When boomers wax nostalgic about the Kennedy Administration, it’s Lerner & Loewe’s musical Camelot they start to hum. After all, Camelot opened in 1960 just a month after John F. Kennedy was elected, and, a week after his assassination in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy told historian Theodore H. White that they owned the original cast album and liked to play it before retiring at night. She quoted a phrase — “one brief shining moment” —from Camelot’s title song as how she wished his presidency to be remembered.

But early in 1961, everyone was looking forward, not backwards. The President-elect had asked Frank Sinatra to help arrange a musical gala to be held on January 19, 1961, the eve of his inauguration, and Leonard Bernstein was tapped to represent classical music. Bernstein had known Kennedy since the mid-1950s, and, after all, they both were Harvard men.

As luck would have it, a rare blizzard hit Washington D.C. that night, snarling traffic, and a police escort had to rush Bernstein to the Gala. There was no time for him to change into formal attire, so Bernstein appeared onstage in a hastily-borrowed and much-too-large dress shirt to conduct the world premiere of his Fanfare for JFK.

After the premiere of his Fanfare, Bernstein conducted a more familiar wind band standard —Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever.

Frederick Loewe (1901-1988): Camelot: Overture; London Promenade Orchestra; Eric Hammerstein, conductor; Reader's Digest 16931

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy Jr.; National Symphony Orchestra; Cristoph Eschenbach, conductor; Ondine 1190

Composers can be quite superstitious about numbers. Gustav Mahler, for example, was reluctant to assign the number 9 to his song cycle symphony, Das Lied von der Erde, fearing it would turn out to be his last: after all, Beethoven and Bruckner had only completed nine symphonies. Ironically, Mahler did go on to complete a ninth, but died before he could finish work on his tenth.

Most American composers have avoided this problem by rarely if ever producing more than one or two symphonies of their own. Naturally there are exceptions.

On today’s date in 1963, the Symphony No. 9 of American composer Roy Harris was given its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, who had commissioned it. Like many other symphonies by Harris, his Symphony No. 9 has a patriotic program, with each movement having a subtitle from either the American Constitution or Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

Harris went on to write thirteen symphonies in all — although, perhaps submitting to a bit of numerological superstition himself — when his symphony No. 13, a bicentennial commission, was first performed in Washington, D.C. in 1976, it was billed as his Symphony No. 14!

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 9; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 60597

Roy Harris (1898-1979): Symphony No. 9; Albany Symphony; David Alan Miller, conductor; Albany 350

When TIME magazine chose Albert Einstein as their Millennium Person of the Century in 1999, their profile catalogued his achievements in physics and philosophy but made no mention of Einstein’s interest in music — or music’s interest in him. That’s where we come in.

In addition to being a brilliant thinker, Einstein was a talented amateur violinist. On this day in 1934, he even performed the second violin part of Bach’s Double Concerto at a private recital in New York to raise money for scientists who had suffered at the hands of Hitler.

So, was Einstein any good? After that concert, the Musical America critic wrote, “The press had been asked not to criticize Professor Einstein’s playing. Unofficially, however, they confessed to being impressed. He played, according to their report, as all great artists play, with ‘technique,’ ‘expression’ and a complete absorption in his music.”

And Einstein himself has inspired more than a few musical works. The 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass, for example, features a solo violinist dressed as Einstein who wanders in and out of scenes. Music from Glass’s opera was quoted as an in-joke during a TV commercial showing Einstein trying to choose between Coke and Pepsi.

Philip Glass (b. 1937): Cadenza, from Einstein on the Beach; Philip Glass Ensemble; Michael Riesman, conductor; Nonesuch 79323

Today marks the anniversary of the creation of a famous classical music nickname, “Les Six” — French for “The Six.” That’s what Parisian music critic Henri Collet dubbed six composers in a magazine article on this day in 1920.

Three of the composers Collet named are performed more often these days — Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Francis Poulenc — while the other three composers — George Auric, Louis Durey and the only woman in the group, Germaine Tailleferre — are heard less frequently.

Though Tailleferre is counted among the neglected half of Les Six, her music has been having something of a revival lately, perhaps it’s a belated recognition that much of her work remains fresh and appealing. This music is from her Violin Sonata No. 1, composed in 1921 and dedicated to great French violinist Jacques Thibaud.

Born near Paris in 1892, Tailleferre was a prodigy with an astounding memory. Erik Satie proclaimed her his “musical daughter,” and she was also close friends with Maurice Ravel. Two unhappy marriages and resulting financial insecurity inhibited Tailleferre’s talent in later years, and dimmed her fame, but she continued to compose and teach until her death at 91, in 1983.

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983): Violin Sonata No. 1; Renate Eggebrecht, violin; Angela Gassenhuber, piano; Troubadisc 1406

French composer Olivier Messiaen played the piano part in one of the strangest premiere performances of the 20th century on today’s date in 1941. As the composer put it, “My Quartet for the End of Time was conceived and written during my captivity as a prisoner of war and received its premiere at Stalag 8a in Görlitz, Silesia.”

One of the four performers was cellist Etienne Pasquier, who offered this recollection:

“We were captured at Verdun. Our entire company was initially held in a large field near Nancy. Among our comrades was a clarinetist who had been allowed to keep his clarinet. Messiaen started to write a piece for him … as he was the only person there with an instrument. [That] solo was later to become the third movement of the quartet. The clarinetist practiced in the open field and I acted as his music stand. The piece seemed too difficult … and he complained about it to Messiaen. ’You’ll manage,’ was Messiaen’s only reply.”

Pasquier said the quartet’s premiere was a great success and led to the release of Messiaen and his three colleagues, because the Germans assumed — wrongly, it turns out — that the four musicians must have all been non-combatants.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): Quartet for the End of Time; Tashi; RCA/BMG 7835

Some instruments seem to have all the luck — or at least all the concertos!

If you play piano or violin, you have hundreds of concertos to choose from. But if your instrument is the harp — and you will forgive the pun — the pluckings are slim.

This hardly seems fair to one of mankind’s oldest instruments, depicted on murals from ancient Egypt and traditionally associated with King David in the Bible. In the 18th and early 19th century, there are a handful of great classical harp concertos by Handel, Mozart, and others. In the 20th century, things start to improve a little, with modern concertos by Gliere, Pierne, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Rodrigo.

On today’s date in 1955, we’re happy to report, one of the finest modern works for harp and orchestra had its premiere performance when harpist Nicanor Zabeleta premiered a new harp concerto by prolific Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos — with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by the composer.

One more recent addition came in 2000 from the pen of Finnish composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara. His harp concerto was commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra, who premiered the new work with Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä and Kathy Kienzle as soloist.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959): Harp Concerto; Catherine Michel, harp; Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra; Antonio de Almeida, conductor; Philips 462 179

Einojuhani Rautavaraa (1928-2016): Harp Concerto; Marielle Nordmann, harp; Helsinki Philharmonic; Leif Segerstam, conductor; Ondine 978

On today’s date in 1945, Sergei Prokofiev conducted the Moscow Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 5. Written when the tide of World War II was turning in the favor of the Allies, the premiere came one day after news reached Moscow that Soviet troops had begun a successful counteroffensive against the Germans.

The symphony proved to be one of Prokofiev’s strongest works, and in the context of 1945 must have had an incredible emotional impact. It was a tremendous success in Moscow, and also in Boston, where Serge Koussevitzky conducted the American premiere later that same year. Prokofiev even made the cover of Time magazine. As musicologist Michael Steinberg put it, “No question, the Fifth was a repertory piece from day one.”

How sad, then, to realize how soon things would change for the man who wrote it. In three years Prokofiev — along with Shostakovich and others — would be denounced by Soviet authorities for supposedly straying from the party line. In five years, when the Red Scare in America turned our one-time Ally into public enemy No. 1, conductor Maurice Abravenel received a death threat when the Utah Symphony announced the Salt Lake City premiere of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Symphony No. 5; St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Yuri Temirkanov, conductor; RCA/BMG 60984

On today’s date in 1961, a new work by German-born American composer Ingolf Dahl received its premiere performance in Los Angeles. Sinfonietta for Concert Band was commissioned by the College Band Directors National Association, who were eager to expand band repertory with major new works of the highest quality.

Dahl had emigrated to the United States in 1938 and settled in Los Angeles, where he met and befriended Igor Stravinsky, who gave him some practical advice about composing for wind band. “You must approach this task as if it had always been your greatest wish to write for these instruments,” suggested Stravinsky, “as if all your life you had wanted to write a work for just such a group."

“This was good advice,” recalled Dahl. “[And] after the work was done that it turned out to be indeed the piece that I had wanted to write all my life. I wanted it to be a substantial piece that, without apologies for its medium, would take its place alongside symphonic works of any other kind.”

Dahl and the College Band Directors National Association must have been pleased to see their Sinfonietta rapidly become an established classic of the wind band repertory.

Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970): Sinfonietta; DePaul University Wind Ensemble; Donald DeRoche, conductor; Albany 435

As 1999 drew to a close, it was a matter of debate whether — chronologically speaking — the new Millennium really began in 2000 or 2001. As far as the musical world was concerned, why wait? The shift from 1999 to 2000 occasioned hundreds of celebratory concerts and special commissions worldwide.

While not originally intended as a Millennium commission, a major new work by American composer John Adams had its European premiere in December of 1999 and its American debut in January of 2000. Years before, the San Francisco Symphony had asked Adams to write a big work for their chorus and orchestra. Then came a request from the Châtelet Theater in Paris for a new opera. Adams combined both requests, folding in a dream of his own. As he put it, “I wanted to write a Messiah.” The result was El Niño, a Nativity oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra that could be performed as either a concert hall piece or a fully staged theatrical work.

Kent Nagano conducted El Niño’s world premiere in Paris on December 15, 1999, and the same cast and conductor gave its American premiere in San Francisco on today’s date in 2000.

John Adams (b. 1947): excerpts from El Niño; soloists; Kent Nagano, conductor; Nonesuch 79634

Franz Berwald was a Swede who lived in the early 19th century and who made his living first as an orthopedic surgeon and later as the manager of a sawmill and glass factory. But these days, nobody cares very much about all that. Berwald’s true passion was music, and in addition to operas and concertos, he wrote four symphonies, only one of which was performed during his lifetime, and that to mixed reviews.

Berwald spent some years in Vienna, where a few of his works were performed. After Berwald’s death in 1868, the crusty, conservative Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick appraised him as “a man stimulating, witty, prone to ‘bizarrerie,’ [but who] as a composer lacked creative power and fantasy.”

Oddly enough, it’s exactly Berwald’s “bizarrerie,” or amusing strangeness, that appealed to later generations — and likewise his creative power and fantasy. For many music lovers today, Berwald ranks as Sweden’s first great Romantic composer and symphonist.

This did not happen overnight, however. Berwald’s Symphony No. 3, (Singulière), was written in 1845, but had to wait 37 years after the death of its composer for its first public performance in Stockholm on today’s date in 1905.

Franz Berwald (1796-1868): Symphony No. 3 (Singulière); Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra; Okko Kamu, conductor; Naxos 8.553052