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Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
The podcast Composers Datebook is created by American Public Media. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
American composer Elliott Carter has a reputation for writing some of the thorniest, most abstract and most technically difficult orchestral scores of the 20th century.
But for a few moments at least, during the opening of Carter’s Symphony of Three Orchestras, which had its premiere performance on today’s date in 1977 at a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Pierre Boulez, audiences must have been surprised by an impressionistic, almost Romantic tone. In notes for the new piece, Carter admitted the opening of the new work was inspired by the poetry of Hart Crane, specifically Crane’s description of the New York harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge. Both those New York landmarks were a short walk away from Carter’s lower Manhattan apartment.
Carter’s 15-minute Symphony of Three Orchestras quickly shifts into his more recognizably dense style, however, and, as the title indicates, employs three orchestras on one stage, playing with and against each other at various points.
As the New York Times reviewer wrote: “It will take many hearings for the relationships of the score to assert themselves, though one can be confident that Mr. Carter, one of the most accomplished constructionists of the age, has assembled everything with pin-point logic.”
Elliot Carter (1908-2012): Symphony for Three Orchestras; New York Philharmonic; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Sony 68334
Today’s date in 1938 marks the birthday of American composer John Corigliano, and also, in 2005, of the premiere of his Symphony No. 3, scored for large wind ensemble. The premiere was given in Austin by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble led by Jerry F. Junkin.
Corigliano titled his new symphony Circus Maximus, explaining: “The Circus Maximus of ancient Rome was … [the] largest arena in the world, it entertained over 300,000 spectators daily for nearly a thousand years. Chariot races, hunts and battles satisfied the Roman public’s need for grander and wilder amusements as the Empire declined. Many of us [today] have become as bemused by the violence and humiliation that flood the 500-plus channels of our television screens as those mobs of imperial Rome who considered the devouring of human beings by starving lions just another Sunday show.”
In performance, Corigliano asks that a huge array of brass, wind and percussion surround the audience on all sides. As brass instruments roar and cheer all around them, the audience is meant to feel more like the watched than the watchers, and Corigliano ends the work with a bang — literally — as a shotgun blast provides the symphony’s final exclamation point!
John Corigliano (b. 1938): Circus Maximus; University of Texas Wind Ensemble; Jerry Junkin, conductor; Naxos 8.559601
Between 1908 and 1950, Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky composed 27 symphonies. His Symphony No. 19 for wind band premiered on today’s date in 1939 at the Cominterm Radio Station in Moscow and was dedicated to the Red Army.
The Red Army’s bandmaster had asked Miaskovsky to write something for his ensemble, and at first the composer was reluctant. “The difficulties of this unusual task oppressed and discouraged me,” he wrote, “but I was anxious to keep my promise and soon mustered a fair spurt of energy, with the result that instead of a simple piece in one movement, I sent him a symphony in four.” The resulting work was, in fact, one of the normally melancholic Miaskovky’s most upbeat works.
Miaskovsky was a late starter as a composer, and when he was accepted into the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1906, he was the oldest student in his class. Nonetheless, he quickly befriended the youngest student in his class, one Sergei Prokofiev, and the two remained close and life-long colleagues.
While still students, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky worked jointly on a collaborative symphony — now lost — which, had it survived, would have added an eighth to Prokofiev’s and a 28th to Miaskovsky’s symphonic tally.
Nikolai Miaskovsky (1881-1950): Symphony No. 19; Stockholm Concert Band; Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Gennady, conductor; Chandos 9444
Carlos Castaneda was a Peruvian author who settled in the United States and wrote 12 books chronicling his experiences with a pre-Columbian shaman who helped Castaneda access “non-ordinary reality” and develop his personal creativity, something the shaman called his “nagual.”
Casteneda’s books have sold millions of copies, and one of his readers was Toronto-based composer Michael Colgrass, whose Winds of Nagual was commissioned by the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble and its conductor Frank Battisti, and premiered in Boston on today’s date in 1985.
“Sometimes when composing, I see music as if it is a film, but the listener need not have read Castaneda’s books to enjoy this work, and I do not expect anyone to follow any exact scenario,” said Colgrass.
And, speaking of cinematic scenarios, Colgrass said band directors in the Southwest told him that in the last years of his life Castaneda would show up at concerts when Winds of Nagual was being performed. “He would wait until just before the downbeat,” said Colgrass, “and then enter the auditorium wearing a white suit and sit in the middle of the audience. Apparently, he considered this music to be his Hail to the Chief.”
Michael Colgrass (1932-2019): Winds of Nagual; North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaron Corporon, conductor; GIA 880
On today’s date in 1990, Czech-born composer Karel Husa returned to his hometown of Prague to conduct a concert of his own music after more than forty years in exile. Husa left Prague in 1948 after the post-War communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, and in 1954 accepted a teaching post at Cornell University. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1959.
At that festive 1990 homecoming concert in Prague’s Smetana Hall, broadcast nationwide by Czech radio and TV, Husa conducted the Czech premiere of his Music for Prague 1968, a composition that had received thousands of performances all over the world, but none, until that night, in the city that inspired it.
Husa had written it in the summer of 1968 after troops from the Soviet Union had invaded his homeland to suppress a growing Czech democratic movement. Music for Prague, 1968 soon became a classic of wind band repertory.
One of Husa’s American students, composer Thomas Duffy, traveled to Prague to attend the concert. “Husa conducted vigorously,” Duffy recalled, and after the performance noted that, “Twice, when I felt that the volume of applause was already overwhelming, Husa presented the V for victory sign to the house — and the volume doubled.”
Karel Husa (1921-2016): Music for Prague 1968; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, conductor; CBS/Sony MK-44916
Today’s date marks the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. It is also the birthday of famous American symphonist Roy Harris, who stated he was born in Lincoln County near Chandler, Oklahoma on February 12, 1898. Some have challenged the accuracy of the date, as a land deed associated with his family suggests his birth year might have been 1901, and Harris was the main source of information regarding the actual day of his birth.
There’s also some confusion about exactly how many symphonies Harris wrote, since he didn’t assign numbers to some of the works he labeled “symphonies” or “symphonic” — and in 1976 deliberately misnumbered his Symphony No. 13 as being his Symphony No. 14, because he considered 13 an unlucky number.
Despite all this, Harris’ Symphony No. 3 from 1938 is regularly cited as one of the best American symphonies of the 20th century.
As the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians put it, “the musicality, breadth of vision, and generosity of impulse that form his best music assure him long-term recognition.”
So, whether or not it was in 1898 or 1901, or even on February 12 — Happy Birthday, Mr. Harris!
Roy Harris (1898-1979): Symphony No. 3; Dallas Symphony; Eduardo Mata, conductor; Dorian 90170
During the 1906-1907 season of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, America’s premiere opera company staged a mini-festival of operas by a living composer — Giacomo Puccini.
The Met’s star tenor, Enrico Caruso, could be heard in revival productions of Puccini’s La Boheme and Tosca — operas that still qualified as “contemporary music” back then, being just 10 and 7 years old respectively. The Met also scheduled the company premiere of Puccini’s first big operatic success, Manon Lescaut and, on today’s date in 1907, the American premiere of Puccini’s newest opera, Madame Butterfly.
They arranged for Puccini to supervise the rehearsals, but his ship was delayed by bad weather. He arrived in New York on the day of the scheduled premiere of Manon Lescaut, and rushed to his box at the opera house just in time for the start of Act II — but not before acknowledging a big ovation from the audience.
If America was enthusiastic about Puccini, the feeling was reciprocated. In 1912, Puccini visited the New York studios of Columbia Records to record a greeting to his American fans. This was in Italian but concluded with two words of English — a quote from the libretto for his Madama Butterfly — “America forever!”
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Madame Butterfly Suite; Rome Symphony; Domenico Savino, conductor; MCA 9834-A
The 1912 recording of the voice of Puccini: Grammofono 2000 #AB-78779
On today’s date in 1927, at the Neues Theater in Leipzig, a new opera had its premiere. Jonny Spielt Auf or Johnny Strikes Up the Band was the work of Viennese composer Ernst Krenek.
Ostensibly, the opera tells the story of an American jazz band leader named Jonny, who steals a valuable European violin, but in symbolic terms it deals with both the role of music and the conflict between the artistic traditions of the old and new worlds.
Krenek’s jazzy score was a tremendous success and was produced at 42 opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera. By 1929 the libretto had been translated into 14 languages. Its overwhelming success made the opera’s “Jonny” a pop icon and household name and provided Krenek a comfortable cushion of financial security.
When the Nazis came to power in Europe, however, Krenek’s security evaporated. For the Nazis, his opera was a prime example of what they termed “degenerate art,” and its composer emigrated to America, where he became a citizen in 1945. Krenek taught at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and Hamline University in St. Paul before eventually settling in California, where he died in 1991 at 91.
Ernst Krenek (1900-1991): Jonny Spielt Auf; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Lothar Zagrosek, conductor; London 436 631
Rhode Island natives of a certain age wax nostalgic about Rocky Point, a popular family vacation spot on the Narragansett Bay side of Warwick, which operated from the late 1840s until its close in 1995. There was an amusement park with rides like “The Russian Toboggan,” “The Wildcat” and “Cyclone,” for the kids, while mom and pop might opt for a table at the Rocky Point Chowder House.
In 1966, the American composer Ron Nelson spent a summer holiday there. “It’s such a small state, there aren’t that many places to go,” he later recalled. Still, his Rocky Point Holiday provided the inspiration — and the title — for a work commissioned by Dr. Frank Bencriscutto for his University of Minnesota Concert Band.
Rocky Point Holiday was first performed under Bencriscutto’s direction on today’s date in 1967, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during the annual convention of the College Band Director’s National Association. But the piece really took off — a little like “The Russian Toboggan” perhaps? — when Bencriscutto’s band toured the Soviet Union in 1969.
“Frank wanted an American piece to open the program,” Nelson recalled, and Rocky Point Holiday fit the bill perfectly, and the jaunty score became a classic in the wind band repertory.
Ron Nelson (1929-2023): Rocky Point Holiday; Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, conductor; Reference Recording RR-76
These days, it’s still considered news when the Metropolitan Opera stages an opera by a female composer, so one might assume that in the 19th century, the performance of any opera written by a woman would have been even more sensational.
Well, that wasn’t the case on today’s date in 1895, when the Paris Opera staged La Montagne Noire, or The Black Mountain, by Augusta Holmes, or “Augusta Holmès” as she was known in France. Her opera was performed 13 times. The jaded French audiences were already quite familiar with the sensational Mademoiselle Holmès, it seems.
Born in Paris in 1847 of Irish parents, Augusta was a prodigy as a child, a stunning beauty as a young woman, and a diligent composition student of César Franck’s. And, rare for her time, she was a financially independent artist due to a fortune inherited from her father. Rarer still: Holmes’ scores were championed and premiered by Parisian orchestras, and she received major commissions for elaborate national celebrations.
By the time of her death in 1903, however, Holmes was regarded as a curious but minor figure in the history of French music. In our time, her works are being reappraised and occasionally performed.
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903): Irlande (Ireland) Symphonic Poem; Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic; Samuel Friedmann, conductor; Marco Polo 8.223449
On today’s date in 1996, a trio of soloists joined forces with the Minnesota Orchestra for the premiere performance of a new concerto by the American composer Ellen Taafe Zwilich. This Triple Concerto was commissioned by those soloists — pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson — and no less than five orchestras in addition to Minnesota’s.
Now, the most famous concerto for piano, violin, cello and orchestra is by Beethoven, as Zwilich well knows. “My Triple Concerto is scored for exactly the same instrumentation as Beethoven’s,” she wrote, “although Beethoven would certainly be startled by some of the American jazz techniques and the extraordinary facility the modern timpanist can be expected to have at his fingertips … My piece has other vague and hidden references to Beethoven, as a kind of homage to a composer who has deeply affected my life.”
“As contemporary artists always have, today’s composers exist at a juncture between past and present,” continued Zwilich. “And all of us, whether we write, perform or listen to music, face a similar challenge: how to relate meaningfully to the past without becoming imbedded in it; how to press toward the future without abandoning the richness of our heritage.”
Ellen Taafe Zwilich (b. 1939): Triple Concerto; Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; Florida State University; Michael Stern, conductor; Koch 7537
On today’s date in 2009, Hilary Hahn premiered a new violin concerto by American composer Jennifer Higdon, a work tailor-made for the violinist, according to Higdon: “She’s got gorgeous tone in the top register, but also down really low, so I tried to utilize her entire range, her lyrical gift, her ability to play super fast and negotiate through complex meter changes.”
When asked if it wasn’t intimidating writing a violin concerto in the 21st century, considering the incredible legacy of great violin concertos already written, Higdon said a little intimidation is a good thing: “There’s nothing like fear to get the imagination running. Starting a piece is the worst, and that can stretch from one day to three weeks of agony. The cats run and hide.”
Higdon’s Violin Concerto for Hilary Hahn won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the composer said she found that out in a very 21st century fashion, when she noticed her cell phone was suddenly flooded with dozens and dozens of messages.
“I jumped up and down a little,” she confessed — and that probably scared her cats, too.
The cats’ names, for the record, are Beau and Squeak.
Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Violin Concerto; Hilary Hahn, violin; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Vasily Petrenko, conductor; DG 146980-2
In Vienna, on today’s date in 1907, the String Quartet No. 1 by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg had its first performance by the Rosé Quartet, an ensemble headed by Arnold Rosé, the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustav Mahler’s brother-in-law.
One eyewitness reported: “Many found the work impossible, and left the hall during the performance, one rather humorously through the emergency exit. As the hissing continued afterward, Gustav Mahler, who was present, approached one of the unsatisfied and said: ‘You should not hiss!’ — to which the unhappy audience member responded: ‘Don’t worry — I hiss your symphonies, too!’”
In 1936, Schoenberg was living in Los Angeles, where one of his students was the Hollywood composer Alfred Newman. Newman arranged to have all four of Schoenberg’s quartets recorded by the visiting Kolisch Quartet at the United Artists Studios in Hollywood. To do this, Newman had to first obtain permission from none other than film mogul Samuel Goldwyn.
“And so, a hack movie-musician, a movie producer, and a movie studio made possible the recording of four important modern compositions. Once in a while, you see, we can be unfaithful to the great god Profit,” recalled Newman years later.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): String Quartet No. 1; Kolisch Quartet; Music and Arts 1056
In Boston on today’s date in 1945, Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness served as both the soloist and conductor in the first performance of his piano concerto, Lousadzak. The exotic title, Hovhaness explained, was a made-up Armenian word meaning “dawn of light.”
When Hovhaness repeated his new concerto at Town Hall in New York, one newspaper sent the composer Lou Harrison as its music critic to cover the event.
“[It] was the closest I’ve ever been to one of those renowned artistic riots,” recalled Harrison. “In the lobby, the Chromaticists and the Americanists were carrying on at high decibels. What had touched it off was the fact that here was a man from Boston whose obviously beautiful music had nothing to do with either camp and was its own very wonderful thing. My guest John Cage and I were very excited, and I dashed off [to] a rave review while John went back to the Green Room to meet Alan.”
For his part, Hovhaness said: “I believe in melody, and to create a melody one needs to go within oneself. I was very touched when John Cage said my music was like inward singing.”
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000): Lousadzak; Keith Jarrett, piano; American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; MusicMasters 60204
Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays and its observance traditionally begins on the first day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar.
Spring Festival is also the title Chinese composer Chen Yi gave to a work for wind band that she wrote in 1999 on commission from American Composers Forum and published as part of their BandQuest music series for young performers.
Spring Festival draws on a southern Chinese folk tune, Lion Playing Ball, but its formal structure is mathematical in nature and based on the ancient Greek idea of the Golden Ratio, traditionally thought to represent an aesthetically pleasing proportion.
Yi received her Master’s degree in music composition from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in New York City, and now teaches at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
It was in Kansas City that she developed Spring Festival during workshops with the young musicians of the Smith-Hale Junior High School Band, and the finished score received its premiere performance on today’s date in 2000 by that band under the direction of Jan Davis.
Chen Yi (b. 1953): Spring Festival; University of Minnesota Symphonic Wind Ensemble; Craig Kirchhoff, conductor; HL-04001978
Today marks the birthday of Viennese violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler, born in 1875.
Kreisler’s talent was apparent at an early age, and at 7 he entered the Vienna Conservatory where his theory teacher was Anton Bruckner. Young master Kreisler (as he was known at the time), made his Viennese debut at 9, and his American debut at 13. Edward Elgar composed his Violin Concerto for Kreisler, who premiered the work in London in 1910. The rise of Nazism in the 1930s forced Kreisler to America, where he became a naturalized citizen.
Kreisler made hundreds of recordings, mainly of his own compositions, including original works written in the style of earlier composers. Kreisler’s interest in early music was deep and genuine, as was his passion for old books and ancient languages.
In 1941, while crossing a New York street, he was hit by a truck and nearly killed. Awaking from a month-long coma, the multi-lingual Kreisler could at first only communicate in Latin and ancient Greek. The 66-year-old eventually recovered, however, and continued to perform in public until 1950.
He died in New York City, a few days short of his 87th birthday, in 1962.
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962): Violin Concerto (in the style of Vivaldi); Gil Shaham, violin; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; DG 449 923
On today’s date in 2002, a tone poem by American composer Michael Torke had its premiere performance at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, at a concert by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop. Torke was the orchestra’s composer-in-residence at the time and wrote An American Abroad to fulfill his second commission for the Scots.
Here’s how Torke describes the piece: “Unfolding melodies and themes express the natural naïveté an American might feel traveling abroad. Wonderment and curiosity kindles the traveler’s energy, yet there remains an unintended lack of sophistication. Being an outsider, how can a traveler truly understand the depths and subtleties of a new culture?”
Or, as a Scottish newspaper critic put it, “the gee-whiz factor Scots know only too well when we spot a guddle of Americans gawping at Edinburgh Castle.”
Actually, the piece could just as well be titled A European in America, as Torke explained: “I currently live in New York City, and when visitors from the ‘outside’ are in town, I am inspired by their simple energy and appreciation of what my hometown has to offer, which often opens my eyes to new ways of seeing New York.”
Michael Torke (b. 1961): An American Abroad; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Marin Alsop, conductor; Naxos 8.559167
In the rarified world of contemporary music, composers often challenge performers — pushing the envelope of instrumental technique and difficulty. But in the fall of 1999, it was Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass who was challenged: he was commissioned by the American Composers Forum to write a piece for their BandQuest series, intended to provide high-quality new music for young performers.
Specifically, Colgrass was asked to write for the Winona Drive Senior School Band of Toronto. Far from professional musicians, some of these were kids just learning to play their instruments. Their conductor was hardworking Louis Papachristos, who, in addition to leading three bands, also coached boys’ and girls’ basketball.
Colgrass rose to the challenge, and the resulting work, Old Churches, was premiered on this date in 2000. Colgrass employed elements of Gregorian chant to evoke an ancient monastery, and easy graphic notation to introduce students to improvisation and the compositional process itself. “Keeping the music simple was a challenge, but it struck me that Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for amateurs without ‘dumbing down’ … am I a good enough composer to write a simple theme that can be genuinely exciting or moving, the way they did?” said Colgrass.
Michael Colgrass (1932-2019): Winds of Nagual; North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaron Corporon, conductor; GIA 880
Today, a salute to a remarkable American composer and performer — cornet virtuoso Herbert Lincoln Clarke.
Clarke was born in Wolburn, Massachusetts on September 12, 1867, into a peripatetic musical family. He began to play his brother’s cornet and was soon earning fifty cents a night playing in a restaurant band. At 19, he won first prize at a cornet competition in Indiana, and, in 1893, after many years on the road, he got the call from John Philip Sousa to join his illustrious organization as its star soloist, a position he held for over 20 years.
From 1900 on, Clarke began to compose and make recordings of his own music. In 1904, while on a return voyage from England with the Sousa Band, he completed one of his best-known pieces, originally titled Valse Brilliante. While waiting to dock in New York, however, at Sousa’s suggestion, he changed the title to Sounds from the Hudson.
Clarke eventually settled in California and died there on today’s date in 1945. But the much-traveled composer and performer was buried on the opposite coast — in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. — near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa.
Herbert L. Clarke (1867-1945): Sounds from the Hudson (Valse Brillante); Wynton Marsalis, cornet; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, conductor; CBS 42137
In New York City on today’s date in 2008, The Juilliard School’s FOCUS! Festival showcased music from the opposite coast, including the world premiere of a new string quartet by Californian composer John Adams.
14 years earlier, Adams had written a work for the Kronos Quartet and pre-recorded tape that he titled John’s Book of Alleged Dances, because, as he said, “the steps for the dances had yet to be invented.”
His new work for 2008 had a more serious title: simply, String Quartet, and was premiered by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Adams had heard the Saint Lawrence Quartet perform his Book of Alleged Dances, and was so impressed he wanted to write a new work for the ensemble, but found it an intimidating experience, given the great string quartets written by composers of the past ranging from Haydn to Ravel.
“String quartet writing is one of the most difficult challenges a composer can take on,” confessed Adams. “Unless one is an accomplished string player and writes in that medium all the time — and I don’t know many these days who do — the demands of handling this extremely volatile and transparent instrumental medium can easily be humbling, if not downright humiliating.”
John Adams (b. 1947): String Quartet No. 1; St. Lawrence String Quartet; Nonesuch 523014
Many good things come in threes — at least William Bolcom seems to think so.
On today’s date in 1971, in a converted garage next to a graveyard in Newburgh, New York, American composer and pianist William Bolcom put the finishes touches to the second of three piano pieces he collectively titled Ghost Rags.
Ghost Rag No. 2, Poltergeist and dedicated to Tracey Sterne, who at that time was a dynamic record producer at Nonesuch Records. In her youth Sterne pursued a career as a concert pianist, but in the 1960s and 70s was responsible for assembling the Nonesuch label’s astonishingly diverse catalog of old, new and world music.
Ghost Rag No. 3, Dream Shadows, was described by Bolcom as a “white rag” which evoked “the era of white telephones and white pianos” and “was in the white key of C Major.” Bolcom dedicated this rag to his fellow composer, William Albright.
And Bolcom’s Ghost Rag No. 1, Graceful Ghost, has proved to be the most popular of the three. Bolcom dedicated this music to the memory of his father, whose benign spirit Bolcom said he often felt hovering around his piano while he played at night.
William Bolcom (b. 1938): Graceful Ghost Rags; Paul Jacobs, piano; Nonesuch 79006
“English Horn” is an odd name for an instrument — for starters, it’s not English and it’s not a brass instrument like the French horn. The English horn is, in fact, a double reed instrument, a lower-voiced cousin of the oboe. The “English” part of its name is probably a corruption of “angle,” since it has a bend to its shape. Until late in the 20th century, its primary role was to add a darker tone color to the reed section of the orchestra, and performers who played the English horn had precious few solo concertos written to showcase their dusky-voiced instrument.
One performer, Thomas Stacy, decided to do something about that. He’s commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for his instrument. One of them — a concerto by American composer Ned Rorem — Stacy premiered on today’s date in 1994 with the New York Philharmonic.
Ned Rorem is perhaps best known as a composer of art songs, but has also composed successful orchestral and chamber works. “My sole aim in writing the Concerto for English horn, was to exploit that instrument’s special luster and pliability ... to make the sound gleam through a wash of brass and silver, catgut and steel,” said Rorem.
Ned Rorem (1923-2022): Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra; Thomas Stacy, English Horn; Rochester Philharmonic; Michael Palmer, conductor; New World 80489
Today’s date marks an important anniversary in the history of the American symphony. It was on January 26, 1876, that John Knowles Paine’s Symphony No. 1 premiered in Boston. This was the first American symphony to be generally acknowledged both here and abroad as being on a par with the symphonies of the great European composers.
American musical life in the 19th century was heavily influenced by German models — and Paine’s Symphony No. 1 takes its key and much of its musical style from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Contemporary American composer and conductor Gunther Schuller once quipped that Paine’s Symphony No. 1 was “the best Beethoven symphony that Beethoven didn’t write himself.”
Even so, Paine’s 1876 Symphony is a landmark in American musical history, as was one of Paine’s earlier works — a grandiose Mass for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, which was premiered in Berlin in 1867 and successfully revived by Gunther Schuller in Boston in 1972.
John Knowles Paine is remembered for other reasons as well: he was one of the founders of the American Guild of Organists, and he founded the music department at Harvard and became the mentor for a new generation of American composers.
John Knowles Paine (1839-1906): Symphony No. 1; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor New World 374
Many political deals started in smoke-filled rooms, but not many piano trios can claim such a venue for their inspiration. On today’s date in 1987, composer and pianist Paul Schoenfield joined a violinist and cellist from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for the premiere of one of them: Café Music, a new piano trio the orchestra had commissioned.
Here’s how Schoenfield explains it: “The idea came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge in Minneapolis. Murray’s employed a house trio which played entertaining dinner music in a wide variety of styles. My intention was to compose a kind of high-class dinner music — music which could be played at a restaurant but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall.” Much to Schoenfield’s surprise, Café Music did indeed become a concert hall hit.
Schoenfield said he had two lasting memories of that night he filled in at Murray’s: first, a realization of what hard work it was to play dinner music for hours on end, and second — in the days before smoke-free restaurants — how his clothes smelled of cigars and cigarettes for days afterwards!
Paul Schoenfield (1947-2024): Café Music; Eroica Trio; EMI 56482
“We are not amused,” is the dour statement attributed to the matronly Queen Victoria in her later years, although some historians dispute she ever really said it.
But as a young woman, in her diary Queen Victoria did write, “I was very much amused indeed!” after seeing Italian opera singer Giulia Grisi on stage. The young Queen was a fan, and made a drawing of the singer in a role she created: that of Elvira in Vincenzo Bellini’s opera I Puritani, or The Puritans, which debuted in Paris on today’s date in 1835.
When Bellini’s opera came to London later that same year, with Grisi in the cast, the young Queen attended several performances, and the opera she called Dear Puritani became a life-long favorite, perhaps because it was the first she attended with her husband-to-be, the young Prince Albert.
The opera is set in 17th century England during the Civil War between Royalist supporters of the deposed King Charles I and Puritan rebels led by Oliver Cromwell. Its plot involves a Romeo and Juliet-like love story between a delicate Puritan soprano and a dashing Royalist tenor. Unlike Shakespeare’s tragedy, however, Bellini’s opera provides a happy ending for its politics-crossed lovers.
Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835): A Te, o Cara, Amor Talora, from I Puritani; Alfredo Kraus; Philharmonia Orchestra; Riccardo Muti, conductor; EMI 09149
On today’s date in 1935, at the Church of Saint François-Xavier in Paris, organist Geneviève de la Salle gave the first complete performance of the three-movement Suite by French composer, teacher and virtuoso organist Maurice Duruflé.
If you sing in a choir or are a fan of choral music, you’re probably familiar with Duruflé’s serene and tranquil Requiem, which premiered 12 years later.
Duruflé’s Op. 5 premiered in 1935, his Op. 9 in 1947, so you might reasonably conclude the composer was a slow worker — which he was. He was also a very self-critical perfectionist whose catalog of works is rather small, but exquisitely crafted. In all, Duruflé’s output comprises less than 15 published works, of which seven are for organ.
Duruflé’s music is firmly embedded in the French tradition of organ composers like César Franck and Louis Vierne, and orchestral composers like Debussy, Ravel and Duruflé’s own composition teacher, Paul Dukas. Great French organist Marie-Claire Alain, when asked to describe Duruflé’s music, replied “it is a perfectly honest art … he was not an innovator but a traditionalist … Duruflé evolved and amplified the old traditions, making them his own.”
Maurice Durufle (1902-1986): Organ Suite; Todd Wilson, organ; Schudi organ at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Dallas, Texas; Delos 3047
One of the 20th century’s most important — and most lurid — operas had its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on today’s date in 1907.
Richard Strauss’s Salome is a faithful setting of Oscar Wilde’s play about the decadent Biblical princess who, after her famous “dance of the seven veils,” demands the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward. She then confesses her love to the severed head and kisses it. This scene, accompanied by Strauss’s graphic music, proved too much for early audiences to take.
“A reviewer should be an embodied conscience stung into righteous fury by the moral stench with which Salome fills the nostrils of humanity,” wrote The New York Tribune. The Met cancelled the rest of the scheduled performances, and Salome was not staged there again until 1934.
Closer to our time, American composer Terry Riley put a more positive spin on the legend of Salome. In the 1980s, Riley wrote some string quartets collectively titled Salome Dances for Peace. “I conceived my quartets as a kind of ballet scenario, in which contemporary world leaders like Reagan and Gorbachev are seduced by a reincarnated Salome into realizing world peace,” said Riley.
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Dance of the Seven Veils, from Salome; New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, conductor; DG 7890
Terry Riley (b. 1935): Good Medicine, from Salome Dances for Peace; Kronos Quartet; Nonesuch 79217
English lutenist and songwriter John Dowland is one of the best-known composers from the age of Shakespeare, but there’s much about him that we don’t know. Dowland wrote that he was born in 1563 but didn’t say where. Early biographies said he died in London on today’s date in 1626, but a mid-February date seems more likely. Dowland was 63 when he died — a ripe old age in a time of Plague.
One early biographer described Dowland as “a cheerful person, passing his days in lawful merriment,” but his most famous works are deeply introspective in tone, in keeping with the then-fashionable cult of melancholy and its preoccupation with tears, darkness, and death.
Dowland lived in a dangerous period of bitter religious conflict. He once wrote a frantic letter from Germany warning of a Catholic plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. But in that same letter Dowland confessed his own Catholic sympathies, yet at home and abroad worked for eminent Protestant families and royalty. The last record we have of him as a performer dates from May of 1625 when he played at the funeral of King James I — a fitting finale to a remarkable composer of that remarkable age.
John Dowland (1563-1626): Melancholy Galliard/Allemande; Ronn McFarlane, lute; Dorian 90148
In 1940, choreographer Léonide Massine, approached composer Paul Hindemith, with the idea of having him arrange pieces by 19th century Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber into a ballet score. At first Hindemith was intrigued, but Massine wanted straight arrangements and Hindemith wanted to write something original in the spirit of Weber, so the ballet idea was scrapped.
Oh well, what Hindemith finally did come up with turned out to be one of his most successful and popular orchestral works, Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, which received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1944 at a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Artur Rodzinski.
Now, Hindemith had a reputation for being serious and rather “Germanic,” so The New York Times critic had a little fun with that image of the composer, writing:
“Sometimes [Hindemith’s] counterpoint has been as busy and energetic as the works of an automobile — and as meaningless. Sometimes it has been thick and overstuffed in its style. This metamorphosis employs counterpoint as a matter only incidental to the gay development of ideas, and there is sunshine in every nook and cranny of the transparent, debonair score.”
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Symphonic Metamorphosis; San Francisco Symphony, Herbert Blomstedt, conductor; London/Decca 421523
When boomers wax nostalgic about the Kennedy Administration, it’s Lerner & Loewe’s musical Camelot they start to hum. After all, Camelot opened in 1960 just a month after John F. Kennedy was elected, and, a week after his assassination in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy told historian Theodore H. White that they owned the original cast album and liked to play it before retiring at night. She quoted a phrase — “one brief shining moment” —from Camelot’s title song as how she wished his presidency to be remembered.
But early in 1961, everyone was looking forward, not backwards. The President-elect had asked Frank Sinatra to help arrange a musical gala to be held on January 19, 1961, the eve of his inauguration, and Leonard Bernstein was tapped to represent classical music. Bernstein had known Kennedy since the mid-1950s, and, after all, they both were Harvard men.
As luck would have it, a rare blizzard hit Washington D.C. that night, snarling traffic, and a police escort had to rush Bernstein to the Gala. There was no time for him to change into formal attire, so Bernstein appeared onstage in a hastily-borrowed and much-too-large dress shirt to conduct the world premiere of his Fanfare for JFK.
After the premiere of his Fanfare, Bernstein conducted a more familiar wind band standard —Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever.
Frederick Loewe (1901-1988): Camelot: Overture; London Promenade Orchestra; Eric Hammerstein, conductor; Reader's Digest 16931
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy Jr.; National Symphony Orchestra; Cristoph Eschenbach, conductor; Ondine 1190
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.