Composers Datebook

SynopsisOn this date in 1961, cellist Pablo Casals gave a chamber concert at the White House, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy. The concert was given in honor of Governor Luis Muñoz of Puerto Rico, the home of Pablo Casals. Casals played works of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Couperin, with his own composition, Song of the Birds, as an encore.While eminent guests raved over the performance, the cellist’s laconic comment was simply, “It went well.” Casals could afford to be blasé. After all, he had played at the White House before — for President Teddy Roosevelt back in 1904!Aaron Copland was also invited to the November 13th White House concert in 1961. In a diary entry, he noted: “Pierre Salinger and Senator Mike Mansfield were at our table. President Kennedy was in full view the entire time… I was surprised at his reddish-brown hair. No evil in the face, but plenty of ambition there, no doubt. Mrs. K. statuesque … After dinner we were treated to a concert by Pablo Casals. No American music. The next step.”That “next step” came the following spring. In May of 1962, the Kennedys presented Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid at the White House for the visiting president of the Ivory Coast Republic, with Copland as guest of honor.Music Played in Today's ProgramPablo Casals (1876-1973): Song of the Birds; Patrick Demenga, cello; Gerard Wyss, piano; Novalis 150117Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Billy the Kid Ballet; Dallas Symphony; Eduardo Mata, conductor; Dorian 90170

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1943, the Boston Symphony and conductor Serge Koussevitzky gave the first performance of a Symphony for Strings by American composer William Schuman.Schuman was 33 at the time, but Koussevitzky had already been programming and commissioning his music for about five years. Koussevitzky had already given the premiere performances of his popular American Festival Overture and Symphony No. 3.Schuman’s Symphony for Strings is dedicated to the memory of Koussevitzky’s wife, Natalie, whose family fortune had enabled Koussevitzky to establish himself as a conductor, found a publishing house, and commission many of the 20th century’s most significant works, including Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.In Russia, the Koussevitzkys championed Russian music. In France, they supported French composers. And, beginning in 1924, when Koussevitzky became the music director of the Boston Symphony, many American composers benefited from this remarkable couple’s enthusiasm for new music. Symphony for Strings is just one of a long list of the Koussevitzky’s American commissions, which includes works by Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Samuel Barber, Walter Piston and Leonard Bernstein.Taken as a whole, the concert music commissioned by Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky remains one of the most remarkable musical legacies of the 20th century.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Schuman (1910-1992): Symphony No. 5 (Symphony for Strings); I Musici de Montreal; Yuli Turovsky, conductor; Chandos 9848

SynopsisAt Carnegie Hall in New York City on today’s date in 1990, a new work by American composer and jazz trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe had its premiere performance by the American Composers Orchestra. November 11 also happens to be the birthday of its composer, who was born Marvin Peterson, in Smithville, Texas, in 1948, but now goes by the name Hannibal.The new work was an oratorio, African Portraits, which traces the story of slavery in America and Black culture’s contributions to American music. It’s scored for orchestra, jazz quartet, blues guitar, chorus, gospel singer, plus African storyteller and African instruments. In composing this work, which in Biblical terms he calls his personal “burning bush,” Hannibal drew inspiration from a variety of sources, ranging from the spirituals he listened to while working in the cotton fields of Texas to the drums of the Masai people in Africa, with whom he lived for a time.A critic for the Washington Post described the work as follows:“The dramatic power conveyed by Portraits is cumulative. It’s derived from the drums and the chants, the procession of blues, jazz and gospel refrains, the symphonic sweep and narrative form, the great compression of time, anguish and triumph. It's a listening experience you’ll not soon forget.”Music Played in Today's ProgramHannibal Lokumbe (b. 1948): African Portar; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim; Teldec 81792

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1862, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Forza del Destino (or The Force of Destiny) had its premiere at the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. Verdi and his wife, Giuseppina, were present for the opening night.We’re not sure what the outdoor temperature was in St. Petersburg that November evening, but it was something that the Verdis carefully considered before agreeing to attend.Responding to a friend’s letter describing a Russian winter, Giuseppina wrote: “If I were not afraid of committing forgery, I would alter that imposing figure of 22 below zero which will make Verdi open his eyes wide in fright … As for myself, I took refuge under the stove … In any case, I shall try and persuade him to expose his nose to the danger of freezing in Russia.”Perhaps in artistic compensation, the story of Forza is set in sultry Spain — and after the premiere in St. Petersburg, the Verdis did indeed set off for warmer climates of Rome and Madrid, where the new opera was to have its next performances.In the early years of the 20th century, La Forza del Destino — like most of Verdi’s works — was seldom staged, but in the 1920s it was successfully revived, and its overture has become a concert hall favorite.Music Played in Today's ProgramGiuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Overture and Act II excerpt from La Forza del Destino; John Alldis Choir; London Symphony; James Levine, conductor; RCA/BMG 39502

SynopsisThe world’s most popular classical guitar concerto, the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo, had its first performance on today’s date in 1940, in Barcelona.Rodrigo was born in Spain in 1901 and lost his sight at the age of three. He wrote all his music on a Braille music typewriter. The Concierto de Aranjuez, inspired by a small town of that name thirty miles south of Madrid, remains his signature piece, though he wrote a number of other successful works. He died on July 6, 1999, at 97.In 1959, a friend had played a recording of Rodrigo’s concerto for American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, who said, “After listening to it for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.” So, he played it for his friend, jazz composer and arranger Gil Evans, and in short order the two collaborated on their own 16-minute version of the score. Their collaboration was included on their classic 1960 Columbia LP, Sketches of Spain.At the recording session, Miles paid Rodrigo this compliment: “That melody is so strong that the softer you play it, the stronger it gets…”Music Played in Today's ProgramJoaquin Rodrigo (1902-1999): Concierto de Aranjuez; Manuel Barrueco, guitar; Philharmonic Orchestra; Placido Domingo, conductor; EMI 56175

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1919, a concert suite from Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale had its premiere in Lausanne, Switzerland — the same city in which the original theatrical version of Stravinsky’s score was first presented in 1918.In that original form, The Soldier’s Tale was a kind of musical morality play scored for narrator and small chamber ensemble. Stravinsky incorporated elements of American jazz, although what he knew of jazz was derived entirely from looking at sheet music rather than any firsthand experience of actually hearing American jazz.Eighty years later, for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis composed A Fiddler’s Tale — a companion piece to Stravinsky’s work, scored for the same configuration of instruments.Wynton Marsalis said, “No matter what I do, I'm not going to compare myself to Stravinsky. That would be ridiculous. You have to accept who he is and do what you can do, and hope that what you do is on some level of quality.”Like Stravinsky’s piece, A Fiddler’s Tale also exists in two versions: as a theater piece with a narrator, and as a purely instrumental suite. Both have been recorded, and both, not surprisingly, feature Wynton Marsalis as the trumpeter.Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): L’histoire du Soldat Suite; Philharmonia Orchestra; Robert Craft, conductor; Koch 7504Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961): The Fiddler’s Tale; Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Sony 60979

SynopsisIn 1971, after reading a book about Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, American pop singer Don McLean wrote the song, “Vincent,” which became a big hit the following year. The song is better known by its opening line, “Starry, starry night,” a reference to one of Van Gogh’s best-known paintings, The Starry Night.But McLean wasn’t the only composer inspired by that painting. On today’s date in 1978, the National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., a new orchestral work by French composer Henri Dutilleux.Dutilleux titled his new work Timbres, Espace, Mouvement, but added a subtitle, The Starry Night, in acknowledgment of the painting’s influence, and said he wanted to translate into music the (quote) “almost cosmic whirling effect which [the painting] produces.”Now, painting and music are very different art forms, but the energy, pulsation, and whirling qualities of Van Gogh’s masterpiece do find vivid expression, both visual and musical, in Dutilleux’s work.As a kind of frame, Dutilleux placed the cellos in a half circle around the conductor, omitted violins and violas from his instrumentation, and alternated static episodes and whirling wind and percussion solos to evoke the illusion of motion in the Van Gogh painting.Music Played in Today's ProgramHenri Dutilleux (1916-2013): Timbres, Espace, Mouvement; BBC Philharmonic; Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor; Chandos 9504

SynopsisThe saxophone — whose flashing serpentine figure is now virtually synonymous with jazz clubs and wind bands — was the brainchild of woodwind craftsman Adolphe Sax, born in Belgium on this date in 1814, to a family of prominent instrument makers. Sax moved to Paris in his late 20s, where he proved himself a restless and prolific inventor of new instruments.Yet only a few of these lived on, of which the saxophone is by far the most popular. John Philip Sousa’s band gave many audiences in this country their first taste of the saxophone, and its important role in jazz can hardly be overestimated — that’s a development that neither Sax nor Sousa could have foreseen.In the symphonic repertory, saxophones are still just occasional visitors to the concert hall, but in the world of chamber music, saxophone quartets have become quite popular. In America alone there are dozens of professional saxophone quartets who commission and perform new works.Take, for example, the Quartet for Saxophones by the Canadian composer Anita “A.D.” Perry, a work written for the Amherst Saxophone Quartet of Buffalo, New York. The Amherst Quartet has a 20-year history of commissioning and performing new music, and has recorded a number of CDs, include one of Perry’s quartet.Music Played in Today's ProgramAnita D. Perry (b. 1960): Quartet for Saxophones; Amherst Saxophone Quartet; innova 5

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1938, two works by American composer Samuel Barber received their very high-profile premiere performances on a live, coast-to-coast broadcast by the NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini.Toscanini was impressed by Barber’s Symphony No. 1, which was performed at the 1937 Salzburg Festival, so Toscanini asked the 25-year old composer for a short orchestral piece, which Toscanini might perform with the newly-formed NBC Symphony.Barber offered Toscanini his pick of two short pieces, and must have been surprised when he agreed to perform both of them: a newly-composed Essay for Orchestra and Barber’s arrangement for full string orchestra of a movement from a String Quartet he had written in 1936. Retitled Adagio for Strings, it was destined to become his best-known work.Barber’s Adagio acquired a special resonance during World War Two, as a threnody for America’s war dead. It was also performed at the funeral of wartime President Franklin D. Roosevelt. More recently, Barber’s Adagio has been used to great effect in several successful films, including The Elephant Man and Platoon.In a memorial tribute to Barber, American composer Ned Rorem wrote, “If Barber [25 years old when the Adagio was completed] later aimed higher, he never reached deeper into the heart.”Music Played in Today's ProgramSamuel Barber (1910-1981): First Essay for Orchestra; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 9053Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings; Berlin Philharmonic; Semyon Bychkov, conductor; Philips 434 108

SynopsisTake one flute, one oboe, and mix well with one each of a clarinet, bassoon and French horn — and you have the recipe for the traditional wind quintet. In the 19th century, this tasty musical mix was perfected by Europeans like the Czech composer Anton Reicha, who produced 24 wind quintets in his lifetime.In the 20th century, American composers like Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter and John Harbison have all written one wind quintet each — matching Reicha’s in quality, if not in quantity. But other American composers have returned to the wind quintet for a second helping. On today’s date in 1993, the Wind Quintet No. 2 of Californian composer David Ward-Steinman received its premiere in Sacramento by the Arioso Quintet.Ward-Steinman titled his quintet Night Winds, and asked his five players to occasionally double on some non-traditional instruments such as bamboo or clay flutes, a train-whistle, and even the traditional wind instrument of Indigenous Australians, the didgeridoo — all to create some atmospheric “night-wind” sounds.In addition to wind quintets, David Ward-Steinman composed orchestral works, chamber music and pieces for solo piano. A native of Louisiana, Ward-Steinman studied with Darius Milhaud in Aspen, Milton Babbitt at Tanglewood and Nadia Boulanger in Paris.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonin Reicha (1770-1836): Wind Quintet No. 23; Albert Schweitzer Quintet; CPO 999027David Ward-Steinman (1936-2015): Woodwind Quintet No. 2 (Night Winds); Arioso Quintet; Fleur de Son Classics 57935

SynopsisOn this day* in 1888, the orchestral suite Scheherazade, the most famous work of Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, was first performed in St. Petersburg. The suite evokes episodes from The Arabian Nights. Though Rimsky-Korsakov was Russian, and most often concentrated on operas based on Russian history and fable, it’s ironic that his most popular work was inspired by folklore and fables from the Middle East.Until recently, Western knowledge of the Middle Eastern music was mostly limited to such secondhand accounts. But today, we’re discovering firsthand both the traditional music of the Middle East and new works by contemporary composers from that part of the world.One of these is Iranian-born American composer Reza Vali, who was born in Ghazvin, Iran in 1952 and began his musical studies at the Teheran Conservatory. In 1972, he moved to Vienna and studied at the Academy of Music, and then came to America to study at University of Pittsburgh.Despite his training in Western technique, Vali has returned to the instruments and traditions of Persian music for inspiration. “Music is like the ocean,” he once said in an interview. “It moves between cultures. It doesn’t have boundaries. But that doesn’t mean that you have to lose your identity … you can have a pluralistic approach by also keeping your identity.”*Julian calendar date: October 22Music Played in Today's ProgramNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Scheherazade; Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, conductor; Telarc 80568Reza Vali (b. 1952): Folk Songs Set No. 9; Alberto Almarza, flute; Alvaro Bitran, cello; New Albion 077On This Day

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1873, a new piece by German composer Johannes Brahms received its first performance by the Vienna Philharmonic. The piece, Variations on a Theme by Haydn, was a big success at its premiere. Brahms must have heaved a great sigh of relief.For the previous 18 years, Brahms had struggled to complete his Symphony No. 1, unconvinced that he had “the right stuff” to pull it off. In the summer of 1873, he wrote his Haydn Variations as a kind of personal test to see how audiences would react — and to bolster his own confidence. Lucky for us, it worked: Brahms returned to work on his Symphony No. 1 and went on to write four symphonies in all!On today’s date in 1990, the Fourth Symphony of American composer Lou Harrison received its premiere by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Much of Harrison’s music has been influenced by non-Western traditions, especially the Javanese gamelan music, and his Symphony No. 4 is no exception.Harrison was 73 when this symphony premiered, and he dubbed it his Last Symphony —apparently agreeing with Brahms that four was enough. When asked what would happen should he decide to write still another, Harrison quipped, “I’ll call it the Very Last Symphony.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): Variations on a theme by Haydn; Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; Teldec 8.44005Lou Harrison (1917-2003): Symphony No. 4 (Last Symphony); California Symphony; Barry Jekowsky, conductor; Argo 455 590

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1948, Maestro Efrem Kurtz led the first subscription concert of the newly reorganized Houston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1913, but after struggling through the “minor” disruptions of two World Wars and the Great Depression, the symphony’s 1948 season marked its rebirth as a major player among American orchestras. Since then, the Houston Symphony’s roster of conductors has included some of the greatest: Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli and André Previn, to name just a few.For its 1948 debut concert, the new Houston Symphony commissioned and premiered a new work by Aaron Copland — a concert suite adapted from his latest film score.Copland had gone to Hollywood early in 1948 to write the music for the cinematic version of John Steinbeck’s novella, The Red Pony, and spent ten weeks writing about an hour’s worth of music for the new film, which was scheduled for release in 1949 — so that meant his 1948 concert suite from The Red Pony debuted even before the movie.The Houston Post’s review called Copland’s suite “clean, joyous, ingenious and irresistibly spirited,” and correctly predicted “Mr. Copland’s Red Pony has grand little gaits, and will stand playing again — here and in a lot of other places.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): The Red Pony Suite; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, conductor; Delos 3221

Synopsis“Which is better — the movie, or the book it’s based on?” On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera asked a different question: “Which is better — the opera, or the movie it’s based on?”The new opera, Lost Highway, is by Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer, and was inspired by a 1997 movie by American film director David Lynch.Like David Lynch’s film noir, Olga Neuwirth’s opera, which combines live action and music with videos and electronic tape, is dark, often baffling, and more than a little creepy – perfect for a Halloween premiere, in fact. Neuwirth herself had this to say:“I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty … I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art which deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image ... The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable … a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality.”Music Played in Today's ProgramOlga Neuwirth (b. 1968): Intro from Lost Highway; Klanform Wien; Johannes Kalitzke, conductor; Kairos CD-0012542KAI

SynopsisIt was on today’s date in 1944 that Martha Graham and her dance company first performed the ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. The premiere took place at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, as part of the 80th birthday celebrations for music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had commissioned Copland’s score for $500 — not a bad commission back then!Copland used an old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts,” as a principal theme for his ballet. The austere but simple elegance of Shaker art reminded him, he said, of Graham’s style of dancing, and tied in with her vague suggestions that the ballet would be about early American pioneers. Copland left the title up to Graham.Arriving in Washington for the rehearsals, Copland wrote: “The first thing I said to Martha when I saw her was, ‘What have you called the ballet?’ She replied, ‘Appalachian Spring.’ ‘What a pretty title. Where did you get it?’ I asked, and Martha said, ‘Well, actually it’s from a poem by Hart Crane.’ I asked, ‘Does the poem have anything to do with your ballet?’ ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I just liked the title.’”Understandably, Copland said he was always amused when people said, “Oh Mr. Copland, I can just see the Appalachian Mountains when I hear your music!”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Appalachian Spring; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; EMI 73653

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1787, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni had its premiere performance in Prague, with Mozart himself conducting. Mozart had arrived in Prague early in October that year, but as singers and instrumentalists alike needed more time than originally planned to prepare his difficult new score, the premiere occurred later than planned.The October 29th premiere was a triumph, and a Prague newspaper reported that Mozart was received with threefold cheers when he entered and left the theater. At the request of Joseph II, the Austrian emperor, Don Giovanni was staged in Vienna the following year. The emperor was pleased: “That opera is divine,” he told Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, but, surprisingly, the Viennese audiences didn’t seem to like it.Da Ponte quoted the Emperor as suggesting Don Giovanni was just too complicated for their taste: “Such music is not meat for the teeth of my Viennese,” he said. In his memoirs, da Ponte wrote, “I reported this remark to Mozart, who replied quietly: ‘Well, give them time to chew on it, then.’””He was not mistaken,” continued da Ponte. “At each performance of Don Giovanni the applause increased, and little by little, even Vienna of the dull teeth came to savor it.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Don Giovanni; Michele Pertusi (as Leporello); London Philharmonic; Georg Solti, conductor; London 455 500

SynopsisIn 2016, Minneapolis-based jazz composer and pianist Jeremy Walker collaborated with Consortium Carissimi, a Twin Cities early music vocal ensemble in the creation of some brand-new music in the style of the ensemble’s namesake, 17th-century Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi.One of the pieces Walker composed was a duet for tenor and mezzo-soprano. The mezzo for the premiere performance was Clara Osowski, a singer with a special passion for art songs, past and present.Since Osowski was as impressed with Walker’s music as he with her voice, after that concert they decided to embark on a project to infuse the modern jazz harmonies of Bill Evans into the Romantic art song genre of Schubert and Brahms.They chose texts by Whitman, Longfellow, and Minnesota lyricist Greg Foley, for a song cycle, Haunted Blue. “The ‘blue’ in the title refers to the overall mood of the music,” Walker explained. “But it also refers to the type of harmonies I’m using. The ‘haunted’ part is like when you’re half asleep and half awake at night, and dreams combine with reality.”A studio recording and even some music videos were made, and on today’s date in 2018, Haunted Blue received its premiere public performance at a CD release concert in Minneapolis.Music Played in Today's ProgramJeremy Walker: ‘Alma Gentil’ and ‘The Rainy Day,’ from Haunted Blue Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano; Tefsa Wondemagegnehu, tenor; Jeremy Walker, piano; Haunted Blue CD 93428 00177

SynopsisOn this day in 1919, Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony in the premiere performance of his new Cello Concerto, with Felix Salmond as soloist.What should have been a joyous occasion turned out to be a frustrating one — there simply wasn’t enough time to rehearse properly, and the premiere was a near-fiasco. Puzzled, the less-than-full house in Queen’s Hall gave Elgar a polite ovation but left shaking their heads.Mrs. Elgar blamed the conductor, Albert Coates, who hogged all the orchestra’s rehearsal time working over the two pieces he was to conduct on the same program as Elgar’s new concerto, for which Coates would hand off the baton to Elgar. In her diary for October 26, she wrote, “Poor Felix Salmond in a state of suspense and nerves — wretched hurried rehearsal — an insult to Elgar from that brutal, selfish, ill-mannered bounder, Coates.”After the botched premiere of the new concerto, critic Ernest Newman reported, “Never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable a public exhibition of itself.”Despite this rough beginning, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has gone on to become one of the composer’s best-loved works worldwide, and has proven to be a favorite with the great cellists of our time, including British cellist Jacqueline du Pré.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934): Cello Concerto; Jacqueline du Pré, cello; Philadephia Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim, conductor; Sony 60789

SynopsisImagine that you are playing for high stakes on a TV quiz show and here’s your question:Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 had its world premiere performance in what city?a) Moscowb) St. Petersburgc) Budapestd) BostonIs that your final answer? If you chose d) Boston, you would have been a winner!Tchaikovsky finished his Piano Concerto No. 1 in the early months of 1875, and the work received its very first performance on October 25 that year at the Music Hall in Boston. The orchestra was a freelance group, mostly members of the Harvard Musical Association — the Boston Symphony wouldn’t be founded until six years later. The conductor of the Tchaikovsky premiere was one B.J. Lang — hardly a name most classical music lovers would recognize today — but the soloist was world-class: the famous German pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow.In his day, Bülow was one of the great champions of new music, and Tchaikovsky dedicated his new Piano Concerto to Bulow after his one-time teacher, Nicolai Rubinstein, a famous Russian concert pianist and conductor in his own right, had said the piece was unplayable. Von Bülow proved him wrong, and was able to telegraph Tchaikovsky from Boston that his new concerto had been a big success.Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Piano Concerto No. 1; Van Cliburn, piano; RCA Symphony; Kirill Kondrashin, conductor; Philips 456 748

SynopsisIn the year 1929, October 24 fell on a Thursday, and that particular day has the dubious honor of being dubbed “Black Thursday” — for it was on that fateful day that the New York Stock Exchange crashed. A full-blown financial panic ensued, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. For many who saw their fortunes wiped out overnight, it must have seemed like the end of the world.Meanwhile, in Charleston, West Virginia, a baby boy was born on Black Thursday who would grow up to become one of America’s most original composers. By the 1970s, George Crumb was acknowledged as a masterful creator of impressionistic and mysterious soundscapes, with evocative titles like Dream Sequence, Night of the Four Moons, and Eleven Echoes of Autumn.Most of Crumbs’ pieces are for small ensemble, but in 1977 he composed a large-scale work, Star-Child, scored for antiphonal choirs, bell ringers, and a large symphony orchestra positioned for surround-sound effect in the concert hall. Crumb said it traces a “progression from darkness and despair to light or joy and spiritual realization.”A recording of Star-Child was issued to celebrate Crumb’s 70th birthday in 1999 — a year, curiously enough, in which the stock market enjoyed an all-time high, just before taking yet another downward plunge!Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Crumb (1929-2022): Musica Apocalyptica, from Star-Child; Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra; Thomas Conlin, conductor; Bridge 9095