Composers Datebook

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1986, at the New England Conservatory of Music, a new choral work by American composer John Harbison received its premiere performance. The Flight into Egypt was scored for soprano, baritone, chorus and chamber orchestra, and would win the Pulitzer Prize for Music the following year.The text for Harbison’s cantata is taken from the Gospel of Matthew describing the Holy Family’s escape into Egypt after the birth of Jesus and King Herod’s subsequent slaughter of all newborn male children in an attempt to kill this prophesied threat to his throne.“The Flight began in a conversation with colleagues about Christmas texts. We talked about counseling experiences during Christmas season at Emmanuel Church, Boston, where we were all involved as musicians — a time when need, isolation, and anxiety increase. We agreed that the darker side of Christmas needs representation, especially now, as the distance widens between the privileged and the less fortunate,” Harbison recalled. “At the beginning of The Flight into Egypt, is an oboe melody, exotic and forlorn, imitated by the other reed players,” Harbison continued. “The piece constantly hides and reveals its loyalty to the first oboe melody that guides the whole journey.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Harbison (b. 1938): Flight into Egypt; Cantata Singers and Ensemble; David Hoose, conductor; New World 80395

SynopsisAmerican composer, singer, dancer and choreographer Meredith Monk was born in New York City on today’s date in 1942.Monk attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied theatre, dance and music. After graduating in 1964, she began performing pieces that combined gesture and movement with vocal and visual elements. Around that time, a number of contemporary composers had begun stretching the boundaries of instrumental music, but, as she recalls, there wasn’t much happening regarding extended vocal techniques.Monk began testing how she could stretch the range, timbre and character of her own singing, inventing a vocabulary based on her particular voice — as she explains it, just as a dancer would develop a vocabulary of movement particular to their body.Considering her long-standing interest in integrating music with movement and visuals, opera seemed a natural outlet for Monk’s talents, and in 1993 she premiered a full-length opera, Atlas.Atlas was inspired by the life of Alexandra David-Neel, a scientist who was the first Western woman to travel in Tibet. It seemed a natural choice for Monk, for whom exploration and curiosity are so important. “If I knew what I was looking for, it wouldn’t be that interesting,” she said. Music Played in Today's ProgramMeredith Monk (b. 1942): Atlas; Meredith Monk Ensemble; Wayne Hankin, conductor; ECM 1491

SynopsisIn the summer of 1936, the songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin settled their affairs in New York, put their furniture in storage, and flew off to Hollywood to fulfill a contract with the RKO Studios. The Gershwins were to supply music for a series of new movies, some starring an old friend of theirs, dancer Fred Astaire.In those days the big movie studios moved quickly, and so did the Gershwins. The first film in the contracted series, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as the romantic leads, was Shall We Dance and was completed, scored and released in less than a year.On today’s date in 1937, RKO Studios released their second Gershwin collaboration, Damsel in Distress. This starred Astaire and Joan Fontaine, and included two songs that would become Gershwin classics: “A Foggy Day in London Town” and “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”The release of Damsel in Distress, however, must have been a bittersweet event for the friends and family of George Gershwin: it proved to be the last major project Gershwin had completed before his untimely death on July 11 that same year following surgery to remove a brain tumor.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Gershwin (1898-1937): Damsel in Distress Suite (An American in London); (Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, conductor; Philips 434 274

SynopsisFalling in love with someone else’s spouse can result in divorce, emotional turmoil, or (in the case of composers) some very Romantic music.Take the case of Brahms, who for most of his adult life carried a torch for Mrs. Clara Schumann, the wife of his friend and mentor, Robert Schumann. Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 3 was conceived during an especially turbulent period in his relationship with the Schumanns. When finished, Brahms wrote to his publisher, “On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. I’ll send you my photograph, and since you like color printing, you can use blue coat, yellow breeches, and top-boots.”That garb was favored by Young Werther, the Romantic hero in a novel by Goethe, who commits suicide after falling in love with a married woman.Coincidentally, in the audience for the Viennese premiere of Brahms’ quartet on today’s date in 1875 were Richard and Cosima Wagner. Cosima had run off with Wagner while she was still married to famous conductor Hans von Bulow, but her diary entry for November 18 suggests she didn’t find anything Romantic in Brahms or his music. She wrote, “[Brahms], a red-faced, crude-looking man, his music dry and stilted.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): Piano Quartet No. 3; Ames Piano Quartet; Dorian 90217

SynopsisThe intimate combination of flute and guitar has proven to be an attractive one for a number of composers — and if the composer herself plays the flute, so much the better.Canyon Echoes, written by the American composer and flutist Katherine Hoover premiered on today’s date in 1991 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis by flutist Susan Morris De Jong and guitarist Jeffrey Van.Katherine Hoover gave her Canyon Echoes a subtitle: An Apache Folktale.“This piece was inspired by a book called The Flute Player, a simple and beautifully illustrated retelling of an Apache folktale by Michael Lacapa,” Hoover explained. “It is the story of two young Apaches from different areas of a large canyon. They meet at a Hoop Dance, and dance only with each other. The next day, as the girl works up on the side of the canyon in her father's fields, the boy sits below by a stream and plays his flute for her (flute-playing was a common manner of courtship). She puts a leaf in the stream which flows down to him, so he knows she hears.”Music Played in Today's ProgramKatherine Hoover (1937-2018): Canyon Echoes (Duologue); Susan Morris De Jong, flute; Jeffrey Van, guitar; Gasparo 336

SynopsisIn the year 1900, German-born conductor Fritz Scheel arranged for two orchestral programs in Philadelphia billed as the Philippines Concerts. These were benefits, as contemporary ads put it: “for the relief of families of the nation’s heroes killed in the Philippines.” The previous year U.S. troops had fought a guerrilla army in the Philippines and had suffered heavy casualties.  The concerts proved so successful that Philadelphians decided Scheel’s pick-up orchestra should become instead a permanent ensemble, similar to the orchestras of New York and Boston. And so, on today’s date in 1900, the first official concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra took place at the Academy of Music, offering a program of Goldmark, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Weber and Wagner. During the century that followed, the fame of the Philadelphia Orchestra spread worldwide via recordings made by the orchestra’s famous maestros Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy, who gave many U.S. and world premiere performances of works by European and American composers. In 1940, Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, on the occasion of the premiere of his Symphonic Dances by the Philadelphians, paid the orchestra this compliment: “Today, when I think of composing, my thoughts turn to you, the greatest orchestra in the world.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Wagner (1813-1883): Act I Prelude, from Die Meistersinger; Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, conductor; CBS 38914Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphonic Dances; Philadelphia Orchestra; Charles Dutoit, conductor; London 433 181

SynopsisToday is the birthday of a quite remarkable 18th century British composer, Sir William Herschel, who was born in Hannover, Germany on this date in 1738.Herschel’s father was a regimental oboist, and young William himself eventually joined papa’s regimental band — also as an oboist. In his early 20s he settled in England, was active in Newcastle, Leeds, Halifax and Bath, and in time became a prominent figure on the music scene, attracting the attention of the Royal Family. He composed 24 symphonies and a number of concertos.In addition to music, Herschel had a passion for astronomy, and, beginning in the 1770s, concentrated more and more of his attention on scientific matters. In 1781, he discovered the planet Uranus, a feat that made him famous throughout Europe. Herschel was named Astronomer Royal to the British crown and given a pension that enabled him to give up music and devote himself entirely to astronomy. Haydn, during his stay in England, paid Herschel a visit to take a peek through his impressive 40-foot telescope. Herschel was knighted in 1817 and became the first president of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1821. He died the following year, in 1822, at 83.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Herschel (1738-1822): Oboe Concerto; Richard Woodhams, oboe; The Mozart Orchestra; Davis Jerome, conductor; Newport Classic 85612Gustav Holst (1874-1934): Uranus, from The Planets; Philharmonia Orchestra; Simon Rattle, conductor; EMI 9513

SynopsisIn fall 1995, American composer Andrew Waggoner received a commission from the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic of the Czech Republic for a new orchestral work, which was premiered on today’s date in 1996.“I had a symphony in my mind for some time and decided that this was the chance I needed to see it through,” Waggoner wrote. The resulting work, Waggoner’s Symphony No. 2, opens with a solo for the cello, an elegy, perhaps, for cellist Anna Cholakian, the founding member of the Cassatt Quartet, who had died from cancer while Waggoner was working on the piece. “Quite unexpectedly, and for the first time in my life as a composer, the piece began to draw from everything around it,” Waggoner wrote, including some recycled elements from his own music, including a setting of one of the Holy Sonnets by 17th century British poet John Donne.Waggoner was born in New Orleans in 1960, and studied music at the Eastman School and Cornell University. In addition to his composition work, he’s worked as an announcer and producer for public radio stations WXXI in Rochester and WNYC in New York. His Symphony No. 2 was recorded by the same Czech orchestra that premiered it.Music Played in Today's ProgramAndrew Waggoner (b. 1960): Symphony No. 2; Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic; Petr Pololanik, conductor; CRI 884

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1940, Disney’s animated film Fantasia opened at New York’s Broadway Theater.Disney’s film was a milestone in cultural crossover, in which classical music — in the person of conductor Leopold Stokowski — shook hands (literally and figuratively) with pop culture — in the person of Mickey Mouse.It was also a milestone in cinematic sound. For its initial East and West Coast release, the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded nine special tracks, one for each section of the orchestra. These were mixed by Stokowski into a 4-track stereo soundtrack to be played in synchronization with the film on special equipment made by RCA for a multiple-loudspeaker theater installation called “Fantasound.” Three large speakers were positioned behind the projection screen, and no fewer than 65 smaller speakers were placed around the walls of the theater.The resulting surround-sound was stunning by 1940 standards, but cost $85,000 to set up. After the second full installation at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles, “Fantasound” was not employed anywhere else. Instead, eight reduced “Fantasia Road Show” speaker set- ups toured American movie theaters until 1941, when, following the outbreak of World War II, Disney diverted his funds, technology and even Mickey Mouse toward the war effort.Music Played in Today's ProgramBach, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Mussorgsky and Schubert: excerpts from Fantasia soundtrack; Philadelphia Orchestra; Leopold Stokowski, conductor; Buena Vista 600072

SynopsisFor the ideal performance of Makrokosmos II: Twelve fantasy pieces after the Zodiac, by American composer George Crumb, one should perhaps be outdoors in a remote clearing under a crystalline canopy of stars.For the record, the premiere performance of Crumb’s suite for amplified piano took place indoors at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on today’s date in 1974, at a recital of new American works given by pianist Robert Miller.In his program notes, Miller offered these words about Crumb’s Makrokosmos II:“Each of the 12 pieces is associated with a different sign of the Zodiac, and is written out in a very precise notation, but the music will at times sound … almost improvisatory. The piano has become an orchestra unto itself. There is an enormously wide range of sound, timbre, touch, dynamics, etc.”One use of quotation by Crumb is beautifully subtle. In the eleventh piece, Litany of the Galactic Bells, the opening music — a shimmering bell effect which recalls the coronation scene from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov — gradually subsides and moves almost imperceptibly into a short excerpt from Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. The effect is somewhat like the changing colors of a prism.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Crumb (1929-2022): Makrokosmos No. 2 (Laurie Hudicek, piano) Furious Artisans 6805

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1923, the League of Composers presented its first chamber concert in New York City. Their stated mission was to present music by living composers whose works represented new trends in music.Their opening concert included a world premiere: a piano quintet by Swiss composer Ernest Bloch, who was then living in America. While not a radical work, Bloch’s quintet was strong stuff for 1923, and even included some quartertone elements. The New York Times critic was impressed, but not won over, writing, “To the inevitable question, ‘Do you like it?’ it seems almost impossible to answer, but if pressed I should say, no, not for any fault in the work but simply because of its too apparent determination to be emotionally stirring.” British critic Ernest Newmann, on the other hand, singled out Bloch’s First Quintet for special praise. “No other piece of chamber music produced in any country during that period can be placed in the same class with it.”For his part, Bloch said simply, “I write without any regard to please either the so-called ‘ultra-moderns’ or the so-called ‘old-fashioned.’”Music Played in Today's ProgramErnest Bloch (1880-1959): Piano Quintet No. 1; Portland String Quartet; Paul Posnak, piano; Arabesque 6618

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1910, Gustav Mahler conducted the New York Philharmonic in a concert billed as “the first of a series arranged in chronological sequence, comprising the most famous composers from the period of Bach to the present day.”Mahler’s program included works of Handel, Rameau, Gretry and Haydn, and opened with his own arrangement of music from Bach’s Orchestral Suites.Now, Bach’s music had been appearing on Philharmonic programs for decades, but some were shocked to see how Mahler presented it. Rather than standing in front of the orchestra with his baton, Mahler led the orchestra seated at the keyboard of a Bach-Klavier (a Steinway piano whose action had been tinkered with to make it sound more like a harpsichord). That bit of “historically informed performance” was something brand new back then.In a letter to a friend back in Europe, Mahler wrote, “I had great fun recently with a Bach concert, for which I worked out the basso continuo conducting and improvising quite in the style of the old masters … this produced a number of surprises for me — and also for the audience. It was as though a floodlight had been turned on to this long-buried literature.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750) (arr. Gustav Mahler): Orchestral Suite; Berlin Radio Symphony; Peter Schwarz, conductor; Schwann 11637

SynopsisIf you’ve ever attended a live symphony concert, you’re familiar with the routine: before anyone starts playing, before the conductor even steps on stage, the principal oboist sounds an “A” — and the other musicians tune their instruments to that pitch.On today’s date in 1975, a few people in the audience at Carnegie Hall might have been surprised to hear this familiar ritual segue directly into the opening of John Corigliano’s new Oboe Concerto, which was receiving its premiere performance by oboist Burt Lucarelli and the American Symphony orchestra.The first movement of Corigliano’s Concerto is titled Tuning Game, followed by a Song-Scherzo, Aria and a final Dance. This form, Corigliano said, arose “from the different aspects of the oboe … the coloratura qualities of the oboe are emphasized in the Aria movement, for example, but the whole Concerto is highly theatrical, virtuoso music for both soloist and orchestra.”Theatrical is right! The final dance movement was inspired by the sound of the rhaita, or Morrocan oboe. According to Corigliano: “I was fascinated by the rhaita’s sound, heady and forceful ... but having an infectiously exciting quality. I first heard the instrument in Marrakech in 1966, serenading a cobra.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938): Oboe Concerto; Humbert Lucarelli, oboe; American Symphony; Kazuyoshi Akiyama, conductor; RCA/BMG 60395

SynopsisOkay, here’s a cocktail party question for music fans: “What do James Brown — the master of funk — and Soviet symphonic composer Dmitri Shostakovich have in common?”The answer is Stomp, a piece by Seattle-based composer David Schiff that premiered on today’s date in 1990 at Alice Tully Hall in New York City at a concert by Marin Alsop’s Concordia orchestra.For starters, on the score of Stomp, Schiff includes a reference to James Brown’s music, instructing the players, “Every instrument is treated like a drum.” Also, during its opening, there’s a staccato rhythm based on Brown’s iconic tune, “I Feel Good.”And the Shostakovich connection? Well, Schiff confesses to modeling Stomp on the opening movement of that composer’s Symphony No. 9, right down to a strict imitation of Shostakovich’s repeat of the exposition, in sonata-form style.On the origin and subsequent use of Stomp, Schiff said, “Marin Alsop conducted one of my pieces at Tanglewood in 1988 and later asked me for a new orchestral piece for her Concordia orchestra; since then, Stomp has since been played by many orchestras including the L.A. Philharmonic, who took it to high schools to demonstrate that classical music could be really loud.”Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Schiff (b. 1945): Stomp; Baltimore Sym; David Zinman, conductor; Argo 444 454-2

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1940, the Chicago Symphony helped celebrate their 50th anniversary with the premiere performance of a specially commissioned symphony from famous Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.Stravinsky himself was on hand to conduct his Symphony in C — a work that attracted a great deal of attention at the time. For starters, writing a symphony in the key of C Major seemed a defiantly anti-modern gesture at a time when Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve tone method of composition was gaining ground with prominent American musicians and critics.Traditionally, C Major was deemed a “happy” or “bright” key, but Stravinsky composed his Symphony during one of the unhappiest periods of his life, when his wife, his mother and one of his daughters had all died in rapid succession. “It is no exaggeration to say that in the following weeks I was able to continue my own life only by my work on the Symphony in C,” Stravinsky wrote. “But I did not seek to overcome my grief by portraying or giving expression to it in music, and you will listen in vain, I think, for traces of this sort of personal emotion.”Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Symphony in C; Chicago Symphony; Georg Solti, conductor; London 458 898

SynopsisFor later Romantic composers like Richard Wagner, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was “the apotheosis of the dance,” and certainly sitting still during the Symphony’s dizzying finale is not always easy. But for those in the audience at its premiere in 1813, as part of a benefit concert for wounded Bavarian and Austrian soldiers, it was the somber slow movement that proved most attractive. Perhaps audiences read more into it than Beethoven intended, given the occasion, but over time, the slow movements of many symphonies not only got longer, but by the time of Bruckner and Mahler also became the emotional “heart” of the composition, and are sometimes performed as stand-alone concert pieces.On today’s date in 1999, this Adagio by Italian composer Elisabetta Brusa received its premiere performance by the Virtuosi of Toronto. Brusa was born in 1954 in Milan and studied music at the Milan Conservatory. “My Adagio is a freely structured composition in a single movement inspired by well-known masterpieces, such as those by Albinoni, Mahler, and Barber. Independent of a pre-established form, sonata, or suite, it originated as an autonomous composition in the expressive style which have distinguished the numerous Adagios of the past,” she wrote. Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 471 490Elisabetta Brusa (b. 1954): Adagio; Ukraine National Symphony; Fabio Mastrangelo, conductor; Naxos 8.555267

SynopsisAt the dawn of the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt was president and America was in an upbeat, prosperous mood. Cultural affairs were not forgotten, either. To the already established American symphony orchestras in cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati and San Francisco, new ensembles would spring up in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Seattle.In 1903, it was Minneapolis’ turn. On November 5 of that year, German-born musician Emil Oberhoffer led the first concert of the newly formed Minneapolis Symphony. In those days it was a 50-piece ensemble, but in the course of the next 100 years, would double in size and change its name to the Minnesota Orchestra.As this is the Composers Datebook, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Minnesota Orchestra has enjoyed a special relationship with a number of leading American composers.Aaron Copland conducted the orchestra on a memorable and televised Bicentennial Concert in 1976, and two young American composers, Stephen Paulus and Libby Larsen, served as composers-in-residence with the orchestra in the 1980s. The orchestra has also given the premiere performances of works by Charles Ives, John Adams, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Dominick Argento and Aaron Jay Kernis, among many others.Music Played in Today's ProgramDominick Argento (1927-2019): A Ring of Time; Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, conductor; Reference 91

SynopsisToday’s date marks the premiere of two works written by émigré composers: one Austrian, the other Chinese.On Nov. 4, 1948, the Albuquerque Civic Symphony gave the first performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, a powerful piece for narrator, chorus and orchestra. Schoenberg had met some survivors of the Nazi pogroms in the Warsaw ghetto. He was profoundly moved as they recounted their harrowing experiences, so he set their recollections to music, utilizing a twelve-tone theme which is revealed only at the end of the work, where it supplies the traditional melody of a Jewish prayer of comfort and hope.On today’s date in 1993, Boulder, Colorado, was the venue for the premiere of the String Quartet No. 3 by Chinese composer Bright Sheng. “It was inspired by the memory of a Tibetan folk dance which I came across about 25 years ago when I was living in a province on the border between China and Tibet,” he recalled. At that time, Madame Mao’s Cultural Revolution was in full force, and that explains why a teenage pianist from Shanghai ended up on a remote Chinese frontier. Eventually, Sheng was able to enroll in the Shanghai Conservatory, and in 1982 came to New York. Music Played in Today's ProgramArnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): A Survivor from Warsaw; Simon Callow, narrator; London Symphony; Robert Craft, conductor; Koch 7263Bright Sheng (b. 1955): String Quartet No. 3 (Shanghai Quartet) BIS 1138

SynopsisRussian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov might be described as an operatic dynamo: he composed fifteen and had a hand in editing, orchestrating and promoting important operas by his fellow countrymen: Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Khovantschina, Borodin’s Prince Igor and Dargomïzhsky’s The Stone Guest.Rimsky-Korsakov’s fifteen operas are rarely staged with any regularity outside Russia, although instrumental suites and excerpts from them have proven immensely popular as concert pieces.The familiar Flight of the Bumble Bee is from a Rimsky-Korsakov opera that premiered in Moscow on today’s date in 1900, and, like most of his operas, is based on Russian fairytales. The opera’s full title is: The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatïr Prince Guidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Swan-Princess.If you think the title is a bit long, consider the required cast of performers, which in addition to thirteen main characters calls for Boyars and their wives, courtiers, nursemaids, sentries, troops, boatmen, astrologers, footmen, singers, scribes, servants and maids, dancers of both sexes, 33 knights of the sea with their leader Chernomor, a squirrel and — oh yes — a bumblebee.Music Played in Today's ProgramNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Flight of the Bumble Bee, from Tsar Saltan; Philharmonia Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 460 250Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumble Bee; Budapest Clarinet Quintet; Naxos 8.553427Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumble Bee Itzhak Perlman, violin; Samuel Sanders, piano; EMI 54882

SynopsisToday we dip into the “Composers Mailbag” for two letters, neither of them dealing with significant musical matters, but both (coincidentally) with wine.In a note dated Nov. 2, 1894, Giuseppe Verdi wrote (in his typically blunt style): “Dear Sig. Melani, I received yesterday the cases of wine. Now what is left is to pay for them. Please send me the bill for what I owe you minus the empty cases and returned bottles. Do it as soon as possible as I am going to the country and want to send you a check before I leave. As always, G. Verdi."The second letter is dated Nov. 2, 1748, and was penned by Johann Sebastian Bach to his cousin, and reads: “That you and your dear wife are well I am assured by the note I received from you yesterday accompanying the little cask of wine you sent, for which much thanks. Regrettably the cask was damaged by being shaken in the wagon or some other way, for when opened for the usual customs inspection, it was 2/3 empty. It is a pity that even the least drop of this noble gift of God should have been spilled. (Signed) Your devoted cousin, J.S. Bach.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Libiamo (Brindisi), from La Traviata; Frank Chacksfield Orchestra; London 436 849