Composers Datebook

SynopsisThe British composer Ethel Smyth needed both talent and fierce determination to succeed in a professional musical career in her day. Born in 1858, she defied her father to study music in Leipzig. She became friends with Clara Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák. In 1903, her opera Der Wald was performed at the Metropolitan Opera. She also became a high-profile figure in the women’s suffrage movement, for which she was jailed briefly in 1912.The premiere of her 64-minute vocal symphony, The Prison, took place at Usher Hall in Scotland on today’s date in 1931, when she was 73, and increasingly deaf. The text was by H.B. Brewster, who had been Smyth’s close friend and, perhaps, her lover, and is a dialogue between an innocent prisoner awaiting execution and his soul in search of spiritual peace.In a New York Times interview, James Blachly, the conductor of the first recording of The Prison, suggests, “It’s a summary of her entire career. It’s a farewell. There’s a real sense of making peace with that, and also reconciling herself to the death of [Brewster,] her closest creative companion. It’s about love and life and loss and self-worth.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEthel Smyth (1858-1944): The Prison; Dashon Burton, bass-baritone; Experimental Orchestra and Chorus; James Blachly, conductor; Chandos 5279

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1947, Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera, The Telephone premiered at the Heckscher Theater in New York. The story involves a young man who keeps trying to propose to his girlfriend, but, well, she’s always on the phone. So the young man, deciding “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” goes to the corner and from a pay phone calls in his marriage proposal!Now, these days, he would probably have just used his cell phone. A welcome convenience in most circumstances, cell-phones have become the bane of concert halls, interrupting musical performances with unwelcome beeps and those annoying little melodies.One young American composer, Golan Levin, has even composed a 30-minute work titled Dialtones: A Telesymphony, scored for 200 cell-phones. Levin spend nearly a year working out the technology that would download customized sounds to cell-phones placed in the audience and allow them be played on cue. 200 members of the audience for the premiere were asked to bring their phones and register their numbers before the performance of the three-movement work.Some audience members reportedly felt guilty when their phones rang, even though they were supposed to, and one of the performers confessed that he was jealous that the woman seated next to him was called more frequently than he was!That might make a good storyline for a sequel to Menotti’s opera!Music Played in Today's ProgramGian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007): Excerpt from The Telephone; New York Chamber Ensemble; Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, conductor; Albany 173

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1994, at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the Chicago Symphony and conductor Daniel Barenboim gave the world premiere performance of Partita by American composer Elliott Carter, specially commissioned in honor of the composer’s 85th birthday.It was a major work, and a major occasion — but, as the Chicago Tribune’s music critic John von Rheim put it, that date “will forever be known as the Night the Lights Went Out on Elliott Carter.”Just as the orchestra was playing the final pages of Carter’s complex score, the house lights went out. The audience gasped. The orchestra stopped playing. Not sure what to do, the audience started applauding. Then, after a moment or two the lights came back on. After breathing a sigh of relief, Barenboim and the orchestra prepared to pick up where they had left off — and then the lights went out again!Turning to the audience, Barenboim quipped, “It’s a good thing we and Mr. Carter are not superstitious.”Well, eventually the lights came back on — and stayed on, enabling the Orchestra to finish the premiere of Carter’s Partita.But, perhaps as a kind of insurance policy — later on Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony also made a live recording of the new work.Music Played in Today's ProgramElliott Carter (1908-2012): Partita; Chicago Symphony; Daniel Barenboim, conductor (live recording); Teldec CD 81792

SynopsisFamous composers have been, on occasion, famous performers as well. Think of Bach on the organ, or Rachmaninoff on the piano. And if Mozart’s father is to be believed, young Wolfgang could have Europe’s finest violinist — if he had only practiced more.But how many famous composers can you name who played the bassoon? Well, British composer Edward Elgar, for one. As a young musician in Worcester, he played the bassoon in a wind quintet. While never becoming famous as a bassoonist, his love for and understanding of the instrument is evident in all his major orchestral works, and he counted one skilled player among his friends: this was Edwin F. James, the principal bassoonist of the London Symphony in his day.In 1910, while working on his big, extroverted, almost 50-minute violin concerto, Elgar tossed off a smaller, much shorter, and far more introverted work for bassoon and orchestra as a gift for James. Since he was working on both pieces at the same time, if you’re familiar with he Violin Concerto, you can’t help but notice a familial resemblance to his six-minute Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra.The Romance was first performed by Edwin F. James at a Herefordshire Orchestral Society concert conducted by the Elgar on today’s date in 1911.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934): Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra; Graham Salvage, bassoon; Halle Orchestra; Mark Elder, conductor; Halle Elgar Edition HLL-7505

SynopsisWe probably have the irrepressible playwright, music critic, and ardent socialist George Bernard Shaw to thank for this music — the Symphony No. 3 of Edward Elgar.Shaw had been trying to persuade him to write a Symphony No. 3, and, early in 1932, had written: “Why don’t you make the BBC order a new symphony. It can afford it!” A few months later, Shaw dashed off a postcard with a detailed, albeit tongue-in-cheek program for the new work: “Why not a Financial Symphony? Allegro: Impending Disaster; Lento mesto: Stone Broke; Scherzo: Light Heart and Empty Pocket; Allegro con brio: Clouds Clearing.”Well, there was a worldwide depression in 1932, but the depression that had prevented Elgar from tacking a new symphony was more personal: the death of his beloved wife in 1920. Despite describing himself as “a broken man,” unable to tackle any major projects, when Elgar died in 1934, he left behind substantial sketches for a Symphony No. 3, commissioned, in fact, by the BBC.Fast forward 64 years, to February 15, 1998, when the BBC Symphony gave the premiere performance of Elgar’s Symphony No. 3 at Royal Festival Hall in London, in a performing version, or “elaboration” of his surviving sketches, prepared by contemporary British composer Anthony Payne. It was a tremendous success, and, we would like to think, somewhere in the hall the crusty spirit of George Bernard Shaw was heard to mutter: “Well — about time!”Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934): Symphony No. 3 (elaborated by Anthony Payne); BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor; NMC 053

SynopsisHappy Saint Valentine’s Day!On today's date in 1953, a new choral work by German composer Carl Orff received its premiere performance at the La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy. Trionfo di Afrodite was the title of the new work, intended to be the final panel in a triptych of choral works celebrating life and love. This triptych included Orff’s famous Carmina Burana, based on medieval texts, and Catulli Carmina, based on love lyrics by Roman poet Catullus.All three pieces were given lavish, semi-staged performances at La Scala, led by the Austrian maestro Herbert von Karajan, and with German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda as the star soloists. For the world premiere performance of Trionfo di Afrodite, Schwarzkopf and Gedda portrayed a bride and groom on their wedding night: the texts they sang were pretty hot stuff — if you understand Latin, that is!Triofi di Afrodite shows Orff’s indebtedness to Stravinsky, and his repetitive rhythmic patterns seem to anticipate the minimalist movement by several decades. At the 1953 premiere, Schwarzkopf’s husband, record producer Walter Legge, gently suggested to Orff that he might consider a few cuts to the new work. His response? “Oh, I know very well the effect of my rubber-stamp music!”In any case, Legge decided not to make a recording of the new work — which seems a shame, considering the all-star cast assembled at La Scala for its premiere!Music Played in Today's ProgramCarl Orff (1985-1982): Trionfo di Aphrodite

SynopsisToday’s date in 1910 marks the birthday in Paris of a French composer you perhaps have never heard of, but Elsa Barraine is well-deserving of your attention.Barraine’s father was a cellist at the Paris Opera, and as a teen she attended the Paris Conservatory, studying composition with Paul Dukas. Olivier Messiaen was her classmate and remained a lifelong friend. She won several prizes for her compositions, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1929 when she was just 19.Barraine worked at the French National Radio from 1936 to 1940. During World War II, she was heavily involved in the French Resistance, and from 1944 to 1947 was the Recording Director of the French record label Le Chant du Monde. In 1953 she joined the faculty at the Paris Conservatoire, where she taught until 1972, the year the French Ministry of Culture named her Director of Music. She died in 1999.Barraine’s catalog of works includes a variety of vocal and instrumental works, an opera, ballets, and two symphonies, but her music is seldom performed today. We’re sampling one of her chamber works, a piece for French horn and piano, Crépuscules, or Twilights.Music Played in Today's ProgramElsa Barraine (1910-1999): Crépuscules; Lin Foulk Baird, French Horn; Martha Fischer, piano; Centaur CRC-3857

SynopsisOn today’s date in the year 1900, the principal of Stanton Elementary in Jacksonville, Florida was asked to give a Lincoln’s Day speech to his students. Stanton was a segregated school for African-American children, and was the school that its principal, James Weldon Johnson, had attended. He decided he would rather have the students do something themselves, perhaps sing an inspirational song. He decided to write the words himself, and enlisted the aid of his brother, John Rosamond Johnson, who was a composer.“We planned to have it sung by schoolchildren, a chorus of 500 voices. I got my first line, ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ — not a startling first line, but I worked along, grinding out the rest,” Johnson recalled. He gave the words to his brother as they came to him, not even writing them down as his brother worked at the piano. By the time they finished, he confessed he was moved by what they had created: “I could not keep back the tears and made no effort to do so.”The song was a great success on February 12th, 1900, and then was pretty much forgotten by Johnson — but not by the children who sang it. They memorized it. Some of them became teachers, and taught it to their students. The song spread across the country, and soon became the unofficial National Anthem of Black America.“We wrote better than we knew,” he said.Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.W. (1871-1938) and J.R. (1873-1954) Johnson: “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”; Choirs and Boston Pops Orchestra; Keith Lockhart, conductor; BMG/RCA 63888

SynopsisIf the bassoon is rather unkindly known as the “clown” of the orchestra, what does that make the poor tuba?Just say “tuba” to someone, and they turn into a mime — at least that was the experience of American composer Alex Shapiro when she mentioned that she was writing a new work for tuba and piano.“The response was usually one of surprised and barely muffled laughter. The exclamation ‘Tuba, eh? What a funny instrument!’ was often accompanied by exaggerated hand and mouth gestures that somewhat resembled a trout attempting to inflate a balloon,” she said.Shapiro wanted to show how nimble and lyrical a tuba could be. She gave her finished piece — for tuba and piano — a punning title: Music for Two Big Instruments. The new work was commissioned by Norman Pearson, principal tubist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who premiered the work with wife, pianist Cynthia Bauhof-Williams, on today’s date in 2001 at Alfred Newman Hall on the campus of University of Southern California in Los Angeles.Grateful tubists have taken up Shapiro’s piece since then, and this West Coast commission’s first recording was made by New York Philharmonic principal tubist Alan Baer, so one could say — with a bit of a stretch — Music for Two Big Instruments has been a coast to coast success!Music Played in Today's ProgramAlex Shapiro (b. 1962): Music for Two Big Instruments; Alan Baer, tuba; Bradley Haag, piano; innova 683

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1934, the audience at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City demanded — and got — 50 curtain calls for the cast and conductor of the new opera that had just received its premiere staged performance.The opera was Merry Mount, based on a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story set in a Puritan colony in 17th-century New England. The music was by American composer Howard Hanson. The performers for Met Opera’s premiere included great American baritone Lawrence Tibbett as the Puritan preacher Wrestling Bradford, sorely tempted by the Swedish soprano Gösta Ljungberg in the role of Lady Marigold Sandys, his unwilling leading lady.Despite its setting in Puritan New England, the opera included plenty of the lurid sex and violence that fuels the all the best Romantic opera plots, and the score was in Hanson’s most winning Neo-Romantic style, with rich choral and orchestral writing, capped by a fiery conflagration as a grand finale. What more could an opera audience want?Strangely enough, despite its tremendous first-night success, Merry Mount has seldom — if ever — been staged since 1934. To celebrate the centenary of Hanson’s birth in 1996, the Seattle Symphony presented Merry Mount in a concert performance conducted by Gerard Schwarz.Music Played in Today's ProgramHoward Hanson (1896-1981): Merry Mount Suite; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3105

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1784, in the city of Vienna, Wolfgang Mozart finished one bit of work and started another — which he would continue until the end of his life.After Mozart put the finishing touches to his Piano Concerto No. 14, he entered this work as the first item in a ledger, which he titled, “A List of all my works from the month of February, 1784 to the month of...” Mozart then left a blank space on his title page for the concluding month and wrote just the number “1” in the space left for the concluding year of his catalog — with the reasonable expectation that he would live long enough to see the turn of the new century. He then signed his title page: “Wolfgang Amadé Mozart by my own hand.”On the catalog’s unruled left-hand pages Mozart wrote the date and description of his subsequent works, and occasionally, in the case of his operas and vocal pieces, the names of the singers who premiered them. The right-hand side of the page was lined with music staves, and here Mozart would write the opening measure of each piece.The very last entry in Mozart’s ledger book is dated November 15, 1791, just one month before his death. This final entry notes the completion of a cantata written for Vienna’s New-Crowned Hope Masonic Lodge.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 14; Murray Perahia, piano and conductor; English Chamber Orchestra CBS/Sony 415Freemason Cantata; Boston Early Music Festival; Andrew Parrott, conductor; Denon 9152

SynopsisOn this day in 1934, an excited crowd of locals and visitors had gathered in Hartford, Connecticut, for the premiere performance of a new opera, Four Saints in Three Acts.The fact that the opera featured 16 saints, not four, and was divided into four acts, not three, was taken by the audience in stride, as the libretto was by expatriate American writer Gertrude Stein, notorious for her surreal poetry and prose. The music, performed by players from the Philadelphia Orchestra and sung by an all-black cast, was by 37-year old American composer, Virgil Thomson, who matched Stein’s surreal sentences with witty musical allusions to hymn tunes and parodies of solemn, resolutely tonal music.Among the locals in attendance was the full-time insurance executive and part-time poet, Wallace Stevens, who called the new opera “An elaborate bit of perversity in every respect: text, settings, choreography, [but] Most agreeable musically … If one excludes aesthetic self-consciousness, the opera immediately becomes a delicate and joyous work all around.”The opera was a smashing success, and soon opened on Broadway, where everyone from Toscanini and Gershwin to Dorothy Parker and the Rockefellers paid a whopping $3.30 for the best seats — a lot of money during one of the worst winters of the Great Depression.Music Played in Today's ProgramVirgil Thomson (1896-1989): Four Saints in Three Acts; Orchestra of Our Time; Joel Thome, conductor; Nonesuch 79035

SynopsisOne of the most popular Romantic string quartets had its premiere performance on today’s date in 1882 at a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg. Alexander Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 was dedicated to his wife, Ekaterina Protopova. They had met in Heidelberg, Germany 20 years earlier, and since Borodin had just returned from another trip to Heidelberg, his new quartet may have been an anniversary present.  Some commentators even suggest the cello represents Borodin and the first violin, Ekaterina. So what about the second violin and viola? Well, maybe they’re meant to be the two witnesses at the wedding!Fast forward to 1953, when some of the tunes in Borodin’s Quartet were repurposed in a Broadway musical entitled Kismet. This one, for example, was set to the lyrics, “Baubles, bangles and beads,” which are, after all, more conventional anniversary presents.Music Played in Today's ProgramAlexander Borodin (1833-1877): String Quartet No. 2; Cleveland Quartet; Telarc 80178

SynopsisFor most of the 18th and 19th centuries, commissioning new musical works was the exclusive prerogative of the Church, royalty, and the wealthy nobility. More recently, Foundations and big corporations have gotten into the act. But even today, individuals can make a difference.In 1991, six couples in Minneapolis and St. Paul decided to form a Commissioning Club, modeled along the lines of an Investment Club, to spark the creation of new works in a variety of genres and promote the work of composers they admired.On today’s date in 1996, one of their commissions, the Dramatic Suite by American composer Stephen Paulus was premiered by flutist Ransom Wilson and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. It was played first in Minnesota, and subsequently at Lincoln Center in New York City.Later that same year, the Club arranged for another Paulus commission: a new Christmas Carol, Pilgrim Jesus, that was premiered on the BBC radio broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge. That 1996 broadcast, heard by millions of radio listeners worldwide, marked the first time that an American composer had been chosen to contribute a new carol for that famous Christmas Eve service — not a bad return for the Commissioning Club’s investment!Music Played in Today's ProgramStephen Paulus (1949-2014): Dramatic Suite; Judith Ranheim, flute; Chouhei Min, violin; Korey Konkol, viola; Mina Fisher, cello; Thelma Hunter, piano; innova 539

SynopsisOne of the greatest of all Italian operas had its first performance on this day in 1887. Otello, by Giuseppe Verdi, was a musical version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello. The opera was written when he was in his 70s, years after he had supposedly retired from a long and successful career as Italy’s most famous opera composer. It was one of the greatest triumphs of his career.The premiere took place at La Scala, Milan, with famous singers in the lead roles, and the cream of international society and the music world in the audience. Even the orchestra was distinguished: among the cellists was a young fellow named Arturo Toscanini, who would later become one of the world’s most famous conductors. Two of the violinists had the last name of Barbirolli — they were the father and grandfather of another famous conductor-to-be, John Barbirolli. Both Toscanini and Barbirolli would eventually make classic recordings of Verdi’s Otello.And speaking of recordings, in the early years of the 20th century, Italian tenor Francesco Tamago, who created the role of Otello, and the French baritone Victor Maurel, who created the role of Iago, both recorded acoustical phonograph excerpts from Verdi’s Otello — the technological marvel of the 20th century — preserving, belatedly, a sonic souvenir of a 19th-century Verdi premiere.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Act I Excerpt from Otello; Ambrosian Chorus; New Philharmonia Orchestra; John Barbirolli, conductor; EMI Classics 65296

SynopsisMany 20th century composers were scarred by the violence and turmoil of their times — but none quite so literally as Greek composer, engineer, and architect Iannis Xenakis, who died at 78 on today’s date in 2001.In the early 1940s, Xenakis was a member of the Communist resistance in Greece, fighting first the German occupation, then, as the war ended, the British. In 1945, when Xenakis was 23, his face was horribly disfigured by a shell fragment fired by a British tank, resulting in the loss of one of his eyes. Two years later he was forced to flee to Paris. As he laconically put it: “In Greece, the Resistance lost, so I left. In France, the Resistance won.”Xenakis wanted to write music, but earned his living as an architect and engineer in Paris at Le Courbusier’s studio. Xenakis designed and was involved in major architectural projects for Le Courbusier, including the famous Philips pavilion at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels.As a composer, Xenakis wrote highly original music that was meticulously ordered according to mathematical and scientific principles, but sounded intensely emotional, almost primeval. His music might even be described as “Pre-Socratic,” as Xenakis seemed to echo the theories of the early Greek thinker Pythagoras, who saw a relationship between music, mathematics, and religion.Music Played in Today's ProgramIannis Xenakis (1922-2001): Opening of A Colone; New London Chamber Choir; Critical Band; James Wood, conductor; Hyperion 66980Huuem-Duhey; Edna Michell, violin; Michael Kanka, cello; Angel 57179

SynopsisContemporary Hungarian composer György Kurtág is famous for writing short, sparse and concentrated musical works. He has, however on occasional written more expansive pieces, including one big orchestral piece for the Berlin Philharmonic and some works for large chorus.Obsessively self-critical, Kurtág disavowed most of the music he wrote before his mid-thirties, which included some for chorus, but a suggestion from Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono that he write for chorus again resulted in a work that the BBC Singers premiered in London on today’s date in 1981.It has an Italian title, Omaggio a Luigi Nono, or Tribute to Luigi Nono, — a tip of the hat to his Italian colleague, but the work itself is a setting of bits of Russian poems. Now at the time of its premiere, 25 years after the Russian-led invasion of Hungary in 1956 and 10 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hungarian eyebrows were raised when Kurtág chose to set Russian texts. Disparaging or just plain dissing anything Russian was the normal M.O. for Hungarian intellectuals in those days.Kurtág, for his part, stood his ground: as an ardent Dostoevsky’s fan, he simply said Russian was a sacred language to him.Music Played in Today's ProgramGyörgy Kurtág (b. 1926): Omaggio a Luigi Nono; SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart; Marcus Creed, director; SWR Music; 93.174

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1795, Haydn was in England and about to conduct one of his new symphonies at The King’s Theater in London. An early biographer recounts what happened next:“When Haydn entered to conduct the symphony, the curious audience left their seats and crowded towards the orchestra the better to see the famous Haydn. The seats in the middle of the floor were thus empty, and hardly anyone was there when the theater’s great chandelier crashed down and broke into bits, throwing the numerous gathering into great consternation.As soon as the first moment of fright was over and those who had pressed forward could think of the danger they had luckily escaped and find words to express it, several persons uttered the state of their feelings with loud cries of ‘Miracle! Miracle!’”And thus, one of Haydn’s symphonies, his symphony No. 96, came to be called The Miracle Symphony. It’s a nice story, but it actually occurred just before the first performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102. Somehow or another the nickname got stuck to one of Haydn’s earlier London Symphonies, and simply refused to become “unstuck.”In his book, The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide, musicologist Michael Steinberg suggests an elegant solution: He still lists Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 as The Miracle but give the Symphony No. 102 a new nickname: The REAL Miracle.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Symphony No. 96; Concertgebouw Orchestra; Sir Colin Davis, conductor; Philips 442 611

SynopsisOn today's date in 1862, while President Lincoln was fretting over General McClellan’s unwillingness to confront Secessionist rebels, New York concert-goers could find some relief from Civil War headlines by attending a New York Philharmonic concert at Irving Hall.Conductor Carl Bergman had programmed some brand-new music by a Hamburg composer named Brahms, whose Serenade No. 2 received its American premiere at their February 1 concert — a concert that took place almost two years to the day after the serenade’s world premiere in Hamburg in 1860.Give the New York Philharmonic some credit for daring programming. After all, it would be another year before the same Serenade would be performed in Vienna. Moreover, in 1863, during the Vienna Philharmonic’s final rehearsal of this “difficult” new music by a composer nobody there had ever heard of, open mutiny broke out.The first clarinetist stood up and declared that the music was too darn hard and the orchestra simply refused to play it. Conductor Otto Dessoff, who had programmed the Brahms, turned white with anger, laid down his baton, and resigned on the spot, joined by the Vienna Philharmonic's concertmaster and principal flutist.Alarmed at the threatened disintegration of their orchestra, the Viennese rebels capitulated; and the performance of Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 took place as scheduled and was, to the mutineers’ chagrined astonishment, a tremendous success.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): Serenade No. 2; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor; Telarc 80522

SynopsisAmerican composer Philip Glass was born in Baltimore on this date in 1937.Glass says he discovered music via his father’s radio repair shop, where, in addition to servicing radios, Papa Glass sold records. When certain titles sold poorly, Papa would take them home and play them for his three children, trying to discover why they didn't appeal to customers. And so the future composer rapidly became familiar with commercially unsuccessful records of Beethoven string quartets, Schubert piano sonatas, and Shostakovich symphonies.After some decades studying music, both commercially successful and not, Glass struck out on an original path. In the 1970s, he made a name for himself as both a composer and a performer of hypnotically and repetitiously patterned music for dance and theatrical events in association with Mabou Mines and avant-garde theatrical director Robert Wilson. In 1976 the Philip Glass-Robert Wilson opera Einstein on the Beach premiered in France and was subsequently staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.In the decades that followed, Glass has composed many more operas, symphonies, and film scores, and has the dubious distinction of generating of “Philip Glass jokes,” the most famous being:Knock-knock.Who’s there?Philip Glass.Knock-knock.Who’s there?Philip GlassKnock-knock.Who’s there?Philip GlassMusic Played in Today's ProgramPhilip Glass (b. 1937): Symphony No. 3; Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Nonesuch 79581