Composers Datebook

SynopsisToday 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 ProgramFrançois-Joseph Gossec (1734 – 1829) Marche lugubre The Wallace Collection; John Wallace, cond. Nimbus 5175

SynopsisIn 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, 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 “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 ProgramJacques Offenbach (1819-1890) (arr. Rosenthal): Cancan from Gaite Parisienne; Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, conductor; London 430 718Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Act 3 Prelude from Lohengrin; Berlin Philharmonic; Daniel Barenboim, conductor; Teldec 81791Kozaburo Hirai (1910-2002): Sonata; Kazue Frances Asawa, flute; Kazue Kudo, koto; Crystal 316

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1961, 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 1930s, 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 ProgramWallingford Riegger (1885-1961): Wind Quintet; New York Woodwind Quintet; Bridge 9068

SynopsisOn 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, “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 12 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 Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs, an almost obligatory party piece played on that occasionMusic Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Variations on Handel’s ‘See, the conquering hero comes’; Henry Wood, conductor; Fantasia on British Sea Songs

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1837, 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 is the first pianist in the  world — Liszt is unique,” she said. Music Played in Today's ProgramSigismund Thalberg (1812-1871): Fantasy on Rossini’s ‘The siege of Corinth’; Francesco Nicolosi, piano; Marco Polo 8.223367Franz Liszt (1811-1886): Fantasia on Italian Operatic Melodies; Andreas Pistorius, piano Capriccio 10076

SynopsisIn 2002, film director Godfrey Reggio released his latest movie. Naqoyqatsi — the Hopi word for “life as war” — 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 his Naqoyqatsi film score into a concert work for cello and orchestra. In the film score, solos played by 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, Glass’ Cello Concerto No. 2, 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 ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1938): Cello Concerto No. 2 (Naqoyqatsi); Matt Haimovitz, cello; Cincinnati Symphony; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Orange Mountain Music CD 0087

SynopsisOk, if you say, “band music,” most people think “marching bands; sporting events.”  So if someone tells you there is a band work titled 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. Dzubay’s band composition, Ra is, as he described it, “a rather aggressive depiction of an imagined ritual of sun worship, perhaps celebrating the daily battles of Ra and Apep.”He arranged his piece — which was originally written for orchestra — for concert band, and in this incarnation 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 ProgramDavid Dzubay (b. 1964): Ra; University of North Texas Wind Symphony, Eugene Corporon, conductor; Klavier 11137

SynopsisIn 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 his 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.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 “Bs” — 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 “Bs.” And more recently, the Vienna Philharmonic premiered Diversions by the German-born, American composer and conductor, Andre Previn.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7; Vienna Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; DG 419 434André Previn (1930-2019): Diversions Vienna Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor; DG 471 028

SynopsisOne of the preeminent figures in 20th century Japanese concert music was composer 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, 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,” Mayuzumi wrote. 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 68.Music Played in Today's ProgramToshiro Mayuzumi (1929-1997): Nirvana Symphony; Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony; Hiroyuki Iwaki, conductor; Denon 78839

SynopsisShe’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 53, she died suddenly on today’s date in 1977.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.She married 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 ProgramMadeleine Dring (1923-1977): Three Piece Suite; Cynthia Green Libby, oboe; Peter Collins, piano; Hester Park 7707

SynopsisIt’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 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 Symphony No. 5 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 ProgramDmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 5; USSR Cultural Ministry Symphony; Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor; MCA 32128

SynopsisDealing 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, 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 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 things, endures all things …  faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRoxanna Panufnik (b. 1968): Love Abide; London Oratory School Choir; London Mozart Players; Lee Ward, conductor; Signum 564

SynopsisAny composer who sets out to write a violin concerto knows their new work will be measured against the famous concertos of the past. But in the fall of 1936, when Hungarian composer Béla Bartók 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.Bartók was in America when Szekely premiered his Concerto with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Willem Mengelberg.It was only in America 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 Bartók 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? What fool fit for a madhouse would want to displace these works with his own?” he commented.Music Played in Today's ProgramBéla Bartók (1881-1945): Violin Concerto No. 1; Kyung-Wha Chung, violin; Chicago Symphony; Sir Georg Solti, conductor; London 411 804

SynopsisThe 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 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, he 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, it was natural to work on this American-accented symphony in Italy. I have always found the view from the distance to be clearest,” he said. 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. He 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 ProgramJohn Harbison (b. 1938): Symphony No. 1; Boston Symphony; Seiji Ozawa, conductor; New World 80331

SynopsisIn 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 ProgramFranz Schubert (1797-1828): Symphony No. 9; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, conductor; Philips 426 269

SynopsisNot 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 decayed musicians and their families.”The previous year Handel had been shocked to learn that the widow and children of one of his favorite performers, 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 ProgramGeorge Frederic Handel (1685-1757): Organ Concerto in A; Peter Hurford, organ; Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra; Joshua Rifkin, conductor; London 430 569

SynopsisIt’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 he 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, the suite, 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 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 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 ProgramJohn Alden Carpenter (1876-1951): Adventrues in a Perambulator; National Symphony of Ukraine; John McLaughlin Williams, conductor; Naxos 8.559065

SynopsisRussian 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 Concerto No. 3 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, he finally felt he could afford to take some time off and put a Piano Concerto No. 4 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.”He made a number of cuts before the Philadelphia premiere, but even so, the new work was not well received, and so he 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 ProgramSergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 4; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Cleveland Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 458 930

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1972, a most unusual chamber work by 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.Vox Balaenae, which is Latin for The Voice of the Whale, is scored for three masked musicians, performing on electric flute, electric cello and amplified piano.Crumb wrote, “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,” he quoted, 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: A Space Odyssey.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Crumb (b. 1929): Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale); Zizi Mueller, flute; Fred Sherry, cello; James Gemmell, piano; New World 357

SynopsisA new opera by Jules Massenet had its premiere at the Paris Opera on today’s date in 1894. Thaïs 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 Thaïs 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 Thaïs, 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 Thaïs 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 ProgramJules Massenet (1842-1912): Meditation from Thaïs; Nigel Kennedy, violin; English Chamber Orchestra; EMI 57330