Composers Datebook

SynopsisOn today’s date in 17th century Germany, a baby boy was christened who would grow up to be one of the leading composers and organists of his time. No, it wasn’t Johann Sebastian Bach — although the child we’re discussing here would become the teacher of the teacher of J.S. Bach and did serve as godfather to one J.S. Bach’s older relations.It was Johann Pachelbel who was baptized on today’s date in Nuremberg in 1653. He was a famous musician in his day, but after his death in 1706, Pachelbel would be pretty much forgotten until late in the 20th century, when an orchestral arrangement of a little chamber piece that he’d written — Pachelbel’s Canon would suddenly become an unexpected hit. In 1979, the American composer George Rochberg even included a set of variations on Pachelbel’s Canon as the third movement of his own String Quartet No. 6.Like Bach, some of Pachelbel’s children also became composers, and one of them, Karl Teodorus Pachelbel, emigrated from Germany to the British colonies of North America. As “Charles Theodore Pachelbel,” he became an important figure in the musical life of early 18th century Boston and Charleston, where he died in 1750, the same year as J.S. Bach. Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Rochberg (1918-2005): Variations on Pachelbel’s Canon, from String Quartet No. 6; Concord Quartet; New World 80551

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1928, Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera, whose cast members portrayed thieves, murderers,and sex workers, debuted at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin.The Three-Penny Opera was a 20th century updating of The Beggar’s Opera, a satirical 18th century British ballad-opera by John Gay. A new German text was provided by playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill provided a jazzy score.The opera was a smash success in Berlin, and within a year was taken up by theaters all over Europe. But in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, all performances of The Three Penny Opera were banned, since Weill was Jewish and Brecht was a communist sympathizer.Just as it was being banned in Germany, its 1933 American premiere in New York was a flop, and the show closed after only a dozen performances. It wasn’t until 1952 that it was successfully revived in America. With a new English translation by the American composer Marc Bliztstein, The Three Penny Opera was reintroduced by Leonard Bernstein at a Music Festival at Brandeis University, and in 1954 reopened off-broadway in Greenwich Village to sold-out houses and rave reviews.Music Played in Today's ProgramKurt Weill (1900-1950): Three Penny Opera; Suite Canadian Chamber Ensemble; Raffi Armenian, conductor; CBC 5010

SynopsisIt was on this day in 1929 that a new march by John Philip Sousa was played for the first time — once — and then promptly forgotten until almost 60 years later. The Foshay Tower Washington Memorial March was commissioned by Wilbur Foshay, a high-flying Minneapolis businessman of the Roaring 20s who fell victim to the stock market crash and criminal charges of mail fraud.One of his extravagant projects was the Foshay Tower he built in downtown Minneapolis, a building shaped like the Washington Monument. The building still stands, with Foshay’s name carved in huge letters on all sides of the obelisk, now renovated as a historic site. In the lobby hangs Wilbur Foshay’s portrait, along with the score of Sousa’s march, which the March King himself conducted in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1929.Soon after Foshay’s empire of public utilities, factories and banks crumbled to dust, and he was convicted of fraud, spending two years and eleven months in Leavenworth prison. Not surprisingly, John Philip Sousa never got paid for his commission. He considered giving it a new name: The Washington Memorial March, but then decided to withdraw the piece completely, and the music was not published or performed again until 1988.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Philip Sousa (1854-1932): Foshay Tower (Washington Memorial) March; Great American Main Street Band; Timothy Foley, conductor; EMI/Angel 54130

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1952, at the aptly named Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York, pianist David Tudor premiered two new works by the American composer John Cage.The first, Water Music, was scored for a “prepared piano” — a piano into whose metal strings various items had been inserted to alter its sound — plus a duck call and transistor radio. For the second work, Tudor simply closed the lid of the piano, set a stopwatch for the length of the work’s four sections — 4 minutes and 33 seconds to be exact – and then sat quietly on the piano bench. The composition consisted of whatever sounds occurred in that amount of time at that particular moment in time, including any breathing, coughing or snickering from the audience.Some likened the piece to the all-white canvases of the avant-garde painter Robert Rauschenberg, on which accidental aspects of dust or bumps in the canvas created an arbitrary texture. Others thought it an outrageous affront at worst, or a bad joke at best. Whatever else one might think of it, as pianist David Tudor put it, “Cage’s 4:33 is one of the most intense listening experiences one can have.”Cage once said, “I’m interested in making sounds that I don't understand,” and insisted that random, unplanned sounds were as welcome to his ears as those he organized himself, as in this Cage piece for prepared piano, Mysterious Adventure.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Cage (1912-1992): Nos. 5 and 12, from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano; Robert Miller, piano; New World 80203

SynopsisFranz Liszt, the inventor of the “symphonic poem,” wrote 13 of them. The second, Tasso, had its first performance on today's date in 1849. The occasion was a festival celebrating the 100th birthday of great German national poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the author of Faust. The festival was in Weimar, Germany, the city where Goethe died and was buried in 1832.Liszt’s Tasso was written to serve as the overture to Goethe’s drama about Italian poet Torquato Tasso, and its premiere performance was conducted by its composer. The main theme of the work is said to be a tune Liszt claimed he heard sung by an Italian gondolier in Venice.One of the more surprising tributes to Goethe occurred not in Germany, but in scenic Aspen, Colorado, when the Aspen Music Festival was founded in Goethe's honor in 1949 — on the 200th anniversary of his birth. The Aspen Music Festival has grown over the years and today draws some 30,000 visitors annually. One of the original founders of the Festival was French composer Darius Milhaud, who taught at the Aspen Music School for many years. This music is from Milhaud’s Aspen Serenade, written in 1957.More recently, during conductor David Zinman years as the Festival’s Music Director, many contemporary American composers, including John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, Christopher Rouse and Augusta Read Thomas, have had their works performed — and occasionally premiered — in Aspen.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Liszt (1811-1886): Tasso; Orchestre de Paris; Georg Solti, conductor; London 417 513 Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Aspen Serenade, Stuttgart Radio Symphony; Gilbert Varga, conductor; CPO 999114

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1937, in Mexico City, Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez conducted the first performance of this music by Aaron Copland.The music owes its existence to Copland’s friendship with Chavez, which led to Copland visiting Mexico in 1932. Copland and Chavez paid a visit to a wild Mexico City Dance Hall called El Salón México. Quoting a guide-book description of the place in his memoirs, Copland noted its “Three halls: one for people dressed up, one for people dressed in overalls but shod, and one for the barefoot.” A sign on a wall over the dance floor read: “Please don't throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies don’t burn their feet!”“In some inexplicable way, while milling about in those crowded halls, I felt a live contact with the Mexican people — their humanity, their shyness, their dignity and unique charm. I remember quite well that it was at such a moment I conceived the idea of composing a piece about Mexico and naming it El Salón México,” Copland recalled. Five years later Chavez conducted Copland's music in Mexico City. Copland admits he was nervous about how Mexican audiences would react. He had little to fear — Chavez and the musicians loved it, and so did the local critics, who called it “as Mexican as the music of Revueltas,” which at the time, says Copland, was like saying, “as American as the music of Gershwin.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): El Salón México; New Philharmonia; Aaron Copland, conductor; CBS/Sony 46559

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2001, during the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter premiered Tango, Song and Dance, a new chamber work for violin and piano. She had commissioned the work from Andre Previn several years earlier, but its premiere was delayed as Mutter embarked on a project to perform and record all Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas.“After doing all those stern [Beethoven] recitals, I wanted to play pieces which reflected the basis of musical history, the folksongs and dances which has inspired composers through so many centuries. Tango, Song and Dance is both modern and old-fashioned, and it touches the heart, especially the slow movement, which is really a Song Without Words,” said Mutter. And that wasn’t the only thing to touch her heart. It was around this time that Previn and Mutter became husband and wife. For his part, Andre said, “I have one piece of advice to composers for the violin — make sure Anne-Sophie premieres your piece. Then you’re home and dry, and everything works!”Other composers seem to agree, and Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutoslawski, Henri Dutilleux, Wolfgang Rihm and John Williams have all written violin works for Anne-Sophie Mutter.Music Played in Today's ProgramAndre Previn (1929-2019): Tango Song and Dance III. Dance; Lambert Okis, piano; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; DG 8143

SynopsisYou almost feel sorry for the guy — after all, how would you like to go down in history as the fellow who tried to stiff J.S. Bach? That’s what happened to Herr Johannes Friedrich Eitelwein, a rich merchant of Leipzig who thought he could avoid paying the customary wedding fee apportioned to that city’s church musicians by getting married outside city limits.Back then such fees provided a significant portion of their income, and so on today’s date in 1733, Bach and two other church musicians sent a letter to the Leipzig City Council complaining that, whether married inside or outside of the city, as a Leipzig resident, and a wealthy one to boot, Eitelwein should pay up.Now in the 18th Century, such petitions required a delicate balance of formal flattery and firm persistence, so the letter begins: “Magnificent, most honorable gentlemen, our wise and learned councilors, distinguished Lords and Patrons: may it please you to condescend to hear how Herr Johannes Friedrich Eitelwein was married on the twelfth of August of the present year out of town, and therefore thinks himself entitled to withhold the fees due us in all such cases, and has made bold to disregard our many kind reminders.”Bach’s letter survives, but not any records letting us know if Eitelwein ever paid up!Music Played in Today's ProgramJ.S. Bach (1685-1750): Weichet Nur, from Wedding Cantata No. 202; Elly Ameling, soprano; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; EMI Classics

SynopsisOn today's date in 1907, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 by Edward Elgar had its premiere performance in London. Say Pomp and Circumstance to most people and they will start humming the tune of No. 1, later set to words as Land of Hope and Glory. That march accompanied many of us down the aisle at our high school or college graduations.In all, Elgar composed five Pomp and Circumstance marches, and meant to write a sixth, but just never got around to it. No. 1 is the most familiar, but No. 4 runs a close second, with another very noble, very British main tune. During World War II, Alan Herbert fitted his “Song of Freedom” to this music and with its opening line of “All men must be free,” it became an unofficial alternate British national anthem.Meanwhile on these shores, we note that one of America’s classic chamber jazz ensembles was founded on today’s date in 1951 in New York City, when the Modern Jazz Quartet was formed by pianist John Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Under the direction of Lewis, the Quartet fused jazz improvisation with classical forms and Baroque counterpoint. Instead of playing in smoky bars, MJQ made a point of playing in concert halls and even wore tuxes, asking audiences to afford their chamber jazz the same attention and respect usually reserved for classical music.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934): Pomp and Circumstance No. 4; London Philharmonic; Daniel Barenboim, conductor; Sony Classical 60789 Milt Jackson (1923-1999): Blues in C; Modern Jazz Quartet; Atlantic 1652

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1944, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky completed an orchestral score, Scenes de Ballet, or Ballet Scenes. Now, considering Stravinsky had achieved international fame for his earlier ballet scores for The Firebird, Petroushka and The Rite of Spring, perhaps the generic title Ballet Scenes was not all that surprising.What was surprising was that the commission for this 1944 score came from an unusual source — Broadway. New York impresario and nightclub owner Billy Rose had achieved fame the previous year for his Broadway production of Carmen Jones — an updated American version of Bizet’s opera Carmen with an all-Black cast and a jazzed-up score. Rose decided to capitalize on this popular success with something more “upscale and highbrow.” Rose conceived of a stage review, The Seven Lively Arts, and for the dance component decided to commission the most famous living composer of ballet scores, Igor Stravinsky, who was then living in Los Angeles.Rose liked the score when he heard it played on the piano, but he thought Stravinsky’s orchestration a bit too far-out, and this led to a famous coast-to-coast telegraph exchange. After a preview performance in Philadelphia, Rose sent this telegram message to Stravinsky: “Great success, but could be sensational success if you would authorize Robert Russell Bennett to retouch orchestration.”Stravinsky telegraphed this reply to Billy Rose: “Satisfied with great success.”Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Scènes de Ballet; London Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; RCA/BMG 68865

SynopsisWe have a silly anniversary to note today — seriously!On today's date in 1929, Walt Disney released his first Silly Symphonies cartoon: “The Skeleton Dance.” It depicted four skeletons dancing and making music in a graveyard, employing bizarre instruments, including an unfortunate cat played like a fiddle and the skeletons’ own bones, played like a xylophone.While its release on Halloween might have been more appropriate, perhaps “The Skeleton Dance” provided some pleasurable spinal chills for moviegoers on a hot August evening back in 1929. In any case, this Silly Symphony was a huge success for Disney, became an instant classic, and was voted #18 in a 1994 poll of the 50 greatest cartoons of all time by professional animators.And speaking of classics, a bit of Edvard Grieg’s spooky March of the Trolls was used to great effect in “The Skeleton Dance.” But credit for its success should go first to Carl W. Stalling, a legendary composer and arranger of cartoon music and absolute master of unexpected segues, witty allusions, and surreal orchestration, and second, to pioneering Disney animator Ub Iwerks, likewise a master in his field. Chuck Jones, an animator famous for his much later Warner Brothers cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner, had worked for Iwerks’ studio in his youth, and put it this way: “Iwerks is Screwy spelled backwards.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Grieg (1843-1907): March of the Trolls

SynopsisFor over 120 years the late summer music festival known as the BBC Proms has been presenting memorable concerts in London, but one of the most memorable occurred on today’s date in 1968.The scheduled performers at the Royal Albert Hall were the USSR State Symphony, its conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, and the virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. As the musicians took to the stage, boos and cat-calls were mixed with the applause, and some shouts of “Go home!” and “Russians out!”The reason? Earlier that same day, the Soviet Union and its East Block allies had invaded Czechoslovakia, sending troops and tanks into the country to crush the so-called “Prague Spring,” a period of liberalization and reform that threatened Communist control of that nation.By a cruel stroke of irony, one of the works on the scheduled program of the Soviet orchestra was the Cello Concerto by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. There were some shouts of protests as Rostropovich began to play, but by the end of his intense performance, all was quiet. Rostropovich had played with tears streaming down his face, and after finishing held up the conductor’s score of the concerto as both a sign of solidarity with the Czech nation and act of mute protest of the invasion.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonín Dvořák (1841-1904): Cello Concerto; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; USSR State Symphony; Yevgeny Svetlanov, conductor; BBC Legends CD 4110 (recorded live August 21, 1968 at the BBC Proms)

SynopsisTwo concert overtures — one very famous and one not so famous — had their premiere performances on today's date.In 1956, this music by British composer Arthur Bliss provided a festive opening to that year’s Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama. The Edinburgh Festival Overture is a salute to Scotland's premiere arts festival, presented annually in late summer and early fall since 1947.Also premiered on today’s date was Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, commissioned for an international Exhibition of Industry and the Arts in Moscow, and first played at an all-Tchaikovsky concert on today’s date in 1882. As pleased as Tchaikovsky was that his music was to be presented at the Exhibition, he was definitely not enthusiastic about the commission.“There is nothing less to my liking than composing for the sake of some festival. What, for instance, can you write on the occasion of the opening of an exhibition except banalities and generally noisy passages?” he wrote. On top of all that, the commission called for something “with a hint of church music, which must certainly be Orthodox.” Glumly, Tchaikovsky to work, writing to another friend: “I don't think it has any serious merits, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts.”Ah, Peter Ilyich — you certainly got that one wrong!Music Played in Today's ProgramArthur Bliss (1891-1975): Edinburgh Overture; City of Birmingham Symphony; Vernon Handley, conductor; EMI Classics 69388 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): 1812 Overture; Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Phillips 442 011

SynopsisIf you were in Washington, D.C. on today’s date in 1957, and wanted to escape the summer heat, tickets for a new musical at the air-conditioned National Theater would run you between $1.10 and $5.50 — and you could boast for years afterwards that you attended the world premiere performance of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.Actually, the three-week trial run of West Side Story at D.C.’s National Theater was a hot ticket. The premiere attracted a fashionable crowd of Washington elite as well as those who trained or planed their way to the national’s capitol to catch the latest work of America’s musical “boy wonder” — the 38-year old Leonard Bernstein.Even so, The Washington Post reported Bernstein was able to wander the lobby at intermission largely unrecognized — to eavesdrop on audience reaction. One woman who did recognize him identified herself as a former social worker in a rough neighborhood like the one depicted in his musical. “It's all so real, so true,” she told Bernstein. “It chills my blood to remember.” Bernstein was a little taken aback. “It isn’t meant to be realistic,” he said. “Poetry — poetry set to music — that’s what we were trying to do.”But gang violence as the subject for a musical was shocking to 1957 audiences. When the show opened on Broadway, the New York Times expressed its impact as follows: “Although the material is horrifying, the workmanship is admirable … West Side Story is a profoundly moving show.”Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Prologue from West Side Story; orchestra and chorus; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; DG 415 255

SynopsisToday is the birthday of Antonio Salieri, one of the most unjustly maligned composers in history.The successful stage play and movie Amadeus have helped to repeat the notorious charge that jealous 18th-century Italian composer Antonio Salieri was directly or indirectly responsible for Mozart’s early death. Historians have acquitted Salieri of this crime, but more people are familiar with the fiction than the facts.The truth is that Salieri was often quite friendly to Mozart during his lifetime, and after Mozart’s death served as a music teacher to his talented son, Franz Xaver Mozart. The long-lived Salieri also gave lessons in the Italian style to Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt — surely signs of a nature more generous than jealous.Salieri was born in Legnano, Italy in 1750. He came in Vienna in 1766, when he was 16 years old, and Vienna remained his home until the end of his life. A protégé of the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II, Salieri even accompanied that very musical monarch, who played the cello, at royal chamber music sessions. As a composer, Salieri enjoyed imperial patronage from his arrival in Vienna until 1800, a period of some 35 years.Some of the operas Salieri wrote for Vienna have been revived and recorded in our time. He wrote over 40 of them, including The Talisman — a comic opera composed to a text by Mozart’s favorite librettist, Lorenzo da Ponti.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 25; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; Fantasy 900 1791 Antonio Salieri (1750-1825): La Locandiera Overture; London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, conductor; Chandos 9877

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1928, the Columbia Phonograph Company of New York announced that the Symphony No. 6 by Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg was the winner of its $10,000 Schubert Memorial Prize.The competition was intended to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Schubert’s death, and originally, Columbia wanted the prize to go to the composer who most successfully finished Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. After protests that this was an insult to his memory, Columbia expanded the competition to include the best original score conceived in the spirit of Schubert’s music. Attenberg’s symphony was chosen as the winner by an international jury, which included several composers.Now, in 1928, $10,000 was a small fortune — and about 10 times the normal commission fee for a big symphonic work. Not surprisingly, Atterberg’s score was soon nicknamed The Dollar Symphony. Some even accused him of cynically tailoring his music to appeal to the conservative taste of the competition’s jury, and even quoting from works by the composers on the panel to curry their favor.Atterberg defended himself by pointing out the symphony’s opening movements were very much in his normal style, but admitted the final movement was, in fact, intended as a parody of the competition’s requirement to write in Schubert’s style. “It brought me special pleasure, to observe that all the critics who found reminiscences of other composer’s works were not able to identify a very obvious quotation of a Schubert theme in my Rondo-Finale,” Atterberg said. Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Schubert (1797-1828): Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished); Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 423 655 Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974): Symphony No. 6 (Dollar Symphony); Norrköping Symphony; Jun’ichi Hirokami, conductor; Bis 553

SynopsisOn today’s date, Elvis left the building — permanently.On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley died in Memphis, Tennessee. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935, Elvis first earned his living as a mechanic and furniture repairman who occasionally played cowboy ballads on the guitar at parties. But somehow Elvis reinvented himself and became the archetypal rock ‘n’ roll superstar, revered more as the modern day reincarnation of the Greek god Dionysius than a mere mortal.His funeral caused such an outpouring of hysteria and that two people died in the chaos and many more were injured. There was even a bizarre plot at the time to kidnap Elvis’ corpse and hold it for ransom. And, of course, some people claim he never died at all.American composer Michael Daughtery has taken pop icons like Elvis as the inspiration for a number of his concert works. He has even written a bassoon concerto, Dead Elvis: a set of variations on the Dies Irae theme from the Latin Mass for the Dead. In performance, the composer asks that the soloist enter in the familiar costume of Las Vegas Elvis — sunglasses and a rhinestone-encrusted white jumpsuit with a plunging, open, neckline. Hip gyrations are optional.Daugherty wrote: “Elvis is a part of American culture, history, and mythology, for better or for worse. If you want to understand American and all its riddles, sooner or later you have to deal with Elvis.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMichael Daugherty (b. 1954): Dead Elvis; Charles Ullery, bassoon; London Sinfonietta; David Zinman, conductor; Argo 458 145

SynopsisIn the Catholic Liturgical calendar, today is celebrated as the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. In the Middle Ages, when the veneration of Mary as Notre Dame — French for “Our Lady” — was at its peak, a Lady Mass would be sung on a day like this.And it's quite likely that one of the earliest-known settings of the Latin mass, the Notre Dame Mass by Guillaume de Machaut, was performed as a Lady Mass at one particular chapel in the Cathedral of Reims for many years in the 14th century. de Machaut and his brother Jean were both canons at that Cathedral and had arranged an endowment for a mass in honor of Mary to be sung there every Saturday.In our day, de Machaut’s Notre Dame Mass is his most famous work, but in his own time, the age of Chaucer, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, he was far better known as a secular poet of Courtly Love. de Machaut had been a widely-travelled and extremely well-connected artist before returning to his native Reims at the end of his life. Before that, employment by various members of the royalty took him from Paris to Prague and on trips to Italy, Poland and Lithuania.It's ironic that Machaut is nowadays famous for his sacred music — this one Mass in particular — when the vast majority of his music was decidedly secular in tone.Music Played in Today's ProgramGuillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377): Messe de Nostre Dame

SynopsisYoung composers who came of age in the 1960s found themselves faced with a question: should they adopt the intellectually fashionable post-serial, atonal style of composition developed by Arnold Schoenberg’s followers, or return to a more accessible and tonal musical language, neo-Romantic, neo-Classical, or Minimalist in nature?For American composer William Bolcom, who turned 20 in 1958, the first option was not appealing. “I had the credentials and the chops to write like that if I wanted to,” he said, “but I said ‘to hell with it.’”According to Bolcom’s teacher and mentor, French composer Darius Milhaud, Bolcom was “as gifted as a monkey.” Bolcom was a fabulous pianist with a passion for American ragtime and popular song, and distinctly American elements and accents crop up in his compositions. Bolcom says he prefers to live, as he puts it, “in the cracks” between opera and musical theater, tonality and atonality, highbrow and lowbrow.Bolcom’s chamber work, Five Fold Five, for example, premiered on today’s date in 1987 at Saratoga Springs, New York, by pianist Dennis Russell Davies and the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. The piece starts off flirting with atonal elements, but ends with something that sounds a lot like boogie-woogie.Music Played in Today's ProgramWilliam Bolcom (b. 1938): Five Fold Five; Detroit Chamber Winds; William Bolcom, pianoKoch 7395

SynopsisOn today's date in 1950, the orchestra of the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla, California gave the premiere performance of this music by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. The Sinfonietta La Jolla was Martinu's response to the Society’s call for a tuneful and approachable piece of new music for their chamber orchestra.Martinu modeled his 20th century work on the 18th century symphonies of Haydn, a composer he very much admired. In fact, in 1890, when Martinu was born, his native Bohemia was still a part of the Austria-Hungarian empire in which Haydn had lived and worked a hundred years earlier.Martinu’s music blends the modernism of 20th century composers like Stravinsky with the rich 19th century tradition of Czech national composers like Dvořák — but Martinu’s relations with his native land were anything but smooth. He was twice kicked out of the Prague Conservatory for his supposed lack of academic discipline, and instead established himself as a freelance composer in France and Switzerland. Then, just as his music began to receive some recognition and performances back in Prague, the Nazi invasion of World War II led to his works being banned.In 1941, Martinu settled in the United States, where his music was very well received. In 1948, Martinu returned briefly to Prague, but found the new Communist government there as distasteful to him as the Nazis. Martinu’s Sinfonietta La Jolla was written shortly after he returned to the United States.Music Played in Today's ProgramBohuslav Martinu (1890-1959): Sinfonietta “La Jolla”; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Christopher Hogwood, conductor; London 433 660