Episodes

11h ago

Synopsis In all, American composer David Diamond wrote 11 symphonies, spanning some 50 years of his professional career. The last dates from 1991, and the first from 1940, completed after his return from studies in Paris shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Diamond’s Symphony No. 1 was premiered on today’s date in 1941 by the New York Philharmonic led by famous Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Despite winning awards and positive comments from fellow composers ranging from Virgil Thomson to Arnold Schoenberg, for years Diamond struggled to make ends meet by playing violin in various New York City theater pit bands. More than one fellowship grant, however, enabled him to live abroad for extended stays, where, he said: “I can make my income last and live extremely well with my own villa and garden at a cost that would provide a hole-in-the-wall, coldwater flat in America … There is a spiritual nourishment, too, in that cradle of serious music [and] quiet for concentration that could never be found in an American city.” Defending his more traditional approach, Diamond wrote: “It is my strong feeling that a romantically inspired contemporary music, tempered by reinvigorated classical technical formulas, is the way out of the present period of creativity chaos in music … To me, the romantic spirit in music is important because it is timeless.” Music Played in Today's Program David Diamond (1915-2005): Symphony No. 1; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3119

1d ago

Synopsis In the spring of 1775, shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, and the sparks of the American Revolution burst into flames at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Far away in Salzburg, Austria, a 19-year-old composer named Wolfgang Mozart was spending most of that year composing five violin concertos. The fifth, in A major, was completed on this day in 1775. At the time, Mozart was concertmaster of the orchestra in the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Archbishops don’t have their own orchestras now, but they did then — at least in Europe, if not in the American colonies. A century and a half later, America was celebrating its sesquicentennial, and the magazine Musical America offered a prize of $3,000 for the best symphonic work on an American theme. The prize was awarded unanimously to Ernest Bloch, a Swiss-born composer who had arrived in this country only a decade before. But already, sailing into the harbor of New York, he had conceived of a large patriotic composition. Several years later, it took shape in three movements as America: An Epic Rhapsody for Orchestra . It premiered in New York on today’s date in 1928, with simultaneous performances the next day in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fifteen other orchestras programmed it within a year. Curiously, although Bloch remains a highly respected composer, his America Rhapsody from 1928 is seldom performed today. Music Played in Today's Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Violin Concerto No. 5; Jean-Jacques Kantorow, violin; Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Leopold Hager, conductor; Denon 7504 Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): America: An Epic Rhapsody ; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3135

2d ago

Synopsis The Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange opened in New York City on this date in 1971. The music was composed, and in some cases re-composed, by Wendy Carlos. As in his earlier hit, 2001: A Space Odyssey , Kubrick used classical music. This time, however, in keeping with the film’s futuristic storyline, the classics were adapted and arranged for Moog synthesizer by Wendy Carlos. The main title music, which we’re sampling, was Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary . Carlos had just read the Anthony Burgess novel, A Clockwork Orange , when she saw a notice in the New York Times that Kubrick was at work filming it. She immediately airmailed Kubrick two Moog synthesizer pieces, one original and one a classical arrangement. Kubrick wrote back, inviting her to London to talk, and the rest is history. Wendy Carlos had become an international celebrity with her earlier album Switched-On Bach , consisting of her Bach arrangements for synthesizer. It became the first classical recording ever to be certified platinum. Musical genius pianist Glenn Gould, whose own recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations was one of the biggest sellers of all time, said: “Carlos’ realization of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 is, to put it bluntly, the finest performance of any of the Brandenburgs — live, canned, or intuited — I’ve ever heard.” Music Played in Today's Program Henry Purcell (arr. Wendy Carlos): Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary ; Wendy Carlos, synthesizers Eastside; Digital 81362 J.S. Bach (arr. Wendy Carlos): Brandenburg Concerto No. 4; Wendy Carlos, synthesizers; CBS/Sony 42309

3d ago

Synopsis It’s strange to read the doubts Tchaikovsky expressed in letters about many of his greatest musical works, which he first would dismiss as failures, only to change his mind completely a few weeks later. Take, for example, his ballet The Nutcracker , which had its premiere performance on this day in 1892 at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Tchaikovsky described working on the ballet as a “dread-inspiring, feverish nightmare, so abominable that I don't think I have the strength to put it into words.” At the time, Tchaikovsky was much more optimistic about an opera he was writing, Yolanta , only to abruptly changed his mind, writing “Now I think that the ballet is good and the opera nothing special.” This time, Tchaikovsky got it right — although initially the opera did prove more popular than the ballet. Another — and deliberately nightmarish — Russian composition had its first performance on this same day 70 years later. This was the Symphony No. 13 by Dmitri Shostakovich, subtitled Babi Yar , based on poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This choral symphony was first heard on today’s date in 1962 at the Moscow Conservatory, but was quickly banned by the Soviet authorities. Its title poem, Babi Yar , called attention to Soviet indifference to the Holocaust and persistent anti-Semitism in Soviet society. Yevtushenko later softened these lines so the symphony could be performed in the U.S.S.R. Music Played in Today's Program Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): The Nutcracker Ballet ; Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Philips 462 114 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 13 ( Babi Yar ); Nicola Ghiuselev, bass; Choral Arts Society of Washington; National Symphony; Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor; Erato 85529

4d ago

Synopsis There’s an old joke that Schubert wrote two symphonies: one unfinished, and the other endless — the reference being to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony which lasts about 20 minutes, and his Great Symphony , which can run about an hour in performance. It was Antonio Salieri, one of Schubert’s composition teachers in Vienna, who encouraged the young composer to date his manuscripts, so we know the Unfinished Symphony was written in 1822. It wasn't performed in public, however, until December 17th, 1865 — 43 years later. The manuscript was known to exist, but no one bothered much about it until Josef von Herbeck tracked it down and conducted its first performance in Vienna. At its premiere, Herbeck added the last movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 as a kind of makeshift finale. Many others have tried to finish the Unfinished Symphony , but more often than not, it is performed as an incomplete, yet oddly satisfying, work. Icelandic composer Jon Leifs, who died in 1968, apparently worried that he might leave some unfinished orchestral score behind. Therefore, he composed not one but two works he titled Finale . These were intended as a kind of “musical insurance policy.” To each score, Leifs attached a note suggesting that if he died and left behind any unfinished orchestral projects, either of these two Finales could be used. Music Played in Today's Program Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Symphony No. 9; Berlin Philharmonic; Karl Böhm, conductor; DG 419 318 Jón Leifs (1899-1968): Fine I and Fine II ; Iceland Symphony; Petri Sakari, conductor; Chandos 9433

5d ago

Synopsis He was dubbed the French Beethoven, and like Ludwig van, was famous as both a composer and a pianist. Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835, and died on today’s date, at 86, in 1921. The death date seems rather fitting, in a macabre sort of way, since December 16 is also the date we celebrate as Beethoven’s birthday. And imagine, if you will, the 10-year-old Saint-Saëns making his formal debut as a pianist at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, first performing a concerto by Beethoven, then, as an encore, offering to play any one of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas — from memory! Saint-Saëns’ keyboard skills were legendary. An early admirer of Wagner, he once amazed that composer by playing entire scores of his operas at sight. Berlioz, another admirer, once quipped he “knows everything but lacks inexperience.” In addition to music, Saint-Saëns was fascinated by mathematics, astronomy, and the natural sciences. As a young boy he collected fossils that he dug out himself from the stone quarries at Meudon. Maybe that experience inspired him years later to add a movement titled Fossils to his Carnival of the Animals , a chamber work he wrote as a private joke in 1886. Saint-Saëns forbade its publication during his lifetime, and probably would have been appalled that this flippant work — and not his more serious symphonies or sonatas — has become his best-known and best-loved work. Music Played in Today's Program Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Variations on a theme of Beethoven Philippe Corre and Edouard Exerjean, pianos Pierre Verany 790041 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Fossils, from Carnival of the Animals Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire, pianos; Markus Steckeler, xylophone; ensemble Philips 446557

6d ago

Synopsis On today’s date in 1893, Anton Seidl conducted the New York Philharmonic in the first performance of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 ( From the New World ). This was an afternoon concert, meant as a public dress rehearsal for the work’s official premiere the following evening. Among the December 15 audience was Dvořák's eight-year old son, Otakar, who had a special interest in the success of his father's new symphony. In the preceding weeks, Otakar had accompanied his father to a New York café, where Dvořák met Anton Seidl to go over the new score. Young Otakar amused himself at a nearby toyshop, where a seven-foot long model of the ocean liner Majestic was on display, complete with its own miniature steam-chamber and working propellers. It cost a whopping $45 — a huge amount of money in those days, and the answer from papa was always: NO! Seeing that the boy’s heart was set on having the toy, Anton Seidl suggested to Otakar that he wait until after the premiere and then ask his father again. Seidl told Otakar that if all went well at the premiere, Dvořák would be in a generous mood. The premiere was a great success, and, as Otakar recalled: “When Seidl offered to pay half the cost of the Majestic, Father could not say no. So that is how the three of us celebrated the success of the first performance of the New World Symphony.” Music Played in Today's Program Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904): Symphony No. 9 ( From the New World ); New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, conductor; Teldec 73244

Dec 14

Synopsis From its founding in 1986 the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet has both commissioned new works and arranged old ones for their ensemble of four virtuoso guitarists. On today’s date in 2001, the quartet premiered a new commission: Ghetto Strings , a suite of four pieces written by Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Daniel Bernard Roumain — or DBR as he likes to be called — was born in Skokie, Illinois, but grew up in Southern Florida, surrounded by music from Latin communities — the Bahamas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic — as well as his own family’s Haitian music. He took up violin at 5, and says he absorbed a variety of classical and contemporary music. In junior high, he formed his own rock and hip-hop band and in high school played in a jazz orchestra which brought in guests like Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles. He later pursued formal musical studies with mentors William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty, earning both his masters and doctoral degrees. The four movements of his Ghetto Strings evoke four places Roumain has called home at various points in his life: Harlem, Detroit, Liberty City in Miami and Haiti. Music Played in Today's Program Daniel Bernard Roumain (b. 1970): Haiti from Ghetto Strings ; Minneapolis Guitar Quartet; innova CD 858

Dec 13

Synopsis On today’s date in 1895, Gustav Mahler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in the first complete performance of his own Symphony No. 2. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 is often called the Resurrection Symphony , as the work includes a choral setting of the Resurrection Ode by 18th-century German poet Klopstock, but Mahler himself gave his symphony no such title. In a letter to his wife, Mahler confided that his Symphony No. 2 “was so much all of a piece that it can no more be explained than the world itself.” And like the world, music is often full of surprising transitions! American composer Paul Schoenfield quoted a dramatic passage of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in his concerto for piccolo trumpet and orchestra, Vaudeville . In live performances, the sudden juxtaposition of Mahler and the Brazilian tune Tico-Tico always gets a laugh — which is just what Schoenfield intended. “I often suffer from depression, and once, when I was feeling pretty low, a friend of mind suggested I try writing something happy and upbeat to see if that would help. Vaudeville was the result. I don’t know if it helped me, but people say when they hear it, it makes them feel better. The music of other composers I respect has that effect on me, and I’m glad if Vaudeville has that effect on others,” Schoenfield said. Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 2 ( Resurrection ); London Symphony; Gilbert Kaplan, conductor; Conifer 51337 Paul Schoenfield (1947-2024): Vaudeville ; New World Symphony; John Nelson, conductor; Argo 440 212

Dec 12

Synopsis La Valse — one of the most popular orchestral works by Maurice Ravel — was performed for the first time this day in 1920 by the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris, conducted by Camille Chevillard. Ravel’s score was subtitled a “choreographic poem for orchestra in the tempo of the Viennese waltz.” La Valse is a far more Impressionistic work than any of the waltzes by the Strauss Family. It is certainly darker. Ravel said, “I had intended this work to be a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, with which was associated in my imagination an impression of a fantastic and fatal kind of Dervish’s dance.” La Valse was written for the great ballet impresario Serge Diagalev, who apparently found it undanceable, and his failure to stage La Valse caused a serious rift in his friendship with Ravel. Contemporary composer Judith Lang Zaimont is an unabashed Ravel enthusiast — ”Ravel’s music defines ‘gorgeous,’” she said. “It’s beguiling to the ear, and sensuous. His textures are built in thin layers, like a Napoleon pastry, and his intricate surfaces — beautifully worked-out — shine and fascinate.” Zaimont should know. For many years she taught composition at the University of Minnesota, and her own solo piano, chamber and orchestra works are increasingly finding their way into concert halls and onto compact disc. Music Played in Today's Program Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): La Valse ; Boston Symphony; Charles Munch, conductor; RCA 6522 Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945): Symphony No. 1; Czech Radio Symphony; Leos Svarovsky, conductor; Arabesque 6742

Dec 11

Synopsis On this day in 1952, thirty-one theaters nationwide offered the first pay-per view Met opera telecast. This was a regularly-scheduled performance of Bizet’s Carmen broadcast live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, featuring Risë Stevens in the title role and Fritz Reiner conducting. The performance was relayed to the theaters by means of a closed TV circuit.* Beginning in 1948, the Metropolitan Opera had experimented with live telecasts of their opening night performances, but relatively few people in the U.S. owned TV sets at the time. By 1952, most American households had TVs, but the Met’s manager, Rudolf Bing, was dead-set against any further free telecasts. The 1952 pay-per-view experiment was not successful, and it wasn't until 1976 — after Bing had resigned — that live telecasts of Metropolitan Opera performances resumed on public television. The most successful of all commercial telecasts of a live opera performance occurred in 1951, when, on Christmas Eve that year, NBC-TV broadcast Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti on Christmas. NBC’s black-and-white kinescope recording of that premiere performance was broadcast annually for a number of years — until it was accidentally erased by a network employee.** Although Amahl is no longer an annual visitor to television, it is still staged this time of year by amateur and professional opera companies around the world. *Currently the Metropolitan Opera offers a series of live opera performances transmitted in high-definition video via satellite from Lincoln Center in New York City to select venues, primarily movie theaters, in the United States and other parts of the world. The first transmission was of a condensed English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute on December 30, 2006. **One surviving copy of the original kinescope did surface in a California archive, and was shown at broadcast museums on both coasts in 2001 to celebrate the work's 50th anniversary. Music Played in Today's Program Georges Bizet (1838-1875): Carmen Suite No. 1 ; Orchestre National de France; Seiji Ozawa, conductor; EMI 63898 Giancarlo Menotti (1911-2007): March from Amahl and the Night Visitors ; New Zealand Symphony; Andrew Schenck, conductor; Koch 7005

Dec 10

Synopsis Today's date marks the birthday anniversary of Morton Gould, a quintessentially American composer, conductor and advocate for music, who was born in Richmond Hill, New York, on today’s date in 1913. A child prodigy, he published his first work of music at the tender age of six. His teenage years coincided with the Great Depression, and Gould played piano for New York movie theaters and vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as its staff pianist. By the late 1930s, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for radio networks, and by the 1940s was writing scores for Hollywood films and Broadway shows. A decade or so later, he was writing music for TV. Gould became a favorite conductor for RCA recording sessions of both popular and classical music on LP. All his life, Gould composed original, well-crafted works that gracefully incorporated American sounds ranging from spirituals to tap-dancing. One of these, for a singing fire department, he titled — with a sly wink at his colleague Aaron Copland — Hosedown . Gould was a serious composer with a healthy sense of humor and a keen sense of the business of music. He served for many decades as the president of ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), lobbying hard for the intellectual property rights of composers in the age of the Internet. Gould died in 1996 at the newly-opened Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida, where he was invited to serve as its first resident guest composer. Music Played in Today's Program Morton Gould (1913-1996): Spirituals for Strings ; London Philharmonic; Kenneth Klein, conductor; EMI 49462

Dec 9

Synopsis These days, no one is surprised if a popular film generates a series of sequels or even prequels, but back in the 1830s the idea of a composer coming up with a sequel to a symphony must have seemed a little odd. But that odd idea did pop into the head of French composer Hector Berlioz. In 1830, Berlioz had a huge hit with his Symphonie Fantastique . That Fantastic Symphony told a story through music, based on the composer’s own real-life, unrequited love for a British Shakespearian actress. The story ends badly, with our hero trying to end it all with a dose of opium, which, while not killing him, does produce, well, “fantastic” nightmares in which he is condemned to death for killing his beloved who reappears at a grotesque witches’ sabbath. That seems a hard act to follow, but two years later, Berlioz produced a musical sequel: Lelio, or the Return to Life , which premiered in Paris on today’s date in 1832. In this, our hero awakes from his drug-induced nightmare, and, with a little help from Shakespeare and a kind of 10-step arts-based recovery program, rededicates his life to music. Berlioz intended the original and the sequel to be performed together as a kind of double-feature. Alas, while audiences thrill to the lurid Symphonie Fantastique , they tend to drift during the admirable, but rather boring rehab sequel, which is rarely performed. Music Played in Today's Program Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Fantasy on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ from Lelio London Symphony ; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Sony 64103

Dec 8

Synopsis On this date in 1813, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was played for the first time in Vienna. The occasion was a benefit concert in honor of the Austrian and Bavarian soldiers who had died fighting Napoleon, with the concert's proceeds donated to their widows and orphans. At its first rehearsal, some of the musicians found the part writing of the new work intimidating. A friend of Beethoven’s who sat in on rehearsals later recalled: “the violin players refused to play a passage and rebuked [Beethoven] for writing difficulties that were incapable of performance. But Beethoven begged the gentlemen to take the parts home with them. If they were to practice it at home it would surely go. The next day the passage went excellently, and the gentlemen themselves seemed to rejoice that they had given Beethoven such pleasure.” The slow movement of Beethoven’s symphony so pleased the Viennese audience at its premiere that it had to be encored. On today’s date in 1980, a private tragedy also prompted music. On December 8 that year, ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment in New York City. American composer Aaron Jay Kernis was then a student at the Manhattan School of Music, living not far from where Lennon was slain. The death moved Kernis to reshape elements of Lennon’s song “Imagine” into an altogether new work for cello and piano: Meditation (in memory of John Lennon) . Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7; Vienna Philharmonic; Carlos Kleiber, conductor; DG 447 400 Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960): Meditation (in memory of John Lennon) ; Eberli Ensemble; Phoenix 142

Dec 7

Synopsis Maybe you’re one of those die-hard classical music fans who records your favorite orchestra’s radio broadcasts. Starting in the 1950s, home tape recorders made it easy to record off the air, and the arrival of cassette recorders in the 1960s made it more affordable. But in the 1930s and 40s, you had to be pretty darn wealthy to afford home recording equipment, which was bulky and only able to record about 14 minutes at a time on to 16-inch vinyl discs. One such home recordist was Dr. Edwin L. Gardner of Minneapolis, who, on today’s date in 1941 was recording a Sunday afternoon New York Philharmonic broadcast of the first symphony by Shostakovich and the second piano concerto by Brahms. Dr. Gardner was probably annoyed by the first news flash which interrupted the Shostakovich symphony: a U.S. Army transport carrying lumber had been torpedoed 1300 miles west of San Francisco. But Gardner kept recording, even during the preempted intermission of the Philharmonic broadcast devoted to the first reports of the devastating Japanese attack at the U.S. Navy’s base in Pearl Harbor. And so, in addition to capturing most of the Shostakovich and Brahms he set out to record, Dr. Gardner also captured in real time a dramatic moment in American history. Music Played in Today's Program Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 88697683652

Dec 6

Synopsis Today marks the anniversary of the birth of American composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. Born in Concord, California on December 6, 1920, he would become one of the most famous jazz performers of our time — and one of the most successful at fusing elements of jazz and classical music. Brubeck studied with Schoenberg and Milhaud, and in the late 1940s and ‘50s formed a jazz quartet incorporating Baroque-style counterpoint and unusual time signatures into a style that came to be known as “West Coast” or “cool” jazz, culminating in the 1960 release of a landmark jazz album for Columbia Records, Time Out . This album produced two Hit Parade singles: Blue Rondo à la Turk and Take Five . Ironically, he had to fight to convince Columbia to release an album composed totally of original material with no familiar standards to help sales! In addition to works for chamber-sized jazz combos, Brubeck has written a number of large-scale sacred works, among them a 1975 Christmas Choral Pageant, La Fiesta de la Posada , or, The Festival of the Inn . Originally written to celebrate the restoration of a Spanish mission in California, it wound up being premiered in Hawaii by the Honolulu Symphony. Since its premiere, La Fiesta de la Posada has been performed by both professional and amateur ensembles, ranging from symphony orchestras to mariachi bands. Its premiere recording was made by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Dale Warland Singers, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting. Music Played in Today's Program Dave Brubeck (1920-2012): Blue Rondo a la Turk ; The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Columbia 40585 Dave Brubeck: La Fiesta del Posada ; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Columbia Legacy 64669

Dec 5

Synopsis So what do you call a setting of the Latin mass that is not in Latin? Well, if you’re Moravian-born composer Leoš Janáček, you call it Glagolitic , since your Mass sets an Old Church Slavonic text written down in a script called that. The idea came from a clerical friend who complained about the lack of original religious music in Czechoslovakia and suggested Janáček’s do something about it. His Glagolitic Mass premiered in Brno on today’s date in 1927. One reviewer wrote it was “a marvelous religious work of an old composer” — to which Janacek snapped back: “I am not old. And I am certainly not religious!” Now, people do say “you’re only as old as you feel,” and 73-year old Janáček had for many years been in love with a much younger woman who inspired his best works, and rather than any religious convictions, Janacek told another reporter that the piece was in fact jump-started by an electrical storm he witnessed and described as follows: ‘It grows darker and darker. Already I am looking into the black night; flashes of lightning cut through it … I sketch nothing more than the quiet motive of a desperate frame of mind to the words ‘Gospodi pomiluj’ [Love have mercy] and nothing more than the joyous shout ‘Slava, Slava!’ [Glory].” Music Played in Today's Program Leoš Janáček (1854-1928): Glagolitic Mass ; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; DG 429182

Dec 4

Synopsis Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was first performed on today’s date in 1881. The premiere took place in Vienna with Adolf Brodsky the violin soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Richter. It was not a big hit. The next day, the conservative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: “The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue.” According to Hanslick, the concerto’s finale: “transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian festival. We see gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze … Tchaikovsky’s Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear.” Ouch! Tchaikovsky’s score survived the bad review, but a more recent American work suffered a far unkinder cut. The original film score for the 1968 blockbuster movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey was written by Alex North, who was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on today's date in 1910. Director Stanley Kubrick hired North to write the music for 2001 , but Kubrick ultimately decided to use pre-recorded classical and contemporary music instead. When North attended the New York premiere of 2001 , he was devastated that not one minute of the music he had written was included in the final edit. Believe it or not, no one had informed him in advance! Music Played in Today's Program Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Violin Concerto; Itzhak Perlman, violin; London Symphony; Alfred Wallenstein, conductor; Chesky 12 Alex North (1910-1991): Unused Opening Theme for 2001: A Space Odyssey ; National Philharmonic; Jerry Goldsmith, conductor; Varese Sarabande 66225

Dec 3

Synopsis It was wet and cold in New York on today’s date in 1925, but a curious crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall for a concert by the New York Symphony. Walter Damrosch was to conduct the world premiere of a new Piano Concerto by George Gershwin, who would also be the soloist. The audience reacted with cheers and bravos, but the reviews were mixed: “Conventional, trite ... [and] a little dull” was the verdict of one; but another was enthusiastic, suggesting: “Of all those writing the music of today, [Gershwin] alone actually expresses US.” In the America of 1925, that “us” would have included the owners of speakeasies, raccoon coats, and Stutz Bearcat roadsters. It was the Jazz Age — an era magically captured in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby . Seventy-four years later, in December of 1999, John Harbison’s opera based on The Great Gatsby premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, playing to sold-out houses. Once again, audiences were enthusiastic — the critics less so. To capture the mood of the 1920s, Harbison had composed a number of original songs in Jazz-Age style, which he incorporated as themes in his opera. These tunes have even been published as a separate Gatsby Songbook ! Imagine: a modern opera with tunes audiences can actually hum as they leave the theater! What will they think of next? Music Played in Today's Program John Harbison (b. 1938): Remembering Gatsby Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor; Argo 444 454 George Gershwin (1898-1937): Piano Concerto; Peter Jablonski, piano; Royal Philharmonic; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 430 542

Dec 2

Synopsis On today’s date in 1949, Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis was the venue for the world premiere performance of Béla Bartók’s last orchestral piece: his Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. The soloist was William Primrose, who had commissioned the work, with the Hungarian-born conductor Antal Dorati leading the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Bartók had died in 1945, leaving extensive but incomplete sketches for the concerto he was writing for Primrose. After his death, the Viola Concerto was completed and orchestrated by his friend and fellow Hungarian, Tibor Sérly, who had also put the finishing touches on Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which also premiered posthumously. The 1949 premiere of the Viola Concerto in Minneapolis attracted worldwide attention. To the surprise of some, it also went over very well with its first-night audience at Northrop Auditorium. At the dress rehearsal, Dorati had predicted as much: “This is one time the audience need have no qualms about the word ‘contemporary’ as applied to the music it’s about to hear.” Dorati’s view was that the public was finally catching up with Bartók's highly original idiom. “It’s not a case of a composer becoming famous because he is dead,” Dorati said. “It is true there has been a great surge of performances of Bartók’s music since his death, but that is because the public was ready to hear his music.” Music Played in Today's Program Béla Bartók (1881-1945): Viola Concerto (completed by Tibor Serly); Hong-Mei Xiao, viola; Budapest Philharmonic; Janos Kovacs, conductor; Naxos 8.554183

Dec 1

Synopsis Because it's often played at weddings, the Trumpet Voluntary is one piece of Baroque music that just about everyone has heard. Once attributed to famous 17th century British composer Henry Purcell, this music was, in fact, composed by Purcell’s slightly younger and not-so-famous contemporary Jeremiah Clarke. Clarke was born around 1674 and sang as a boy soprano in London’s Chapel Royal. After his voice changed, he became a choir director and rejoined the Chapel Royal as an organist in 1700. Tragically, on December 1, 1707, Clarke shot himself — according to some contemporary accounts as the result of a hopeless love affair. And speaking of such things: also on today’s date — in 1886 — the American premiere of Tristan Und Isolde , Richard Wagner’s classic opera of ill-fated passion, took place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Anton Seidl, a protégé of Wagner, conducted. While composing Tristan , Wagner wrote to his lover, Mathilde Wesendonck: “Child! This Tristan is turning into something fearsome ... the opera will probably be banned ... only mediocre performances can save me! Good performances will drive people mad!” If not driven mad, American audiences in 1886 were at least remarkably enthusiastic. The Musical Courier reported that “the audience filled every available seat and listened to the performance, which lasted until nearly midnight, with an attention and genuine enthusiasm unequaled in the musical history of this land.” Music Played in Today's Program Jeremiah Clarke (ca. 1674-1707): Trumpet Voluntary ( Prince of Denmark March ); Maurice André, trumpet; Jane Parker-Smith, organ; EMI 64899

Nov 30

Synopsis On today’s date in 1885, the Paris Opera gave the first performance of Le Cid , the 11th opera written by the French composer Jules Massenet. Le Cid is set in medieval Spain and tells the story of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a legendary hero who defended his country against the Moors. The same story inspired a 1961 movie, El Cid , starring — who else? — Charlton Heston. But back in 1890, the New Orleans Opera introduced Massenet’s opera to American audiences and reached New York City in 1897, serving as a vocal showcase for turn-of-the-century superstars of the early Metropolitan Opera. Enrico Caruso made a famous recording of the opera’s most famous excerpt — Rodrigo’s Act III aria, “O souverain, O Juge, O Pere,” which translates as “Oh Lord, Oh Judge, Oh Father.” Unlikely as it may seem, this aria inspired a pop hit in 1981, when composer and performance artist Laurie Anderson translated its opening line as “O Superman, O Judge, O Mom and Dad.” As a credit to the French composer, O Superman is even subtitled For Massenet . Trained as a classical violinist with the Chicago Youth Symphony, Anderson soon shifted to a variety of electronically-altered fiddles, and one of her albums is titled, appropriately, Life on a String . Music Played in Today's Program Jules Massenet (1842-1912): O Souverain, O Juge, O Pere ; from Le Cid ; Ben Heppner, tenor; Munich Radio Orchestra; Roberto Abbado, conductor; RCA/BMG 62504

Nov 29

Synopsis It was on this date in 1825 that the United States had its first date with authentic Italian opera. This was a performance of Gioacchino Rossini's The Barber of Seville , staged at New York City’s Park Theater. The singers were mostly from one extraordinary Spanish family — the Garcias — led by its patriarch Manuel Garcia, a tenor who performed role of Count Almaviva — the same role Garcia had created at the opera’s premiere in Rome nine years earlier. The 1825 New York audience included luminaries from society and the arts — including the American novelist James Fenimore Cooper and Mozart’s one-time librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, who was teaching Italian at Columbia University in those days. November 29th is also important to 20th century American musical theater. Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce opened on Broadway on November 29, 1932, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. The musical’s title rankled censors who feared it treated divorce too lightly, and they insisted on converting it to the less controversial Gay Divorcee . Cole Porter’s score included one of his classic songs, Night and Day , and, like Rossini before him, Porter claimed to have tailor-made this song for the unusual tenor star of his new show, one Fred Astaire. Music Played in Today's Program Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868): Selections from The Barber of Seville ; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; Philips 412 266 Cole Porter (1891-1964): Gay Divorce Overture; London Sinfonietta; John McGlinn, conductor; EMI 68589

Nov 28

Synopsis According to historians, the 19th Century was the great age of Romanticism — but tell that to Sergei Rachmaninoff and Howard Hanson! On today’s date, two of their quintessentially Romantic works were both premiered in the 20th century. In 1909, Rachmaninoff came to the U.S. for his first American tour, and on today’s date appeared as the piano soloist in the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 with the New York Symphony. Now, if you believe the movie Shine , this is the most difficult of all Romantic piano concertos. Even its composer confessed he need to practice it on the boat to America! By 1930, when American composer Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 premiered on today’s date in Boston, Romantic music was increasingly considered old fashioned. But he defiantly subtitled his new Symphony The Romantic . “My symphony represents a definite embracing of the Romantic. I recognize, of course, that Romanticism is, at the present time, music’s poor stepchild … Nevertheless, I embrace her all the more fervently, believing as I do that Romanticism will find in this country rich soil for new growth,” he wrote. And how about outer space? Decades after its premiere, Hanson’s popular Romantic Symphony even showed up as part of the film score to the sci-fi classic Alien . Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 3; Martha Argerich, piano; Berlin Radio Symphony; Riccardo Chailly, conductor; Philips 446 673 Howard Hanson (1896-1981): Symphony No. 2 ( Romantic ); RCA Symphony; Charles Gerhardt, conductor; Chesky 112

Nov 27

Synopsis Also Sprach Zarathustra , a tone poem by Richard Strauss, was first performed in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on this day in 1896, with the composer conducting. For decades thereafter, it was considered one of his lesser works and only occasionally performed. Then, in 1968, Stanley Kubrick chose its opening fanfare as the main theme of his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey . Suddenly Also Sprach Zarathustra jumped to the top of the classical charts and became a concert hall favorite as well — even though many of its new audiences are surprised when the piece goes on for another half hour after its spectacular opening. Another composer who also benefited from Kubrick’s movie was Hungarian György Ligeti. Initially, Ligeti’s fame was limited to avant-garde circles, but his 1961 composition Atmosphères also became part of the soundtrack and catapulted him to much wider fame. Ligeti’s eerily floating sound-clusters seemed to Kubrick perfect outer space music. Ligeti himself was not happy how his music was used in the film, but, grudgingly, did express admiration for the film’s surreal final sequence. Richard Strauss died in 1949 — some 20 years before Kubrick’s film debuted — but we suspect that hard-headed businessman would have been pleased that his music was used — and would have promptly demanded a hefty cut of Kubrick’s royalties. Music Played in Today's Program Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Also Sprach Zarathustra ; Chicago Symphony; Fritz Reiner, conductor; RCA/BMG 60833 György Ligeti (1923-2006): Atmospheres ; Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, conductor; Philips 446 403

Nov 26

Synopsis On today’s date in 1997, violinist Joshua Bell and the San Francisco Symphony gave the premiere performance of an 18-minute Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra by American composer John Corigliano. This music was a concert offshoot of Corigliano’s film score for Francois Gerard’s movie The Red Violin , but debuted months before the film itself was completed. Corigliano said, “I was delighted when asked to compose the score for Francois Girard’s new film. How could I turn down so interesting and fatalistic a journey through almost three centuries, beginning as it did in Cremona, home of history’s greatest violin builders? I also welcomed the producer’s offer to separately create a violin and orchestra concert piece, to be freely based on motives from the film. “I’d assumed that, as usual in film, I wouldn't be required to score it until it was completed, except for a number of on-camera “cues” … Then plans changed. Filming was pushed back. So the present Chaconne was built just on the materials I had; a good thing, as it turns out, because I now had the freedom, as well as the need, to explore these materials to a greater extent than I might have had I been expected to condense an hour’s worth of music into a coherent single movement.” Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938): Selections from The Red Violin ; Joshua Bell, violin; Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony 63010

Nov 25

Synopsis On today’s date in 1955, the Boston Symphony was celebrating its 75th anniversary season with the premiere performance of a brand-new symphony — the sixth — by American composer Walter Piston. At the time, he was teaching at Harvard, and his association with the Boston Symphony went back decades. Even so, he paid the orchestra an extraordinary compliment, crediting its musicians as virtual partners in its composition: “While writing my Symphony No. 6, I came to realize that this was a rather special situation. I was writing for one designated orchestra, one that I had grown up with, and that I knew intimately. Each note set down sounded in the mind with extraordinary clarity, as though played immediately by those who were to perform the work. On several occasions it seemed as though the melodies were being written by the instruments themselves as I followed along. I refrained from playing even a single note of this symphony on the piano,” he wrote. This symphony may have been tailor-made for the Boston players, but Piston was practical enough to know other orchestras would be interested, and so added this important footnote: “The composer’s mental image of the sound of his written notes has to admit a certain flexibility.” Music Played in Today's Program Walter Piston (1894-1976): Symphony No. 6; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3074

Nov 24

Synopsis On today’s date in 1888, Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky premiered his Hamlet-Fantasy Overture . He had been asked to write an overture for a gala charity benefit staging of Act III of Shakespeare’s famous play at the Mariinsky Theatre. Alas, the charity was, as Hamlet might say, “not to be.” But Tchaikovsky so liked the idea of a piece inspired by the mood and characters of Hamlet that wrote the overture anyway. As Hamlet said, “the time is out of joint,” and we fast forward our story almost 100 years to 1982 and another Tchaikovsky — André Tchaikovsky (no relation to Peter Ilyich). André Tchaikovsky was a Polish composer who was also a virtuoso pianist of some note and a wanna-be actor to boot. When André Tchaikovsky died in 1982, he’d asked that his skull be donated to the Royal Shakespeare Company, hoping it would be used for the skull of Yorick in their productions of Hamlet. André Tchaikovsky got his wish in 2008, when his skull was finally held aloft by David Tennant in a series of performances of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon, a production that proved so famous that an image of Tennant as Hamlet holding Tchaikovsky’s skull ended up on a British postage stamp. Music Played in Today's Program Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Hamlet-Fantasy Overture ; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, conductor (DG 477670)

Nov 23

Synopsis A question: do you see colors when you hear music? No, we’re not going psychedelic on you, and absolutely no controlled substances are involved in preparing today’s edition of Composers Datebook. It’s just that many composers do — see colors, that is. Romantic Russian composer Alexander Scriabin would describe the key of F-sharp Major as very definitely being “bright blue.” His colleague Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, however, thought F-sharp Major more a greyish-green hue. While many composers confess to seeing certain musical keys as certain colors, the fact is they don’t always agree on which color matches which key. Which brings us to American composer Michael Torke, who gave the title Bright Blue Music to an orchestral piece that premiered on today’s date at Carnegie Hall at a concert of the New York Youth Symphony. In 1985, when this music premiered, Torke was just 24 years old, but had already been composing music for most of his young life. In addition to a string of other “colorful” scores, with titles like The Yellow Pages and Ecstatic Orange , Torke has also gone on to write a number of ballet scores and vocal works, including a TV opera and, in 1999, a big choral symphony for the Disney Corporation to celebrate the Millennium. Music Played in Today's Program Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915): Etude No. 4; Piers Lane, piano; Hyperion 66607 Michael Torke (b. 1961): Bright Blue Music ; Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor

Nov 22

Synopsis American composer Roger Sessions is an acquired taste for most classical music fans, and, truth be told, his works don’t show up on concert recital programs all that often. He was born in the 19th century, 1896, when Grover Cleveland was president, and died in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Session’s early music, written when he was in his twenties and thirties, was neo-classical in style, but as the 20th century progressed, Sessions’ style did also, moving from harmonically complex tonality to frankly atonal works. His music became increasingly “gnarly,” you might say, but there was always a lot of emotion in his music, whatever technique he employed. Take, for example, his Piano Sonata No. 3, nicknamed The Kennedy Sonata . It was written in reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on today’s date in 1963. The last movement of Sessions’ Piano Sonata was written as an elegy for the slain president, and includes a climax of three sharply accented chords. For American pianist William Grant Naboré, one of just a handful of artists who have recorded this work, those three chords suggest the three sharp rifle shots that shattered the air in Dallas the day Kennedy died. Music Played in Today's Program Roger Sessions (1896-1985): Sonata No. 3 ( Kennedy Sonata ); William Grant Naboré, piano; DRC 3002