On today’s date in 2020, a new cello concerto by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was given its premiere in Fort Lauderdale, by cellist Zuill Bailey the South Florida Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebrina María Alfonso, the same performers who had commissioned the work.

About the work, Zwilich said, “A Cello Concerto is something that had been on my ‘composer’s wish list’ for a long time. One of the things I love about the cello is that it covers virtually the entire range of the human voice — I particularly like its evocation of the mezzo-soprano … I sometimes refer to string instruments as ‘singers on steroids,’ because of the power they give to a composer to explore virtuosity as well as expressivity. My Cello Concerto engages both the lyrical, singing nature of the instrument and its technical possibilities.”

Zwillich dedicated the new concerto to the memory of two legendary cellists, Leonard Rose and Mstislav Rostropovich. Following the premiere, Dennis D. Rooney of the Palm Beach Arts Paper wrote, “The concerto's three linked movements suggested a meditation on melodic gestures from the American vernacular. The blues hovered over the work allusively … Throughout, the mood was thoughtful but not elegiac.”

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Concerto for Cello and Orchestra; Zuill Bailey, cello; Santa Rosa Symphony; Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor; Delos DE-3596

Perhaps the fanfare is the most optimistic and hopeful of all musical forms, since it signals the start of something new and worth noting.

American composer Adam Schoenberg was feeling optimistic and hopeful when he wrote the fanfare that opens his American Symphony, a work premiered on this date in 2011 by the Kansas City Symphony led by Michael Stern.

“American Symphony was inspired by the 2008 presidential election, when both parties asked the people to embrace change and make a difference. I was both excited and honored about ushering in this new era in our nation’s history,” Schoenberg said.

Schoenberg celebrated his 28th birthday a few weeks after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, and says that just a few days after the election got the idea for his new Symphony after hearing what he calls “the quintessential American symphony,” namely Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3, composed in 1946, just after the end of World War II. Not coincidentally, Copland’s Symphony includes his famous Fanfare for the Common Man as a key thematic statement

“I believe Copland wanted to bring beauty and peace into the world during a time of great turmoil, and seeing that our country and world had needs similar to those of Copland’s time, I set out to write a modern American symphony that paid homage to our past and looked forward to a brighter future,” Schoenberg said.

Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980): American Symphony for Orchestra; Kansas City Symphony; Michael Stern, conductor; Reference RR-139

Oscar Wilde often gets credit for the line, “But enough about me — what do you think about me?” Roughly a century ago, this portrait of the self-absorbed ego not only got laughs on the London stage, it also hit home with German concertgoers after a series of frankly autobiographical tone poems and operas by Richard Strauss had their premieres.

Take today’s date in 1899, for example. Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), received its premiere in Frankfurt, with the composer himself conducting. Strauss quoted themes from his own works in the section of the new score marked, “The hero’s works of peace,” leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that the hero in question was Strauss himself. Depicted in carping and crabbed musical terms were “the hero’s critics,” meant to be taken as Strauss’ real-life music critics. Understandably, they were not amused, and attacked Strauss for his inflated ego and music.

Strauss, as usual, was totally unflappable and offered his own somewhat self-deprecating description of the origins of his heroic piece as follows:

“Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is so little beloved of our conductors these days that to fulfill this need I am composing a largish tone-poem A Hero’s Life, admittedly without a funeral march, yet in E-flat, and with lots of horns, which are the yardstick of heroism.”

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life); Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, conductor; Reference 83

Recordings can be an effective calling card for composers — but the expense of recording an orchestral work in the U.S. is rather daunting, so composers often work with record labels that use orchestras abroad.

American composer Rain Worthington made a recording of her orchestral work Tracing a Dream with the Russian Philharmonic on today’s date in 2010, and, in quintessential 21st-century fashion, planned to “attend” the Moscow recording session via Skype.

“But just as I was about to log in, the recording assistant emailed the Russian authorities had revoked the permission to Skype. At the last minute an appeal by my American recording producer, Bob Lord, who was present in the studio, somehow convinced them to allow the connection. So I spent the morning ‘virtually’ in Moscow, listening to and participating in the three-hour recording session!” she recalled.

“Tracing a Dream taps into the impressionistic logic of dreams,” she said. “Within this realm there is a fluidity of connections governed by emotional contexts, rather than rational order.“

Six years after its recording in Moscow, Tracing a Dream received its public premiere by the Missouri State University Orchestra conducted by Christopher Kelts and was awarded an Ernst Bacon Award for the Performance of American Music.

Rain Worthington (b. 1949): Tracing a Dream; Russian Philharmonic Orchestra; Ovidiu Marinescu, conductor; Navona 6025

English is a quirky language, take for example the way English labels groups of birds — it can be quite idiosyncratic and even poetic: “A conspiracy of ravens,” “A trembling of finches.”

For composers, birdsong has always exerted great fascination and has been a source of inspiration, but on today’s date in 2006, bird nomenclature was the inspiration for a new string quartet that received its premiere in Tucson at a concert sponsored by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.

The new work was by American composer Jennifer Higdon, who explains: “The first time someone told me that a collection of larks is called an ‘exaltation’, I immediately thought, ‘What a sound an exaltation of larks must make!’ This prompted my imagination to run wild — in a composerly-fashion — thinking of thousands of birds flying and singing wildly, with extraordinary energy and intensity. How to capture the beauty of the idea of exalting and singing? A string quartet seemed perfect!“

Higdon’s new quartet, An Exaltation of Larks was given its 2006 premiere by the Tokyo String Quartet, but it was perhaps inevitable that its first recording was made by — who else? — the Lark Quartet.

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): An Exaltation of Larks; Lark Quartet; Bridge 9379

Today, some “off-the-cuff” remarks about the role of shirt cuffs in music history.

Starched, button-on, detachable cuffs for men’s shirts were very popular from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, and could serve as a sort of white linen Post-It note if a melody suddenly popped into the head of a composer. Like Dvořák, say, out for a walk along the Turkey River in Spillville, Iowa — he could scribble the tune down on his shirt cuff, assuming he carried a pencil, that is, since writing it in ink before the era of ballpoint pens would not be very practical and certainly not be very popular with whoever did the composer’s laundry!

Years after Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 had its premiere — on today’s date in 1912 — the Danish composer still recalled the moment when a theme in its third movement came to him.

“I was standing on the back of a tram. And [the theme] came with such urgency that I had to quickly jot it down, partly on a scrap of paper I had in my pocket, and partly on one of my shirt cuffs,” Nielsen said.

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931): Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva); New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor; Dacapo 220623

On this date in 1814, Ludwig van Beethoven conducted the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 8. As the scherzo movement of his new symphony, Beethoven recycled a tune he originally used as a musical salute to Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome. For a time, Maelzel was Beethoven’s friend and occasional collaborator on concerts and various mechanical projects.

Beethoven used Maelzel’s metronomes to add precise, if sometimes debatable, tempo markings to some of his earlier works. Some conductors choose to ignore these metronome markings, since they came after the fact of composition and at a time when Beethoven was increasingly deaf. In fact, in addition to metronomes, the versatile Maelzel also supplied the Beethoven with ear trumpets — the 19th-century version of hearing aids.

Perhaps Beethoven was using one of those ear trumpets when someone asked him why his Symphony No. 7 was more popular in Vienna than his Symphony No. 8. “Because the Eighth is so much better,” he growled in reply.

Closer to our own time, American composer Leroy Anderson, who lived from 1908 to 1975, immortalized the tick-tock of a mechanical timekeeper in his piece, The Syncopated Clock. Anderson was a master of the musical miniature, creating dozens of witty pieces with titles like Plink, Plank, Plunk, Bugler's Holiday, and Fiddle Faddle.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 8; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 429 036

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975): The Syncopated Clock; St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; BMG/RCA 68048

Two interesting symphonies had their premieres on today’s date just eight years apart. Oddly enough, they were composed nearly ninety years apart.

The first was the Symphony No. 1 by Georges Bizet, written in 1855 when the composer was only 17. It was mislaid in his papers, ignored by Bizet himself as a naive youthful exercise, and not revived until 1935. It was performed for the first time on February 26 that year in Basel, Switzerland under the baton of Felix Weingartner, who found a copy of the score that had been kept in the Paris Conservatory.

The other work that premiered today was American composer Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 5. It was written in 1942, during World War II, and was reportedly inspired by reports of heroic resistance by the Soviet Union to the Nazi invasion. He dedicated this symphony to the Red Army in honor of its 25th anniversary.

The first performance — given by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony on February 26th, 1943 — was broadcast via short wave to the Soviet Union. Ironically, despite Harris’ unquestionable credentials as a loyal American and enthusiastic patriot, his pro-Soviet Symphony No. 5 was to become something of an embarrassment when our one-time Soviet allies became Public Enemy No. 1 during the long Cold War period that followed the end of World War II.

Georges Bizet (1823-1892): Symphony No. 1; ORTF Orchestra; Jean Martinon, conductor; DG 437 371

Roy Harris (1899-1979): Symphony No. 5; Louisville Orchestra; Robert Whitney, conductor; Albany 012

In London on today’s date in 1871 an audience gathered in the newly-finished Royal Albert Hall to attend the first-ever concert to be performed there. This occurred a month before the official opening of this famous Victorian edifice as a special thank-you for the workers who constructed the building.

The orchestra that played that concert was famous in its day — though now totally forgotten. It was called The Wandering Minstrels and its players were all British aristocrats — Lords, Right Honourables, and senior military — who from 1861 to 1896 played exclusively for charity events. One strict rule of membership was that only amateur musicians were allowed. If you earned even one penny as a professional, you were out.

That happened to one member, composer Frederick Clay, who had to leave The Wandering Minstrels when music he wrote for the stage started to pull in a few pennies. Clay even collaborated with W.S. Gilbert, the famous librettist for Arthur Sullivan, who occasionally performed as a guest with The Wandering Minstrels.

And yes, it’s likely that the Gilbert & Sullivan song “A Wandering Minstrel I” from The Mikado was an in-joke reference to the aristocratic orchestra, especially since Nanki-Poo, who sings it, was (after all) a nobleman in disguise.

W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) & Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900): ‘A Wand’ring Minstrel I,’ from The Mikado; D’Oyly Carte Opera Company; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Royston Nash, conductor; London/Decca 425190

It’s quite possible that you or someone you know is the caregiver for an ill or aging relative or friend. If so, you know the emotional rewards — and heavy emotional toll — that caretaking involves.

On today’s date in 1989, American composer John Adams led the Saint Paul Chamber orchestra and baritone Sanford Sylvan in the premiere performance of a powerful new chamber work he had composed inspired by — and in honor of — caretakers everywhere.

In 1988, his father had died after years of struggling with Alzheimer’s, and Adams was haunted by images of his mother caring for her husband as the illness progressed. Living in San Francisco, he was also moved by Bay Area friends who nursed loved ones during those helpless early years of the AIDS epidemic.

He found that these 20th century experiences resonated in certain poems by 19th century American poet Walt Whitman, who had served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, initially to care for his own wounded brother, but subsequently to tend other wounded soldiers in those traumatic years.

Adams chose one Whitman poem, “The Wound Dresser,” as text and title for his new work. “The Wound Dresser is about the power of human compassion that is acted out on a daily basis,” he said. This work has become one of the most-performed and most-admired of all the compositions of John Adams.

John Adams (b. 1947): The Wound Dresser; Sanford Sylvan; baritone; Orchestra of St. Luke’s; John Adams, conductor; Nonesuch 79218