoon in Egypt. For Strauss, this Parergon was a private celebration of his son’s survival.For Paul Wittgenstein, the wealthy one-handed concert pianist who commissioned the new work, this was one of several he had requested from leading composers of his day, all designed to showcase his talent. Wittgenstein’s contract with Strauss stipulated that Wittgenstein alone would have exclusive rights to the Parergon as long as he wished, and so it wasn’t until 1950 that any other pianist could perform it.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864 - 1949) Parergon to the Symphonia Domestica

SynopsisThe hills surrounding the Austrian town of Salzburg, according to Rogers and Hammerstein, are “alive with the sound of music.” Well, the same could have been said for the vast interior and multiple choir lofts of Salzburg Cathedral on today’s date in 1682 when a lavish celebration of the 1100th anniversary of the Archbishopric of Salzburg culminated in a specially-composed mass setting, with performers placed above and all around the citizens assembled there for the occasion. The music was composed by one of Salzburg’s most remarkable composers. No, not Mozart – he wouldn’t be born for another six decades or so. We’re talking about Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, who lived from 1644 to 1704, and, while not a native son like Mozart, was similarly employed by one of the princely archbishops of Salzburg. Unlike Mozart, however, Biber was on much better terms with his employer. Biber’s magnificent “Missa Salisburgensis” for 53 voices is now regarded as a masterpiece of the Baroque music – but was almost lost. Forgotten for two centuries, the manuscript score was rediscovered by a choir director in 1870 in the home of a Salzburg greengrocer, who planned to use the large sheets of music paper to wrap vegetables.Music Played in Today's ProgramHeinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644 - 1704) – Missa Salisburgensis (Musica Antiqua Köln; Reinhard Goebel, cond.) DG Archive 457 611

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1883, the premiere of Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto was given in Prague by Czech violinist František Ondrícek with the National Theatre Orchestra, led by Czech conductor Moric Anger, an old friend of Dvořák’s and his onetime roommate.The concerto was commissioned by distinguished violinist Joseph Joachim, an old friend and collaborator of German composer Johannes Brahms. Brahms had sent Joachim two of Dvořák’s chamber works for strings. Joachim expressed enthusiasm for these pieces and urged Dvořák to write a concerto for him.So far, so good.Dvořák had a finished score by December 1879, but Joachim had what we now would call “some issues” with the score, and, by the time Dvořák was finishing the last revisions, three years had elapsed with no talk of a premiere. Dvořák realized Joachim was unlikely ever to premiere the new concerto, so he offered it to Ondrícek, a young virtuoso who eagerly championed it in Prague and abroad.We should note that Joachim finally did perform Dvořák’s concerto in Berlin in 1894, about 15 years after he had commissioned it.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Dvořák (1841-1904) Violin Concerto in A minor

SynopsisAt Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1991, Dennis Russell Davies conducted the American Composers’ Orchestra in the premiere performance of a new orchestral work, Black Light.Its composer was Daniel Asia, a Seattle native who has emerged as one of the most productive contemporary composers of orchestral works. Asia has written several symphonies to date and a number of concertos and shorter orchestral works.The final page of the score for Asia’s Black Light is inscribed, “October 15, 1990 — In Memoriam Leonard Bernstein.” Bernstein had died the previous day, as Asia was just finishing his new score, and a year later, almost to the day, Asia’s Black Light was premiered in New York.Bernstein was a composer that Asia openly acknowledges as a big influence in his work. But it would be wrong to suggest that Black Light was conceived as an elegy for Bernstein. Asia has been associated with the University of Arizona in Tucson and says the closing section of Black Light is “suggestive of the fierceness of the appearance of the sun, particularly in the Southwest, in all its glory at that first instant of daybreak.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDaniel Asia (b. 1953) Black Light - New Zealand Symphony; James Sedares, cond. Koch 7372

SynopsisAs far as housewarming gifts go, a nice bottle of champagne is common, or maybe a bouquet of flowers. But if you’re a composer, and the occasion is the ceremonial opening performance at a new concert hall, you write a celebratory piece of music.On today’s date in 1984, for the inaugural concert of the Indianapolis Symphony’s new home, the Circle Theater, American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich wrote an orchestral work titled, appropriately enough, Celebration.“In writing this work,” Zwilich said, “I was motivated by three complementary goals. First, I wanted to celebrate a joyous and historic occasion with all its inspiring symbolism of beginning and renewal. My second goal was to write a kind of ‘toccata’ or test piece for the new Circle Theater. Finally, I wanted to celebrate the orchestra itself, which is, after all, the centerpiece of the occasion. Thus, ‘Celebration’ is like a mini-concerto for orchestra.”Zwilich’s housewarming gift was dedicated to the Indianapolis Symphony’s music director in 1984, conductor John Nelson. Despite its origins as an occasional piece for a particular event, Celebration has gone on to become one of Zwilich’s most popular and frequently performed orchestral works.Music Played in Today's ProgramEllen Taafe Zwilich (b. 1939) Celebration - Indianapolis Symphony; John Nelson , cond. New World 336

SynopsisBy a coincidence, the last two symphonies of Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev premiered on today’s date: His Sixth Symphony premiered in Leningrad in 1947, and his final, Seventh Symphony, in Moscow, in 1952.The Sixth Symphony is tragic in tone, and Prokofiev confided that it was about the physical and emotional wounds suffered by his countrymen during World War II. The Sixth was premiered at the opening concert of the Leningrad Philharmonic’s 1947 season and was applauded warmly by both audiences and the official Soviet critics. But early in 1948, Prokofiev somehow ran afoul of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and his Sixth was quickly withdrawn from further performances.Prokofiev’s Seventh was intended to be a symphony for children, a kind of symphonic Peter and the Wolf, written in a deliberately populist style and with a wary eye on the dictates of the Central Committee. It’s an airy, almost transparently melodic score. Originally, it had a wistful, somewhat melancholic ending, with the music trailing off into silence. During the final dress rehearsals, however, Prokofiev wrote an alternative, perhaps more “politically correct” finale, decidedly chipper and upbeat in tone.Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953) Symphony No. 6 - National Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, cond. RCA/BMG 68801Symphony No. 7 - French National Orchestra; Mstislav Rostropovich, cond. Erato 75322

SynopsisAmerican jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Sphere Monk was born on today’s date in 1917. Largely self-taught, he began playing piano at 6. At 17, he dropped out of New York’s esteemed Stuyvesant High School for gifted students to serve as organist for a touring evangelist. In his 20s, he became the house pianist at Minton's, a Manhattan jazz nightclub.Monk’s original compositions, marked by dissonances and angular twists of melody, became jazz standards. They also had great titles: ‘Round Midnight; Straight, No Chaser; Ruby, My Dear; and Well, You Needn’t.Monk made the cover of Time magazine and is credited with being the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.Monk's biographer Robin D.G. Kelly, who spent 14 years researching Monk’s life and music, said, “He was Janus-faced [looking backward and forward]. … Monk pulled as much from his roots, the old-style [stride] piano traditions he never left, as from the really futuristic musical territory he was the first to visit. He's always going to be associated with the founding of Bebop, with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I don't place him on the Bebop school, though — I place him in his own school. “Music Played in Today's ProgramThelonious Monk (1917 – 1982) Ruby, My Dear - Thelonious Monk, piano Columbia Legacy CK-63533

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2001, the release of a CD of Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans launched an ambitious project to record nearly 450 works of the famous Italian Baroque composer that exist as manuscript scores in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, Italy.It’s the largest collection of manuscript scores by any 18th-century composer in existence and includes many Vivaldi works unperformed since his lifetime.Susan Orlando, the director of the recording project, explained how that came to be: “When Vivaldi died in Vienna in 1741, he had debts, so the authorities immediately sealed off his home. We have the inventory that they made. It included no musical manuscripts, but there was a big, empty chest. It seems Vivaldi’s brother had got hold of the music and sold it off.”Back then, Vivaldi’s scores ended up with various wealthy collectors, but in 1930 the scattered music was consolidated and bequeathed to the library in Turin.The French label Naïve has released over 60 Vivaldi Edition CDs so far, including 17 Vivaldi operas. More than a dozen additional titles are planned for release by 2028, the year that will mark the 350th anniversary of Vivaldi’s birth.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) Sinfonia, fr Juditha Triumphans Academia Montis Regalis; Magdalena Kozena, m.s.; Juditha Maria José Trullu, m.s.; Holofernes Marina Comparato, m.s.; Vagaus Anke Herrmann, s.; Abra Tiziana Carraro, s.; Alessandro De Marchi, cond. Naïve Vivaldi Edition OP-30314

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1992, one of the strangest — and some would say most strikingly original — violin concertos of the late 20th century had its premiere performance in Cologne, Germany. It was written by Transylvanian-born Hungarian composer György Ligeti.Ligeti became famous in the West when some of his music appeared in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick used Ligeti’s music to evoke the eerie and empty vastness of outer space. And, in fact, Ligeti was fascinated by the sounds traditional orchestral instruments make when pressed to the extreme limits of their range — their own sonic “outer limits.” There’s some of that in Ligeti’s 1992 Violin Concerto, plus a dash of the traditionally melancholic Hungarian strain familiar from the music of Ligeti’s famous compatriot Béla Bartók. Finally, tossed in for good measure, is Ligeti’s puckish fondness for thumbing his nose at life, the universe and traditional concert hall decorum.As if to counterbalance his melancholic strain, or perhaps just express it in a more surprising way, there’s a good deal of the clown in Ligeti, who includes a chorus of ocarinas in the score of his Violin Concerto.Music Played in Today's ProgramGyörgy Ligeti (1923-2006) Violin Concerto - Saschko Gavrilov, violin; Ensemble InterContemporain; Pierre Boulez, cond. DG 439 808

SynopsisAs the 20th century drew to its close, some who followed the development of opera were struck by the number of new American operas on American themes.On today’s date in 2000, one of these new operas debuted in San Francisco. Dead Man Walking, an opera in two acts, was based on a 1993 book by Sister Helen Prejean, a book also made into a successful movie. The libretto for the operatic version of Sister Prejean’s book was crafted by Terrance McNally and set to music by American composer Jake Heggie.Now, an opera based on eyewitness accounts of American prisoners on death row might seem an unlikely topic for an opera, but Sister Prejean didn’t think so.“I love the way the opera captures essential human conflicts: love or hate, compassion or vengeance, redemption or condemnation,” she said. “… From the beginning, I told McNally and Heggie that I’d trust them to compose the opera if they wove into its center the quest for redemption. They got it. And I could tell by the stillness in the auditorium and the tumultuous applause at the end that the audience also really gets it.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJake Heggie (b. 1961) Dead Man Walking - San Francisco Opera; Patrick Summers, cond. Erato 86238

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1927, a landmark film title The Jazz Singer received its premiere showing at the Warner Theater in New York. The Jazz Singer starred Al Jolson and is usually credited with being the first “talkie”—the first motion picture to successfully incorporate prerecorded music and spoken dialogue. Both the music and dialogue were recorded using the Vitaphone process, essentially a set of disc recordings synchronized for playback with the film’s projector.The previous year, the New York Philharmonic had participated in the first Vitaphone projects, recording Wagner’s Tannhauser overture as the first-ever “music video,” and performing the soundtrack for an otherwise silent drama titled Don Juan, starring John Barrymore.Within a decade, Hollywood orchestras would be recording the classic film scores of European émigré composers like Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, and within two decades American composers like Aaron Copland and Bernard Herrmann would be writing their memorable film scores as well.But back in 1927, all of that was well in the future, and, as one of Al Jolson’s lines in The Jazz Singer so prophetically put it, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.”Music Played in Today's ProgramFelix Arndt (1889 – 1918) An Operatic Nightmare (Desecration Rag No. 2) - Paragon Ragtime Orchestra; Rick Benjamin, cond. Newport Classics 60039Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 – 1957) The Prince and the Pauper film score - National Philharmonic; Charles Gerhardt, cond. RCA/BMG 0185

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1867, two eminent British Victorians arrived in Vienna in search of Franz Schubert. Now, Schubert had been dead for 39 years, as the two Brits were quite aware. George Grove, 47, was England’s finest musicologist, and Arthur Sullivan, 25, one of the country’s most promising young composers.Grove believed there might be forgotten manuscripts in the possession of the late composer’s relatives, so the pair met with Schubert’s nephew, a certain Herr Doktor Schneider, who said, oh, yes, come to mention it, he did have some pieces by Uncle Franz that no one had played for more than 40 years. If the two gentlemen had no objection to getting dusty, they were welcome to rummage the family’s storage closets.The two visitors braved the dust and found orchestral parts for Schubert’s Rosamunde incidental music, tied up in a big bundle after the work’s premiere back in 1823 and untouched since then.Grove and Sullivan spent the rest of the day carefully making a copy of their discovery. At 2 a.m., after finishing the task, their spirits must have been pretty high, since to celebrate the proper Victorian gentlemen began an impromptu game of leap-frog.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Schubert (1797 – 1828) Rosamunde Incidental Music - Chamber Music Orchestra of Europe; Claudio Abbado, cond. DG 431 655

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1984, the Milwaukee Symphony and conductor Lukas Foss premiered a new work for narrator and orchestra by American composer John Corigliano. The new piece was titled Creations,” and was based on the creation story in the Biblical book of Genesis.Creations began as a 1971 commission for a television pilot. The original idea was to have a variety of major composers illustrate in music selected chapters from the Bible, with the text narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. The TV project fell through, and Corigliano thought this music for the pilot episode, Genesis, would remain unheard. But then, in 1984, Lukas Foss commissioned a revised version for a concert with the Milwaukee Symphony.“Creations challenged me to write specifically for a recorded medium,” wrote Corigliano. “It also offered a chance to build music more abstractly than I’d done before… often out of pure sonority, rather than harmony and line. Much of my later work uses techniques I developed for the first time while scoring Creations… I envisioned the music as growing from abstract sounds into actual themes.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938) Creations Sir Ian McKellen, narrator; I Fiamminghi; Rudolf Werthen, cond. Telarc 80421

SynopsisDespite a disastrous premiere in Birmingham on today’s date in 1900, Edward Elgar’s oratorio The Dream of Gerontius has become one of his best-loved and most-frequently performed works in the UK, where, in 2015, Classic FM offered a guide to what it called the work’s “most epic choral stupendousness.”Here's Classic FM’s summary of its story: “The piece follows an ‘everyman’ character (the word ‘Gerontius’ comes from the Greek for ‘old man’) as he faces death, meets his guardian angel and goes before his God before being taken to Purgatory with the promise of everlasting glory.”Well, all that Roman Catholic talk of Purgatory in the poem by Cardinal John Henry Newman that Elgar set to music did not sit well with the Church of England in the early decades of the 20th century. Many Anglican clerics flatly refused to let it be performed in their cathedrals. But that controversy is long a thing of the past, and nowadays Gerontius is performed at cathedrals such as St. Paul’s in London and in concert venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, where in 1991 it was performed at the BBC Proms in the presence of the Prince of Wales, now known as King Charles III.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934) — The Dream of Gerontius (John Shirley-Quirk, bar.; London Symphony Chorus; King's College Choir, Cambridge; London Symphony Orchestra; Benjamin Britten, cond.) London/Decca 448170

SynopsisIn 2001, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, commissioned American composer Steve Heitzeg to write a “Nobel Symphony.”In 1866, the Swedish engineer and scientist Alfred Nobel had invented dynamite. His patent helped him amass a great fortune, but, troubled by the destructive power and potential misuse of his invention, Nobel arranged that his estate would award annual prizes to those who made significant contributions to world peace.For his “Nobel Symphony,” Heitzeg chose to set quotes from a variety of Nobel laureates , including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Dalai Lama. Purely instrumental effects were also employed to convey something of their ideas and ideals. For example, in a section honoring a 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Heitzeg scored an eerie march for a percussion ensemble consisting of hollow artificial limbs.The October 2, 2001 premiere of Steve Heitzeg’s “Nobel Symphony” came shortly after the tragic events of September 11th. Understandably, its message had a special resonance for the performers and audiences present at its first performance.Music Played in Today's ProgramSteve Heitzeg (b. 1959) Nobel Symphony Gustavus Orchestra; Warren Friesen, cond. Gustavus Adolphus 60171-10022

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2010, at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music in Nashville, the ALIAS ensemble gave the premiere performance of a new chamber world by American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. It was titled Hilos — the Spanish word for “threads” — and scored for piano, violin, cello and clarinet.Now, it’s not unusual for composers to tap their particular cultural background for inspiration, but Gabriela Lena Frank has a pretty wide variety of options in that regard: Her father is an American of Lithuanian Jewish heritage and her mother is Peruvian of Chinese descent. They met when her father was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru in the 1960s, and Frank herself grew up in Berkeley, California."There's usually a story line behind my music," says Frank. Regarding Hilos, she noted, “There are similarities to [Mussorgsky’s] ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ in that each movement tells a different story … Hilos refers to the ‘threads’ that make up Andean textiles and how these threads weave together.”Each movement of Hilos has an evocative title, such “Canto del Altiplano” (Song of the Highlands), “Zumballyu” (Spinning Top), or “Juegos de los Niños” (Games of the Children).Music Played in Today's ProgramGabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972) Hilos Lee Carroll Levine, cl; Zeneba Brown, vn; Matt Walker, vcl; Gabriela Lena Frank, p. Naxos 8.559645

SynopsisEven during the bombing of London by the German Air Force, the London Blitz of World War Two, the BBC Proms Concerts continued.True, in 1941 a German incendiary bomb did destroy the long-time home of the Proms, Queen’s Hall on Langham Place, but, not to be deterred, the Proms simply moved to the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington.Wartime Proms programs included this printed notice: “In the event of an Air Raid Warning the audience will be informed immediately, so that those who wish to take shelter either in the building or in public shelters outside, may do so, The concert will then continue.”Talk about pluck!In 1944, the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams completed a new oboe concerto to be premiered at a Proms concert, but a German V-1 rocket that landed dangerously near the Albert Hall led to an early end to that Proms season, since the V-1 rockets, unlike the German bombers, didn’t allow enough warning time to clear the hall.So, on today’s date in 1944, the new Vaughan Williams concerto was premiered not in London, but in Liverpool, with soloist Leon Goossens and Malcolm Sargent conducting the Liverpool Philharmonic.Music Played in Today's ProgramRalph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Oboe Concerto in A minor David Theodore, oboe; London Symphony; Bryden Thomson, cond. Chandos 8594

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2000, a new cello concerto with an unusual title received its premiere performance at the Barbican Center in London. Billed as the “Crouching Tiger” Concerto, this score was by the Chinese composer Tan Dun, and was derived from Tan’s film score for Ang Lee’s mystical and magical martial arts film titled “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”That score featured a prominent cello part, tailor-made for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, as well as a variety of traditional Chinese instruments and a percussion battery that included a North African frame drum. The haunting score matched the film so effectively that it was nominated for—and won—an Academy Award.It was director Ang Lee who suggested that Tan Dun rework his film score into a cello concerto, and even offered to put together a special film to accompany the concerto. In effect, saying, “Turnabout is fair play—you composed music to fit my film, now I’ll compose a film to fit your concerto!”Lee pulled together shots from the original film and mixed in real and imaginary scenes from New York’s Chinatown and 19th century Beijing for the new film designed to accompany performances of the new concerto.Music Played in Today's ProgramTan Dun (b. 1957) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon filmscore Yo Yo Ma, cello; Shanghai Symphony; Tan Dun, cond. Sony 89347

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1951, the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still was playing in theaters across America. The film’s opening sequence depicted a UFO hovering over Washington, D.C. Back then, flying saucer sightings were increasingly common, perhaps a result of mass hysteria spawned by cold war tensions and the existential threat posed by the atomic bomb. Or maybe we WERE being visited by other planets?In any case, the movie made a big impression at the time, and countless kids—and probably a few adults as well—memorized the magic words “Gort: Klaatu barada nikto” which, in the film, prevented Washington DC’s destruction by a death-ray robot.Fast forward some 50 years to 1999, when Washington DC’s National Symphony premiered a new concerto for percussion and orchestra, specially composed for virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie by the American composer Michael Daugherty.Inspired by the outer-space look of Glennie’s percussion gear, Daugherty titled his piece UFO and asked that the soloist arrive unexpectedly and dressed as a space alien! In performance, Glennie moves through the audience and around the stage while performing sleight-of-hand improvisations on a variety of flying saucer-like percussive instruments.Music Played in Today's ProgramBernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) The Day the Earth Stood Still filmscore National Philharmonic; Bernard Herrmann, cond. London 443 899Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) UFO Evelyn Glennie, percussion; North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaro Corporon, cond. Klavier 11121

SynopsisIn September 2001, American composer Elliott Carter was just a few months shy of his 93rd birthday, but still busy composing new works both large and small.On today’s date that year, Carter’s Cello Concerto received its premiere in Chicago with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony.Now, Carter’s music is technically challenging for performers, and its complexity can make it equally challenging for audiences, especially at first hearing. Despite all that, Carter’s comments on his music were usually quite straightforward:“In this score I have tried to find meaningful, personal ways of revealing the cello's vast array of wonderful possibilities,” he wrote. “My Concerto is introduced by the soloist alone, playing a frequently interrupted cantilena that presents ideas later to be expanded into movements.”A month after its premiere, Ma, Barenboim, and the Chicago Symphony brought the new work to Carnegie Hall, and the New York Times reviewer Anthony Tommasini wrote:“For all its complexities … the cello part has a rhapsodic, improvisatory quality …. At its conclusion, when Mr. Carter, who is 92, climbed the steps to the stage with a cane to steady him, he received a prolonged standing ovation.”Music Played in Today's ProgramElliott Carter (1908 – 2012) Cello Concerto Alisa Weilerstein; Staatskapelle Berlin; Daniel Barenboim cond. Decca 478 2735

SynopsisToday’s date in 1899 marks the birthday of the famous African-American composer, choir director, and teacher, William L. Dawson, in Anniston, Alabama. After musical studies in Kansas City and Chicago, from 1931 to 1956 Dawson taught at the Tuskegee Institute, where he developed the Institute’s Choir into an internationally-renowned ensemble.Dawson’s arrangements of African-American spirituals, which he preferred to call folksongs, are justly famous, but in 1934 he produced his masterwork, a Negro Folk Symphony, modeled on Dvorak’s New World Symphony, but exhibiting Dawson’s own distinctive mastery and development of his themes. His goal, he said, was for audiences to know that it was "unmistakably not the work of a white man.""The themes,” wrote Dawson, “are taken from what are popularly known as Negro Spirituals. In this composition, the composer has employed themes … over which he has brooded since childhood, having learned them at his mother's knee."Dawson’s symphony was successfully premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, who took the new work to Carnegie Hall, where its 35-year old composer was repeatedly called to the stage. The symphony was revised in 1952 with added African rhythms inspired by the composer's trip to West Africa.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam L. Dawson (1899 – 1990) Negro Folk Symphony Symphony of the Air; Leopold Stokowski, cond DG 477 6502

Synopsis“Spaghetti western” is a nickname given to a genre of Italian films from the 1960s, most famously directed by Sergio Leone, and often starring Clint Eastwood as the taciturn, gun-toting anti-hero.Spaghetti Western also is the title of a Concerto for English horn written by American composer Michael Daugherty that received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1998 at a Pittsburgh Symphony concert conducted by Mariss Jansons.“Just as Leone’s films redefined the Western genre from an Italian perspective,” writes Michael Daugherty, “I redefine the European concerto … within an American context. In my ‘Spaghetti Western,’ the English horn soloist is the ‘Man with no Name,’ moving through a series of sun-drenched panoramas, barren deserts, and desolate towns of the Wild West, … [one of ] the gun-slinging characters who haunt the landscape.”Daugherty gave Italian titles to his three-movement concerto: “Strade Vuote” (“Empty Streets”), “Assalto all’Oro” (“Gold Rush”) and “Mezzogiorno di Fuoco” (“Noon of Fire”). And since Eastwood was unable to play the English horn for the Pittsburgh Symphony premiere, Harold Smoliar removed the cigar from his parched, suntanned lips, adjusted his poncho and took up his English horn for the performance.Music Played in Today's ProgramMichael Daugherty (b. 1954) Spaghetti Western Harold Smoliar; University of Michigan Symphony; Kenneth Kiesler, cond. Equilibrium 63

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1875, one of the greatest musical match-makers of all time died in Spartanburg, South Carolina. His name was William Walker, an American Baptist shape-note-singing master who published several collections of traditional shape note tunes.Now, “shape note” refers to a simple musical notation designed for communal singing. In his 1835 collection, Southern Harmony, Walker married a shape-note tune known as “New Britain” to a hymn text titled “Amazing Grace,” written by an Anglican clergyman and abolitionist named John Newton.Walker’s collection was a bestseller in the 19th century, and two centuries later, “Amazing Grace” has become one of the best-known and best-loved hymns of our time.In 2011, a new orchestral fanfare based on “Amazing Grace,” by African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork, was published and subsequently recorded by the Virginia Symphony — appropriately enough, since Hailstork has served as professor of music and composer-in-residence at Virginia's Norfolk State and Old Dominion universities, and in 1992 was named a cultural laureate of Virginia. In addition to this Fanfare, Hailstork’s works range from choral and chamber pieces to symphonies and operas.Music Played in Today's ProgramAdolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) Fanfare on “Amazing Grace” Virginia Symphony; JoAnne Faletta, cond. Naxos 8559722

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2011, the Saint Louis Symphony under David Robertson premiered a new piano concerto by the American composer Steven Mackey. The soloist was Orli Shaham, Robertson’s wife, to whom the new work was dedicated.The new concerto had an odd title, “Stumble to Grace,” which Mackey explained:“There is a narrative running through the piece … the piano is all thumbs … as it stumbles in its first entrance, playing naïve and awkward plinks and plunks. By [the end], the piano plays sophisticated, virtuosic and, at times, graceful contrapuntal music—a fugue, in fact …“The inspiration … came from observing my now two-and-a-half year old toddler learning to become human … I wanted to open my compositional process to incorporate some of the whimsy and exuberance that he brings to his exploration of the world.”Mackey concludes, “A preoccupation with one’s children is common among most new parents but this seemed particularly appropriate … for a piece written for Orli Shaham. She and her conductor husband, David Robertson, have twins less than a year older than my son and we’ve had play dates and shared narrations about new parenthood.”Music Played in Today's ProgramStephen Mackey (b. 1956) Stumble to Grace Orli Shaham, p; Los Angeles Philharmonic; David Robertson, cond. Canary Classics CC-11

SynopsisIn the 1970s, the Afro-American Music Opportunities Association collaborated with Columbia Records to create an audio anthology of works by underrepresented Afro-American composers.  Dubbed The Black Composer Series, this became a famous series of LPs devoted to recent works by then-contemporary composers as well as notable works from the 18th and 19th centuries.One of the earliest composers represented in Columbia’s Black Composer Series was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, who was born in Brazil on today’s date in 1767. His grandparents had been African slaves, but his parents were Brazilians of mixed race. Since their young son showed great musical abilities, he was encouraged to pursue musical studies, and eventually secured a prestigious position as master of music at the Royal Chapel in Rio. By that time, he also had become a Roman Catholic priest.Sacred music in 18th-century Brazil was heavily influenced by the symphonic mass settings of Haydn and Mozart. Garcia, in fact, had conducted the first performance of Mozart’s Requiem Mass in Rio de Janeiro.  Garcia’s own Requiem Mass proved to be one of his most famous and often-performed works, and the one selected for inclusion in Columbia’s Black Composer Series.Music Played in Today's ProgramJosé Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767 - 1830) – Sanctus, fr Requiem Mass (Morgan State College Chor; Helsinki Philharmonic; Paul Freeman, cond.) Columbia Masterworks LP S33431/Sony CD G010003978687N

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1962, Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky returned to his homeland for the first time in nearly half a century. When he left in 1914, Czar Nicholas was still on the throne. By 1962, a lot had changed. For starters, Stravinsky’s music had been severely criticized in the Soviet Union. Tikhon Khrennikov, first secretary of the Soviet Composers’ Union, branded Stravinsky “the apostle of reactionary forces in bourgeois music.” Dimtri Shostakovich had condemned “the unwholesome influence of Stravinsky” and his “complete divorce from the true demands of our time.” Whether Khrennikov or Shostakovich really believed this, or merely parroted the official party line, is debatable. But Stravinsky’s return to Russia proved a profoundly emotional experience for all concerned. The 80-year-old composer reconnected with old friends he had not seen in 50 years and relatives he had never met. And, yes, Stravinsky even met with Khrennikov and Shostakovich.Stravinsky led the Moscow Symphony in his Symphonic Ode and Orpheus Ballet.  Robert Craft, Stravinsky’s American assistant, then led the orchestra in Stravinsky’s revolutionary Rite of Spring — all to thunderous applause.  For an encore, Stravinsky returned to conduct a quintessentially Russian score: his own 1917 arrangement of the Volga Boatmen’s Song.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971) — Ode (Cleveland Orchestra; Oliver Knussen, cond.) DG 4843064

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1975, the Kansas City Lyric Theater opened its 18th season with the world premiere of a new opera by Jack Beeson, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. As if to prove that everything is “up-to-date” in Kansas City, even before this world premiere, this Missouri company could boast a long tradition of staging contemporary operas by American composers. Captain Jinks was the sixth of some 10 operas composed by Jack Beeson, who was born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1921.  Beeson blames the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera for his catching the opera bug. “When I was about 12,” Beeson says, “the Met started regularly broadcasting on Saturday afternoons, and I was seduced. With what spending money I had, I bought scores, and I would place the score up on the piano, and with a little radio on the piano and a big radio across the room, I would accompany the Met.”Some of Beeson’s other operas include The Sweet Bye and Bye from 1957, Lizzie Borden from 1965 and Sorry, Wrong Number from 1999. He also taught for many years at Columbia University in New York City, mentoring hundreds of his composition students.Music Played in Today's ProgramJack Beeson (1921 – 2010) — Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (Kansas City Lyric Theatre; Russell Patterson, cond.) TROY 1149/50

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, many famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially for someone not of the royal family, is pretty rare. In fact, Vaughan Williams was the first commoner to be buried there for almost 300 years.The previous such event had been for the 17th English composer and sometime organist of the Abbey, Henry Purcell–whose grave, like Vaughan Williams, is in the Abbey’s north choir aisle, should you wish to pay your respects.Vaughan Williams had left instructions for which music was to be played: his anthem O taste and see and also his setting of the hymn, All people that on earth do dwell, written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which had taken place at Westminster Abbey just five years earlier, in 1953.The service was broadcast live by the BBC, and the announcer noted that if all the submitted requests to attend had have been honored, the Abbey would have been filled twice over.Music Played in Today's ProgramRalph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958) "O Taste and See" and "All People that on Earth do Dwell" (arr. of "Old 100th") The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, cond. Collegium 107Ralph Vaughan Williams (arr.) All People That on Earth Do Dwell" (Old 100th) Christ Church Cathedral Choir; English Orch; Stephen Darlington, cond. Nimbus 5166

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, the British composer Sir Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5, the last in this popular series.Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when organist Percy Hull asked Elgar for a new work for the 1930 Hereford Festival, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 is dedicated to him.In 1930, Elgar was 73 years old and he liked to go for automobile rides in the country. Hull had given Elgar some driving lessons, and, appropriately enough, Elgar got the idea for the musical themes of his new march on a drive through the countryside with a friend. Elgar suddenly asked for something on which he could jot down his ideas. All the driver could produce was a road map of Worcestershire—so on its margins the first notes of Elgar’s new score were scribbled.The march proved to be one of his last new orchestral works. Elgar planned to write a sixth Pomp and Circumstance March, a kind of soldier’s funeral march, he said, but Elgar himself died in 1934.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857 – 1934) Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 Royal Philharmonic; André Previn, cond. Philips 454 250

SynopsisThe Milwaukee Symphony was one of the first American orchestras to offer recordings of their live performances as digital downloads – and along with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, occasionally offered more contemporary fare, as well.For example, on today’s date in 2005, Andreas Delfs led the Milwaukee Symphony in the world premiere performance of an orchestral work they had commissioned from Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra, and they offered it as a download.  Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 3, subtitled La Salsa, turned to the dance music of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Sierra’s native Puerto Rico for its basic materials, referencing riffs and rhythmic patterns familiar to salsa dancers for the work’s outer movements, with a slow second movement in habañera form.“Puerto Rican music,” says Sierra, “especially salsa and folkloric music, has been in my compositional DNA. The vitality of the rhythms and the unique way in which melodic structure merge with the rhythms has inspired me to the present day. I always remember with nostalgia my childhood experiences in the Puerto Rican countryside, and these feelings of longing are also present in my work.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRoberto Sierra (b. 1953) – Sinfonia No. 3 (La Salsa) (Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Andreas Delfs, cond.) MSO Classics MSO11 (digital download)

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical No, No Nanette opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London.Tunes from No, No Nanette even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For example, in Russia, the musical’s popular foxtrot, Tea for Two, was called the Tahiti Trot.Late in 1927, on a dare from the conductor Nikolai Malko, a 21-year old Soviet composer named Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased that he performed the orchestration the following year, and Shostakovich, who had a soft spot for musicals and operettas, incorporated his Tahiti Trot into his new ballet, The Age of Gold.Just three years later, however, Soviet authorities decided that the foxtrot was just one more vestige of Western decadence, and Shostakovich quickly moved to disassociate himself from anything remotely connected to Broadway. His name even appeared on an open letter suggesting, “Only after thorough and widespread educational work on the class essence of light music will we succeed in liquidating it from Soviet society.”In other words, “Nyet, Nyet!” to “Nanette!”

SynopsisToday marks the birthday of Henry Brant, born in Montreal in 1913 to American parents. In 1929, Brant returned to New York and studied composition with Wallingford Riegger and George Antheil, exponents of the then-current modernist trends in music.Brant came of age during the Great Depression, however, and has said back then avant-garde composers were faced with some hard choices. They could stop composing altogether, write for commercial films and radio, or simplify their cutting-edge music to make it more accessible. Satiric music was also an option, and some of Henry Brant’s early works fall into that category.One 1938 chamber piece by Brant is titled Hommage aux Freres Marx, subtitled Three Faithful Portraits. The portraits in question are of Chico, Groucho, and Harpo, the wildly popular “Marx Brothers” comedy team of the 1930s.By the 1950s, Brant became fascinated with “spatial music” involving groups of performers positioned at different spots in a concert hall or performing space. Brant became famous for works exploring this option, and his Ice Fields for pipe organ and a symphonic orchestra, scattered at different spots around the concert hall, won for its 88-year old composer the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2002.Music Played in Today's ProgramHenry Brant (1913-2008) Hommage aux Frères Marx (Three Faithful Portraits) Boston Musica Viva Newport 85588

SynopsisOn this date in 1973, Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in music by Mozart, Brahms, and the American composer, Roy Harris. The program was nothing out of the ordinary, but the concert took place in Beijing and marked the FIRST time an American orchestra had performed in Communist China. The orchestra was invited to China following the famous visit of President and Mrs. Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger.In the audience for one of these historic concerts was a young student of traditional Chinese music named Tan Dun. When Tan heard the Philadelphians perform Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a work he had never heard before, he decided then and there to become a composer himself. In 1986, Tan Dun came to New York City, and since then has managed to combine elements of East and West into his own musical works.In 1987, for example, he composed a violin concerto titled Out of Peking Opera, which draws on both Chinese and European traditions. In addition to prestigious awards and commissions from major foundations and orchestras, in March of 2001, Tan Dun won an Oscar for his film score to the Ang Lee film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Symphony No. 5 Royal Philharmonic; René Leibowitz, cond. Chesky 17Tan Dun (b. 1957) Out of Peking Opera Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Helsinki Philharmonic; Muhai Tang, cond. Ondine 864

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramAaron Copland (1900 - 1990) Inscape New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond. Sony 47236

SynopsisFor 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 ProgramDarius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) Suite provençale, Op. 152b Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos 7031Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) Serenade (after Plato's "Symposium") Zino Francescatti, violin; NY Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond. Sony 60559

SynopsisIn 1886, a Czech patron of the arts named Josef Hlavka had a chapel built at his summer residence at Lužany in Bohemia and asked his composer friend Antonin Dvorak to write a mass to dedicate it.As a devout Catholic, Dvorak was happy to oblige. Since the chapel was quite small, Dvorak wrote his Mass in D Major for just a quartet of soloists, a small choir, and organ, and led the premiere performance there on today’s date in 1887, with his wife Anna singing one of the solo roles.Dvorak told Hlavka he was grateful for the chance to write so intimate a piece. “Until now,” wrote Dvorak, “I had only written sacred works of larger proportions with considerable vocal and instrumental means at my disposal.”Ironically, Dvorak’s intimate “Lužany Mass” became popular as just such a large-scale work. At the request of his publisher, Dvorak orchestrated his “Mass,” and in that form it received its international premiere in 1893 at the immense Crystal Palace in London, performed by a huge chorus and a large symphony orchestra.The published orchestrated version became extremely popular during Dvorak’s lifetime, but his small-scale original version was not even published until 1963.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904) Mass in D Christ Church Cathedral Choir;Nicholas Cleobury, o;Simon Preston, cond. London/Decca 448 089-2

SynopsisThe American composer Henry Cowell lived from 1897 to 1965 and wrote thousands of musical works in a wide variety of styles. As a young boy, Cowell lived near San Francisco’s Chinatown, so Asian influences are as likely to crop up in his music as European models. And among Cowell’s aggressively experimental works are piano pieces that employ what he called “tone clusters”—chords played with a fist or forearm. Those pieces piqued the interest of European composers like Bartók and Janáček, but in addition to avant-garde scores, Cowell wrote dozens of conventionally tonal works, often hauntingly beautiful.In 1941, Cowell discovered a collection of evocative 19th century American hymns titled Southern Harmony. These reminded him of even earlier works by the 18th century American composer William Billings, who liked to write what he called “Fuguing Tunes.” Combining these two influences, Cowell came up with his own series of “Hymns AND Fuguing Tunes” for various combinations of instruments.Cowell’s Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 for oboe and strings, for example, was premiered on today’s date in 1955, in Santa Barbara, California, by oboist Bert Gassman and the Pacific Coast Music Festival orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.Music Played in Today's ProgramHenry Cowell (1897 - 1965) Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 Humbert Lucarelli, oboe; Manhattan Chamber Orchestra; Richard Auldon Clark, cond. Koch 7282

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1949, the British composer Gerald Finzi conducted the premiere performance of his Clarinet Concerto at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford.During his lifetime, Finzi never achieved the fame of some other 20th-century British composers. British tenor Mark Padmore wrote a recent appreciation titled “The Quiet Man of British Music,” which included these lines:“I want to make a case for taking the time to get to know a composer … whose plumage is discreet and whose song is quiet and subtle. Finzi might be termed one of classical music's wrens. Despite his exotic-sounding surname and mixed Italian, Sephardic and Ashkenazi heritage, Finzi was in many ways an archetypal English gentleman. ... One of his passions was the saving of old English varieties of apples. … [His] music was written slowly and often it would take many years for a piece to reach its final form.”Finzi died in 1956, at 55, from Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was concerned his music would be forgotten after his death and added this note to his catalogue of works: "The affection which an individual may retain after his departure is perhaps the only thing which guarantees an ultimate life to his work."Music Played in Today's ProgramGerald Finzi (1901 - 1956) – Clarinet Concerto (Alan Hacker; English String Orchestra; William Boughton, cond.) Nimbus 5665

SynopsisToday's date in 1934 marked the birthday of the late British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Now, his name is spelled D-A-V-I-E-S, so most Americans tend to pronounce it “Day-VEES,” even though “Davis” is the common British pronunciation.Once, when Davies was in the U.S., a British journalist called a Las Vegas hotel where the composer was staying and asked to speak to Peter Maxwell Davis. The receptionist said there was no one there by that name. Asked to spell the name, the British journalist did. “Oh, Day-vees!” said the receptionist. “Sorry, there is no one registered by that name either.” It turned out the hotel computer had compressed Maxwell Davis into “Mavis” and that was how he was registered. He found the whole incident so amusing that he wrote an orchestral tone-poem entitled “Mavis in Las Vegas,” fantasizing that somehow he had a female alter-ego in that city, perhaps earning her living as a high-kicking Vegas showgirl.In addition to the whimsical “Mavis in Las Vegas,” Maxwell Davies often composed music often inspired by the bleak Northern land- and seascape of the Orkney Islands—an atmosphere as far removed from the Vegas Strip as you can imagine.Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934) Mavis in Las Vegas BBC Symphony; Peter Maxwell Davies, cond. Collins 1524

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramThomas Tallis (c.1505 - 1585) Spem in alium Huelgas Ensemble; Paul Van Nevel, cond. Sony 60992

SynopsisConsider, if you will, the poor timpanist. At most symphony concerts, they sit quietly—waiting for the moment when a dramatic exclamation point is required from the kettledrums. While the violinists rarely get a break, the timpanist must sit patiently for most of the evening, biding their time, waiting for the precise moments to strike.On rare occasions, however, the timpanist is the CENTER of attention as soloist in a timpani concerto. One such concerto was written by an American composer, William Kraft, who was born on this day in 1923. Kraft was a timpanist himself. In fact, Kraft served as a percussionist and timpanist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 26 years, from 1955-1981. He was that orchestra’s first composer-in-residence, and founded the LA Philharmonic’s first New Music Group.William Kraft’s Timpani Concerto was written in 1983 for timpanist Thomas Akins of the Indianapolis Symphony, who premiered the work with that orchestra in 1984.Kraft’s own description of his Timpani Concerto is as follows, "The first movement is very jazzy … the second movement is very beautiful, with two string orchestras and a lot of glissandi, and the third is hell-bent for leather."Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Kraft (b. 1923) Timpani Concerto Thomas Akins, timpani; Alabama Symphony; Paul Polivnick, cond. Albany 302

SynopsisIn 1941, as the German Army was overrunning Russia, the Soviet government evacuated important artists to remote places of safety. Composer Sergei Prokofiev, for example, found himself in the little town of Nalchik, nestled in the foothills of the northern Caucasus Mountains about 1000 miles away from the front.Prokofiev was intrigued by the region’s folk music, and, taking a break from a big project to turn Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace into an opera, composed his String Quartet No. 2, based on local tunes. The new work was, as he put it, "a combination of virtually untouched folk material and the most classical of classical forms, the string quartet."Its three movements are all based on local songs and dances, and Prokofiev took care not to smooth out any roughness in the original material.Prokofiev’s new string quartet received its premiere performance back in Moscow in April of 1942, at a concert given by The Beethoven Quartet. A later performance on today’s date that same year was delayed due to a German air raid. The new music was well-received, and Prokofiev, perhaps with the air raid in mind, supposedly called the premiere "an extremely turbulent success."Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953) String Quartet No. 2 in F, Op. 92

SynopsisFor ballet lovers, the opening of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake conjures up tutus, but for old-time movie buffs, this same music triggers memories of many black-and-white films of the 1930s. Back then, the eerie opening measures of Swan Lake served as the “main title” music for dozens of old Universal Studios thrillers, including the famous 1931 film of Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi.“Ah, the children of the night—what music THEY make…”But on today’s date in 1999 at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, Tchaikovsky got some competition from Philip Glass. For a special showing of the Bela Lugosi Dracula, Glass wrote a brand-new score. Now, beyond the opening Tchaikovsky, the original 1931 soundtrack had included very little music, and, despite the creepy charisma of Bela Lugosi, the film moved at a ponderous pace. The new Philip Glass score, performed live by the Kronos Quartet, added fresh atmosphere to the familiar old film. In fact, it proved so effective that Glass and the Kronos Quartet took it on a tour, accompanying live showings of the old film in Europe and the U.S.Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) Swan Lake Ballet Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. London 436 212Philip Glass (b. 1937) Dracula filmscore excerpt Kronos Quartet Nonesuch 79542

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1806, Ludwig van Beethoven offered his publisher Breitkopf and Härtel three new string quartets—works we know today as the three Razumovsky Quartets, that were eventually issued as Beethoven’s Opus 59.In Beethoven’s day, Vienna was swarming with Russian, Polish, and Hungarian aristocrats with a taste for music. Among them was Count Andreas Kyrilovich Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna. The count was an amateur violinist who occasionally played in a string quartet he maintained at his own expense.The count commissioned Beethoven to write three string quartets, stipulating that they should incorporate Russian melodies, real or imitated. The most recognizable of the Russian tunes, Beethoven employed occurs in the scherzo of the second quartet: It’s the same theme that was later quoted by Mussorgsky in the coronation scene of his opera “Boris Godunov.”When these Razumovsky Quartets were premiered in Vienna in 1807, one contemporary review noted, “These very long and difficult quartets… are profoundly thought-through and composed with enormous skill, but will not be intelligible to everyone.”When one Italian violinist confessed to Beethoven that he found them incomprehensible, Beethoven retorted: ‘Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age.’Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwiv van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Razumovsky Quartet, Op. 59, no. 2 Emerson String Quartet DG 479 1432

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramE. J. Moeran (1894 - 1950) Serenade in G Northern Sinfonietta of England;Richard Hickox, cond. EMI 74991-2

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1785, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dedicated six of his string quartets to his friend and older colleague, Joseph Haydn. Earlier that year, Haydn heard some of them performed in Vienna. Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, was also present, and must have been elated when Haydn said, “Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.”Mozart’s quartets were published by the Viennese firm Artaria and generated some much-needed income for Wolfgang. Whether they made money for their publisher as well is another matter. Three years later, one of Mozart’s lesser contemporaries, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, offered Artaria six of HIS string quartets at the same price they paid Mozart, with a note that read, “I am certain you will do better with MY quartets than you did with Mozart’s, which deserve the highest praise, but which, because of their overwhelming and unrelenting artfulness, are not to EVERYONE’s taste.”Apparently Mozart’s quartets were deemed too “brainy” for public taste. Well, Dittersdorf may have sold better in the 1780’s, but these days performers and audiences find Mozart’s “unrelenting artfulness” more to their taste than Dittersdorf’s sugary confections.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) String Quartet in G, K.387 Emerson String Quartet DG 439 861Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739 - 1799) String Quartet No. 4 in C Gewandhaus Quartet Berlin Classics 9261

SynopsisAngel 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.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJoan Tower (b. 1938) Angels (String Quartet No. 4) Miami String Quartet Naxos 8.559795

SynopsisOn 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.Even before he had left the Curtis Institute of Music, where he pursued a triple major in piano, composition, and voice, Barber had begun winning prizes that enabled him to study abroad. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Barber’s musical career was quite Euro-centric. His School for Scandal Overture, in fact, was written in Italy in 1931. Barber’s First Symphony premiered in Rome in 1936, and the following year was played by the Vienna Philharmonic at the 1937 Salzburg Music Festival. That led to stateside performances and commissions from conductors like Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini.Music Played in Today's ProgramSamuel Barber (1910 – 1981) School for Scandal Overture Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor. Argo 436 288

SynopsisSay 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 musicFrom 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 ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685 – 1750) arr. Henry Wood Toccata and Fugue in D minor BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. Teldec 97868Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) Graal Theatre Gidon Kremer, violin; BBC Symphony; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony Classical 60817

SynopsisThe 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.And so Mr. White pulled Blue Monday from his revue before it could have a second performance. A concert revival by the Paul Whiteman band at Carnegie Hall in 1925, and a 1953 CBS-TV production didn’t fare all that much better. Even today Blue Monday is rarely staged.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Gershwin (1898 – 1937) Blue Monday Cincinnati Pops; Erich Kunzel, conductor. Telarc 80434

SynopsisAround 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 ProgramJean-Philippe Rameau (1683 – 1764) Pygmalion La Petite Bande; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor. BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77143

SynopsisPiero 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 ProgramBohuslav Martinu (1890 – 1950) Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca Vienna Philharmonic;Rafael Kubelik, conductor. Orfeo C521-991 (recorded August 26, 1956)

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramCharles Ives (1874 – 1954) The Unanswered Question New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Sony Classical 46701

SynopsisWe 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.Fortunately for posterity, not all Reformation era rulers were so bloodthirsty. The English Catholic composer Thomas Tallis managed to keep his head through the reigns of alternating Catholic and Protestant monarchs, and the Protestant Queen Elizabeth the First admired and supported the music of William Byrd, despite his openly Catholic sympathies.Music Played in Today's ProgramClaude Goudimel (1510 – 1572) Comfort, comfort Ye my people Cathedral Singers; Richard Proulx, conductor. GIA 290

SynopsisTanglewood 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. Music Played in Today's ProgramRandall Thompson (1899 – 1984) Alleluia Dale Warland Singers; Dale Warland, conductor. Minnesota Public Radio 201

SynopsisAngel 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 ProgramLibby 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

SynopsisAt the BBC Proms on today’s date in 2004 Proms a new piece by the British composer Judith Bingham was premiered by the BBC Chorus. Titled 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 …”Music Played in Today's ProgramJudith Bingham (b. 1952) The Secret Garden BBC Symphony Chorus; Thomas Trotter, o; Stephen Jackson, conductor. Naxos 8.570346 (live Proms recording of the premiere performance)

SynopsisDetails 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 ProgramVagn Holmboe (1909 – 1996) String Quartet No. 13, Op. 124 Kontra Quartet Da Capo CD 8.207001 (complete) or 8.224127 (Quartets 13-15 only)

SynopsisIn 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 ProgramEdward J. Collins (1889 – 1951) Concert Piece in A minor Leslie Stifelman, piano; Concordia Orchestra; Marin Alsop, conductor. Albany 267

SynopsisAugust 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 ProgramClaudio 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

SynopsisIn 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 ProgramArvo Pärt (b. 1935) Fratres Gidon Kremer, vn;Keith Jarrett, p. ECM 1275

SynopsisIn 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 ProgramGeorge Gershwin (1898 – 1937) Cuban Overture New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor. Teldec 46318Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) Desi! Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor. Argo 444 454

SynopsisWhen 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 ProgramBernard Herrmann (1911 – 1975) The Day the Earth Stood Still National Philharmonic; Bernard Herrmann, conductor. London 443 899Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971) Berceuse, fr The Firebird Clara Rockmore, theremin; Nadia Reisenberg, piano Delos 1014

SynopsisThere 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 ProgramRichard Strauss (1864 – 1949) Die Liebe der Danae (Symphonic Fragment), Op. 83 Toronto Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. CBS 45804

SynopsisIt'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.Music Played in Today's ProgramGyőrgy Kurtág (b. 1926) Stele, op. 33 SWR Symphony; Michael Gielen, conductor. Hänssler 93001

SynopsisSome 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 ProgramAntonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904) arr. Kreisler Songs My Mother Taught Me Fritz Kreisler, violin Pearl 9324George Frederic Handel (1685 – 1757) excerpt, fr Judas Maccabeus Edward Lloyd, tenor Koch Historic 7703Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) plays on an Edison cylinder (r. 1889) Johannes Brahms, p. Pearl 99049Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) Hungarian Dance No. 1 Idil Biret, piano Naxos 8.550355

SynopsisAs 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 ProgramJohann Strauss, Jr. (1825 - 1899) Annen Polka and Perpetuum mobile Vienna Philharmonic; Clemens Krauss, conductor. Preiser 90139 (recorded 1929)

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramWilliam Henry Fry (1813 – 1864) Macbeth Overture Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Tony Rowe, conductor. Naxos 8.559057

SynopsisOk, 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 ProgramDavid Raksin (1912 -2004) Morning Revisited The Horn Club of Los Angeles; David Raksin, conductor. EMI 63764

SynopsisJust 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 ProgramFrancis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) Les animaux modeles French National Orchestra; Charles Dutoit, conductor. London 452 937

SynopsisPerformers 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 ProgramEllen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) Piano Quintet The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; Michael Tree, vla; Harold Robinson, db. Azica 71292

SynopsisIn 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 ProgramRebecca Clarke (1886 – 1979) Prelude, Allegro, and Pastorale, Op. 11 Robert Plane, cl; Philip Dukes, vla. Naxos 8.557934

SynopsisOn 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.”Music Played in Today's ProgramThea Musgrave (b. 1928) Loch Ness – A Postcard from Scotland BBC National Orchestra of Wales; William Boughton, conductor. Lyrita 372

SynopsisBy 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 ProgramWilliam Schuman (1910-1992) Symphony No. 3 New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Sony Classical 63163Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856) Symphony No. 1 (Spring) Berlin Philharmonic; James Levine, conductor. DG 435 856Roy Harris (1899-1979) Symphony No. 1 Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor. Albany/Louisville First Edition 012

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramAntonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) Falstaff Overture London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, conductor. Chandos 9877

SynopsisThe 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 ProgramJohn Harbison (b. 1938) Three City Blocks New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble; Frank Battisti, conductor. Centaur 2288

SynopsisAt 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 ProgramLinda Tutas Haugen Invocation and Remembrance Martin Hodel, trumpet; Kraig Windschitl, organ Augsburg Fortress Music CD (with ISBN: 9780800679118)On This DayBirths1779 - 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;Deaths1973 - Gian-Francesco Maliperio, Italian composer and first editor of collected works of Monteverdi and Vivaldi, age 91, in Treviso;Premieres1740 - 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;Others1892 - 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 Linda Tutas Haugen

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramJohn Philip Sousa (1854 - 1932) Manhattan Beach Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, conductor. Reference 94

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramWilliam Schuman (1910 - 1992) George Washington Bridge Rutgers Wind Ensemble; William Bertz, conductor. Naxos 572230

SynopsisOn 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.Gutchë died in the fall of 2001—one year after this Cincinnati Symphony recording of his Fifth Symphony was reissued on compact disc. Music Played in Today's ProgramGene Gutchë (1907 - 2001) Symphony No. 5, Op. 34 Cincinnati Symphony; Max Rudolf, conductor. CRI 825

SynopsisOn 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 Magnard became 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 ProgramJ. S. Bach (1685 - 1750) Double Concerto (recorded 1915) Fritz Kreisler, Efrem Zimbalist, vn;string quartet Buddulph CD 21/22

SynopsisAlfred 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 ProgramBernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) Unused Torn Curtain film score Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony 62700

SynopsisOn 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.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813 - 1883) Act I excerpt, fr Parsifal Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; James Levine, conductor. DG 437 501

SynopsisOn 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.Music Played in Today's ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1937) Violin Solo, fr Einstein on the Beach Gregroy Fulkerson, violin New World 80313

SynopsisThe 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 Dream. 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 ProgramLeo Arnaud (1904 - 1991) Olympic Theme Cleveland Symphonic Winds; Frederick Fennell, conductor. Telarc 80099

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramDomenico Scarlatti (1685 - 1757) Sonata in c, K. 363 Elaine Comparone, harpsichord Laurel 838Vincent Pershichetti (1915 - 1987) Sonata No. 4 Elaine Comparone, harpsichord Laurel 838

SynopsisOn 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 herThe 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 ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) I masnadieri Overture Hungarian State Opera Orchestra; Iper Giorgio Morandi, conductor. Naxos 8.554077

SynopsisIn 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 ProgramPaul Hindemith (1895 - 1963) Nobilissima Visione San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor. London 433 809On This DayBirths1896 - French composer Jean Rivier, in VillemombleDeaths1838 - 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-machinesPremieres1733 - Handel: oratorio "Athalia," in Oxford (Julian date: July 10)1938 - Hindemith: ballet, "St. Francis," at Covent Garden in London, with composer conducting (the suite titled "Nobilissima Visone" is drawn from this score)1971 - William Bolcom: “Frescoes” in Montreal, with Bruce Mather (piano and harmonium) and Pierrette LePage (piano and harpsichord);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

SynopsisToday 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 ProgramMorton Feldman (1926 - 1987) Madame Press died last week at 90 Orchestra of St. Luke's; John Adams, conductor. Nonesuch 79249

SynopsisDuring 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 ProgramDimtri Shostakovich Leningrad Symphony No. 7 NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA Toscanini Edition Vol. 22

SynopsisToday 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 ProgramViardot-Garcia, Pauline (1821-1910) 12 Poems by Pushkin, Fet and Turgenev: No. 12. Les étoiles (Laetitia Grimaldi, sop; Ammiel Bushakevitz, pno) Bis 2546

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756 - 1791) Menuetto and Trio, fr Haffner Symphony Vienna PhilharmonicRafael Kubelik, conductor. Seraphim 68531Joseph Messner (1893 - 1969) Salzburg Festival Fanfare Salzburg Mozarteum Orch;Ivor Bolton, conductor. Oehmns CD 734

SynopsisToday 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 ProgramCesar Franck (1822 - 1890) Violin Sonata in A Itzhak Perlman, violin; Martha Argerich, piano EMI 56815Eugène Ysaÿe (1858 - 1931) Chant d'hiver Aaron Rosand, violin; Radio Luxembourg Orchestra; Louis de Froment, cond. Vox Box 5102

SynopsisFor 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 ProgramHeitor Villa Lobos (1887 - 1959) Choros No. 9 Hong Kong Philharmonic; Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor. Naxos 8.555241

SynopsisA 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 ProgramIngram Marshall (b. 1942) Dark Waters Libby van Cleve, English horn; Ingram Marshall, electronics New Albion 112

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramFelix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847) Double Concerto Güher and Süher Pekinel, pianos; Philharmonia Orchestra; Sir Neville Marriner, conductor. Chandos 9711Quincy Porter (1897 - 1966) Concerto for Two Pianos Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas, duo pianists; Moravian Philharmonic; David Amos, conductor. Helcion 1044

SynopsisThe Third Sonata for Violin and Piano written by American composer William Bolcom had its premiere on today’s date in 1993 at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. The work was commissioned to honor the 75th birthday of Dorothy Delay, a legendary violin teacher who taught at Juilliard for many years.Now, the violin is a strange animal for composers to master, especially if they aren’t violinists already, and Bolcom subtitled his Third Violin Sonata “Sonata Stramba” –“stramba” being the Italian word for “strange” or “odd.”Bolcom confessed to being fascinated by two musical sounds more than any other: the voice and the violin. “When I was about ten,” Bolcom recalls, “we trundled out my maternal grandfather’s imitation Stradivarius, made in Czechoslovakia, and I took a few not-very-successful lessons. When the violin was stolen out of the back seat of my father’s Buick that was the end of my studies of the instrument.” Bolcom did become a very talented pianist, however, and befriended a violinist named Gene Nastri, who initiated the young composer into the mysteries of the instrument by performing Mozart and Beethoven Violin Sonatas with him, as well as the fledgling violin works written by the young composer.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Bolcom (b. 1938) Violin Sonata No. 3 (Irina Muresanu, vln; Michael Lewis, p.) Centaur 2910

SynopsisThese 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 ProgramEdward MacDowell (1860 - 1908) First Modern Suite, Op. 10 James Barbagallo, piano Naxos 8.559011On This DayBirths1836 - Brazilian opera composer Antonio Carlo Gomes, in CampinasDeaths1937 - American composer George Gershwin, age 38, in Hollywood, following an operation on a cystic brain tumorPremieres1882 - MacDowell: "Modern Suite" No. 1 for Piano, in Zurich, with composer as soloist1921 - Gershwin: musical revue, "George White's Scandals of 1921," at the Liberty Theater in New York City1996 - James MacMillan: "The World's Ransoming" (English horn Concerto), at the Barbican in London, by soloist Christine Pendrill with the London Symphony, Kent Nagano conducting2003 - 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;Others1798 - 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)1885 - First concert of the Boston "Promenade" Orchestra (later dubbed the Boston "Pops") at the old Music Hall in Boston; Adolf Neuendorff conducts;1922 - Opening concert of the Hollywood Bowl, with German conductor Alfred Hertz at the podium1940 - 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 Concert1998 - "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, America's oldest professional musical organization, marks its 200th anniversary Links and Resources On composer Edward MacDowell On the MacDowell Colony

SynopsisOn 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.” That’s also full text of Elgar’s cantata.In the middle of his manuscript, Elgar drew a medieval hell's mouth, belching smoke.  The little score was discovered, performed, and recorded for the first time in July of 2003.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934) Smoking Cantata Andrew Shore, bar; Hallé Orchestra; Mark Elder, conductor. Hallé CD HLL-7505

SynopsisToday 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 ProgramDavid 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

SynopsisToday’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 ProgramLouis Ballard (1931-2007): Mid-Winter Fires (Amy Morris, f; Mark Serrup, ob; Mary Goetz, p.) Indande Records 52352

SynopsisUnless 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. Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685 - 1757) Utrecht Te Deum St Paul's Cathedral Choir; The Parley of Instruments; John Scott, conductor. Hyperion 67009

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramLouis Armstrong (1901 - 1971) Skip the Gutter Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five Columbia 44422I'm in the Barrel arr. David Jolley Windscape Arabesque 6732

SynopsisOn 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 ProgramAstor 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 in Mantes-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 On today’s date in 1727, the opera season in London ended early when rival Italian prima donnas, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, came to blows on stage during a performance of an opera by Bononcini. Londoners were shocked, but not surprised. Trouble had been brewing between the two, egged on by partisan behavior from their rabid English fans, who (depending on their preference) greeted them with either extravagant applause and bravos, or catcalls, hissing, and, as one contemporary put it, “other great indecencies.” It was all terrific box-office, as Handel must have realized and so worked their rivalry into HIS opera Alessandro, in which the hero finds it hard to decide between the attractions of the dueling divas. Handel prudently gave exactly the same number of solos to each soprano. Even so, according to Handel’s first biographer, years earlier he had threatened to toss Cuzzoni out the window when, during a rehearsal she refused point blank to sing one of his arias. Madam, Handel is quoted as roaring as he dragged her towards the window, “I know you are a veritable devil, but I would have you know that I am Beelzebub, the KING of all the devils!” Music Played in Today's Program George Frederic Handel (1685 - 1759) aria, fr Alessandro Lisa Saffer, soprano; Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; Nicholas McGegan, conductor. Harmonia Mundi 90.7036

Synopsis On today’s date in 1998 at King’s Chapel in Boston, a new work by the American composer Daniel Pinkham received its first performance. Scored for baritone and organ and titled Three Latin Motets, it was intended as a birthday offering to Pinkham’s  fellow composer and colleague Ned Rorem, with a dedication that read, “For Ned Rorem and a half century of friendship.”But the premiere occurred on the 75th anniversary of Pinkham’s birth, as a surprise at a concert in his honor. Organist James David Christie and baritone Sanford Sylvan had sneakily persuaded Pinkham to write the motets for Rorem, who was born in 1923 – the same year as Pinkham – but intended all along to premiere the music as a surprise at a concert in Pinkham’s honor.Pinkham was noted for his church music, and once quipped, “I just like to hear my pieces more than once, and when you write music for the church you have a better chance at that… I [tell people] am available for weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs.”Pinkham died in 2006, and Christie and Sylvan performed his Three Latin Motets once again in January of 2007— at Pinkham’s memorial service. Music Played in Today's Program Daniel Pinkham (1923 - 2006) Three Latin Motets Aaron Engebreth, bar;Heinrich Christensen, o. Florestan FRP-1003

Synopsis In the early years of the 20th century, a hauntingly beautiful piece of Grecian sculpture – a bust of the head of the goddess Aphrodite – was donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Art. There it inspired this orchestral work by Boston composer George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick’s symphonic tone poem Aphrodite was, in the words of the composer, “an attempt to suggest in music the poetic and tragic scenes which may have passed before the sightless eyes of such a goddess.” Chadwick composed this music during East Coast holidays on Martha’s Vineyard, inspired, he said, by the play of light and wind on the sea before him. It received its premiere at the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut on this date in 1912. On today’s date in 1999, at a summer musical festival on the opposite coast of America, another musical work inspired by ancient Greece received its first performance. This music was entitled Five Images after Sappho, inspired by texts of the ancient Greek poetess Sappho and written for the remarkable voice of a modern American soprano, Dawn Upshaw. It was premiered at the Ojai Festival in California, and was written by the Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. Music Played in Today's Program George Whitefield Chadwick (1854 - 1931) Aphrodite Brno State Philharmonic; Jose Serebrier, conductor. Reference 74 Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958) Five Images after Sappho Dawn Upshaw, soprano; London Sinfonietta; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony 89158 On This Day Births 1770 - possible birthdate of the British-born early American composer, conductor, and music publisher James Hewitt, in Dartmoor; 1932 - American composer and jazz arranger Oliver Nelson, in St. Louis; Deaths 1872 - Polish opera composer Stanislaw Moniuszko, age 53, in Warsaw; 1907 - Norwegian composer Agathe Backer-Groendahl, age 59, in Kristiania (now Oslo); 1951 - Russian-born American double-bass player, conductor and new music patron, Serge Koussevitzky, age 76, in Boston; Premieres 1811 - Weber: opera, "Abu Hassan." In Munich; 1883 - Tchaikovsky: "Festival Coronation March," in Moscow (Julian date: May 23); Tchaikovsky conducted this march at the gala opening concert of Carnegie Hall (then called just "The Music Hall")in New York on May 5, 1891; 1912 - Chadwick: tone poem "Aphrodite" in Norfolk, Conn., at the Litchfield Festival; 1914 - Sibelius: "Oceanides," in Norfolk, Conn., at the Litchfield Festival, with the composer conducting; 1935 - Shostakovich: ballet "The Limpid Stream," in Leningrad at the Maliiy Opera Theater; 1935 - R. Strauss: opera "Die schweigsame Frau" (The Silent Woman), in Dresden at the Staatsoper; 1994 - Philip Glass: opera "La Belle et la Bête" (Beauty and the Beast) based on the film by Jean Cocteau), by the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville (Spain), with Michael Riesman conducting; 1997 - Richard Danielpour: ballet "Urban Dances," at New York State Theater by the New York Ballet, choreographed by Miriam Mahdaviani; 1999 - Esa-Pekka Salonen: "Five Images after Sappho" for voice and orchestra, at the Ojai Festival in California, with soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, conducted by the composer. Links and Resources On Chadwick On Salonen

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

Synopsis When you listen to classical music like Bach or Mozart, you are taking a trip in a time machine.  Or, as Shirley MacLaine might put it, “Classical music is the soundtrack of your previous lives.”American composer Sebastian Currier goes even further, and says:“It's only a little bit of an exaggeration to say that music is made of nothing BUT time ­­– well, and air too … melodic or rhythmic gestures are made of a series of events moving forward in time. …  the rest is air. A musician bows a string, blows air in a cylinder, strikes a metal object, and a series of sound waves take that information to our ears … It has always been fascinating to me that an art form that is so penetrating … is made of such ephemeral stuff.”So no surprise Currier gave the title Time Machines to his work for violin and orchestra that premiered in New York City on today’s date in 2011.  The German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was the soloist performing with the New York Philharmonic led by Alan Gilbert, and they made a live recording of the new work. Music Played in Today's Program Sebastian Currier (b. 1959) Time Machines Anne-Sophie Mutter, vn; New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor (r. live June 2, 2011). DG 477 9359

Synopsis On today’s date in 1988, the New York Philharmonic gave a concert in a city then called Leningrad and in a country then called the Soviet Union.For their visit to the city we now call St. Petersburg in a country known today as Russia, the Philharmonic commissioned a brand-new work by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.  Her Symbolon received its premiere performance there, and, in fact, was first American symphonic work to be premiered in the USSR.“The word ‘symbolon’ comes from the Greek,” explained Zwilich, “and refers to the ancient custom whereby two parties broke a piece of pottery in two, each party retaining half. Each half (or symbolon) thus became a token of friendship.”“From the beginning,” continued Zwilich, “I knew this piece would receive its first performance in the Soviet Union, and I found this profoundly moving. I’m sure my complex feelings, embracing both hope and sadness about the state of the political world, found their way into this work.” After its premiere, Zwilich’s Symbolon was performed in Moscow, New York, London, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris, and the former East Berlin, making it one of Zwilich’s “most-travelled” works. Music Played in Today's Program Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) Symbolon New York Philharmonic;Zubin Mehta, cond. New World CD

Synopsis On today's date in 1998, in Purchase, New York, the Westchester Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new flute concerto by a 41-year old composer named Melinda Wagner. Her concerto won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1999 – a gratifying mark of recognition for Wagner, who claims she had developed 20 years of calluses from all the rejections that are the common experience of most young composers in America. Along with the bumps and scrapes, Wagner also had picked up a number of other honors along the way, including awards, grants, and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP, to name just a few. “Composition,” says Wagner, “is like writing a kind of love letter to performers. They will be interpreting something that is incredibly personal, so it feels like a love affair. As for the audience, to try to try to second-guess them to figure out what they're going to like, and write that, would be an insult to them. I just hope they can plug into the communication that's happening between the performers and me.” Music Played in Today's Program Melinda Wagner (b. 1957) Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute; Westchester Philharmonic; Mark Mandarano, conductor. Bridge 9098

Synopsis On today's date in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach began his formal duties as the new Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, a city that would remain his home for the next 27 years. A newspaper item datelined Leipzig had appeared the previous day, noting: "This past Saturday at noon, four wagons loaded with household goods arrived here from Cöthen; they belonged to the former Princely Cappelmeister Johann Sebastian Bach, now called to Leipzig as Cantor. He himself arrived with his family on two carriages at 2 o'clock and moved into the newly renovated apartment in the St. Thomas School." Bach was not the first choice for the appointment, and it's clear from the proceedings of the Leipzig Town Council that they were more concerned with Bach as a teacher rather than Bach as a composer. Providing quality music for services at St. Thomas Church might have been foremost in Bach's mind, but the council seemed to think that was definitely not as important as teaching Latin to the young students of the St. Thomas School. One council member, a certain Dr. Steger, after reluctantly voting for Bach, even wanted it on record that in his opinion, (quote) "Bach should make compositions that were NOT theatrical." It's not on record what poor Dr. Steger thought of Bach's intensely dramatic St. Matthew Passion, or the hundreds of brilliant crafted cantatas that Bach would provide, week in and week out, for the next 20 years. Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750) Cantata No. 73 Leonhardt Consort; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor. Teldec 44279

Synopsis Today’s date marks the anniversary of one of the most famous – and notorious – premieres in the history of classical music, that of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring), in Paris on May 29, 1913. From its first note – sounded by the bassoon at the extreme end of its highest register – Stravinsky’s score signaled the start of something radically different. It's also remembered as the occasion of one of the most emotional reactions by any audience: Catcalls and insults were hurled between the composer’s supporters and detractors, fistfights broke out, and finally the police were called. There were those, including Pierre Monteux, the conductor of the premiere, who felt the reactions were occasioned more by the dancing and the stage picture than by the music itself. Years later, when Monteux was asked what he thought of the original production, he confessed to everyone’s amusement that he actually never saw it, because his eyes were glued to the score. “On hearing this near riot behind me,” he wrote, “I decided to keep the orchestra together at any cost ... I did, and we played it to the end absolutely as we had rehearsed it in the peace of an empty theatre.” Music Played in Today's Program Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971) The Rite of Spring Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Sir Georg Solti, conductor. London 436 469

Synopsis On today's date in 1938, Matthias the Painter, an opera by the German composer Paul Hindemith, had its premiere performance in Zurich, Switzerland. This work had been scheduled to be premiered in 1934 at the Berlin Opera by the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, but the newly-installed Nazi regime canceled the performance. In protest, Furtwangler performed a concert suite from Hindemith's opera at a Berlin Philharmonic concert, resulting in a loud pro-Hindemith demonstration on the part of the audience. The Nazi press responded with attacks on both Hindemith and Furtwangler. By the end of 1934 it was clear to all in Germany that the Nazis would brook no opposition when it came to cultural matters. So how had the quintessentially German Hindemith offended the new regime? In 1929 Hitler had attended the premiere of another Hindemith opera, titled News of the Day, and hated it – labeling it “degenerate.” Furthermore, Hindemith's wife and many of his closest musician friends were Jewish. Hindemith became persona non grata in Nazi Germany, and, shortly after the Zurich premiere of his new opera, he and his wife emigrated to the U.S., where he taught at Tanglewood and Yale, becoming an American citizen in 1946. Music Played in Today's Program Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963) Mathis der Maler Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor. EMI 55237

Synopsis On today's date in 1992, during the bloody civil wars that shattered the former Yugoslavia, a hand grenade was thrown into the midst of a bread line in Sarajevo. Twenty-two people died. To most around the world it appeared to be just one more senseless act of violence amidst the thousands of such acts took place in that unhappy part of the world. One Sarajevo resident thought otherwise. At four o'clock every day after the incident, despite the danger, Vedran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera, went to the site of the bombing in full evening dress and played his cello in memory of the dead. A New York Times reporter wrote of the cellist's moving act of courage and faith in art and humanity – and the world took notice. The English-born composer David Wilde read about the cellist while riding a train in Germany. “As I sat in the train, deeply moved,” Wilde later recalled, “I listened; and somewhere deep within me a cello began to play a circular melody like a lament without end.” That theme developed into a piece titled The Cellist of Sarajevo, dedicated to Vedran Smailovic, and which cellist Yo-Yo Ma was soon performing around the world. Music Played in Today's Program David Wilde (b. 1935) The Cellist of Sarajevo Yo Yo Ma, cello Sony 64114

Synopsis For many years now MidAmerica Productions has been organizing concerts in New York City and enlisting choral ensembles from the U.S. and abroad to come to the “big apple” to perform at prestigious Manhattan venues. On today’s date in 1990, choirs from Arkansas, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Texas were on stage at Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of John Rutter’s Magnificat, specially commissioned by MidAmerica, and with the British composer himself on hand to conduct. “The chorus numbered over 200 voices,” Rutter recalled, “every one of them happy and excited at the prospect of joining forces in the magnificent setting of Carnegie Hall... [so] I wanted to write something joyous because that would reflect the mood of the performers...” “The ‘Magnifcat’,“ continues Rutter, “is known as the Canticle of the Blessed Virgin, and it is mainly in the sunny southern countries – Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico – that Mary is most celebrated... This led me to conceive the music as a bright, Latin- flavored fiesta.” Despite composing and conducting religious music, Rutter confessed during a 2003 interview that he was not particularly religious himself – just a composer deeply moved and inspired by the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers. Music Played in Today's Program John Rutter (b. 1945) Magnificat Elizabeth Cragg, s.; Choirs of St. Albans Cathedral; Ensemble DeChorum; Andrew Lucas, conductor. Naxos 8.572653

Synopsis This lush, late-Romantic score, composed in 1904, had to wait until 1962 for its premiere performance, when, on today's date that year, the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Eugene Ormandy performed it in Seattle during an international festival devoted to its composer, Anton Webern. For most music lovers, the Austrian composer is a shadowy, vaguely mysterious figure. If they know anything at all about him, it is that he was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, that he wrote a small body of very short and very condensed atonal scores, and that in 1945 he was shot by accident by an American soldier in the tense days following the end of World War II. The early orchestral score that received its belated premiere on today's date in 1962 was titled In the Summer Wind, completed when Webern was just 19 years old. It's very much in the style of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and early Schoenberg. To earn a living, Webern worked as a conductor of everything from Viennese operettas to worker's choral unions. His conducting career came to a halt when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, and until his untimely death in 1945, Webern lived by doing routine work for a Viennese music publisher. Music Played in Today's Program Anton von Webern (1883 - 1945) Im Sommerwind Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor. London 436 240

Synopsis On today's date in 1803, violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower, age 33, and pianist and composer Ludwig van Beethoven, age 32, gave the first performance in Vienna of a new Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano, a chamber work now regarded as one of Beethoven's greatest. At the first rehearsal, Bridgetower had to read from Beethoven's manuscript score – no easy task considering Beethoven's poor penmanship – and at one point felt compelled to improvise a passage, which so enchanted Beethoven that he added Bridgetower's improvisation to his score. In fact, the two young men became fast friends, and were inseparable for a time. Bridgetower was an English violin virtuoso born in Poland of a European mother and an African father. His Viennese friendship with Beethoven came to a sudden end, Bridgetower later claimed, when the two men became interested in the same young lady. And so, even though it should be known as the Bridgetower Sonata, when this music was published as Beethoven's Op. 47, Beethoven dedicated the music to another contemporary virtuoso, a French violinist named Kreutzer, who apparently never performed it. Despite that fact, to this day, the work is known as Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) Violin Sonata No. 9, Op. 47 (Kreutzer) Pamela Frank, violin; Claude Frank, piano MusicMasters 67087

Synopsis Some famous composers were notorious perfectionists – and then there was Johannes Brahms, the Perfectionist of Perfectionists. He spent 14 years tinkering with the score of his First Symphony, remember. Brahms once claimed he had written and discarded twenty string quartets before publishing his first two in the year 1873. To say Brahms was his own severest critic would be putting it mildly, but there was one other person whose opinion Brahms valued above all others, and that was Clara Schumann, one of the finest pianists of her day, the widow of his mentor Robert Schumann, and a fine composer in her own right. So it comes as no surprise that the Third String Quartet of Brahms, the Quartet in B- flat Major, published as his Opus 67, was first performed as a kind of “test run” at the Berlin home of Clara Schumann on today’s date in the year 1876. The performers were the famous Joachim Quartet, led by violinist Joseph Joachim, a long-time friend of Brahms. Unlike his preceding quartets, both austere and introspective works, this one was light-hearted and cheerful – "a useless trifle," as Brahms himself put it, adding it was just his way to "avoid facing the serious countenance of a symphony." Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) String Quartet No. 3 in Bb, Op. 67

Synopsis The German composer Richard Strauss wrote his first song at age 6, and his last at age 84, a year before his death in 1949. Four of his last songs were for soprano and orchestra. These Four Last Songs, as they came to be known, were premiered in London, at the Royal Albert Hall, on today’s date in 1950. Strauss had written to the great Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, suggesting "I would like to make it possible that [the songs] should be at your disposal for a world premiere ... with a first-class conductor and orchestra.” Flagstad did sing the premiere performances, with the first-rate Philharmonia Orchestra of London conducted by the legendary German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler. In addition to those famous performers, credit for the realization of Strauss’s request is also due to an unlikely and exotic patron of the arts, namely the Maharaja of Mysore, who put up a cash guarantee for the Strauss premiere. And since he could not be present himself, the Maharaja asked that the premiere be recorded and the discs shipped to him in Mysore. The Maharaja had wanted to be concert pianist, but the deaths of both his father and his uncle forced him to succeed to the throne in 1940 at the age of 21. In addition to underwriting the Strauss premiere, the young Maharaja championed the music of the Russian composer Nikolas Medtner, and, in 1945, the creation of the Philharmonia Orchestra of London as a recording ensemble for the enterprising EMI producer Walter Legge. In addition to Western classical music, the Maharaja was passionate about the court music of his native land, and, under the pen name of Shri Vidya, himself composed almost 100 works in the South Indian tradition. Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) "Im Abendrot (At Twlight)," from "Four Last Songs" Jessye Norman, s; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch; Kurt Masur, conductor. Philips CD 464 742

Synopsis At Westminster Abbey on today’s date in 1998 a haunting new setting of the Latin mass written by the British composer Roxanna Panufnik received its premiere performance. Roxanna Panufnik was born in London in 1968, and if her family name sounds familiar, it’s because her father was Andrzej Panufnik, one of the greatest Polish composers of the 20th century. Roxanna’s interest in music began early: “I was three years old ... when I said ‘Mummy, I want a violin with a stick to make it sing!’ I started violin, piano and flute. But I only wanted to make up my own music. When I was 12, [the composer] Oliver Knussen, visiting my parents, told me I should write down my improvisations. It all went from there.” And in response to questions about having a famous composer as her father, she says: “My father had enormous integrity, always teaching me to be myself... Early in my career I was very sensitive to being compared to him and a few stray remarks about nepotism dented my confidence. However, I plodded on and now I’m thrilled to be regularly programmed alongside him and I’m so proud of where and who I came from.” Music Played in Today's Program Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968) Westminster Mass Westminster Cathedral Choir; James O’Donnell, conductor. Teldec 28069

Synopsis These days composer John J. Becker is almost totally forgotten, but back in the 1930s his name was linked with Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, and Wallingford Riegger as one of the so-called "American Five" composers of what was dubbed "ultra-modern" music. From 1928 to 1935, Becker taught at the College of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and briefly assembled a "Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra" to give Midwest premieres of works by Ives and other ultra-modernists. From 1935 to 1941, Becker was the Minnesota State director of the Federal Music Project, one of President Roosevelt's initiatives to provide work for American musicians during the Depression years. On today's date in 1937, at the old St. Paul Auditorium, Becker conducted the Federal Music Project's Twin Cities Orchestra in a program that included the premiere performance of his own Symphony No. 3, subtitled "Symphonia Brevis." This "ultra-modern" symphony was met with an "ultra-conservative" review in The Saint Paul Pioneer Press, whose critic wrote: "It consists of spasmodic little excursions… percussive barrages… ideas that seem to run out before the score comes to a close, with the consequent suggestion of that spurious vitality exhibited by decapitated fowls." Decades later, three years before his death in 1961, Becker, along with a few other surviving members of the "American Five," was invited to take a bow from the stage of Carnegie Hall at one of Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic concerts which featured his "Sinfonia Brevis." Music Played in Today's Program John J. Becker (1886 - 1961) Sinfonia Brevis (Symphony No. 3) Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor. Albany TROY-027

Synopsis On today’s date in 2013, a new work by a 90-year old German-born American composer and teacher named Ursula Mamlok received its premiere performance in Switzerland. Five Fantasy Pieces for oboe and strings was given its premiere by the great Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger and colleagues. Ursula Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923 and began composing as a child. Her family was Jewish, and once the Nazis placed school music programs off limits to Jews, her family began holding musicales in their home, with Ursula writing the music. After the Crystal Night pogrom in 1938, her family left Germany, and, via Ecuador, young Ursula came to America after being offered a full scholarship to study at the Mannes School of Music in New York. She became an American citizen and began teaching most notably the Manhattan School of Music. The bulk of Mamlok’s music is for small chamber ensembles, and only once she tried to create a purely electronic piece. In a 1996 interview, she confessed, “Unfortunately I have no connection to it... I put it together in the studio at Columbia in New York, but it took too long. I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ I’d rather use the pencil.” Music Played in Today's Program Ursula Mamlok (1923 – 2016) Five Fantasy Pieces (2012/13) Heinz Holliger, ob; Hanna Weinmeister, vn; Jurg Dahler, vla; Daniel Heaflinger, vcl. Bridge 9457

Synopsis In Costa Mesa, California, on today’s date in 2014, the Pacific Chorale premiered a new choral opera. And what exactly is a “choral opera” you ask? Good question – and one that puzzled Jake Heggie as well, since he was the composer commissioned for that occasion. Heggie and his librettist Gene Sheer at first scratched their heads. As Heggie put it, “Operas require action, characters, conflicts, journeys, transformation movement. Choirs stand still and make beautiful sound.” They came up with a unique solution involving one character, Nora, a silent, on- stage actress, whose inner thoughts are sung by half of the choir, while the other half expresses the sounds and surroundings of the outside world Nora chooses to hear on a day in her life on which everything seems to go wrong – starting with a returned, unopened, handwritten letter she had sent, pouring out her heart, to her jerk of a boyfriend. Even Nora’s apartment furniture gets in a word or two about her unhappy state. And where does Nora turn for comfort? Why, to the radio of course – hence the titled of the new choral opera: The Radio Hour. Spoiler alert: the opera ends on a hopeful note for poor Nora. Music Played in Today's Program Jake Heggie (b. 1961) The Radio Hour John Alexander Singers; Pacific Symphony members; John Alexander, conductor. Delos 3484

Synopsis Today, a tip of the hat to the persistence of Ms. Elisa Hall, who lived in Boston from 1853 to 1924. Hall was a Francophile and championed the best and the latest in French music. Sadly, Elisa Hall suffered from a hearing ailment, which would eventually result in complete deafness. At the advice of her doctor, who thought it might stimulate her ears, Hall took up the saxophone – and with typical enthusiasm soon began commissioning the leading French composers of the day for new pieces for her instrument. In all, she commissioned 22 works, the most famous being by Claude Debussy. Debussy at first refused Ms. Hall's persistent offers of a commission, pleading the saxophone was “a reed animal with whose habits he was poorly acquainted.” Debussy was paid in advance, but it was years before delivered a short rhapsody in a vaguely Moorish style. In May of 1919, one year after Debussy's death, the orchestration of the piece was completed by Debussy's friend, Jean Roger-Ducasse, and premiered in Paris. Ms. Hall apparently never performed it herself. Maybe she was exasperated by the long delay or perhaps, by 1919, her own hearing had deteriorated to the point where she no longer could. Music Played in Today's Program Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra Kenneth Radnofsky, alto saxophone; New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, conductor. Teldec 13133

Synopsis Today we have a letter to read, written by Mozart in the middle of May in the year 1778. Mozart was in Paris, 22 years old, and had this to say to his father back in Salzburg: “I think I told you in my last letter,” wrote Mozart, “that the Duc de Guines plays the flute extremely well, and that his daughter is my pupil in composition. She also plays the harp magnifique. She has a great deal of talent, even genius, and in particular a marvelous memory so that she can play all her pieces, actually about 200, by heart. It is, however, extremely doubtful as to whether she has any talent for composition, especially as regards invention or ideas.” The Duc de Guines was the former French ambassador to London and believed by Mozart's father to be in the inner circle of the French Queen Marie Antoinette, and hence a contact well worth cultivating. De Guines commissioned Mozart to write a double concerto for himself on flute and daughter on harp. Mozart complied with a courtly Concerto in C Major. Four months after delivering the music, Mozart had to report to his father that he still hadn't seen any payment for his efforts! Music Played in Today's Program W.A. Mozart (1756 - 1791) Concerto for Flute and Harp, K. 299 Emmanuel Pahud, flute; Marie-Pierre Langlamet, harp; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, condcutor. EMI 57128

Synopsis If you Google “Verdi” and “Royal Albert Hall,” you’ll probably be directed to a very fine Italian restaurant named after the famous Italian opera composer that is located in that famous British concert venue, but back in 1875 the combination of Verdi and the Royal Albert Hall meant not a hot meal but a hot ticket for Londoners.On today’s date that year a chorus of over 1000 and an orchestra of 150 assembled at Royal Albert Hall to give the U.K. premiere of Verdi’s Requiem Mass, a brand-new sacred work to be conducted by the composer himself.Verdi’s “Requiem” had received its world premiere performance almost exactly one year earlier – on May 22, 1874t o be exact – at the Church of San Marco in Milan, a performance also conducted by the composer.  Although it was premiered in a church, just three days later Verdi brought his Requiem to Milan’s La Scala opera house and cast the lead singers from his latest opera Aida as its four vocal soloists. Commentators ever since have noted shared musical similarities of mood, color, and drama in these two works, and quipped Verdi’s “Requiem” might just be his greatest opera. Music Played in Today's Program Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) — Sanctus, from Requiem (Monteverdi Choir; Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique; John Eliot Gardner, conductor.) Decca 441142

Synopsis Today’s date marks the birthday of one of the most prolific 19th century women composers. Emilie Luise Friderica Mayer was born on May 14th in 1812 in the North German town of Friedland, the third of five children and the eldest daughter of a well-to-do pharmacist.  No one else in her family was musically inclined, but after the death of her father when she was 28 years old, a comfortable inheritance enabled Emilie to devote the rest of her life to music and composition.Despite the barriers to women as composers in her time, Emilie Mayer wrote and published orchestral and chamber works – including eight symphonies over a dozen concert overtures -- and starting in the 1840s through to the time of her death in 1883, got them performed in Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and Vienna.Her early works are very much in the classical Viennese tradition of Beethoven, but as the decades passed, her style became much more in the high Romantic style. For most of the 20th century her works remained largely forgotten, but a 21st century reappraisal has resulted in new interest, recordings, and performances of the symphonies and overtures of Emilie Mayer. Music Played in Today's Program Emile Mayer (1812-1883) – Symphony No. 4 in b (New Brandenburg Philharmonie; Stefan Malzew, cond.) Capriccio 5339

Synopsis This is the Composers Datebook for May 13th. I’m John Birge. On today’s date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival in the first American performance of J.S. Bach’s Magnificat. Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also revised, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus. Bach’s Magnificat served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers reported that “Ninth Symphomania” was breaking out in their city. The newspapers were less impressed with Bach’s Magnificat. The Cincinnati Commercial Review opined: “The work is difficult in the extreme... most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the ‘Magnificat’ the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken... possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies.” Well, whatever they thought in 1875, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach’s “inconsequential intricacies” since then. Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685-1750) Magnificat, S. 243

Synopsis On this date in 1926, a 19-year old composer and sometime silent film piano accompanist named Dimitri Shostakovich saw his First Symphony performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic. It must have been a heady experience for the young composer, who for the past two years had earned a living of sorts accompanying silent films at various Leningrad cinemas. One evening, while accompanying a film titled Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden, the young composer was so carried away by his own improvisations of bird song that he assumed the catcalls and noisy expressions of disapproval from the audience were directed at the film, not at him. Only afterwards was he told the audience had assumed he must have been drunk. In later years, Shostakovich would tell this story with some pride – at least they had noticed his music! The Leningrad Philharmonic's performance of his Symphony, the first of his orchestral works to be performed in public, was a triumph and established Shostakovich as a major new talent. May 12th was a date Shostakovich would commemorate till the end of his life – if for no other reason than he would never again have to improvise piano accompaniment to cinematic masterworks like Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden. Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) Symphony No. 1, Op. 10 Cracow Philharmonic; Gilbert Levine, conductor. Arabesque 6610

Synopsis Although contemporaries, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss were two VERY different human beings.  Mahler was tormented by self-doubt and existential angst; Strauss was a placid soul, self-confident to the point of complacency.  Still, Mahler and Strauss admired and conducted each other’s music, and their odd friendship is reflected in their published correspondence.On today’s date in 1911, for example, on learning that Mahler had been ill, but was recovering, Strauss wrote a gracious letter to his fellow composer-conductor:“I learn with great pleasure that you are recovering from your long illness. Perhaps it might be a happy diversion for you during the melancholy hours of convalescence to know I plan to perform your Third Symphony with the Royal Orchestra in Berlin next winter. It is an excellent orchestra. If you would like to conduct yourself, it would be my pleasure to hear your lovely work again under your own direction – much as I would like to conduct it myself. I would be glad to rehearse the orchestra for you, so you would have no trouble and only the pleasure of conducting.”Sadly, Strauss was poorly-informed about Mahler’s recovery and the gravity of his illness. Mahler died seven days after Strauss penned the letter. Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911) Symphony No.3 in D Minor London Symphony Orchestra; Jascha Horenstein, conductor Unicorn 2006-7

Synopsis The late Australian composer Barrington Pheloung’s music might not be familiar to concertgoers, but if you watch public television’s Mystery series, you’ve probably heard a lot of his work. Pheloung composed music for the British Inspector Morse TV series, chronicling the cases of a Thames Valley police inspector and his loyal assistant, Robbie Lewis, and once explained how he came up with the haunting “Inspector Morse” theme: “Morse is a very melancholic character ... and he was a lover of classical music ... He has a very cryptic mind and loves doing crosswords; we came up with the obvious idea – his name is Morse and so we used Morse code in the [theme] music.” Pheloung said the tapped code for M-O-R-S-E created a rhythm and even suggested a harmonic structure: “I picked up my guitar and there was the tune.” Barrington Pheloung was born on today’s date in 1954 in Sydney, Australia, played drums and guitar as a kid, discovered Bach as a teen, and ended up earning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. He composed music for dance, films, and TV, including “Lewis,” the sequel to the successful Inspector Morse series. Music Played in Today's Program Barrington Pheloung (1954-2019) Theme (From "Inspector Morse") The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra; James Fitzpatrick, conductor Silva Screen Records 4729

Synopsis On today's date in 1911, the Independent Music Society of Paris sponsored “An Anonymous Concert” at which the audience was invited to guess the composers of a number of pieces presented without attribution. Professional music critics were also in attendance, although they prudently refused to reveal their guesses, fearing their professional reputations might suffer as a result. In the audience was the French composer Maurice Ravel, who had agreed to let some of his new piano pieces be performed as part of the experiment. “The title Valses nobles et sentimentales is a sufficient indication that my intention was to compose a chain of waltzes following the example of Schubert,” Ravel wrote. “They were performed for the first time, amidst protests and booing, at this concert.” Even more droll, recalled Ravel, were the reactions of some his most ardent admirers, who didn't know any of his own music would be played. They jeered at his waltzes, calling them “ridiculous” and ventured the guess the composer must be either Satie or Kodaly. Ravel accepted their comments in stoic silence. The audience proved more astute than Ravel's friends, however. “The paternity of the Waltzes was correctly attributed to me,” recalled Ravel, “but by a weak majority.” Music Played in Today's Program Maurice Ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales Minnesota Orchestra; Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, conductor. Analogue 007

Synopsis On today’s date in 1938, a musical soirée was held at Dumbarton Oaks, a magnificent house on the crest of a wooded valley in Washington, D.C. This was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss. Mr. Bliss had retired from a distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service, which included a posting in St. Petersburg in 1907, around the same time a young Russian composer name Igor Stravinsky was getting some of his first public performances there. Mr. and Mrs. Bliss commissioned Stravinsky to write a chamber work to be premiered at their 30th wedding anniversary, a work now known as the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. “A little concerto in the style of the Brandenburg Concertos,” was how Stravinsky put it, adding, “I played Bach very regularly during the composition of the concerto, and I was greatly attracted to the Brandenburg Concertos. Whether or not the first theme of my first movement is a conscious borrowing from the third of the Brandenburg set, however, I do not know. What I can say is that Bach would most certainly have been delighted to loan it to me; to borrow in this way was exactly the sort of thing he liked to do.” Music Played in Today's Program Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971) Dumbarton Oaks Concerto

Synopsis On today’s date in 1937, the NBC radio network was carrying a live broadcast from the Cincinnati May Festival of a new oratorio entitled The Ordering of Moses, inspired by the Biblical Book of Exodus. The music was by a 54-year old Canadian- born American composer, organist, pianist, and music professor named Robert Nathaniel Dett. Curiously, about 40 minutes into the live broadcast, which should have lasted a full hour, the NBC announcer broke in, stating, “We are sorry indeed, ladies and gentlemen, but due to previous commitments, we are unable to remain for the closing moments of this excellent performance." A live recording of the broadcast, preserved on scratchy acetate discs, documents that moment for posterity. No one knows for certain why the broadcast was cut short, but some have speculated that angry calls to NBC’s Southern affiliate stations might have been the reason, because Dett was African-American. 77 years later, in 2014, the American conductor James Conlon led the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus in another live, broadcast performance of Dett’s oratorio, this time complete and uninterrupted from the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York City. That live performance was also recorded, this time digitally, and made available for posterity on a commercial release. Music Played in Today's Program R. Nathaniel Dett (1882 -1943) The Ordering of Moses Solosts; Cincinnati May Festival Chorus; Cincinnati Symphony; James Conlon, conductor. Bridge CD 9462

Synopsis Do you believe in Angels? It seems the late Finnish composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara did – and produced a number of orchestral pieces with evocative titles like Angels and Visitations or Angel of Light. One of these, a concerto for double-bass and orchestra titled, Angel of Dusk, had its premiere performance on today's date in 1981, in Helsinki. “Looking out the window of a plane,” writes Rautavaara, ”I saw a strikingly shaped cloud, gray but pierced with color, rising above the Atlantic horizon. Suddenly, the words Angel of Dusk came to mind.” When Rautavaara was asked to write a double-bass concerto he recalled the vision of the cloud and had his title. In an interview, Rautavaara spoke of a scientist who wrote that ‘the existence of music is an intellectual scandal’. Rautavaara explained, “With that he meant that there is a message in music, and yet there are no words for that message. It’s from another world. For a scientist that is a scandal. For me, it’s a wonderful thing.” “In the end, I agree with Carl Jung,” said Rautavaara. “The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him.” Music Played in Today's Program Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928 - 2016) Angel of Dusk Olli Kosonen, double bass; Finnish Radio Symphony; Leif Segerstam, conductor. Finlandia 009

Synopsis Benjamin Britten was the most famous English opera composer of the 20th century, but ironically his first opera, Paul Bunyan, had an American theme and premiered at Columbia University in New York City on today's date in 1941. Britten lived in America from 1939 to 1942. When his American publisher suggested he write something that could be performed by any high school, Britten’s good friend, the British poet W. H. Auden, also living in the U.S., fashioned a libretto around the tall tales of the mythical American folk hero, the giant logger Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. The New York Times review of the premiere of Paul Bunyan was a mixture of praise and pans. “Mr. Britten is a very clever young man,” wrote Olin Downes, but firmly suggested the young composer was capable of much better things. Britten's next opera, Peter Grimes, would receive its world premiere in London, in 1945, by which time Britten was back in England for good, but like Paul Bunyan had an American connection: it was originally commissioned for $1000 by the Koussevitsky Foundation of Boston, and so received its American premiere at the Berkshire Music Festival in 1946 under the baton of Leonard Bernstein. Music Played in Today's Program Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) Paul Bunyan Overture English Chamber Orchestra; Philip Brunelle, conductor. Virgin 45093 Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) Sea Interludes, fr Peter Grimes, Op 33a BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor. Teldec 73126

Synopsis On today's date in 1953, at New York's 92nd Street “Y,” the Walden String Quartet tackled the difficult First String Quartet of American composer Elliott Carter.   Carter's Quartet was as densely-packed with ideas as a page from James Joyce— – an author the composer cited as an influence. But, writing for the Herald Tribune, composer Virgil Thomson gave the work a glowing review: “The piece is complex of texture, delicious in sound, richly expressive, and in every way grand— – the audience loved it,” wrote Thomson. That same year Carter's Quartet won First Prize in the International String Quartet competition in Belgium -- – a contest Carter entered almost as an afterthought. “My First Quartet was written largely for my own satisfaction and grew out of an effort to understand myself,” he said. To escape from the distractions of New York, Carter retreated to the desert near Tucson to write it. No one had commissioned the Quartet, and Carter initially feared its complexity would baffle performers and audiences. His next quartet, equally challenging, won a Pulitzer Prize. Complexity would characterize Carter's music for the next 50 years—although the composer himself insisted that fantasy and invention, rather than difficulty for its own sake, had always been his goal. Music Played in Today's Program Elliott Carter (1908 - 2012) String Quartet No. 1 The Composers Quartet Nonesuch 71249

Synopsis Today marks the anniversary of the first performance of the best-known work of the Swiss-born American composer, Ernest Bloch, whose Hebrew rhapsody, —Schelomo, for cello and orchestra, premiered at Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1917. Schelomo is a meditation on the Book of Ecclesiastes, which describes King Solomon reflecting sadly on the vanity of human endeavor — Schelomo being the original Hebrew pronunciation of Solomon. Schelomo premiered just a year after Bloch came to the United States. In America, Bloch had found encouragement and remarkable acceptance of his music. His Schelomo was premiered at an all-Bloch concert at Carnegie Hall arranged by The Society of the Friends of Music with the Philadelphia orchestra's principal cellist Hans Kindler as soloist. Schelomo was originally written with the Russian cellist Serge Alexander Barjansky in mind, and was dedicated to him and his wife; but it was not until a concert in Rome in 1933, a fateful year for the Jews of Europe, that Bloch got to conduct the work with Barjansky as soloist. Despite his success in America, Bloch tried to resume his career in Europe in the 1930s, but, discouraged by the rise of anti-Semitism and threats of war, he returned to American for good in 1938. Music Played in Today's Program Ernest Bloch (1880 - 1959) Schelomo Mischa Maisky, cello; Israel Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor. DG 427 347

Synopsis The marimba is a percussion instrument of tuned bars, usually made of wood, arranged like the keys of a piano. These bars are struck with mallets to produce resonate, rounded—and, well, "woody"—musical tones. The marimba was developed in Mexico and Guatemala, inspired by instruments native to Africa reconstructed in the New World by unfortunate Africans brought over to Central America to work as slaves. By the mid-20th century, the marimba was showing up in jazz ensembles, and classical composers would, on occasion, even write a marimba concerto or two. More recently, massed marimbas make up a sonorous, albeit stationary, component of hyper-kinetic drum and bugle corps spectaculars. The contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon loves the sound of the marimba, and so in 2006 wrote a piece for three marimbas, entitled Splendid Wood. "'Splendid Wood' is a joyous celebration of the sound of wood, one of nature's most basic materials," says Higdon. "Wood is a part of all sorts of things in our world, but is used most thrillingly and gloriously in instruments. This work reflects the evolving patterns inside a piece of wood, always shifting, and yet every part is related and contributes to the magnificent of the whole." Splendid Wood was commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott, for Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, and had its New York premiere on today's date in 2007, by the Mannes Percussion Ensemble under the direction of James Preiss. Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) Splendid Wood New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble Naxos 8.559683

Synopsis For the American conductor and composer Bernard Herrmann, 1940 was a busy year. On the East Coast, he had been appointed chief conductor of the CBS Radio Symphony; on the West Coast, he was busy in Hollywood, scoring Citizen Kane for director Orson Welles. Herrmann was 30 at the time and recalled: “I was given twelve weeks to do my job. I worked on the film reel by reel, as it was being shot and cut. This way I had a sense of the picture being built and of my own music being a part of that building. Many sequences were actually tailored to match the music.” The finished product was released to the public on today’s date in 1941, and was an instant success, with The New York Times review noting “the stunning manner in which the music of Bernard Herrmann has been used.”Although nominated for “Best Picture” and “Best Musical Score,” the film didn’t win either Oscar in 1941. No matter—for many film makers, film critics, and film fans, Citizen Kane rates No. 1 among the greatest films ever made. Music Played in Today's Program Bernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) Citizen Kane film score (opening) National Philharmonic; Charles Gerhardt, conductor. RCA CD 707

Synopsis At New York’s Alice Tully Hall on today’s date in 2003 the Avalon Quartet gave the first complete performance of a new four-movement string quartet entitled Sun Threads, by the American composer Augusta Read Thomas. Each movement of the new work has its own evocative title and had been premiered previously as stand-alone pieces by a consortium of ensembles: the first movement, Eagle at Sunrise, by the Ying Quartet; the second, Invocations, by the Miami Quartet; the third, Fugitive Star, by the Avalon Quartet; and the fourth, Rise Chanting, by the Alexander Quartet.As the poetic titles indicate, Thomas is not afraid of emotion in music, but insists on internal logic as well, and says:“I believe my music must be passionate, involving risk and adventure, such that a given musical moment might seem like a surprise right when you hear it but, only a millisecond later, seems inevitable … One of my main artistic credos has been to examine small musical objects–a chord, a motive, a rhythm, a color–and explore them from every possible perspective. The different perspectives reveal new musical elements, which I then transform and which in turn become the musical development.” Music Played in Today's Program Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) Eagle at Sunrise, from Sun Threads Walden Chamber Players ART CD 1992007

Synopsis On today’s date in 1784, an Italian violinist named Regina Strinasacchi gave a concert in Vienna and had the good sense to commission a new work for the occasion from an up-and-coming young Austrian composer named Wolfgang Mozart. “We have the famous Strinasacchi from Mantua here right now,” wrote Wolfgang to his father. “She is a very good violinist, has excellent taste, and a lot of feeling in her playing—I’m composing a Sonata for her at this moment that we’ll be performing together on Thursday.”Wolfgang’s papa must have been pleased about the cash commission, but might have frowned to learn that Strinasacchi received her part barely in time for the performance, and that his son hadn’t even bothered to write out his own part in full.  Also, Regina and Wolfgang never got together to rehearse prior to the concert, which meant that she was probably sight-reading her part, and he improvising his.No matter—the new sonata was received warmly and afterward Wolfgang had a whole month to dot all the musical “i’s” and cross all the musicals “t’s” in his score before it was printed. And, for the record, this Violin Sonata in B-flat Major is arguably one of Mozart’s finest. Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Violin Sonata in Bb, K. 454

Synopsis On today’s date in 1865, the hottest ticket in Paris was for the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s long-awaited grand opera L’Africaine, or The African Maid, at the Paris Opera. And when I say “long-awaited,” I mean long-awaited! Meyerbeer had begun work on “L’Africaine” some 25 years earlier. It had become a standing joke in the French press to rib Meyerbeer about the “imminent” completion of his opera. There were many reasons for the delay. Meyerbeer was a slow-worker, a perfectionist; he was sidelined by ill-health; he was waiting for better singers, more sympathetic management at the Opera, etc. etc. Opera fans back then must have given up hope Meyerbeer would ever finish L’Africaine, but – surprise! – he did and the work was slotted for production at the Paris Opera. At that point, ironically, Meyerbeer died, and his widow entrusted another composer to supervise the rehearsals for its 1865 premiere. Meyerbeer’s operas were the 19th century equivalent of the sweeping costume epic movies of Cecil B. DeMille. In L’Africaine, the hero is the explorer Vasco da Gama, and one of the opera’s more spectacular stage effects involved a Portuguese ship running aground on an exotic reef and being taken over by a swarm of natives. Music Played in Today's Program Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 – 1864) O paradis, from L'Africaine Ben Heppner, tenor; London Symphony; Myung-Whun Chung, conductor. DG 471 372

Synopsis Today’s date in 1945 marks the birthday in Pittsburgh of the great American playwright August Wilson, who chronicled the experiences of the Great Northward Migration of African-Americans decade by decade across the one hundred years of the 20th century in a series of ten powerful and poetic plays collectively called “The Pittsburgh Cycle.” Plays in the series include Fences and The Piano Lesson, both of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and a Broadway theater is named after him.American composer Kathryn Bostic provided theatrical scores for several of Wilson’s plays, working closely with him. Because of her collaboration, Bostic also scored the PBS American Masters documentary August Wilson-The Ground on Which I Stand, which ultimately led her to create The August Wilson Symphony, which was premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony in 2018.One of the major quests in Wilson’s plays is what he called “finding one’s song,” and music – especially the blues – figures large in his work. Perhaps with that in mind, Bostic composed a song entitled “State of Grace” as her personal memorial to Wilson, a song she has recorded, accompanying herself at the piano. Music Played in Today's Program Kathryn Bostic (b. 1970) – State of Grace (Kathryn Bostic, vocal and piano; Pittsburgh Symphony strings) KBMusic digital download

Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, Mariss Jansons led the Pittsburg Symphony in the premiere performance of the Second Symphony written by a then 32-year-old American composer named Michael Hersch. Hardly a child prodigy, Michael Hersch was introduced to classical music at age 18 by his brother Jamie, who showed him a videotape of Georg Solti conducting Beethoven's Fifth. That experience shook him. "It scrambled everything.” Hersch recalled. “That's when I knew that I was to be a composer... My whole life started over at that moment." Hersch certainly made up for lost time, exhibiting an uncanny ability to master both the piano and the intricacies of contemporary compositional techniques in less than a decade. His first success as a composer came when his Elegy for Strings won a major prize and was conducted by Marin Alsop at Lincoln Center in New York in 1997. Since then, his works have been commissioned and performed by many other leading orchestras and performers. Hersch’s Symphony No. 2 has no stated program, but it was composed shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, and knowing that, it’s hard to disassociate the score’s violent opening and subsequent elegiac mood from that tragic moment in American history. Music Played in Today's Program Michael Hersch (b. 1971) Symphony No. 2 Bournemouth Symphony; Marin Alsop, conductor. Naxos 8.559281

Synopsis On today’s date in 1841 an all-Beethoven concert was given at the Salle Erard to raise funds for the proposed Beethoven monument in Bonn, the late composer’s birthplace. Franz Liszt was the piano soloist in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, conducted by Hector Berlioz. About a month earlier, Liszt had dazzled Paris with the premiere of his new piano fantasia on themes from the popular opera “Robert the Devil,” by Giacomo Meyerbeer. So, as Liszt walked on stage—with the entire orchestra in place, all ready for Beethoven’s Concerto—the audience clamored loudly for a repeat performance. They made such a racket that Berlioz and the orchestra had no choice but to sit idly by until Liszt first encored his Fantasia. In the audience was a 27-year old German named Richard Wagner, reviewing the concert for a Dresden newspaper. Wagner was outraged that the Beethoven was put on hold for Liszt’s flashy solo. We’re not sure if Wagner attended a concert the following day at the Salle Pleyel, but any modern-day time traveler would probably want to stick around to hear Frederic Chopin give one of HIS rare Parisian recitals, performing, among other works, his own F-Major Ballade. Music Played in Today's Program Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886) Reminiscences de Robert le Diable Leslie Howard, piano Hyperion 66861

Synopsis During the last 20 years of his life, the avant-garde German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen concentrated on completing an ambitious cycle of seven operas, collectively titled Licht or, in English Light. Each opera was named for a day of the week and inspired by familiar and obscure world mythologies associated with each day.  The opera titled Montag (or Monday), for example, is devoted to the Moon and the feminine architype of Eve as the mother of all creation.  Each opera begins with a “Greeting,” or overture, often an electronic piece heard in the theater lobby while the audience gathers, and ends with a “Farewell,” sometimes intended for performance outside the theater, to be heard as the audience disperses. Story lines in Stockhausen’s operas have more in common with symbolic Renaissance courtly masques and pageants than works by Verdi or Puccini, but might be considered a 21th century response to Wagner’s 19th-century cycle of four mythological “Ring” operas. Portions of Stockhausen’s operas were premiered piecemeal starting in 1977, and only on rare occasions staged in their entirety.  The last to be completed, Sontag (or Sunday) was performed complete for the first time in Cologne, Germany, on today’s date in 2011, more than three years after Stockhausen’s death. Music Played in Today's Program Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) "Lichter-Wasser" (Sonntags-Gruss), from "Sonntag aus Licht" Barbara van den Boom, sop; Hubert Mayer, t, Antonio Pérez Abellán, synthesizer; SW Radio Symphony Baden-Baden/Freiburg; Karlheinz Stockhausen, conductor. Stockhausen Verlag CD 58

Synopsis During his stay in America, the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak became convinced that distinctive American music could be based on two sources: the work songs and spirituals of African-Americans and the chants and dances of indigenous Native American tribes. By the early 20th century, a number of American composers had taken his suggestions to heart. One of them, Arthur Farwell, was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on today’s date in 1872. Farwell went to MIT intending to become an electrical engineer, and did, in fact, get his engineering degree in 1893, the same year Dvorak’s views began appearing in the press. Farwell decided that a musical career might be more interesting than engineering. Frustrated at his inability to find a publisher for his set of solo piano transcriptions entitled American Indian Melodies, he formed his own publishing house. Farwell also set Emily Dickinson poems to music, experimented with polytonality, and, in 1916, arranged for the first “light show” in New York’s Central Park, decades before the psychedelic 1960s. Farwell taught at Cornell, UC Berkley and Michigan State, but never felt at home in academia, preferring to organize community-based musical pageants with audience participation. He died at the age of 79 in New York in 1953. Music Played in Today's Program Arthur Farwell (1872 – 1952) Navajo War Dance and Song of Peace Dario Muller, piano Marco Polo 223715

Synopsis At London’s St. James’s Hall on today’s date in 1885, the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak conducted the London Philharmonic Society’s orchestra in the premiere of his Seventh Symphony, a work they had commissioned. The Society had also commissioned Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony decades earlier, a fact of which Dvorak was quite aware, and just before starting work Dvorak heard and was bowled over by the brand-new Third Symphony by his friend and mentor Johannes Brahms.  In other words… “No pressure!”Dvorak felt he must do his very best, and, judging by the warm reception at its London premiere, the new work was a success, with one reviewer calling it “one of the greatest works of its class produced in the present generation.”But not all reviews were glowing. Another wrote, “the entire work is painted grey on grey: it lacks sweetness of melody and lightness of style.” And Dvorak’s German publisher complained that big symphonies were not profitable and advised Dvorak write only shorter piano pieces that had a ready market.But subsequent performances helped establish the new symphony as the masterwork it is, and although not as often-played as his “New World” Symphony, today Dvorak’s Seventh ranks among his finest creations. Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) Scherzo (3rd mvt), from Symphony No. 7 in d, Op. 70 Berlin Philharmonic; Rafael Kubelik, conductor. DG 463158-2

Synopsis In 1863, the price of The New York Times was three cents, and many plunked down their pennies to read front-page news about “the rebellion”—what we now call the Civil War. But if you were a music aficionado back in 1863, the Times “Amusements” page noted that one of Verdi’s newest operas, Un Ballo in Maschera, had just closed at the Academy of Music, and the contemporary composer-pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk had given a concert of his latest works the day before.After all that “modern” music, maybe you were in the mood for some really OLD music. The enterprising duo of William Mason and Theodore Thomas was offering a Soiree of Chamber Music at Dodworth’s Hall on April 21, 1863, and their program included the first public performance in America of the Concerto in C Major for Two Keyboards and Strings by J.S. Bach. Now this was really old stuff— predating the birth of America in 1776 by a good 50 years! The Times did not review this Bach premiere, but the next documented American performance in Boston in 1877 was described in Dwight’s Journal as a “cheerful, lightsome, everyday sort of composition …  full of vigor and life, the best of tonics.” Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1650 - 1721) Concerto in C for Two Keyboards

Synopsis On today’s date in 1928, a French musician and inventor named Maurice Martenot gave the first public demonstration of a new electronic instrument he had created which produced eerie-sounding tones reminiscent of the human voice, but without the human limitations of voice range or lung power. Martenot was also a savvy promoter of his new instrument, which he took on a world tour, with his sister serving as its first virtuoso performer. The instrument came to be called the “Ondes Martenot”—which translates into English as “Martenot Waves.” A number of 20th century composers were quite enthusiastic. Arthur Honegger suggested the Ondes Martenot might replace the contra-bassoon in symphony orchestras, writing: “The Ondes Martenot has power and a speed of utterance which is not to be compared with those gloomy stove-pipes looming up in orchestras.” Well, contra-bassoonists needn’t worry: their stove-pipes still provide the low blows in most modern orchestras, but the Ondes Martenot does figure prominently in several major 20th century scores, including the monumental Turangalila Symphony of the French composer, Oliver Messiaen.And, following Martenot’s death in 1981, the French even formed an official society with the grand title of “L’Association pour la Diffusion et le Développement des Ondes Martenot.” Music Played in Today's Program Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992) Turangalila Symphony Tristan Murail, Ondes Martenot; Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony 53473

Synopsis Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto was first performed in Barcelona, Spain, on today’s date in 1936, at the opening concert of the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival. Berg had died the previous winter, and the premiere was supposed to be conducted by Berg’s close friend and fellow composer, Anton Webern, but Webern withdrew at the last minute, and so Hermann Scherchen conducted the first performance, with the violinist who had commissioned the work, Louis Krasner, as soloist. Krasner was born in the Ukraine but raised in America and served for a time as the concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony under Dimitri Mitropoulos. He later taught at Syracuse University and the New England Conservatory of Music. In the spring of 1976, Louis Krasner was cleaning out his attic, and discovered he still had private acetate discs he had made of the second performance of the Berg Violin Concerto, a May 1st, 1936 radio broadcast of the new work by the BBC Symphony, with Krasner once again the soloist. This time the conductor was Anton Webern. The 40-year old discs were transcribed to tape, and eventually were released on CD, allowing posterity a chance to listen in as music history was being made. Music Played in Today's Program Alban Berg (1885 – 1935) Violin Concerto Louis Krasner, violin; BBC Symphony; Anton Webern, conductor. Testament/Continuum 1004

Synopsis The month of April in the year 1800 was an especially busy one for Ludwig van Beethoven. On the second of April at his first big orchestral concert in Vienna, Beethoven premiered his First Symphony, a new Piano Concerto, and his chamber Septet. Composing, writing out the parts, and rehearsing all that music was no small task. On today’s date that same month, Beethoven appeared in Vienna once again, this time as piano accompanist for the popular Bohemian horn virtuoso, Johann Wenzel Stich, who went by the more marketable Italian “stage name” of Giovanni Punto. The pre-concert announcements for the Punto recital promised that Beethoven would contribute a new work for the occasion—but, apparently still recovering from his OWN big concert, Beethoven didn’t get around to writing the promised Horn Sonata for Punto until the day before the recital. Beethoven and Punto took the new Sonata with them for a concert in Budapest the following month. The press in Hungary had heard of Punto, but not Beethoven, whose name they didn’t even get right: “Who is this Bethover (sic)?” one press notice read, noting (quote): “The history of German music is not acquainted with such a name. Punto, of course, is VERY well known…” Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) Horn Sonata in F, Op. 17 Hermann Baumann, horn; Leonard Hokanson, piano Philips 416 816

Synopsis Early in April in the year 1845, a 15-year old American pianist named Louis Moreau Gottschalk performed at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. On the program was Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor, and Chopin happened to be in the audience and congratulated the young American on his performance. What exactly Chopin said depends on whom you asked. Gottschalk’s first biographer claims it was, “Very good, my child, let me shake your hand,” while Gottschalk’s sister insists it was, “I predict you will become the king of pianists!” In 1845, Parisian society was curious about anything American after experiencing other exotic exports from the New World, including P.T. Barnum’s circus and George Catlin’s paintings of Native American life. Anything American was definitely “hip.” Four years later, on today’s date in 1849, Gottschalk returned to the Salle Pleyel, this time performing some of his own compositions, including a work entitled Bamboula, after the name of a deep-voiced Afro-Caribbean drum. The Parisian audiences had never heard anything like it and gave him a standing ovation. Gottschalk was born in New Orleans and was exposed from childhood to Cuban and Haitian music and went on to write original works which anticipate both the rhythms and colors of American jazz. Music Played in Today's Program Frederic Chopin (1810 – 1849) Piano Concerto No. 1 Krystian Zimerman, piano; Polish Festival Orchestra DG 459 684 Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 1869) Bamboula Alan Feinberg, piano Argo 444 457

Synopsis For the 1958-59 season of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, the orchestra’s newly-appointed music director, was eager to program as much new American music as he dared. As luck would have it, early in 1958, the 35-year old American composer Ned Rorem had just returned from Europe with a new symphonic score. “I wrote most of my Third Symphony in France,” recalled Rorem. “It’s a big piece but not a commission—I was still writing for the love of it in those days… So I showed it to Lenny and he said ‘OK, I’ll do it, but I wish you would re-orchestrate the slow movement entirely for strings.’ I replied ‘Sure,’ but didn’t, because Bernstein was always saying things like that and then would forget all about it.” The premiere of Rorem’s Third Symphony—as written—occurred at Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1959, but for its composer, the thrill was tempered by some harsher realities. Rorem recalled, “I came late to the first rehearsal because in those days I was living off unemployment insurance … and I had to go down and stand in line to pick up my check. I guess they managed without me because Lenny conducted four wonderful performances.” Music Played in Today's Program Ned Rorem (b. 1923) Symphony No. 3 Utah Symphony; Maurice Abravanel, conductor. Vox Box 5092

Synopsis Over the centuries, a wide range of composers have created musical settings of the Latin mass, but one of the more unusual and distinctive settings received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1973 at a concert at Finch College in New York City devoted entirely to the music of the American composer Vivian Fine.At that time, Fine was teaching at Bennington College in Vermont, and her Missa Brevis, or Short Mass, was inspired by some of her colleagues there. Cellist George Finckel had organized cello quartet at the college, and for one semester as a sabbatical replacement, mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani, a noted new music advocate, taught at Bennington.  Vivian Fine crafted her Missa Brevis from the taped voice of DeGaetani, multi-tracked into four channels as a kind of one-woman chorus, accompanied by Finckel’s quartet of cellos, whose combined low registers sound rather organ-like.The blend of taped and live musicians created an effect both ancient and very modern. In addition to the familiar Kyrie and Sanctus movements of the traditional mass, Vivian Fine interpolated sacred texts of her own choosing, making this Missa Brevis her own, intensely personal private spiritual testament. Music Played in Today's Program Vivian Fine (1913-2000): Missa Brevis (JanDeGaetani, ms; Eric Barlett, David Finckel, Michael Finckel, Maurice Neuman, vcl.) CRI 692

Synopsis On today’s date in 1789, Mozart was in Dresden, performing his brand-new Piano Concerto at the Royal Saxon Court. Mozart was pretty good at documenting his own compositions, and we know from a catalog of his works that he finished this Concerto in late February the previous year. Unfortunately for posterity, Mozart was less dutiful in copying out all of the solo piano part, which he no doubt just kept in his head. The surviving manuscript score contains just a shorthand version of the solo piano part, with the music for the left-hand hardly there at all. Modern performers have to rely on their own wit and imagination to fill in the blanks, as it were… and, who knows: maybe Mozart played it differently each time himself, improvising around his own sketchy outline as the mood took him? In any case, Mozart must have been proud of this Concerto. He played it again at the festivities surrounding the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in Frankfurt in October of 1790. Ever since, this Concerto has been known as the Coronation Concerto. Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Mozart (1756 – 1791) Piano Concerto No. 26 (Coronation) Jenö Jandó, piano; Concentus Hungaricus; Mátyás Antál , conductor. Naxos 8.550209

Synopsis Over the centuries, many composers have set verses from the Bible’s Book of Psalms to music, often in response to times of turmoil and trouble. One unusual Psalm setting had its premiere performance on today’s date in 2013 at Bethel University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Entitled Seven Psalms, the new work was scored for a jazz quartet of bass, drums, saxophone and piano accompanying a solo vocalist and 15-member choir, and was created by Minneapolis composer Jeremy Walker, who confesses the music was motivated by his own personal struggle. Walker’s burgeoning career as a jazz saxophonist was sidetracked by an illness which stymied doctors for 12 years until finally diagnosed as Lyme Disease. Unable to continue as a saxophonist, Walker turned to the piano and composition, and found himself drawn to the Book of Psalms, where he heard echoes of African-American spirituals and the blues. "The book is just dripping with human hope and suffering all intertwined so it seemed like blues material to me," he said. "It occurred to me to blend the jazz vernacular harmonic universe with the psalms. And right away the call and response between solo voice, or between the band and the choir, were sounds I could hear," he said. Music Played in Today's Program Jeremey Walker (b. 1972) Psalm 130, from Seven Psalms Jason Harms, vocalist; 7 Psalms Chamber Choir Jeremy Walker Quartet CD Baby/iTunes/Amazon release

Synopsis On today’s date in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a String Quartet by a 32-year old composer named Charles Martin Loeffler. For the past 10 years, Loeffler had been the associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, and just the previous year they had premiered his first orchestral piece. Loeffler told people he was born in the Alsace region of France in 1861, which would account for his French manners and the French titles he gave some of his pieces. In fact, Loeffler was born in Berlin, but he never forgave the Prussians for the political persecution and imprisonment of his father, and left Berlin for Paris as soon as he could. In 1881, at the age of 20, Loeffler came to the United States, where, as he put it, he found Americans “quick to reward genuine musical merit and to reward it far more generously than Europe.” In 1887, he became an American citizen, and in short order established himself as one of our leading composers. After his death in 1935, Loeffler’s music fell into neglect for many decades, but his elegant and well-crafted music is attracting renewed interest—and recordings—today. Music Played in Today's Program Charles Martin Loeffler (1861 – 1935) String Quartet in a DaVinci Quartet Naxos 8.559077

Synopsis In the 18th century, just like today, tourists gravitate toward the Vatican in Rome to view the famous Sistine Chapel and its ceiling by Michelangelo. But during Holy Week in the 18th century, there was an added attraction: performances by the Sistine Chapel Choir of a hauntingly beautiful piece of music, the a cappella setting of the Latin Miserere by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. The Vatican jealously guarded Allegri’s work as its exclusive property. Rumor had it—under threat of excommunication—that the choir was forbidden to let the score be taken out of the Chapel, copied, or even seen by any outsider. On today’s date in 1770, Wolfgang Mozart, age 14, was visiting Rome with his father. The Mozarts attended an evening service at the Vatican and heard Allegri’s Miserere. That same night—after just one hearing—young Wolfgang transcribed the piece from memory, and the Mozarts returned three days later to check Wolfgang’s transcription against a repeat performance of Allegri’s music. The elder Mozart thought that letting people know about this feat might be “good PR” for young Wolfgang. In any case, the Mozarts were NOT excommunicated, and Roman society WAS suitably impressed when they learned of the teenager’s remarkable musical talent. Music Played in Today's Program Gregorio Allegri (1582 - 1652) Miserere The Tallis Scholars Gimell 454 990

Synopsis On today’s date in 1959, the Duke University Band under Paul Bryan gave the premiere performance of a new work they had commissioned: the Symphony No. 3 for concert band by the American composer, Vittorio Giannini. With the growth of concert bands in the 1950s, and success of high-profile performing ensembles like Frederick Fennell’s Eastman Wind Ensemble, composers like Giannini started getting commissions to write new works for these ensembles. In all, Giannini wrote five pieces for concert band, with his Symphony No. 3 the biggest and best known of the lot. Paul Bryan and Duke University were certainly pleased with the new work. Its resounding success encouraged other band directors to commission new concert works for wind band–and, in one fell swoop, the Duke Band achieved national recognition for its initiative. As for Giannini, in his later years he taught a younger generation of composers, first in New York City at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, then in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute, and finally at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he served as that institution’s first president. Giannini students included a number of successful composers, including David Amram, John Corigliano, Nicolas Flagello, Adolphus Hailstork, and Alfred Reed. Music Played in Today's Program Vittorio Giannini (1903 - 1966) Symphony No. 3 University of Houston Wind Ensemble; Tom Bennett, conductor. Naxos 8.570130

Synopsis On today’s date in 1887, Florence Beatrice Smith was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She would grow up to be the first African-American woman to win widespread recognition as a symphonic composer. All that happened under her married name: Florence Price. Price studied at the New England Conservatory, with the noted American composers Frederick Converse and George Whitefield Chadwick, but settled in Chicago. In 1933, the Chicago Symphony premiered her First Symphony. In 1940, her Third Symphony premiered in Detroit, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was in Detroit that week, was so impressed by a rehearsal of Price’s symphony that she altered her schedule to stay for that evening’s performance, and even wrote about it in her newspaper column, “My Day.” And speaking of Eleanor Roosevelt, on today’s date in 1939, which fell on Easter Sunday that year, the First Lady and then Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes arranged for the famous African-American contralto, Marion Anderson, to perform a free, open-air recital at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. 75,000 people attended. Marion Anderson admired Florence Price’s work, and sang some of Florence Price’s songs, including Songs to the Dark Virgin, a setting of a text by Langston Hughes. Music Played in Today's Program Florence Price (1887 – 1953) Symphony No. 3 The Women's Philharmonic; Apo Hsu, conductor. Koch 7518

Synopsis It’s usually NEW music that gets terrible reviews, but scanning old newspapers, you’ll find that occasionally OLD music gets panned with equal venom. On today’s date in 1865, a concert by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra at Irving Hall opened with an orchestral arrangement of a Bach Passacaglia, followed by Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola. The New York Times reviewer was not thrilled with either selection: “The Bach,” he wrote, “is a fair representation of the treadmill. A culprit may travel on it for a day without advancing a step. It simply goes ‘round and ‘round in the most obvious style, and is generally DULL – like a superannuated church warden… The symphony for violin and viola by Mozart is a work generally avoided in Europe. The wearisome scale passages on the little fiddle repeated ad nauseam on the bigger one are simply maddening. On the whole, one would prefer death to a repetition of this production.” Thus spake The Times in April of 1865. We should note in its defense that Americans had other matters on their minds that week. The day the review appeared the paper’s headline read: “Union Victory! Peace! Lee Surrenders His Whole Army!” Music Played in Today's Program J.S .Bach (arr. Respighi) Passacaglia in c BBC Philharmonic; Leonard Slatkin, conductor. Chandos 9835 Wolfgang Mozart (1756 – 1791) Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364/320d Midori, violin; Nobuko Imai, viola; NDR Symphony; Christoph Eschenbach, conductor Sony 89488

Synopsis From 1951 to the time of his death in 1976, the Texas-born conductor Victor Alesandro led the San Antonio Symphony. Alessandro was a fine conductor and had a very clever system for attracting talented players to San Antonio. He kept his eyes open for key players about to retire from all the top American orchestras and sent them tempting brochures describing San Antonio’s palm trees, old Spanish houses, and mild winters. Many accepted his invitations, settled in San Antonio, and served as mentors for the Symphony’s younger players.In 1966, for example, John Corigliano, Sr., facing mandatory retirement as the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, took up the same position with the San Antonio Symphony.And so it came about that on today’s date in 1968, John Corigliano, Sr., then age 67, served as the concertmaster for the world premiere performance of a new Piano Concerto written by his son, composer John Corigliano, Jr., then aged 30. The premiere performers, pianist Hilde Somer and the San Antonio Symphony under Alessandro, even recorded the new work for Mercury Records. Although well received at the time, Corigliano’s concerto was rather neglected for many years thereafter, but more recently has been receiving new performances and recordings. Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938) Piano Concerto James Tocco, p.; Louisville Orch; Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor. First Edition FECD-0002

Synopsis Carlos Salzedo, the most influential harpist of the 20th century, was born in Arcachon, France, on today’s date in 1885. Salzedo transformed the harp into a virtuoso instrument, developing new techniques showcased in his own compositions and that others like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Britten adopted in theirs. In 1921, Salzedo and Edgard Varese co-founded the International Composers Guild, promoting works by progressive composers like Bartok and Honegger. Salzedo’s own compositions for harp include both transcriptions as well as original works like Scintillation, probably his most famous piece, and Four Preludes to the Afternoon of a Telephone, based on the phone numbers of four of his students. He taught at the Curtis Institute, the Juilliard School, and offered summer courses in Camden, Maine. Hundreds of Salzedo pupils filled harp positions with major orchestras around the world. Salzedo himself entered the Paris Conservatory at age nine and won the premiere prize in harp and piano when he was just 16. He came to America in 1909 at the invitation of Arturo Toscanini, who wanted him as harpist at the Metropolitan Opera, and—curious to note—Salzedo died in the summer of 1961, at the age of 76, while adjudicating Metropolitan Opera regional auditions in Maine. Music Played in Today's Program Carlos Salzedo (1885 – 1961) Scintillation Carlos Sazledo, harp Mercury LP MG-80003

Synopsis The “waltz king” Johann Strauss Jr. was 45 years old before he tried his hand at writing an operetta, urged on by the management of Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, who wanted to replace the extremely popular French operettas of Jacques Offenbach with some by Vienna’s own famous purveyor of light music. Even so, for the libretto of Strauss’s third operetta, the cagey theater managers hedged their bets by acquiring the rights to a spicy French farce which just happened to be written by the librettists of Offenbach’s biggest hits. The original French farce was considered a little too racy as it stood, so some substantial changes were made before Strauss set to work. The end result, re-titled Die Fledermaus (or The Bat) opened in Vienna on today’s date in 1874. Now, there is an oft-repeated myth that Fledermaus was initially a flop and that it closed after only sixteen performances. But blame that on the famous American soprano, Adelina Patti, who had booked the Theater an der Wien for a run of Italian opera performances right after Fledermaus was opened. When Patti left Vienna, Fledermaus returned for more performances, and has rarely been absent from Viennese stages from that day to this. Music Played in Today's Program Johann Strauss II (1825 – 1899) Die Fledermaus Overture Vienna Symphony; Robert Stolz, cond. BMG 72916

Synopsis Today we offer a special “Gong Show” edition of the Composer’s Datebook. On today’s date in 1791, at the height of the French Revolution, the Panthéon in Paris was converted into a mausoleum for national heroes, and the first to be interred there, with great pomp and ceremony, was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, a tremendously popular personage of the day. For dramatic effect during the Count’s funeral procession through the streets of Paris, French composer François Joseph Gossec added an unusual percussion instrument to his funereal wind band: an exotic instrument someone had brought to Paris from the Far East, and known as—you guessed it—the gong. It was reported that whenever the gong was struck during Mirabeau’s funeral procession, cries of terror and fright were heard from the crowd that lined the Parisian streets as the cortège passed. Now terror and fright are bread and butter in the world of grand opera, and so the gong soon was adopted by 19th century composers like Spontini, Meyerbeer, and Wagner, and, in the 20th century, composers like Puccini, Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and George Crumb have also used gongs to—pardon the pun—striking effect! Music Played in Today's Program François-Joseph Gossec (1734 – 1829) Marche lugubre The Wallace Collection; John Wallace, cond. Nimbus 5175

Synopsis In the 19th century, much like today, New Yorkers looking for musical entertainment had a lot to choose from. For example, on today’s date in 1871, the options included these three offerings: First: at Lina Edwin’s Theater, a musical burlesque entitled “Pluto,” which The New York Times billed as an “Anglicized and condensed” version of Jacques Offenbach’s racy operetta, “Orpheus in the Underworld,” with interpolated comic sketches and monologues by the show’s star, the Jerry Seinfeld of the day, the ever-popular comedian Mr. Lingard . Second: for the more serious sort, the American staged premiere of Richard Wagner’s opera, “Lohengrin,” at the Stadt Theater. The Times noted that Wagner’s opera was (quote) “brought out in Germany some 20 years earlier but was unknown here in its entirety until now.” A large audience showed up for the “entirety” of “Lohengrin,” which lasted over four hours and ended around midnight. Finally: at Broadway’s Minstrel Hall, directly from Japan, Satsuma’s Circus offered the amazing Mr. Yadunochi, who first smoked a pipe, then ate it, then while playing on a flute expelled the pipe’s smoke through his instrument; for his finale, Mr. Yadunochi reproduced, as the Times put it “the original pipe whole and unsullied.” Now, THAT’S entertainment! Music Played in Today's Program Offenbach (arr. Rosenthal) Cancan, from Gaite Parisienne Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond. London 430 718 Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883) Act 3 Prelude, fr Lohengrin Berlin Philharmonic; Daniel Barenboim , cond. Teldec 81791 Kozaburo Hirai Sonata Kazue Frances Asawa, flute; Kazue Kudo, koto Crystal 316

Synopsis On today’s date in 1961, the American composer Wallingford Riegger died in New York City, a month shy of what would have been his 76th birthday. Riegger was born in Albany, Georgia, in 1885. Like many American musicians back then, he studied in Germany. In the years before America entered World War I, Riegger worked in both the US and Europe: for three years he was the principal cellist with the St. Paul Symphony in Minnesota; he then served as an assistant voice coach and conductor at German opera houses in Würzburg and Königsberg. Returning home in 1918, Riegger spent ten years teaching, eventually settling in New York in 1928. There he got to know Henry Cowell, Charles Ives, and other “ultra-modern” composers. Riegger’s early music had been in the traditional mode, but he quickly established himself as one of the leading figures in the more experimental American music scene. In the ‘30s, Riegger, like Copland, worked with the pioneers of modern American dance, including Martha Graham, and composed ballet scores. From 1938 on, however, he concentrated on non-theatrical scores, including symphonies and chamber works. Riegger’s mature works blend atonality with traditional musical forms and dance rhythms, even on occasion some jazzy American syncopation. Music Played in Today's Program Wallingford Riegger (1885 – 1961) Wind Quintet New York Woodwind Quintet Bridge 9068

Synopsis On this date in 1747, London concert-goers gathered in response to a newspaper announcement, which read, “At the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden will be perform'd a new oratorio, call'd ‘Judas Maccabaeus’… no person to be admitted without tickets… at half a guinea each.”The composer of this piece was George Frideric Handel. Over time, one choral tune in “Judas Maccabaeus,” entitled “See, the Conqu’ring Hero Comes,” became something generations of audience members would whistle or hum on their way home. Oddly enough, audiences wouldn’t have heard that tune at the 1747 premiere, since Handel only added it to his score years later, after first using it in another oratorio altogether. Fifty years after the oratorio’s premiere, Beethoven composed twelve variations on “See, the Conqu’ring Hero Comes” for piano and cello, and 90 years after Beethoven, the melody was used for an Easter hymn some of us know as "Thine Be the Glory.” The tune also appears in a much rowdier context during the annual Last Night of the Proms concert in London, since it crops up in Sir Henry Wood's “Fantasia on British Sea Songs,” an almost obligatory party piece played on that occasion Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven Variations on Handel's "See, the conquering hero comes" Sir Henry Wood Fantasia on British Sea Songs

Synopsis On today’s date in 1837, the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso-Trivulzio, scored the social coup of the season at her Parisian salon.  Ostensibly, it was the culmination of a three-day fundraiser in aid of Italian political refugees, but it really was the artistic equivalent of a prize fight – the fists in question pummeling the piano keyboard, a digital confrontation of the two leading virtuoso pianists of the day, Sigismund Thalberg and Franz Liszt. Thalberg was up first, playing his own Fantasy on Themes from Rossini’s opera, Moses.  Liszt followed with one of his fantasias based on operatic themes.  The music critic for the prestigious Journal des Debats was present, and he wrote, “Never was Liszt more controlled, more thoughtful, more energetic, more passionate. Never has Thalberg played with greater verve and tenderness.  Each used every one of his resources.  It was an admirable joust. The most profound silence fell over the noble crowd assembled, and, finally, Liszt and Thalberg were both proclaimed victors by this glittering and intelligent assembly. Thus: two victors and no vanquished.” When asked for her verdict who had “won” the contest, the hostess, Princess Cristina replied with consummate diplomacy: “Thalberg,” she said, “is the first pianist in the  world – Liszt is unique.” Music Played in Today's Program Sigismund Thalberg (1812 - 1871) Fantasy on Rossini's "The siege of Corinth" Francesco Nicolosi, piano Marco Polo 8.223367 Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) Fantasia on Italian Operatic Melodies Andreas Pistorius, piano Capriccio 10076

Synopsis In 2002, film director Godfrey Reggio released his latest movie.  Entitled Naqoyqatsi – the Hopi word for Life as War – this was Reggio’s third and final installment in a trilogy of unusual, non-narrative films, all with Hopi titles, each comprised of visually striking, collage-like visuals set against hypnotic film scores by American composer Philip Glass. Naqoyqatsi may have been a non-narrative film, Reggio described his 2002 film as a symphony in three movements, and even provided descriptive titles: Movement 1 - Language and place gives way to numerical code and virtual reality; Movement 2 - Life becomes a game; Movement 3 - A world that language can no longer describe.Fast forward ten years to 2012, when Glass had been commissioned to turn hisNaqoyqatsi film score into a concert work for cello and orchestra.  In the film score, solos played by the famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma featured prominently, so this “repurposing” of film score seemed a logical step. And so, on today’s date in 2012, Philip Glass’s Cello Concerto No. 2, subtitled Naqoyqatsi, received its premiere performance with the Cincinnati Symphony conducted by Dennis Russell Davies and Matt Haimowitz as the cello soloist. Music Played in Today's Program Philip Glass (b. 1938) Cello Concerto No. 2 (Naqoyqatsi) Matt Haimovitz, cello; Cincinnati Symphony; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor. Orange Mountain Music CD 0087

Synopsis Ok, if you say, “band music,” most people think “marching bands – sporting events.”  So if someone tells you there is a band work entitled Ra – you might automatically respond: “sis-boom-ba.”  But that’s not at all what composer David Dzubay had in mind.  He was thinking of RA, the ancient Egyptian sun god. A major figure in Egyptian mythology, the sun god Ra was born anew each day and journeyed across the sky doing battle with his chief enemy, a serpent named Apep.David Dzubay’s band composition named Ra is, as he describes it, “a rather aggressive depiction of an imagined ritual of sun worship, perhaps celebrating the daily battles of Ra and Apep.” Originally written for orchestra, Dzubay arranged his piece for concert band, and in this incarnation, it won an annual competition for new bands works.  Ra was first performed by the Indiana University Symphonic Band, led by Ray Cramer at the College Band Directors’ National Convention in Minneapolis on today’s date in 2003.  Both the venue and the performers selected for that premiere must have seemed particularly gratifying to Dzubay, since he was born in Minneapolis and received his Doctorate in Music at Indiana University. Music Played in Today's Program David Dzubay (b. 1964) Ra University of North Texas Wind Symphony, Eugene Corporon, conductor. Klavier 11137

Synopsis In Beethoven’s day, there were no independent symphonic orchestras in Vienna, so when Ludwig van wanted to put on an orchestral concert, the way he did it was to hire a theater orchestra for a night or two.  Now, Viennese theaters were usually pretty busy and well booked up, but in Catholic Austria, they would shut down for a few weeks each year during Lent, which explains why a number of Beethoven’s symphonies premiered in April when the orchestras were available for hire. It wasn’t until today’s date in 1842 that Vienna’s most famous independent orchestra played its first concert, and even then, as it still does today, the Vienna Philharmonic also doubles as the orchestra of the Vienna Opera. The German composer and conductor, Otto Nicolai, led that first concert of the Vienna Philharmonic.  The program included Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and, not surprisingly, Beethoven remains core repertory for the Vienna Philharmonic, along with those other two Viennese “B’s” – Brahms and Bruckner.  But in the 20th century, the Austrian orchestra presented important European premieres of works by Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein, two notable American “B’s.”  And more recently, the Vienna Philharmonic premiered Diversions” by the German-born, American composer and conductor, Andre Previn. Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Symphony No. 7 Vienna Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor. DG 419 434 André Previn (b. 1930) Diversions Vienna Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor. DG 471 028

Synopsis One of the preeminent figures in 20th century Japanese concert music was a composer, named Toshiro Mayuzumi, born in Yokohama in 1929. The range of his music reflects a curious turn of mind.  He wrote pieces in a neo-Romantic mode, experimented with electronic music and jazz, composed aggressively avant-garde works, and scored music for theater, and both Japanese and American films.  In 1958, he composed a Nirvana Symphony, inspired by the haunting sound of Japanese temple bells. “For the past few years,” wrote Mayuzumi, “I feel as if I have been possessed by bells.  I wonder why it is that, no matter how splendid a piece of music may be, it sounds totally faded and worthless when set beside the lingering resonance of a temple bell.” The Nirvana Symphony of 1958 was followed up with another orchestral work inspired by Buddhist themes, a Mandala Symphony, which premiered in Tokyo on today’s date in 1960. Mayuzumi’s 1976 opera, Kinkakuji, or The Golden Pavilion, is based on a novel by Yukio Mishima, which, thanks to a New York City Opera production in 1995, became the first Japanese grand opera to be staged in the U.S.  Toshiro Mayuzumi died in 1997, at the age of 68. Music Played in Today's Program Toshiro Mayazumi ( 1929 - 1997) Nirvana Symphony Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony; Hiroyuki Iwaki, conductor. Denon 78839

Synopsis She’s been called a “British Gershwin” but perhaps a “British Poulenc” might more accurately describe the genial and graceful music of Madeleine Dring, a woman whose diverse and energetic creative life was cut short, when, at the age of 53, she died suddenly on today’s date in 1977. Madeleine Dring was born into a talented musical family in 1923, and she showed early promise.  On her tenth birthday she won a scholarship to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in London, and eventually studied composition with Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gordon Jacob.  Dring was soon providing incidental music and songs for amateur and professional theatrics.  She was also a gifted singer and actress, and performed occasionally on stage and television. Dring married the British oboist, Roger Lord, and a number of her chamber works feature that instrument. Six volumes of her songs were published after her death, largely through the persistence of her husband, and many of her other works have been published, performed, and recorded with increasing frequency, especially in the United States. Sadly, Dring died just when women composers began to receive increasing attention from music historians, performers, and audiences worldwide. A British survey of her life and music was published in 2000. Music Played in Today's Program Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977) Three Piece Suite Cynthia Green Libby, oboe; Peter Collins, piano Hester Park 7707

Synopsis It’s all a matter of timing.  In 1942, the Soviet Union was America’s wartime ally, and the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich made the cover of TIME magazine.  Seven years later, the war was over, but the Cold War was on – with a vengeance. On March 25, 1949, Shostakovich arrived in New York for his first visit to America as part of the Soviet delegation to a “Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace.” By then the anti-Communist tide of American public opinion resulted in pickets and protests.  Those who spoke at the congress, including the American composer Aaron Copland, felt compelled to preface their comments with unambiguously anti-Communist manifestos. Shostakovich nervously read the equally unambiguous speech prepared for him by his Soviet minders, attacking American imperialism in general and the expatriate Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky, in particular.  It was embarrassing for everyone concerned. But while he was in New York, Shostakovich got to play a piano reduction of the Scherzo from his Fifth Symphony for a huge crowd at Madison Square Garden.  That, at least, resulted in a big ovation – and maybe that was how he privately approached the whole, sad affair – as a kind of grim scherzo, or joke. Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) Symphony No. 5 USSR Cultural Ministry Symphony; Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor. MCA 32128

Synopsis Dealing with the death of loved ones is never easy, but sometimes music can help – especially if music plays a role in the lives of both the departed and survivors. And some survivors find both meaning and consolation in commissioning a work of new music to honor the memory of those they have lost.On today’s date in 2007, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia gave the premiere of such a memorial work, entitled Love Abide. The work was commissioned by Paul Rowley, who for years had driven his wife Miriam to weekly Choral Society of Philadelphia rehearsals, where she sang alto, always, said her husband, “beaming with excitement.”  After her sudden death in 2003, Rowley asked the society's artistic director to choose a composer to write a tribute to his wife. Rowley had a text in mind for the lyrics and wanted an alto solo and a female composer. The commission went to the British composer Roxanna Panufnik and the selected text was the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, which includes the lines: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all thinks, endures all things …  faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Music Played in Today's Program Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968) – Love Abide (London Oratory School Choir; London Mozart Players; Lee Ward, cond.) Signum 564

Synopsis Any composer who sets out to write a violin concerto knows that his or her new work will be measured against the famous concertos of the past. But in the fall of 1936, when the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok decided to write a violin concerto, he asked his publisher to send him some recent work of his contemporaries. After seeing what Karol Szymanowski, Kurt Weill, and Alban Berg had accomplished in the form, Bartok set to work, with much input from his violinist friend, Zoltan Szekely, for whom the new concerto was being written. Bartok was in America when Szekely premiered his Concerto with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Willem Mengelberg. It was only in America, some years later, in 1943, that Bartok first heard his Concerto at a New York Philharmonic concert. He wrote, "I was most happy that there is nothing WRONG with the scoring. Nothing needs to be changed, even though orchestral accompaniment of the violin is a very delicate business." If Bartok was happy with the scoring, he wasn't very pleased with one New York music critic, who wrote that he didn't think the new work would ever displace the great violin concertos of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Brahms. "How is it possible to write such an idiotic thing," commented Bartok. "What fool fit for a madhouse would want to displace these works with his own?" Music Played in Today's Program Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945) Violin Concerto No. 1 Kyung-Wha Chung, violin; Chicago Symphony; Sir Georg Solti, conductor. London 411 804

Synopsis The Boston Symphony premiered a new symphony on today's date in 1984—a commission for its Centenary Celebrations. It was the Symphony No. 1 by the then 45 year-old American composer, John Harbison. Like many composers who teach, Harbison does most of his composing in the summer months, usually spent on a farm in Token Creek, Wisconsin. The academic year is usually spent in Boston, teaching at MIT. In the case of his first symphony, Harbison worked on the piece both in Wisconsin (where he was also finishing up an Italian language song-cycle), and during a residency year at the American Academy in Rome. "Just as it felt very right to be working on Italian songs in the Midwest," commented Harbison, "it was natural to work on this American-accented symphony in Italy. I have always found the view from the distance to be clearest." Harbison's father, a Princeton history professor and amateur composer, also was a big influence on him. The younger Harbison, like his father, has an abiding passion for and fluency in American jazz as well as the modern classical idiom. Harbison dramatically fused both styles in one of his most ambitious ventures to date, the opera, The Great Gatsby, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1999. Music Played in Today's Program John Harbison (b. 1938) Symphony No. 1 Boston Symphony; Seiji Ozawa, conductor. New World 80331

Synopsis In 1838, Robert Schumann visited the grave of Franz Schubert in Vienna and paid a courtesy call on Schubert's brother, Ferdinand, who was still alive. Schumann had heard about Ferdinand's closet full of his brother's manuscripts, and among the dusty music scores that Schumann was shown was one for a big symphony in C Major, unperformed, he was told, because people thought it was too difficult, too bombastic, and far too long. Looking at the music, Schumann was stunned, and asked if he could arrange to have the symphony played. "Sure," said Ferdinand, and Schumann sent the score off to his friend and fellow composer, Felix Mendelssohn, who was the director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Mendelssohn liked what he saw, and gave the first public performance of Schubert's big symphony on today's date in 1839. After attending the rehearsal, Schumann wrote to his girlfriend, Clara Wieck, "Today I have been in seventh heaven. If only you had been there! For I cannot describe it to you; all the instruments were like human voices, and immensely full of life and wit… and the length, the divine length, like a four-volume novel… I was utterly happy, with nothing left to wish for except that you were my wife and I could write such symphonies myself!" Well, sometimes wishes do come true, and good deeds are rewarded. Schumann did marry Clara, did write symphonies of his own, and did help launch Schubert's work on its path towards worldwide recognition as a great symphonic masterpiece. Music Played in Today's Program Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) Symphony No. 9 in C Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, conductor. Philips 426 269

Synopsis Not all composers were nice people, and even some of the more famous ones turn out to have been rather nasty, greedy, vindictive and altogether unpleasant specimens of humanity, despite the enduring beauty of their music. But we like to showcase the better side of the species. On today's date in 1739, for example, George Frederick Handel premiered this music, his Organ Concerto in A Major, as a special, added attraction at a benefit concert in London. It was organized "for the benefit and increase of a fund established for the support of decay'd musicians and their families." The previous year Handel had been shocked to learn that the widow and children of one of his favorite performers, the oboist John Christian Kitch, were found wandering impoverished on the streets of London. Handel called a meeting of some of his colleagues at the Crown and Anchor Tavern and started a charitable fund, even enlisting the support of rival composers and musicians who heretofore had not been on very good terms with Herr Handel. Within a year, a series of benefit concerts were organized to raise money for a continuing fund to assist musicians fallen on hard times, and even Handel's enemies had to admit the gruff and frequently abrasive German must have had a good heart after all. Music Played in Today's Program George Frederic Handel (1685 - 1757) Organ Concerto in A Peter Hurford, organ; Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra; Joshua Rifkin, conductor. London 430 569

Synopsis It's time once again for our "Composer Quiz": Name a famous American composer who was also a successful businessman. If you answered insurance executive "Charles Ives," Jay will show you what's under the box. But if your answer was "John Alden Carpenter," vice president of George B. Carpenter and Co., supplies and equipment dealer, we'll just pull back the curtain and show you all your prizes! John Alden Carpenter was born in 1876 near Chicago, and, after studies out East, entered his father's business back home, eventually becoming its Vice President. Fortunately for the budding composer, the firm was largely run by his brothers, and Carpenter had enough free time to devote to his music. On today's date in 1915, the Chicago Symphony premiered Carpenter's first big orchestral work, a suite entitled Adventures in a Perambulator. (You get extra points if you knew a perambulator is a baby buggy.) Anyway… Carpenter's pram piece was a big success, and he wrote a string of other popular works, including a ballet based on the "Krazy Kat" comic strip of his day, and one entitled Skyscrapers, a jazzy and topical tribute to the transformation of urban America in the 1920s. Unlike the unconventional Charles Ives, who toiled away in obscurity, the more conventional Carpenter was very famous in his day. Ironically, while Ives' fame only increased after his death in 1954, when Carpenter died in 1951, his music rapidly fell from fashion. Music Played in Today's Program John Alden Carpenter (1876 -1951) Adventrues in a Perambulator National Symphony of Ukraine; John McLaughlin Williams, conductor. Naxos 8.559065

Synopsis The Russian émigré composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff was himself the soloist on today's date in 1927 in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Rachmaninoff had premiered his Third Concerto in New York in 1909, and he'd been thinking about writing another one for over a decade. In the meantime, his life had been disrupted by both the Russian Revolution and the exhausting business of earning a living as a touring virtuoso pianist. In 1926, Rachmaninoff finally felt he could afford to take some time off and put a Fourth Piano Concerto down on paper. In its original form, it turned out to be a much longer work than even Rachmaninoff thought practical. He joked to a friend that its movements would have to be "performed on successive nights, like Wagner's Ring operas." Rachmaninoff made a number of cuts before the Philadelphia premiere, but even so, the new work was not well received, and so Rachmaninoff kept cutting. Audiences and critics still remained cool, and Rachmaninoff eventually shelved the work for a time—quite a time. In 1941 he prepared a "final cut" version, which ended up considerably shorter than his other three Piano Concertos, and recorded it with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) Piano Concerto No. 4 Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Cleveland Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor. London 458 930

Synopsis On today's date in 1972, a most unusual chamber work by the American composer George Crumb had its premiere at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Ideally, and "impractically" according to Crumb, it should have been heard, not in a concert hall in March… but in the open air… heard at a distance across a body of water, on a moonlit evening in August. The work was entitled Vox Balaenae, which is Latin for The Voice of the Whale, and it's scored for three masked musicians, performing on electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano. Crumb writes, "The work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Each of the three performers is required to wear a black half-mask or visor-mask. The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful impersonal forces of nature. I have also suggested that the work be performed under deep-blue stage lighting." In the opening of his piece, marked "Vocalise... from the beginning of time," Crumb quotes, with tongue firmly planted in masked cheek, the famous sunrise theme from Richard Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra," used to great effect in the opening of the Kubrick film "2001." Music Played in Today's Program George Crumb (b. 1929) Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) Zizi Mueller, flute; Fred Sherry, cello; James Gemmell, piano New World 357

Synopsis A new opera by Jules Massenet had its premiere at the Paris Opera on today's date in 1894. It was titled Thais and was based on a rather spicy novel of the same name by the popular French author of the day, Anatole France. The novel and the opera are based on an old seventh-century manuscript, which mentions a fabulously beautiful Egyptian courtesan named Thais who converted to Christianity and spent the rest of her life meditating in seclusion on matters spiritual. In Massenet's opera, the conversion from strip-tease artiste to nun is depicted by an instrumental interlude, the famous Meditation from Thais, which has become a favorite showpiece for solo violinists. To add a dash of the piquant to the tale, in both the novel by Anatole France and in the opera by Massenet, the young monk who diligently convinces Thais to change her wicked ways suddenly falls madly in love with her himself, and just as diligently tries to persuade her to add just one more name—his—to her list of satisfied customers. As they used to say in ancient Egypt: "Ooh-la-la!" Music Played in Today's Program Jules Massenet (1842 - 1912) Meditation, fr Thaïs Nigel Kennedy, violin; English Chamber Orchestra EMI 57330

Synopsis The thick historical novels of the 19th century French writer Alexandre Dumas, Sr. are packed with some fact and a lot of fiction. Chapter 22 of "The Three Musketeers," for example, set during the 17th century reign of King Louis XIII, begins as follows: "Nothing was talked of in Paris but the ball which the aldermen were to give to the king and queen in which their Majesties were to dance the famous 'La Merlaison' — the favorite ballet of the king. Eight days had been spent preparing for the important evening. The city carpenters erected risers for the guests; the hall would be lit by two hundred huge candles of white wax, a luxury unheard of; and twenty violins were ordered, the price for them double the usual rate, since they would be playing all night." In this case, Dumas was referencing a real event. On today's date in 1635, at Chantilly castle, a gala ballet premiered. It depicted in stylized dance the Louis's favorite activity: hunting the blackbird ("la merlaison" in French). The choreography, the costumes, and music were all created by the King himself—who also danced several of the lead roles. It got a rave review in the press of the day. If there were any critics, we suspect Cardinal Richelieu, the dreaded power behind the throne in Dumas's novel—and in real life—had them hauled off and "dealt with." Ah yes, it's good to be King. Music Played in Today's Program Louis XIII Roi de France (1601 - 1643) Ballet de la Merlaison Ancient Instrument Ensemble of Paris; Jacques Chailley, conductor. Nonesuch LP H-71130 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 Louis XIII

Synopsis On today’s date in 1942, on a radio broadcast by the NBC Symphony, the 75-year-old Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini led a performance of El salón Mexico by the then 41-year-old American composer Aaron Copland.  Copland, who attended the performance, was amazed to see that Toscanini knew his score by heart, apparently unaware that the extremely nearsighted Toscanini always memorized the scores he conducted.After the performance, Copland was invited backstage to the Green Room to meet Toscanini. “He addressed me as “maestro,” recalled Copland. “That was a shock. It was rather fun to be addressed as ‘maestro’ by the ‘maestro.’” “But Toscanini seemed disturbed,” said Copland.  “I wondered what was bothering him and apparently the rhythmic complications of my piece had caused him considerable headache, trying to remember all these changes of rhythms in the piece by heart, and made him a little unsure of his memory.”Years later, among Toscanini’s papers, a copy of Copland’s score was found, written out in Toscanini’s own hand, from first note to last, apparently made as an aide to – or test of – his memory. Copland asked Toscanini’s son Walter, for a photocopy, and it remained one of Copland’s prized possessions. Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900 –1990) — El salòn Mèxico (NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor.)

Synopsis It might seem farfetched that Winona Ryder, Emma Watson, and Charles Ives might have anything in common, but there IS a connection of sorts: Ryder appeared in a 1994 film based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic 19th century novel, “Little Women,” Emma Watson appears in the 2019 remake, and, in 1913, American composer Charles Ives composed the second movement of his “Concord” sonata for piano, a movement titled “The Alcotts,” which evokes Louisa May, her novel and her real-life family and friends, who included the New England “Transcendentalists,” Emerson and Thoreau. Set during the American Civil War, Alcott’s “Little Women” chronicles the coming of age of four young women in Concord, Massachusetts.  The story of has charmed readers and film-goers around the world.  Ives’s music, like Alcott’s novel, is nostalgic, affectionate, and quietly powerful. The contemporary American composer, Mark Adamo, crafted an opera based on Alcott’s “Little Women” which premiered on today’s date in 1998 at the Opera Studio of Houston Grand Opera.  After its premiere, that company’s general director, David Gockley, pronounced Adamo’s opera “destined to become an American classic,” and since its successful Houston Opera revival in 2000, Adamo’s “Little Women” has been staged again and again, to equal acclaim from audiences and critics. Music Played in Today's Program Charles Ives (1874 - 1954) The Alcotts, fr Concord Sonata Anthony de Mare, piano CRI 837 Mark Adamo (b. 1962) Little Women Houston Grand Opera; Patrick Summers, conductor. Ondine 988