Synopsis
It was on today’s date in 1944 that the ballet Fancy Free — with music Leonard Bernstein and choreography by Jerome Robbins — was first staged by the Ballet Theater at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. It was a big hit. Bernstein himself conducted, and alongside Robbins took 20 curtain calls.
“The ballet is strictly wartime America, 1944,” Bernstein wrote. “The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamppost, a side-street bar, and New York skyscrapers making a dizzying backdrop. Three sailors explode onto the stage. They are on 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they meet first one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.”
In a curious parallel to the stage action described by Bernstein, the ballet had been first pitched to composer Morton Gould, who said he was too busy, then to Vincent Persichetti, who in turn suggested Bernstein as a third, and perhaps better choice to produce a more hip, jazzy, and danceable score.
Music Played in Today's Program
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Fancy Free Ballet; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 63085

Bernstein's 'Fancy Free'

Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.

Music

Music History

Synopsis
In the summer of 1853, Johannes Brahms had just turned twenty and was touring as the piano accompanist of Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi. On today’s date, they arrived in Gottingen, where they were hosted by Arnold Wehner, the music director of that city’s university.
Wehner kept a guest book for visitors, and over time accumulated signatures from the most famous composers of his day, like Mendelssohn and Rossini. Now, in 1853, Brahms was not yet as famous, but as a thank-you to his host, he filled a page of Wehner’s album with a short original composition for piano.
Fast forward over 150 years to 2011, when Wehner’s guest book fetched over $158,000 at an auction house in New York City, and this previously unknown piano score by Brahms attracted attention for many reasons.
First, few early Brahms manuscripts have survived, and second, the melody Brahms jotted down in 1853 showed up again in the second movement of his Horn Trio, published 12 years later.
Finally, there was a dispute about who had rediscovered the long-lost score: the auction house had the manuscript authenticated in 2011, but in 2012 British conductor Christopher Hogwood claimed he had discovered it while doing other research.
Music Played in Today's Program
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Albumblatt (1853); Sophie-Mayuko Vetter, piano; Hännsler 98048

Brahms rediscovered

Synopsis
Long before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker.  
She was born Freda Josephine McDonald on today’s date in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. At 15, she talked her way into the chorus line at a local vaudeville theater; from there headed first to New York at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, and then on Paris and the Folies Bergère, where as a singer and dancer she quickly became a sensation. 
By that time, Freda Josephine McDonald had reinvented herself as Josephine Baker. She was for Parisians the embodiment of the Jazz Age, the “Black Venus,” and the hippest American on the planet.  
She became a naturalized French citizen, married a wealthy French industrialist, and raised her 12 adopted children in France. In one of her most famous songs, she sang, “I have two loves, my country and Paris,” and proved as good as her word when during World War II she aided the French resistance. As she refused to perform for segregated audiences in America, she chose to remain in Europe.
American composer Valerie Coleman attempted to capture something of the many facets of this remarkable woman and her journey from St. Louis to Paris in her wind quintet, Portraits of Josephine. 
Music Played in Today's Program
Valerie Coleman (b. 1970): Thank You Josephine (J’ai Deux Amours), from Portraits of Josephine; Imani Winds; Koch KIC-7696

Valerie Coleman and Josephine Baker

Synopsis
Today we remember two famous French composers, both organists, who came to dramatic ends in the month of June. On June 2, 1937, while playing his 1,750th recital at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, Louis Vierne suffered a sudden and fatal stroke, dying in the organ loft in the presence of one of his most promising pupils, Maurice Duruflé.
Vierne was born nearly blind, but his exceptional musical ability eventually led to studies with the two greatest French organ composers of the 19th century, César Franck and Charles-Marie Widor. The piece that the 66-year-old Vierne was playing when he collapsed at Notre-Dame had the morbidly apt title Memorial for a Dead Child.
Three years later, on June 20, 1940, another talented French organist and composer, Jehan Alain, was killed in action during the World War II.
Alain’s compositions were considered experimental in both rhythm and modes. Even so, he had just won the French Premier Prix for organ in 1939 when the war broke out and he was called up for active service. Following the Battle of Saumur, his body was found by the roadside, with some of his music manuscripts scattered in the wind.
Music Played in Today's Program
Louis Vierne (1870-1937): Carillon de Longpont; Richard Proulx, organ; Sacred Heart 101
Jehan Alain (1911-1940): Litanies; Carlo Curley, organ; Argo 430 200

Vierne and Alain meet their ends

Synopsis
In 1891, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was earning about $3000 a year teaching at the National Conservatory of Prague. Jeannette Thurber, the wealthy founder of the National Conservatory of New York offered Dvořák five times his Prague salary to come to America, where his teaching load would be significantly less.
Even so, Dvořák was reluctant to leave his native land, but his wife suggested the family should vote on Thurber’s offer. Dvořák’s son, Otakar recalled the vote “for” America wasn’t unanimous but did prevail, so papa signed the contract — then let it sit on his desk until Mom took matters in her own hand — literally — and posted it back to America. Dvořák followed in due course.
On today’s date in 1893, Dvořák wrapped up his first academic year in America by signing a receipt for his May salary before setting off with the family for a summer vacation in the Czech-speaking settlement of Spillville, Iowa. 
No doubt he would be astonished to learn that in our time a dealer in celebrity signatures put that receipt up for sale. The salary stub was for $937.50. The asking price for the yellowed slip of paper bearing Dvořák’s signature? $2750!

Music Played in Today's Program
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904): String Quintet No. 3; Vlach Quartet; Naxos 8.553376

Dvořák gets paid

Synopsis
It’s an old story: a talented performer sacrifices everything, including his integrity, his happiness, his friends and even his lover to climb to the top, only to realize (too late!) what he has sacrificed along the way. 
Yes, thanks to countless Hollywood “show-biz” films, the basic outline is familiar, and, whether based on fact or fiction, has resulted in countless movies: some memorable, some not.
In 1991, a French film was released that combined a little fact — and a lot of fiction — to tell the story of 17th century performer and composer Marin Marais, who was baptized in Paris on today’s date in 1656.
Marais was a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, an early ancestor of the modern cello. Sparked by the period-instrument movement of the late 20th century, interest in Marais’ music had been growing for some time before the release of the film, which was titled Tous les Matins du Monde, which translates as “all the mornings of the world [leave] without [ever] returning.”
Well, it does sounds a lot better in French, and whether or not the film tells the truth about Marais, it does conjure up some haunting images as a backdrop for some equally haunting music from the 17th century.
Music Played in Today's Program
Marin Marais (1656-1728): The Bells of St. Genevieve; Spectre de la Rose Ensemble; Naxos 8.550750

Bernstein's 'Fancy Free'

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