SynopsisOn today’s date in 1942, Bruno Walter conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of the Symphony No. 2 of American composer John Alden Carpenter.Like Charles Ives, Carpenter led a double life as a composer and successful businessman. He was born into a wealthy family, and from 1906 until his retirement in 1936, served as Vice President of George B. Carpenter & Co., his father’s railroad and shipping supply company.Carpenter studied music at home and abroad, and even took composition lessons from Edward Elgar. In 1914, Carpenter scored a national success with his first big orchestral work, a whimsical symphonic suite, Adventures in a Perambulator, and in 1921 wrote a very popular jazz-inspired ballet, Krazy Kat, based on a wildly popular newspaper comic strip of the day.By the 1940s, Carpenter’s works were being performed by America’s leading orchestras and famous maestros like Bruno Walter and Fritz Reiner. To celebrate his 75th birthday, the newly-formed National Arts Foundation promoted performances of his music in the U.S, Europe, and Australia.But in the decades following his death in 1951, much of Carpenter’s work has been forgotten. Naxos of America released this first-ever recording of his Symphony No. in 2001 — 59 years after the work’s 1942 premiere.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Alden Carpenter (1876-1951): Symphony No. 2; National Symphony of Ukraine; John McLaughlin Williams, conductor; Naxos 8.559065
SynopsisIn the year 1858, Parisian composer Jacques Offenbach was, as usual, busy writing his next operetta and avoiding his creditors. He found it expedient to work in hotel rooms rather than at home, where he ran the risk of being cornered by bill collectors. Offenbach hoped that maybe, just maybe, one big box office success might clear his debts — and enable him to reupholster the tattered seats in his theater, Les Bouffes-Parisiens.On today’s date in 1858, the audience in those tattered seats saw the premiere of Offenbach’s latest operetta: a farcical send-up of an old Greek myth. Orpheus in the Underworld was a modest success and ran well for several weeks.But just as the production would normally be closing, an important Parisian music critic attended a performance, and was shocked, shocked that Offenbach dared make fun of something so noble and edifying as Greek mythology. His outraged review generated a lively debate, especially when Offenbach slyly inserted direct quotes from the review into the operetta!Suddenly, Orpheus in the Underworld was the hottest ticket in Paris.Box office revenue not only paid for new upholstery, but one tune from the show, an infectious “Infernal Galop” would, as M. Offenbach’s celebrated Can-Can, become a world-famous melody practically synonymous with Paris itself.Music Played in Today's ProgramJacques Offenbach (1819-1880): Orpheus in the Underworld; English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Mark Elder, conductor; MCA 6325
SynopsisAn unusual piano concerto by American composer Lou Harrison had its premiere performance in New York on this day in 1985. Famous jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, for whom it was written, was the soloist.Now, Harrison’s music was often marked by its eclectic blending of East and West, and on occasion, Harrison employed non-Western or unusual instruments in his scores, including his own home-made Javanese-style gamelan constructed from old brake drums and clay flowerpots. But that wasn’t what made his Piano Concerto so singular.“I’ve always wanted to write a piano concerto which utilizes two or three pianos on stage, each tuned differently,” Harrison said. “And Keith was willing to try that. But in the end, I decided to use one piano in a tuning I really enjoy.”In Harrison’s concerto, the piano is not tuned to the “equal temperament” system in use in Western music since Bach’s day. The black keys are tuned to the medieval system of mathematically exact intervals of fourths and fifths, while the white keys reproduce the “just intonation” system common in the Renaissance and Baroque.And so the familiar instrument has an unfamiliar ring, but one that Keith Jarret loved: “At times in the piece, whole chords sound like bells,” he said. Music Played in Today's ProgramLou Harrison (1917-2003): Piano Concerto; Keith Jarrett, piano; New Japan Philharmonic; Naoto Otomo, conductor; New World 366
SynopsisFrom the first millennium of the Common Era to the present day, the Mass have been chanted and sung to music both simple and complex. Most Mass settings are in the original Latin, since that liturgical language, after so many centuries, has the advantage of being very familiar and eminently suitable for singing.On today’s date in 2010, the Kansas City Chorale gave the premiere of a new Mass for Double Choir by American composer René Clausen.Now, Clausen is an established and well-regarded composer of choral works, but even so writing a Mass can be a daunting task, and Clausen’s was his first such attempt.“Let’s say it was a new challenge to set a text which has historically been set probably more than any other,” Clausen said. “I tend to be rather text-content driven, nearly always attempting to express the meaning and mood of the words. In the longer movements of the Mass, especially the Credo, it was challenging to express all the text, yet keep the music structurally integrated and proportioned.”Clausen’s Mass for Double Choir was well-received at its American premiere, and subsequently recorded by the Kansas City Chorale for the British Chandos label. That recording won three Grammy Awards in 2013, including one for Best Choral Performance.Music Played in Today's ProgramRene Clausen (b. 1953): Mass for Double Choir; Kansas City Chorale; Charles Bruffy, conductor; Chandos 5105
SynopsisOn this day in 1904, in Cologne, Germany, Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 5. It was not a success. Applause was light, with loud hissing from some in the audience. Even Mahler’s wife, Alma, complained so much about the orchestration that Mahler kept tinkering with the score until the last year of his life.Despite this inauspicious beginning, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 has become a popular showpiece for virtuoso orchestras and its slow movement, marked Adagietto — supposedly Mahler’s musical love to Alma — has become one of Mahler’s best-loved pieces.The American composer Jerome Moross also had a symphony premiered on today’s date. The year was 1943, Moross was 30, and Thomas Beecham conducted its premiere performance with the Seattle Symphony. Unlike Mahler, Moross wrote only one symphony, and the American hobo tune inspired the slow movement of his The Midnight Special.Jerome Moross is best known his work in Hollywood. His 1958 score for The Big Country was nominated for an Academy Award. Moross also wrote the music for Wagon Train, a popular TV Western. As Moross once said, “a composer must reflect his landscape and mine is the landscape of America. I don't do it consciously, it is simply the only way I can write.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 5; Chicago Symphony; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 427 254Jerome Moross (1913-1983): Symphony No. 1; London Symphony; JoAnn Falletta, conductor; Koch 7188
SynopsisOn this date in 1831, the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted a concert in Munich consisting entirely of his own works — a concert that included the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1, with its composer as the soloist.Mendelssohn was in high spirits and wrote these lines to family:“It is a glorious feeling to waken in the morning and to know that you are going to write the score of a grand allegro with all sorts of instruments … while bright weather promises a cheering, long walk in the afternoon. On the evening of the October 17 at half-past six, think of me, for then I will dash off with thirty violins and two sets of wind instruments [for] my new concerto in G minor. Every morning I have to write, correct and score till one o’clock, when I go to Scheidel’s coffee house in Kaufinger Gasse, where I know each face by heart and find the same people every day in the same position: two playing chess, three looking on, five reading the newspapers, six eating their dinner — with me making up the seventh.”Unfortunately for posterity, Mendelssohn never said if he recognized any of that coffeehouse crowd sitting in the audience for the performance of his new concerto!Music Played in Today's ProgramFelix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Piano Concerto No. 1; Cyprien Katsaris, piano; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, conductor; Teldec 8.43681
SynopsisToday’s date in 1956 marks the birthday of Cuban composer Eduardo Martin, a name that might not be all that familiar to you — unless you play guitar, that is. Martin has written music for orchestra and films but is best known and admired for works he’s written for his own instrument, the guitar — music infused with the flair and dance rhythms of his native Havana.One of his popular pieces is Hasta Alicia Baila, roughly translated Even Alicia Dances, referencing the great Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, suggesting that even she couldn’t resist dancing to its beat.“Guitar is my greatest passion,” said Martin in an interview for Cuban radio. “But I have other passions: my country and my family.”“In my work, it is easy to notice the attachment to my roots. Even when I travel and see something that I like, I say, ‘Of course, it looks just like home.’ I confess I am an eternal lover of Havana. I find it wonderful and irreplaceable … And so I reflect in my work some of the impressions that this place has left in me … What I feel when I wake up in my city, when I walk in it, the mix of colors and the sounds that flood through it.”Music Played in Today's ProgramEduardo Martin (b. 1956): Hasta Alicia Baila; Clea Galhano, recorder; Rene Izquierdo, guitar; ‘Latin Reverie’ CD 89577 75162
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1905, Claude Debussy’s orchestral suite La Mer or The Sea was performed for the first time in Paris. Today this music is regarded as an impressionistic masterpiece, but early audiences — especially those in America — found it rough sailing.“We clung like a drowning man to a few fragments of the tonal wreck,” wrote a 1907 Boston critic, and suggested that instead of The Sea Debussy should have titled his piece Sea-Sickness.“The Sea is persistently ugly,” wrote The New York Times that same year. “Debussy fails to give any impression of the sea … There is more of a barnyard cackle in it than anything else.”And in 1909, this on La Mer from The Chicago Tribune: “It is safe to say that few understood what they heard and few heard anything they understood … There are no themes … There is nothing in the way of even a brief motif that can be grasped securely enough by the ear and brain to serve as a guiding line through the tonal maze. There is no end of queer and unusual effects, no end of harmonic complications and progressions that sound so hideously ugly.”Ah, the perils of “modern music” in the early 20th century!Music Played in Today's ProgramClaude Debussy (1862-1918): La Mer; New Philharmonia; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Sony 68327
SynopsisTo most music lovers, the name Jean-Baptise Lully calls to mind pompous and courtly music for Louis XIV, the French “Sun King” who was his great patron. The Italian-born Lully is credited with “creating” French opera in the 17th century — and some of these works, usually based on subjects from classical mythology and poetry, are occasionally revived and recorded today.But that was only one side of Lully’s personality, the “stuffy and serious” side, because Lully was also something of a clown — literally.For over seven years, he worked with the great French comedian and playwright Moliere to create joint stage works. In addition to composing the music, Lully acted, sang and danced in these satirical and slapstick affairs. The most famous of the Lully-Moliere collaborations debuted on today’s date in 1670, when, to cheer up King Louis after an embarrassing incident involving a bogus ambassador from Turkey, Lully and Moliere concocted a ballet spoof they called Le Turc Ridicule, preceded by Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, a musical play about a wealthy upstart from the middle class.Lully played the role of the Grand Mufti, and Moliere the middle-class upstart with upper-class aspirations. Think of Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy in powdered wigs, and you get the idea.Music Played in Today's ProgramJean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687): Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme; Comedy-Ballet Le Concert des Nations; Jordi Savall, conductor; Alia Vox 9807
SynopsisToday’s date in 1979 marked the passing, at 93, of a remarkable composer and performer named Rebecca Clarke. Born in Harrow, England, in 1886, she became one of the first female professional orchestral viola players in the United Kingdom, and in 1916 moved to the United States.At a New York recital in 1918, she premiered one of her own compositions under the male pseudonym of Anthony Trent. While “Trent’s” work was praised, the same reviewers largely ignored or dismissed her other works on the same recital, which she programmed under her name.Late in Clarke’s life, with the renewal of interest in works by neglected women composers, she enjoyed a major revival of interest in her works, with her Viola Sonata, written in 1919, singled out as a significant achievement. Even so, she wryly remarked to an interviewer that even then “I got one or two press clippings saying that it was impossible, that I couldn’t have written [the Viola Sonata] myself. And the funniest review of all was that I didn’t exist, and there wasn’t any such person as a Rebecca Clarke, that it was a female pseudonym for Ernest Bloch.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRebecca Clarke (1886-1979): Vivace from Viola Sonata; Philip Dukes, viola; Sophia Rahman, piano; Naxos 8.557934
SynopsisToday’s date marks the original Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer who for decades was described as the man who “discovered America.” In recent years Native American leaders have pointed out that indigenous peoples had been living on the continent for thousands of years, and Columbus didn’t “discover” anything — in fact, he didn’t even know where he was, which is why he called the people he found here “Indians.” Some historians now think that Viking explorers from Scandinavia arrived in America long before Columbus — and others suggest the Chinese arrived before those Europeans.Even so, it’s Columbus who has a national holiday (now always observed on the closest Monday in October), and concert music written to celebrate it. For example, there’s a Columbus Suite by Victor Herbert, originally commissioned for the 1893 Chicago World Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Columbus voyage, but not actually premiered until 1903.A much more recent “Columbus-inspired” work, and much more elegiac in tone, is by the Native American composer James DeMars. Premonitions of Christopher Columbus is scored for Native American flute, African drum, and chamber orchestra. In this work, DeMars blends sounds of the various ethnic traditions that would come to make up modern America.Music Played in Today's ProgramVictor Herbert (1859-1924) Columbus Suite Slovak Radio Symphony; Keith Brion, cond. Naxos 8.559027James DeMars (b. 1952) Premonitions of Christopher Columbus Tos Ensemble with R. Carlos Nakai, Native American flute Canyon 7014
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1928, Danish composer Carl Nielsen conducted the first public performance of his new Clarinet Concerto in Copenhagen.“The clarinet can, at one and the same time seem utterly hysterical, gentle as balsam, or as screechy as a streetcar on badly greased rails,” Nielsen said. He set himself the task of covering that whole range of the instrument’s conflicting emotions and colors. He wrote it for a Danish clarinetist he admired, Aage Oxenvad, who played both the public premiere on today’s date and a private reading a few weeks earlier.After the private performance Oxenvad is supposed to have muttered: “Nielsen must be able to play the clarinet himself — otherwise he would hardly have been able to find all the instrument’s worst notes.” The concerto’s wild mood swings puzzled audiences in 1928, but today it’s regarded as one of Nielsen’s most original works.In October of 1996, another clarinet concerto received its premiere when American composer John Adams conducted the first performance of his work Gnarly Buttons with soloist Michael Collins. This concerto contains a bittersweet tribute to Adams’ father, a clarinetist who fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease. In Adams’ concerto, the swing tunes slide into dementia, but the concerto ends with a kind of benediction.Music Played in Today's ProgramCarl Nielsen (1865-1931): Clarinet Concerto; Kjell-Inge Stevennson, clarinet; Danish Radio Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor; EMI 69758John Adams (b. 1947): Gnarly Buttons; Michael Collins, clarinet; London Sinfonietta; John Adams, conductor; Nonesuch 79453
SynopsisIn James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, the thoughts of its major characters keep shifting from the sights and sounds they encounter in and around Dublin to their private, non-stop interior monologues. This narrative technique came to be called “stream of consciousness” writing.In music, something similar occurred on today’s date in 1968, when the Italian composer Luciano Berio conducted the Swingle Singers and the New York Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his new work, Sinfonia.Sinfonia included music quotes from Bach to Mahler intermingled with sung and spoken texts ranging from Claude Levi-Strauss to Samuel Beckett. There’s even a bit of Joyce’s Ulysses tossed in as well, alongside slogans from the student protests of 1968. The text of Sinfonia’s second movement was a tribute to the recently-assassinated Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King — and consisted of nothing but the intoned syllables of his name.Sinfonia was Berio’s “stream of consciousness” interior monologue on the year 1968 made public with great theatrical flair: a dizzying mix of poignant music and political text. Berio was quoted as saying, “The juxtaposition of contrasting elements, in fact, is part of the whole point.”Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Sinfonia turned out to be a hit, and Columbia Records even released a recording of the work with its premiere performers.Music Played in Today's ProgramLuciano Berio (1925-2003): Sinfonia; New Swingle Singers; French National Orchestra; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Erato 88151
SynopsisJohn Lennon was born on today’s date in the year 1940, in Liverpool, England — during a German air raid on that city, as it happened. With three other young lads from Liverpool, Lennon would eventually become world-famous, courtesy of the band he helped formed in 1959 called the Beatles.The Beatles started out in a Liverpool nightclub called the Cavern, playing pop tunes of the day, but soon began performing original material of their own. Before disbanding in 1970, some recognizable elements of classical music were incorporated into some Beatles songs, including a string quartet, a Baroque trumpet, and even an orchestra.And it wasn’t just a one-sided exchange: Leonard Bernstein played a Beatles song on one of his Young People’s Concerts to demonstrate sonata form. Arthur Fiedler performed symphonic arrangements of Beatles tunes at his Boston Pops concerts. And decades after the Beatles disbanded, former member Paul McCartney began composing original chamber works and big concert hall pieces, including a semi-autobiographical Liverpool Oratorio.Not surprisingly, some young British and American composers coming of age in the 1960s and 70s credit the Beatles as an influence. One elegant set of solo guitar arrangements of Lennon-McCartney tunes even came from Japan, courtesy of eminent Japanese composer (and Beatles fan) Toru Takemitsu.Music Played in Today's ProgramLennon and McCartney (arr. Toru Takemitsu): Here, There and Everywhere; John Williams, guitar Sony 66704
Synopsis1991 was a big year for American composer John Corigliano. The Metropolitan Opera premiered his opera The Ghosts of Versailles and the 53-year old composer won two Grammys and the Grawemeyer Award for his Symphony No. 1. Corigliano was increasingly recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation, and was deluged with commissions for new works.But about 10 years before all that, guitarist Sharon Isbin had asked Corigliano to write a concerto for her, and kept on asking him. On today’s date in 1993, her persistence paid off when, with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and conductor Hugh Wolff, she gave the premiere performance of Corigliano’s Troubadours — Variations for Guitar and Orchestra. This piece was inspired by the courtly love tradition of the medieval troubadours, whose songs combined sophisticated word play with simple but elegantly communicative melodies.“For composers the idea of true simplicity — in contrast to chic simple-mindedness — is mistrusted and scorned,” Corigliano wrote. “But the guitar has a natural innocence about it … So the idea of a guitar concerto was, for me, like a nostalgic return to all the feelings I had when I started composing — before the commissions and deadlines and reviews. A time when discovery and optimistic enthusiasm ruled my senses … Troubadours is a lyrical concerto.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938): Troubadours; Sharon Isbin, guitar; St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Hugh Wolff, conductor; Virgin 55083
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1909, The Golden Cockerel, the last opera of the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, had its premiere in Moscow. Rimsky-Korsakov had died the previous year, after a bitter battle with government censors who objected to the opera’s thinly disguised satire against the bumbling administration of Czarist Russia. For the premiere, the censors won — the opera was performed with all the changes that Rimsky-Korsakov had so stubbornly resisted while alive.The original text was not restored until after the Russian revolution of 1917.Closer to our own time, in October 1987, American composer John Adam’s Nixon in China, debuted at Houston Grand Opera. Alice Goodman’s libretto depicts the historic visit to Red China of President Nixon and then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. Adams says he was completely indifferent to what the real-life personages in his opera might have thought of it.No government censors objected, in any case, but Adams said that Richard Nixon’s lawyer, Leonard Garment, did attend a performance of Nixon in China, and probably reported back to the former President. Nixon’s reaction is not known — nor that of Henry Kissinger. We’re happy to report, however, that according to John Adams, Leonard Garment did subsequently became something of a fan of his music.Music Played in Today's ProgramNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): The Golden Cockerel Suite; Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, conductor; DG 447 084John Adams (b. 1947): The Chairman Dances; San Francisco Symphony; Edo de Waart, conductor; Nonesuch 79453
SynopsisThe first performance of the Liebeslieder — or the Love Song Waltzes — for piano four-hands by Johannes Brahms took place on today’s date in 1869. The performers were two distinguished soloists: Clara Schumann, widow of composer Robert Schumann, and Hermann Levi, a famous conductor of his day. But in fact, the Liebeslieder Waltzes were intended for amateur musicians to play. These popular scores provided Brahms with some steady income, certainly more than he earned from performances of his symphonies, which some of his contemporaries considered difficult “new” music.Brahms wrote to his publisher: “I must admit that, for the first time, I grinned at the sight of a work of mine in print. Moreover, I gladly risk being called an ass if our Liebeslieder don’t give more than a few people pleasure.”Some much more recent piano music designed for amateur performers was collected into a volume, Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book. This volume was conceived by composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and the artistic director of Carnegie Hall, Judith Arron. They were concerned about the lack of contemporary piano works that intermediate-level piano students could perform, so commissioned ten composers to write suitable piano pieces from composers ranging from Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carte to Chen Yi and Tan Dun.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohannes Brahms (1833-1897): Liebeslieder Waltz No. 18; Silke-Thora Matthies and Christian Köhn, piano; Naxos 553140Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021): The Days Fly By; Ursula Oppens, piano; Companion CD to Boosey and Hawkes ‘The Carnegie Hall Millennium Piano Book’ ASIN: B003AG8IUK
SynopsisIt was on this day in 1972 that A Ring of Time by American composer Dominick Argento was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. The work was commissioned to celebrate that orchestra’s 70th anniversary. A Ring of Time is subtitled “Preludes and Pageants for Orchestra and Bells,” and evokes the hours of the day, from dawn to midnight, and the seasons of the year.Though born in York, Pennsylvania, Argento was of Italian heritage, and after spending a year studying in Italy, returned there often to reflect and compose. Argento said: “On one level the title of A Ring of Time refers to the predominant role assigned to bells ... those aural signals of time’s passing. But it should also be mentioned the work was wholly composed in Florence where the hourly ringing of church bells is inescapable.”Bells figured prominently in another 20th-century work by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, From Me Flows What You Call Time, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1990, in New York City, as a commission to celebrate the centennial of Carnegie Hall. Again, bells play a significant role, and Takemitsu directs that at the end of his piece, a series of small bells be rung gently from the balcony above and around the audience.Music Played in Today's ProgramDominick Argento (1927-2019): A Ring of Time; Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, conductor; Reference 91 Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996): From Me Flows What You Call Time; Pacific Symphony; Carl St. Clair, conductor; Sony 63044
SynopsisIn 1939, Dale Carnegie published a self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, suggesting you could change people’s behavior to you by changing your behavior toward them. We’re not sure if Carnegie’s book was ever translated into Russian, but we’d like to cite the case of famous Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich as an example of one way to influence a particular composer.In Rostropovich’s day, the greatest living Soviet composers were Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. In 1949 Prokofiev wrote a Cello Sonata for 22-year old Rostropovich, and also dedicated his 1952 Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra to him.Not surprisingly, Rostropovich hoped Shostakovich might write something for him, too, and so asked that composer’s wife, Nina, how to ask him. She replied the best way was never to mention the idea in the presence of her husband. She knew Shostakovich was following the cellist’s career with interest, and if the idea of writing something for Rostropovich was his own, rather than somebody else’s, it stood a better chance of becoming reality.Rostropovich followed her advice, and — surprise surprise — on today’s date in 1959, gave the premiere performance with the Leningrad Philharmonic of a brand-new cello concerto specially-written for him by Dmitri Shostakovich.Music Played in Today's ProgramDmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Cello Concerto No. 1; Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, conductor; (Sony 7858322)
SynopsisIf you had arrived early for the gala reopening celebration of Vienna’s Josephstadt Theater on today’s date in 1822, you might have heard the theater orchestra frantically rehearing a new overture by Beethoven. They had just received the score, and so at the last minute were getting their first look at the new piece they would perform that evening.Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture was a last-minute commission and interrupted Beethoven’s work on two bigger projects: his Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. This overture begins with a series of solemn chords, continues with a stately march, and closes with a fugue — a tribute to Handel, whose music was much on Beethoven’s mind at the time.One hundred forty-six years later to the day, another festive occasion was observed with new music, when, on October 3, 1968, the New York Philharmonic, as part of its 125th anniversary celebrations, premiered a new orchestral work by the American composer William Schuman. Leonard Bernstein conducted.Schuman’s piece, To Thee Old Cause, was scored for solo oboe and orchestra. Originally, Schumann planned an upbeat, celebratory work, but the 1968 assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy changed all that and more somber music, dedicated to their memory, was the result.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Consecration of the House Overture; Berlin Philharmonic; Bernhard Klee, conductor; DG 453 713 Willliam Schuman (1910-1992): To Thee Old Cause; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 63088